“Oh, no, that couldn’t have been it!” Lucinda sniffed. “She was just grim. Grim, grim, grim! Andsovery plain, you would never have even guessed that she was Penelope’s cousin from looking at her. Oh, and…”
Elinor couldn’t bear to see Mr. Hawkins. So she turned to look at her aunt, whose eyes were carefully averted from the scene while her expression—as always—looked gently pained.
She had sent gifts, from time to time, to Elinor and her sisters, when they were younger. Her letter of invitation had been signed with affection. And she looked, even now, so much like Elinor’s mother that it made her heart twist. “Isall of this true?” Elinor asked her.
“Well, of course it’s true!” Penelope snapped. “Haven’t you been listening? When you think of everything we did for her—!”
Elinor still couldn’t catch Lady Hathergill’s eyes, but she watched the grooves in her aunt’s cheeks deepen. “What wouldyousay, though?” she asked tightly. “YouareElinor’s aunt. You must have some opinion.”
“Oh…” Wincing, Lady Hathergill slid a glance at her daughter. “You mustn’t ask me,” she said. “I’m sure that Penelope…well…”
“She wasterrible,” said Penelope firmly. “Awful! Ungrateful and sneaking and untrustworthy and—”
Lady Hathergill’s eyes fell shut. Elinor knew the finality of that action. But it had never before burned quite so badly as it did now, listening to Penelope and her friends while Benedict Hawkins sat nearby, a silent, watchful audience.
She couldn’t let it go to make peace. Not anymore.
“She isyour niece,” Elinor said. “Your younger sister’s daughter! You promised her a safe home.Wouldyou describe her to me in the way Penelope has?”
Sir Jessamyn rose to lay his head against her chest. Lady Hathergill grimaced helplessly but kept her eyes firmly closed.
“There’s no use asking Mama about it,” said Penelope. “Iam the one who knew my cousin best. And really—”
“No,” Elinor gritted through her teeth. “I wish to know.What does your mother really think?”
Millie’s high-pitched scream of terror broke the tension in the room....just as flaring warmth erupted directly against Elinor’s chest.
“Good God!” Mr. Hawkins leaped to his feet. “Mrs. De Lacey, are you badly injured?”
Millie was still screaming. She pointed at Sir Jessamyn as she scooted her chair away in frantic, farcical hops. “He breathed—he breathed—I saw flame!”
“I say.” Mr. Aubrey finally looked up from his book, blinking. “Are you speaking of a dragon, by any chance? Dragons donotbreathe fire, I can assure you. That is a historical misapprehension which—”
“That,” said Benedict Hawkins grimly, “is one point of scholarship upon which we will have to disagree—because I just saw, with my own eyes, Mrs. De Lacey’s dragon breathe fire.” He started forward. “I don’t know how you escaped serious injury, ma’am, but you had better set that creature aside and—”
“No!” Elinor tightened her arms around Sir Jessamyn protectively. “He would never hurt me.”
Mr. Aubrey and Benedict began to argue in increasingly heated voices, but for once, she didn’t pay either of them any attention. All of her focus was on the dragon in her lap.
Sir Jessamyn nestled comfortably against her stomach. His eyelids drifted downwards as he curled himself into a perfect ball.
As she watched, a second set of golden markings crept slowly but inexorably down his long, blue and green throat, beginning just beneath his chin and looping in bold, sweeping curves towards his chest. Elinor’s skin prickled at the sight.
Sir Jessamyn,what have you done now?
The sound beside her was so unfamiliar, it took her a long moment to even realize what it was. It was the sound of Lady Hathergill pointedly clearing her throat and then—as everyone turned to stare—straightening in her seat to sit perfectly upright, with her eyes wide open.
Lady Hathergill shook her head sadly as she looked about the room. “I do wish you would finally learn some manners, Penelope, but I am afraid that it is probably too late for you. I admit I am partly to blame—I allowed your father to overrule me at every turn, which did you no favours. I was never brave like my own sister, though; that was why I quarreled with my dearest friend, all those years ago, when she tried so hard to rouse me into courage. I did hope, though, that youwouldlearn better one day—or, at least, that you would learn tobe a bit more convincing whenever you pretended to be kind.”
Penelope’s gasp hit ear-piercing levels of horror and outrage…but Sir Jessamyn closed his eyes and went to sleep on Elinor’s lap with evident satisfaction.
Chapter 12
Elinor had already had the most unlikely day of her entire life, but as she sat now on the long, forest-green couch and listened to the words streaming out of her aunt’s mouth, she felt physically dizzy with disbelief.
“…And I never cared much for your last governess, either. I suppose the reason you never chased her off, though, unlike all of the others—”
“Mary!” Sir John had been sitting in pole-axed silence since she’d first begun to talk. Now he finally broke in, staring at his wife as if she’d developed a second head. “What the devil has come over you?”
