Miss Tarabotti smiled approvingly and patted her friend on the upper arm before turning expectantly back to face Professor Lyall in his darkened corner. “Shall I come to the point, Professor? Lord Maccon's manners have been highly bewildering of late. He has made several”—she paused delicately—“interesting incursions in my direction. These began, as you no doubt observed, in the public street the other evening.”
“Oh, dear Alexia!” breathed Miss Hisselpenny, truly shaken. “You do not mean to tell me you were observed.”
Miss Tarabotti dismissed her friend's concern. “Only by Professor Lyall here, so far as I am aware, and he is the soul of discretion.”
Professor Lyall, though clearly pleased by her accolade, said, “Not to be rude. Miss Tarabotti, but your aspect of pack protocol is...?”
Alexia sniffed. “I am getting there. You must understand, Professor Lyall, this is a smidgen embarrassing. You must permit me to broach the matter in a slightly roundabout manner.”
“Far be it for me to require directness from you, Miss Tarabotti,” replied the werewolf in a tone of voice Alexia felt might be bordering rudely on sarcasm.
“Yes, well, anyway,” she continued huffily. “Only last night at a dinner event we both attended. Lord Maccon's behavior gave me to understand the previous evening's entanglement had been a... mistake.”
Miss Hisselpenny gave a little gasp of astonishment. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “how could he!”
“Ivy,” said Miss Tarabotti a touch severely, “pray let me finish my story before you judge Lord Maccon too harshly. That is, after all, for me to do.” Somehow Alexia could not endure the idea that her friend might be thinking ill of the earl.
Alexia continued. “This afternoon, I returned home to find him waiting for me in this very parlor. He seems to have changed his mind once again. I am becoming increasingly confused.” Miss Tarabotti glared at the hapless Beta. “And I do not appreciate this kind of uncertainty!” She put down the ribbon pillow.
“Has he gone and botched things up again?” asked the professor.
Floote entered with the tea tray. At a loss for what proper etiquette required, the butler had placed the raw liver in a cut-glass ice-cream dish. Professor Lyall did not seem to care in what form it was presented. He ate it rapidly but delicately with a small copper ice-cream spoon.
Floote served the tea and then disappeared once more from the room.
Miss Tarabotti finally arrived at the point. “Why did he treat me with such hauteur last night and then with such solicitude today? Is there some obscure point of pack lore in play here?” She sipped her tea to hide her nervousness.
Lyall finished his chopped liver, set the empty ice-cream dish on the piano top, and looked at Miss Tarabotti. “Would you say that initially Lord Maccon made his interest clear?” he asked.
“Well,” hedged Miss Tarabotti, “we have known each other for a few years now. Before the street incident, I would say his attitude has been one of apathy.”
Professor Lyall chuckled. “You did not hear his comments after those encounters. However, I did mean more recently.”
Alexia put down her teacup and started using her hands as she talked. It was one of the few Italian mannerisms that had somehow crept into her repertoire, despite the fact that she had barely known her father. “Well, yes,” she said, spreading her fingers expansively, “but then again, not decisively. I realize I am a little old and plain for long-term romantic interest, especially from a gentleman of Lord Maccon's standing, but if he was offering claviger status, oughten I to be informed? And isn't it impossible for...” She glanced at Ivy, who did not know she was a preternatural. She did not even know that preternatural folk existed. “For someone as lacking in creativity as me to be a claviger? I do not know what to think. I cannot believe his overtures represent a courtship. So when he recently ignored me, I assumed the incident in the street had been a colossal mistake.”
Professor Lyall sighed again. “Yes, that. How do I put this delicately? My estimable Alpha has been thinking of you instinctively, I am afraid, not logically. He has been perceiving you as he would an Alpha female werewolf.”
Miss Hisselpenny frowned. “Is that complimentary?”
Seeing the empty ice-cream dish, Miss Tarabotti handed Professor Lyall a cup of tea. Lyall sipped the beverage delicately, raising his eyebrows from behind the lip of the cup. “For an Alpha male? Yes. For the rest of us, I suspect, not quite so much. But there is a reason.”
“Go on, please,” urged Miss Tarabotti, intrigued.