Heartless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Fourth Read Online Free Page B

outward appearance.
    Lady Maccon moved toward her gun, finding the spacious carriage difficult to navigate with her attention focused on the vampire in the doorway and her mobility hampered by the infant in her belly. “Terribly forward of the countess to send you, Lord Ambrose, to do the deed.”
    Lord Ambrose made his way inside. “Ah, well, our more subtle attempts seem to be wasted on you, Lady Maccon.”
    “Subtlety usually is.”
    Lord Ambrose ignored her and continued with his explanation. “I am her
praetoriani.
When you want something done properly, sometimes you must send the best.” He lunged toward her, supernaturally fast. In his hands he held a garrote. Alexia would never have thought the most dignified of the Westminster Hive capable of wielding such a primitive assassin’s weapon.
    Lady Maccon might be prone to waddling of late, but there was nothing wrong with the mobility of her upper extremities. She ducked to avoid the deadly wire, grabbed for Ethel, swung about, pulling the hammer back in the same movement, and fired.
    At such close range, even she could hit a vampire full force in the shoulder, surprising him considerably.
    He paused in his attack. “Well, my word! You can’t threaten me, you’re pregnant!”
    Alexia pulled the hammer back again. “Take a seat, won’t you, Lord Ambrose? I believe I have something to discuss with you that might change your current approach. And I shall aim for a less-resilient part of your anatomy next.”
    The vampire was looking down at his shoulder, which wasn’t healing as it ought. The bullet hadn’t passed through but had gone into the bone and lodged there.
    “Sundowner bullets,” explained Lady Maccon. “You’re in no mortal danger from a mere shoulder injury, my lord, but I shouldn’t leave the bullet in there if I were you.”
    Gingerly, the vampire settled back against the plush velvet seat. Alexia had always thought Lord Ambrose the pinnacle of what a vampire ought to look like. He had a full head of glossy dark hair, a cleft chin, and, currently, a certain air of childish petulance.
    Lady Maccon, never one for shilly-shallying even when her life wasn’t in danger, got straight to the point. “You can stop with all your uncouth attempts at execution. I have decided to give this child up for adoption.”
    “Oh? And why should that make any difference to us, Lady Maccon?”
    “The lucky father is to be Lord Akeldama.”
    The vampire lost his sulky expression for one of genuine shock. He most certainly hadn’t expected such a bizarre revelation. The surprise sat upon his face as precariously as a mouse on a bowl of boiled pudding.
    “Lord Akeldama?”
    Lady Maccon nodded, sharply, once.
    The vampire raised one hand and fluttered it slightly from side to side in a highly illustrative gesture. “Lord Akeldama?”
    Lady Maccon nodded again.
    He seemed to recollect some of his much-vaunted vampire gravitas. “You would allow your progeny to be raised by a vampire?”
    Alexia’s hand, still clutching her gun, didn’t waver one iota. Vampires were tricky, changeable creatures. No sense in relaxing her guard, for all Lord Ambrose seemed to have relaxed his. He still held the garrote in his other hand.
    “The potentate, no less.” Alexia reminded him of Lord Akeldama’s relatively recent change in political status.
    She watched his face closely. She was giving him an out and knew that he must
want
an out. Countess Nadasdy, Queen of the Westminster Hive, would want one. All the vampires had to be uncomfortable with this situation. It was probably why they kept bungling the assassination attempts;their little hearts simply weren’t in it. Oh, not the killing—with vampires, that was but one step up from ordering a new pair of shoes. No, they would want to get out of having to kill an Alpha werewolf’s mate. Lady Maccon’s death at vampire hands, whether provable or not, would bring a whole mess of trouble down upon the hives. Trouble of