Read Changeless: The Parasol Protectorate: Book the Second for Free Online Page A

handkerchief,
     embroidered with small clusters of cherries, and dabbed at his face unhelpfully.
    “A mere scratch, Miss Hisselpenny, I assure you,” said Tunstell, looking pleased by her ministrations, as ineffectual as they
     may be.
    “But you are bleeding, simply gouts and gouts of it,” insisted Ivy.
    “Not to worry, not to worry, the business end of a fist will do that to a person, you know.”
    Ivy gasped. “Fisticuffs! Oh, how
perfectly
horrid! Poor Mr. Tunstell.” Ivy petted an unbloodied corner of the man’s cheek with her white-gloved hand.
    Poor Mr. Tunstell did not seem to mind, if this was the result. “Oh, please, do not trouble yourself so,” he said, leaning
     into her caress. “My, what an enchanting hat, Miss Hisselpenny, so”—he hesitated, searching for the right word—“fruity.”
    Ivy blushed beet red at that. “Oh, do you like it? I bought it specially.”
    That did it. “Ivy,” said Alexia sharply, bringing her friend back around to the important business at hand. “To whom have
     you gotten yourself engaged, exactly?”
    Miss Hisselpenny snapped back to the present, drifting away from the alluring Mr. Tunstell. “His name is Captain Featherstonehaugh,
     and he has just returned with the Northumberling Fusilli, all the way from Inja.”
    “You mean the Northumberland Fusiliers.”
    “Is that not what I just said?” Ivy was all big-eyed innocence and excitement.
    The dewan’s army reshuffling clearly involved far more regiments than Alexia had thought. She would have to find out what
     the queen and her commanders were about at the Shadow Council meeting.
    The meeting she was now inexcusably late for.
    Miss Hisselpenny continued. “It is not a bad match, although Mama would have preferred a major at the very least. But you
     know”—she lowered her voice to almost a whisper—“I haven’t really the luxury of choice at my age.”
    Tunstell looked quite put out upon hearing that. He thought Miss Hisselpenny a grand catch, older than he to be sure, but
     imagine her having to settle on a mere captain. He opened his mouth to say so but showed unexpected restraint upon receipt
     of a high-stakes glare from his mistress.
    “Tunstell,” instructed Lady Maccon, “go away and be useful. Ivy, felicitations on your impending nuptials, but I really must
     be off. I have an important meeting, for which I am now late.”
    Ivy was watching Tunstell’s retreating back. “Of course, Captain Featherstonehaugh was not exactly what I had hoped for. He
     is quite the military man, you understand, very stoic. That kind of thing would seem to suit you, Alexia, but I had hoped
     for a man with the soul of a bard.”
    Alexia threw her hands up into the air. “
He
is a claviger. You know what that means? Someday, relatively soon, he will petition for metamorphosis and then probably die
     in the attempt. Even if he came through intact, he would then be a werewolf. You don’t even
like
werewolves.”
    Ivy gave her an even-wider-eyed look as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The grapes bobbed. “He could always leave before
     that.”
    “To be what? A professional actor? Living on a penny a day and the approbation of a fickle public?”
    Ivy sniffed. “Who says we are discussing Mr. Tunstell?”
    Alexia was driven to distraction. “Get into the carriage, Ivy. I shall take you back to town.”
    Miss Hisselpenny nattered on about her impending marriage and its companion apparel, invitation list, and comestibles for
     the entirety of the two-hour ride into London. Not much was said, however, about the prospective groom. Alexia was made to
     realize, during the course of that drive, that he apparently was of little consequence to the proceedings. She watched her
     friend climb down and trot inside the Hisselpenny’s modest town house with a slight pang of concern. What was Ivy doing? But
     with no time at the moment to worry over Miss Hisselpenny’s
situation
, Lady Maccon directed the