She tried to find the least embarrassing place to rest her hands. Finally she decided the middle of his back was safest. She was seized with a most irrational desire to rub her fingertips up and down the indentation of his spine. She resisted and said, “Technically, I believe they were after Lord Akeldama, something about his being very old. Apparently this is an important factor in their experimentation. I was having dinner with him. I told you I was going to, remember? They chloroformed his entire residence and brought me along because I was with him. They only realized who I was when Mr. MacDougall came into my cell and saw me. He used my name, and the other man, he is called Siemons, remembered it from your paperwork. Oh! And you should know, they have an automaton.” She tensed at the memory of that awful waxy thing.
Lord Maccon rubbed his big hands over her back in an absentminded soothing motion. Miss Tarabotti took it as an excuse to loosen her own grasp a mite. The temptation to begin her own rubbing was almost overwhelming.
He interpreted her relaxed hold the wrong way. “No, do not let go,” he said, shifting his grip to pull her, if possible, even more intimately against his naked body. Then he answered her statement. “We had surmised that it was an automaton. Though I have never before encountered one filled with blood. It must be some newfangled construction. It may even be on a clockwork frame. I tell you, science can do amazing things these days.” He shook his head. His hair brushed against Alexia's cheek. There was an edge of admiration mingled with the disgust in his voice.
“You knew it was an automaton, and you did not tell me?” Miss Tarabotti was most disgruntled, partly because she had not been informed and partly because Lord Maccon's hair was so very silky. So was his skin, for that matter. Alexia wished she had gloves on, for she had given up and was now running her fingers in circles against his back.
“I hardly see how your knowing might have improved matters. I am certain you would have continued to engage in your customary reckless behavior,” said Lord Maccon rudely, not at all perturbed by her caress. In fact, though they were arguing, he had taken to nuzzling her neck between phrases.
“Ah-ha, I like that,” replied Alexia. “I might remind you that you, too, have now been captured. Was that not a consequence of your reckless behavior?”
Lord Maccon looked worried. “Quite the opposite, actually. It was the consequence of too predictable nonreckless behavior patterns. They knew exactly where to find me and at what time I would return home on full-moon night. They used chloroform on the whole pack. Blast them! This Hypocras Club must hold a controlling interest in a chloroform company, given the sheer amount of the chemical that they seem to have access to.” He cocked his head, listening. “From the number of howls, it sounds like they brought the entire pack in. I do hope the clavigers escaped.”
“The scientists do not seem interested in drones or clavigers,” said Miss Tarabotti reassuringly, “only fully supernatural and preternatural types. They seem to believe they must protect the commonwealth against some mysterious threat posed by yourself and others of your set. In order to do this, they are trying to understand the supernatural, to which end they have been conducting all sorts of horrendous experiments.”
Lord Maccon stopped nuzzling, lifted his head, and growled, “They are Templars?”
“Nothing so church-bound as that,” Miss Tarabotti said. “Purely scientific investigators, simply warped, so far as I can tell. And obsessed with octopuses.” She looked sad, knowing the answer before she asked the next question. “Do you think the Royal Society is involved?”
Lord Maccon shrugged.
Alexia could feel the movement all up and down her body, even through her layers of clothing.
“I rather believe they must be,” he said. “Though I suspect we would find that difficult to prove. There must have been others as well; the quality of the machinery and supplies alone would seem to indicate some considerable monetary investment on the part of several unknown benefactors. It is not entirely a surprise to us, you realize? After all, normal humans are right to suspect a supernatural agenda. We are basically immortal; our goals are likely to be a little different from those of ordinary people, sometimes even at odds. When all is said and done, daylight folk are still food.”
Alexia stopped petting him and narrowed her eyes in mock suspicion. “Am I allied with the wrong side in this little war?”
In reality, she did not have much doubt. After all, she had never heard cries of pain and torture coming from the BUR offices. Even Countess Nadasdy and her hive seemed more civilized than Mr. Siemons and his machines.