Felicity only smiled. “At least I possess a face worth looking at for extended periods of time.”
Madame Lefoux turned to Ivy. “Are they always like this?”
Miss Hisselpenny had been staring dreamily off into space. “What? Oh, them, yes, as long as I’ve know them. Which is a dog’s age now. I mean to say, Alexia and I have been friends for quite these four years. Imagine that.”
The inventor took a bite of steamed egg and did not respond.
Lady Maccon realized she was exposing herself to ridicule by bickering with her sibling.
“Madame Lefoux, what did you do before you came to London? You resided in Paris, I understand? Did you have a hat shop there too?”
“No, but my aunt did. I worked with her. She taught me everything I know.”
“Everything?”
“Oh yes, everything.”
“A remarkable woman, your aunt.”
“You have no idea.”
“Must be the excess soul.”
“Oh.” Ivy was intrigued. “Did your aunt come over all phantomy after death?”
Madame Lefoux nodded.
“How nice for you.” Ivy smiled her congratulations.
“I suspect I will be a ghost in the end,” said Felicity, preening. “I am the type to have extra soul. Don’t you all agree? Mama says I am remarkably creative for someone who does not play or sing or draw.”
Alexia bit her tongue. Felicity was about as likely to have excess soul as a hassock. She turned the conversation forcibly back to the inventor. “What made you leave your home country?”
“My aunt died, and I came over here looking for something precious that had been stolen from me.”
“Oh, really? Did you find it?”
“Yes, but only to come to the understanding that it was never mine to begin with.”
“How tragic for you,” sympathized Ivy. “I had just such a thing happen with a hat once.”
“It matters little. It had changed beyond all recognition by the time I located it.”
“How mysterious and cryptic you are.” Lady Maccon was intrigued.
“It is not entirely my story to tell and others may be injured in the telling if I am not careful.”
Felicity yawned ostentatiously. She was little interested in anything not directly connected to herself. “Well, this is all very fascinating, but I am off to change for the day.”
Miss Hisselpenny rose as well. “I believe I shall go check on Mr. Tunstell, to ascertain if he has been provided with an adequate breakfast.”
“Highly unlikely—none of us were,” said Alexia, whose delight in the imminent end to their voyage was encouraged by the idea of eating food that was not bland and steamed into submission.
They parted ways, and Alexia was about to pursue her highly strenuous plans for the day when she realized that if Ivy had gone to check on Tunstell, the two would be isolated together, and that was not a good idea. So she hightailed it after her friend toward the claviger’s cabin.
She found Miss Hisselpenny and Tunstell engaged in what both probably thought was an impassioned embrace. Their lips were, in fact, touching, but nothing else was, and Ivy’s greatest concern throughout the kiss seemed to be keeping her hat in place. The hat was of a masculine shape but decorated with the most enormous bow of purple and green plaid.
“Well,” said Lady Maccon loudly, interrupting the couple, “I see you have recovered with startling alacrity from your illness, Tunstell.”
Miss Hisselpenny and the claviger jumped apart. Both turned red with mortification, though it must be admitted that Tunstell, being a redhead, was far more efficient at this.
“Oh dear, Alexia,” exclaimed Ivy, leaping back. She made for the door as rapidly as the strapped-down floating skirts of her travel dress would allow.
“Oh no, Miss Hisselpenny, please, come back!” Tunstell cried, and then, shockingly, “Ivy!”
But the lady in question was gone.
Alexia gave the ginger-haired young man a hard look. “What are you up to, Tunstell?”
“Oh, Lady Maccon, I am unreservedly in love with her. That black hair, that sweet disposition, those capital hats.”
Well goodness, thought Alexia, he really must be in love if he likes the hats. She sighed and said, “But, really, Tunstell, be serious. Miss Hisselpenny cannot possibly have a future with you. Even if you were not up for metamorphosis presently, you are an actor, with no substantial prospects of any kind.”
Tunstell donned a tragic-hero expression, one she had seen more than once in his portrayal of Porccigliano in the West End production of Death in a Bathtub. “True love will overcome all obstacles.”
“Oh bosh. Be reasonable, Tunstell. This is no Shakespearian melodrama; this is the 1870s. Marriage is a practical matter. It must be treated as such.”
“But you and Lord Maccon married for love.”
Lady Maccon sighed. “And how do you figure that?”
“No one else would put up with him.”
Alexia grinned. “By which you mean that no one else would put up with me.”
Tunstell judiciously ignored that statement.
Lady Maccon explained. “Conall is the Earl of Woolsey and as such is permitted the eccentricity of a highly inappropriate wife. You are not. And that is a situation unlikely to alter in the future.”
Tunstell still looked starry-eyed and unrelenting.
Lady Maccon sighed. “Very well, I see you are unmoved. I shall go determine how Ivy is coping.”
Miss Hisselpenny was coping by engaging in a protracted bout of hysteria in one corner of the observation deck.
“Oh, Alexia, what am I to do? I am overcome with the injustice of it all.”
Lady Maccon replied with a suggestion. “Seek the assistance of an ugly-hat-addiction specialist this very instant?”
“You are horrible. Be serious, Alexia. You must recognize that this is a travesty of unfairness!”
“How is that?” Lady Maccon did not follow.
“I love him so very much. As Romeo did Jugurtha, as Pyramid did Thirsty, as—”
“Oh, please, no need to elaborate further,” interjected Alexia, wincing.
“But what would my family say to such a union?”
“They would say that your hats had leaked into you head,” muttered Alexia, unheard under her breath.
Ivy continued wailing. “What would they do? I should have to break off my engagement with Captain Featherstonehaugh. He would be so very upset.” She paused, and then gasped in horror. “There would have to be a printed retraction!”
“Ivy, I do not think that is the best course of action, throwing Captain Featherstonehaugh over. Not that I have met the man, mind you. But to go from a sensible, income-earning military man to an actor? I am very much afraid, Ivy, that it would be generally regarded as reprehensible and even indicative of”—she paused for dramatic effect—“loose morals.”
Miss Hisselpenny let out an audible gasp and stopped crying. “You truly believe so?”
Lady Maccon went in for the kill. “Even, dare I say it, fastness?”
Ivy gasped again. “Oh no, Alexia, say not so. Truly? To be thought such a thing. How absolutely grisly. Oh what a pickle I am in. I suppose I shall have to throw over Mr. Tunstell.”
“To be fair,” admitted Lady Maccon, “Tunstell has confessed openly to appreciating your choice of headgear. You may very well be giving up on true love.”
“I know. Is that not simply the worst thing you have ever heard, ever?”
Lady Maccon nodded, all seriousness. “Yes.”
Ivy sighed, looking forlorn. To distract her, Alexia asked casually, “You did not perchance hear anything unusual last night after supper, did you?”