Alexia did not have the soul to truly appreciate any of it. However, she understood style well enough to know that it surrounded her. It made her very nervous. She smoothed down her dress self-consciously, worried it might be considered too simple. Then she straightened her spine. A plain tan spinster like her could never compete with such grandeur; best take advantage of what assets she did have. She puffed up her chest slightly and took a calming breath.
The French maid opened a door to a large drawing room and curtsied her inside before gliding off, her feet silent on the red carpet, her hips swaying back and forth.
“Ah, Miss Tarabotti! Welcome to the Westminster hive.” The woman who came forward to greet Alexia was not at all what she had expected. The lady was short, plump, and comfortable-looking, her cheeks rosy and her cornflower-blue eyes sparkling. She looked like a country shepherdess stepped out of a Renaissance painting. Alexia glanced about for her flock. They were there, of a kind.
“Countess Nadasdy?” she asked tentatively.
“Yes, my dear! And this is Lord Ambrose. That is Dr. Caedes. That gentlemen there is His Grace the Duke of Hematol, and you know Miss Dair.” She gestured as she spoke. Her movements were simultaneously too graceful and too contrived. They looked as though they had been well studied, as carefully articulated as a linguist speaking a foreign tongue.
Aside from Miss Dair, who smiled kindly from her place on the settee, no one seemed particularly pleased to see her. Miss Dair was also the only drone present. Alexia was certain the other three were vampires. Though she knew none of them socially, she had read some of Dr. Caedes's research during her more adventurous academic pursuits.
“How do you do?” said Miss Tarabotti politely.
The party all made the requisite social murmurings.
Lord Ambrose was a large, exceedingly comely man, looking the way romantic schoolroom girls expect vampires to look—dark and broodingly arrogant with aquiline features and deep meaningful eyes. Dr. Caedes was also tall but skinny as a walking stick, with thinning hair stopped mid-retreat by metamorphosis. He had with him a doctor's bag, though Alexia knew from her readings that his Royal Society membership rested on his extensive engineering work, not a physician's license. The last hive member, the Duke of Hematol, was nondescript in a premeditated way that reminded Alexia of Professor Lyall. Consequently, she regarded him with great wariness and respect.
“If you do not mind, my dear, might I shake your hand?” The Westminster queen moved toward her with that abrupt and smooth supernatural suddenness.
Alexia was taken aback.
Up close, Countess Nadasdy looked less jolly, and it was clear her rosy cheeks were the product of artifice, not sunlight. Under layers of cream and powder, her skin was ashen white. Her eyes did not sparkle. They glittered as hard as the dark glass used by astronomers to examine the sun.
Miss Tarabotti backed away.
“We need to confirm your state,” the hive queen explained, still coming at her.
She grabbed Alexia's wrist firmly. The countess's tiny hand was impossibly strong. The moment they touched, much of the hive queen's hardness vanished, and Miss Tarabotti was left wondering if once, long, long ago Countess Nadasdy had actually been a shepherdess.
The vampire smiled at her. No fangs.
“I object most strenuously to this action, my queen. I want it known before the hive that I disagree with this approach to our situation,” Lord Ambrose spoke curtly.
Alexia was not certain if he was angry at her preternatural state or at her physical effect on his queen.
Countess Nadasdy let go of her wrist. Her fangs reappeared. They were long and thin, almost biologically spiny, with what looked like barbed tips. Then, with a lightning-fast movement, she lashed out to the side with sharp clawlike fingernails. A long line of red appeared on Lord Ambrose's face. “You overstep your bond duties, child of my blood.”
Lord Ambrose bowed his dark head, the shallow wound already closing and healing itself. “Forgive me, my queen; it is only your safety that concerns me.”
“Which is why you are my praetoriani.” In an abrupt change of mood, Countess Nadasdy reached to caress the very part of Lord Ambrose's face she had just sliced open.
“He speaks nothing but truth. You allow a soul-sucker to touch you, and once you are mortal, all it takes is one fatal injury.” This time is was Dr. Caedes who spoke. His voice was slightly too high-pitched, with a fuzziness around the edges, a sound wasps make before they swarm.
To Alexia's surprise, the countess did not claw his face open. Instead she smiled, showing off the full length of her sharp barbed fangs. Alexia wondered if they had been filed into that extraordinary shape.