Still, after the eleventh cup of tea, they turned reluctantly back toward Lord Akeldama’s street, none the wiser as to any recent deaths that might have gone to ghost. Although, they had received, much to Alexia’s surprise, the offer of positions in the respectable town house of a minor baronet.

The infant-inconvenience, normally a fan of tea in any form, objected to such a quantity as was consumed upon visiting a succession of possible employers who treated prospective staff in accordance with all standards of common decency. Alexia positively sloshed as she walked. She gripped Biffy’s arm, partly from necessity and partly from the need to keep him human should the rising sun beat their return home. She was moved to ask him something that had been somewhat troubling her of late. “Lord Akeldama takes his tea with lemon?”

Biffy nodded, looking down at her, curious as to where she was going with the conversation.

“It never occurred to me until Professor Lyall brought it up, but this is rather peculiar a preference in a vampire. I was under the impression there were problems with fangs and citrus.”

Biffy smiled but said nothing.

Lady Maccon persisted. “Need I remind you where your loyalties now lie, young Biffy?”

“As if I could forget?” Biffy checked the lay of his collar in a nervous gesture. “Ah, well, it’s no particular secret of the commonwealth. He spent several decades, as I understand it, building up a tolerance.”

“Good gracious me, why?”

“Simply something to do, I suppose.”

“That sounds more like the Lord Akeldama of the fashion rags than the Lord Akeldama you and I know.”

“Of course, my lady. Truth?”

Alexia nodded.

“He likes to use lemon on his hair—says it adds brightness and shine. He’s terribly vain.” Biffy’s smile was tinged with longing.

“Oh, I know.” Alexia looked once more to her companion and then, with Lord Akeldama’s colorful town house in sight, pretended exhaustion and slowed their walk even further.

“Biffy, my dear, I am worried about you.”

“My lady?”

“I had a recent delivery of new fashion plates from Paris, and you hardly glanced at the hairstyles. My husband tells me you are still having difficulty controlling the change. And your cravat has been tied very simply of late, even for evening events.”

“I miss him, my lady.”

“Well, he is now living adjacent. You can hardly miss him all that much.”

“True. But we are no longer compatible—I am a werewolf; he is a vampire.”

“So?”

“So we cannot dance the same dance we used to.” Biffy was so sweet when he tried to be circumspect.

Alexia shook her head at him. “Biffy, and I mean this in the kindest way possible: then you should change the music.”

“Very good, my lady.”

Lady Maccon got very little sleep that day, partly due to the physical repercussions of too much tea and partly due to an unexpected visit from Ivy Tunstell early in the afternoon. Floote woke her with a gentle touch, a sincere apology, and the deeply troubling information that Miss Loontwill had taken it upon herself to entertain Mrs. Tunstell in the front parlor. They were awaiting Lady Maccon’s pleasure. Alexia half fell, half rolled out of bed, leaving her poor husband, equally disturbed by her now-chronic restlessness, to sleep.