Timeless by Gail Carriger

fang.
    Ah
, thought Alexia,
we are to be treated with respect. How droll
. “My husband would have attended your summons, but he was called away on urgent business.”
    “Oh?”
    “A family matter.”
    “I do hope it is nothing serious?”
    Alexia tilted her head, playing the game of reveal with aplomb. She had been some time now a member of the Shadow Council and was a quick study in the fine art of conversing upon matters of great importance yet saying nothing significant. “More bedraggled, I suspect. Shall we proceed?”
    Dr. Caedes backed down, having to follow the niceties of conversation that he and his kind had insinuated into society. “Of course, my lady. If you’d care to follow me? The countess is awaiting you in the Blue Room.”
    The Blue Room, as it turned out, was the room formerly occupied by the Woolsey Pack’s extensive library. Alexia tried to hide her distress at the destruction of her favorite retreat. The vampires had stripped it of its mahogany shelving and leather seats and had papered it in cream and sky-blue stripes. The furniture was all cream in color with a decidedly Oriental influence and, unless Alexia was very much mistaken, Thomas Chippendale originals.
    Countess Nadasdy sat in an arranged manner, draped to one side over the corner of a window seat. She wore an extremely fashionable and extraordinarily elaborate moss-green receiving dress trimmed with pale blue, the skirt tied back so narrowly that Lady Maccon wondered at thequeen’s ability to walk about, and the sleeves were so tight Alexia very much doubted the vampire could lift her arms at all. Biffy had tried to foist such absurdities upon Alexia, but only once, at which juncture she insisted that mobility was not to be sacrificed for taste, especially not with a child like Prudence dashing about. Biffy hunted down daringly cut fluid styles influenced by the Far East for his mistress to wear instead and said no more about it.
    The countess had the ample figure of a milkmaid who had partaken too freely of the creamy results of her labors, which did not suit the style of the dress at all. Alexia would never have said a word, but she shuddered to think of Lord Akeldama’s opinion on such a figure in such attire. She planned, of course, to describe it in detail to her dear friend as soon as possible.
    “Ah, Lady Maccon, do come in.”
    “Countess Nadasdy, how do you do? You are adjusting to rural life, I see.”
    “For a girl with as unsullied a nature as I, the countryside is unobjectionable.”
    Lady Maccon paused, verbally stymied by the countess using the words
unsullied
and
girl
to describe herself.
    The vampire queen glanced away from Lady Maccon’s ill-disguised discomposure. “Thank you, Dr. Caedes. You may leave us.”
    “But, My Queen!”
    “This is a matter for Lady Maccon and I, alone.”
    Alexia said quickly, “Countess, may I present Major Channing?”
    “You may. Major Channing and I are already acquainted. I’m sure he won’t mind allowing us a few moments of privacy?”
    Major Channing looked like he would mind, but realizing that Dr. Caedes was about to leave his queen with a preternatural decided it was all in good faith.
    “I shall be just outside the door, my lady, should you need anything.”
    Alexia nodded. “Thank you, Channing. I’m convinced all will be well.”
    So Alexia found herself alone in a blue room with a vampire queen.
    After Felicity and Madame Lefoux departed, the shop turned into a frenzy of fashionable ladies in pursuit of hats, but Biffy’s staff of assorted shopgirls had it well under control. He did a quick lap to ensure no lady was purchasing anything that did not suit her coloring, complexion, demeanor, station, or creed. He then left his accessories to the tender mercies of Britain’s shopping public and retired down to the contrivance chamber to catch up on necessary paperwork. He was engaged at first, it must be admitted, in beautifying said paperwork by trimming the