And I find perfect beauty excessively boring, don't you?

Ever since her trip with Alexia to Scotland, Mrs. Tunstell had rather a taste for foreign travel. Alexia blamed it on the kilts.

How was I to know idiocy was only a temporary condition, especially in your case? It never has been before!

Lord Maccon looked up. “Grovel, you say?” Lyall did not glance away from the latest vampire report he was perusing. “Grovel, my lord.

Lord Maccon, being Lord Maccon and good at such things, then changed, right there in the Thames, from dog-paddling wolf to large man treading water. He did so flawlessly, so that his head never went under the water. Professor Lyall suspected him of practicing such maneuvers in the bathtub.

Alexia suspected Lord Maccon's handling was a tad more than was strictly called for under the circumstances, but she secretly enjoyed the sensation. After all, how often did a spinster of her shelf life get manhandled by an earl of Lord Maccon's peerage? She had better take advantage of the situation.

She was no closer to determining who might want her dead. There were just too many possibilities.