Imprudence (The Custard Protocol #2)(89)

Primrose completed her exercise and went to paddle in the shallows, retrieving a wide-brimmed straw hat. Even damp she was pretty as a picture, her waist enviably small without a corset. Rue sighed. She’d never have Prim’s figure, not without giving up her beloved puff pastry for ever.

Tasherit couldn’t take her eyes off the girl.

“She’s not ready for you.” Rue wanted to urge caution without discouraging too much.

“Can’t help chasing. It’s my nature.”

Rue grinned. “I think perhaps you are old enough to control your nature, should you really wish it. Admit it, you like chasing.”

“It’s been decades since I’ve been this intrigued.”

“Well, tread lightly.” Rue wondered if she ought to stop this conversation. Primrose was her dearest friend; she didn’t want to say anything that would betray that friendship.

“That, too, is in my nature.” The werelioness smiled. Her liquid brown eyes gleamed when Prim laughed at Quesnel and Spoo’s antics. “I’m patient.”

“You’ll have to be.”

“She’s special.”

“I know.”

“He’s special, too.” They both knew the werecat was talking about Quesnel.

“Don’t matchmake me, old godling.”

The werelioness wheezed out a laugh. “Mortals! Everything is fuss and bother with you.”

At that, Rue decided it was time to hurry everyone back aboard.





Rue watched Quesnel that evening at dinner, more than usual. He was solicitous of Anitra, even attentive. He also took great care of Floote. Really, Quesnel flirted with everyone, except maybe Percy. He’d probably flirt with Percy if they hadn’t been perennially at odds over the finer points of academic publication theory.

After dinner, when the gentlemen would have gone to partake of brandy on one side of the deck while the ladies drank sherry on the other, Rue put a hand on Quesnel’s arm.

“A private word, Mr Lefoux, if you would be so kind?”

The others looked curious but no one was brave enough to insist on a chaperone.

Quesnel followed Rue belowdecks to the stateroom.

Rue didn’t know what he was expecting, but from his expression it wasn’t what she asked. “Quesnel, have you figured out a way to determine excess soul?”

His answer was flat, with no artifice to it, almost shocked. “No. Of course not.”

Rue let out a breath of profound relief. “Oh good. Because a whole lot of people would want to kill us if we had that technology on board.”

Quesnel frowned. “It would save lives. To know beforehand if someone could survive the bite. It would be a miracle.”

“It would also limit the number of people who would petition to be drone or claviger. Society as we know it would collapse. Vampires would have much less blood to draw on and werewolves fewer guards at full moon. Both would have to hire out. The balance of power would shift.”

Quesnel nodded. “It’s not possible to measure the soul, last I heard. Although there is always someone researching it. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Well, I hope I’m not in London when it happens.”

“Why did you think I might, chérie?”

“That preservation tank of yours. You brought it with us on purpose. You brought it because Mr Floote is dying.”

Quesnel didn’t try to deny it. His face shuttered.

“Is he particularly creative? Do you think he has excess soul?”

“Mother says the man always did come up with the most original cravat knots.”

“Is that enough?”

“He expressed a fondness for flower arranging.”

Rue quirked an eyebrow, hoping she looked sardonic.

“He fights as if he were dancing.”

“My grandfather’s valet, my mother’s butler, fights?”

“According to maman, quite beautifully.”

“So the preservation tank is for him. Why?”

“He knows too much.”

Rue narrowed her eyes. “According to whom? Your mother? The OBO? My mother? Someone else? Who are you really working for, Quesnel?”

“I’m working for you. For this ship.”

Rue snorted.

“You don’t trust me at all, do you?”

“Give me one good reason why I should?”

“I can give you ten; my chamber is right down the hall.” He moved towards her.

Rue wanted, very badly, to lean in to those clever hands and that sweet mouth. But he was using both to avoid conversation and she knew it. “Quesnel, I trust you to be very good at what you do, under an engine or a coverlet. And I trust you to take that expertise to the highest bidder, in money or beauty.”

Quesnel put a hand to his chest as though mortally wounded.

Rue gritted her teeth at his flippancy. “Oh for goodness’ sake.”

“You already have your answer, chérie. I’ve given it to you. Think. Who would want a man preserved because he knows too much?”

Rue’s mind clicked over, like a slow but inexorable cog. Who had insisted that Rue put Quesnel to work in engineering? Who knew Quesnel’s patroness of old, when Countess Nadasdy and not Baroness Tunstell had ruled the London hive? Who could afford to invest in a preservation tank – new technology at great expense – on the mere whiff of an old man’s memory?