Timeless Read Free Page A

yellow, red, and gold. Her husband, playing the enamored werewolf, pranced about in a comic interpretation of lupine leaps, barked a lot, and got into several splendid stage fights.
    The oddest moment, Alexia felt, was a dreamlike sequence just prior to the break, wherein Tunstell wore bumblebee-striped drawers with attached vest and performed a small ballet before his vampire queen. The queen was dressed in a voluminous black chiffon gown with a high Shakespearian collar and an exterior corset ofgreen with matching fan. Her hair was done up on either side of her head in round puffs, looking like bear ears, and her arms were bare.
Bare!
    Conall, at this juncture, began to shake uncontrollably.
    “I believe this is meant to symbolize the absurdity of their improbable affection,” explained Alexia to her husband in severe tones. “Deeply philosophical. The bee represents the circularity of life and the unending buzz of immortality. Ivy’s dress, so like that of an opera girl, suggests at the frivolousness of dancing through existence without love.”
    Conall continued to vibrate silently, as though trembling in pain.
    “I’m not certain about the fan or the ears.” Alexia tapped her cheek thoughtfully with her own fan.
    The curtain dropped on the first act with the bumblebee-clad hero left prostrate at the feet of his vampire love. The audience erupted into wild cheers. Lord Conall Maccon began to guffaw in loud rumbling tones that carried beautifully throughout the theater. Many people turned to look up at him in disapproval.
    Well
, thought his wife,
at least he managed to hold it in until the break
.
    Eventually, her husband controlled his mirth. “Brilliant! I apologize, wife, for objecting to this jaunt. It is immeasurably entertaining.”
    “Well, do be certain to say nothing of the kind to poor Tunstell. You are meant to be profoundly moved, not amused.”
    A timid knock came at their box.
    “Enter,” yodeled his lordship, still chuckling.
    The curtain was pushed aside, and in came one of thepeople Alexia would have said was least likely to visit the theater, Madame Genevieve Lefoux.
    “Good evening, Lord Maccon, Alexia.”
    “Genevieve, how unexpected.”
    Madame Lefoux was dressed impeccably. Fraternization with the Woolsey Hive had neither a deleterious nor improving effect on her attire. If Countess Nadasdy had tried to get her newest drone to dress appropriately, she had failed. Madame Lefoux dressed to the height of style, for a man. Her taste was still subtle and elegant with no vampiric flamboyances in the manner of cravat ties or cuff links. True she sported cravat pins and pocket watches, but Alexia would lay good money that not a one solely functioned as a cravat pin or a pocket watch.
    “Are you enjoying the show?” inquired the Frenchwoman.
    “I am finding it diverting. Conall is not taking it seriously.”
    Lord Maccon puffed out his cheeks.
    “And you?” Alexia directed the question back at her erstwhile friend. Since Genevieve’s wildly spectacular charge through London and resulting transition to vampire drone, no small measure of awkwardness had existed between them. Two years on and still they had not regained the closeness they had both so enjoyed at the beginning of their association. Madame Lefoux had polluted it through the application of a rampaging octomaton, and Alexia had finished it off by sentencing Genevieve to a decade of indentured servitude.
    “It is interesting,” replied the Frenchwoman cautiously. “And how is little Prudence?”
    “Difficult, as ever. And Quesnel?”
    “The same.”
    The two women exchanged careful smiles. Lady Maccon, despite herself, liked Madame Lefoux. There was just something about her that appealed. And she did owe the Frenchwoman a debt, for it was the inventor who had acted the part of midwife to Prudence’s grossly mistimed entrance into the world. Nevertheless, Alexia did not trust her. Madame Lefoux always promoted her own agenda