Then she thought:Why?
Carefully, she nudged Sir Jessamyn’s head clear of her neck so that she could speak more easily. She kept one soothing hand under the little dragon’s chin as she looked at Penelope with all the fury she’d had to repress for six long months.
“Your dragon was not ‘bad’ to be afraid of you, Miss Hathergill,” she said. “You heard Miss Armitage—even her dragon lost control once, when he was young. The only difference was thatshewas careful not to frighten him again as she taught him self-control. My dragon would not have panicked now, either, if he hadn’t been shouted and shrieked at in an outrageous manner.”
“I beg your pardon?” Penelope’s voice soared upwards. “Are you actually trying to claim that my dragon’s behavior wasmy fault?”
“Penelope…” Sir John held out one hand, frowning. He turned to stare at Sir Jessamyn. “Are you quite certain that that is not my daughter’s dragon?”
Elinor looked at him with every bit as much haughty contempt as the real Mrs. De Lacey could ever have summoned. “Have I not said so clearly enough?”
“My niece always did think Penelope unkind to her dragon,” Lady Hathergill remarked. “It wasn’t worth the effort to agree with her, of course, but I must say Penelope did shriek at him a great deal. But then, she’s never had the patience for anyone else’s problems but her own.”
“Mother!” Penelope’s lips quivered with a visible mixture of fury and hurt. “How could you? When you know how much I’ve suffered—”
“You see?” Lady Hathergill said, to the rest of the company. “It never seemed worth the trouble to admit the truth when Sir John would certainly support her no matter how badly she behaved. But do you know…” She smiled sunnily. “I feel quite energetic at the moment. Why, for once I’m not bothered at all by my daughter’s hysterics.”
“Oh!” Penelope jumped to her feet. “You are all being completely impossible. I hate you!”
She ran from the room in a whirl of sprig muslin, sobbing noisily. Sir John turned on his wife.
“Mary! What in God’s name has come over you today?”
She shrugged, still smiling. “I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s been years and years since I last said what I truly thought. It is quite unlike me, isn’t it? But I’m finding it rather liberating.”
Benedict’s hand stopped moving on Elinor’s shoulder. For a moment, he stood perfectly still behind her. Then his warm breath rustled against her throat as he whispered, in a bare thread of sound,
“I wish to know. What does your mother really think?”
It was a sentence that made no sense, coming from him. Until…
Elinor’s breath stopped in her throat. She knew those words. They were the ones she’d uttered that afternoon, just before Sir Jessamyn had breathed his flame and changed her aunt.
She held desperately still. Her pulse beat against her throat. She felt Benedict’s hand on her shoulder, warm through the handkerchief and her slime-soaked gown. She wished she could see his face.
Sir John stared at his wife in fulminating silence for a long moment. Then he turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
“Gone after Penelope, I expect,” said Lady Hathergill with a sigh. “That was why I gave up on instilling any discipline in her when she was a child. What purpose was there, when her father would only give her whatever she wanted, no matter what I said? Ah, well.” She patted down her skirts. “She’s pretty enough, and with such an enormous dowry, I’m certain she’ll make a good match anyway and be off our hands soon enough. I expect you two gentlemen are both here for that now, aren’t you?”
Benedict didn’t speak.
Gavin Armitage said, “Your ladyship, your daughter’s beauty and charm are—”
“Yes, yes,” said Lady Hathergill. “I know. Gentlemen do tend to go foolish around girls like Penelope. Just as well, really. Her cousin, now—Elinor was a sensible girl. I always thoughtshewould make a good wife, if any man was clever enough to see it. But no gentlemen would ever marry her, not after her father lost all her money—and Sir John would never allow me to sponsor her in Society, anyway. Penelope couldn’t have borne it.”
Elinor was glad that Benedict stood behind her. She didn’t want to see his face, not now.
Miss Armitage was the one who spoke. “Lost her money? How did that happen?”
“Oh, one of those terrible fraudulent investment schemes.” Lady Hathergill waved a dismissive hand. “All about the import of rare Brazilian dragons, or some such nonsense. It all sounded very promising at the time, according to my sister’s letters. And the tricksters who persuaded my brother-in-law to settle all his funds on the scheme were extraordinarily persuasive. I believe they generally are.”
“Tricksters?” The word emerged as a croak from Elinor’s throat. “There was more than one?”
“Oh, it was a married couple,” her aunt said carelessly. “They seemed terribly respectable, you see. That must have been part of their appeal. They claimed the wife’s father was in Brazil himself, directing all the operations, while the husband in England collected all of their investors. They dined with my brother-in-law and the wife charmed him, the husband was convincing…”
She sighed. “And so the money was all stolen. My sister and her husband were killed in an accident before they could come up with any salvation for the family, and the only way I could persuade Sir John to take in even one of the girls was to promise her as a sort of maid-of-all-work to Penelope.” She shook her head. “But of course, without Penelope’s looks, and without any dowry of her own, my niece would never have found a husband anyway. What more could she hope for than shelter in our household, even if she was treated poorly here?”
Miss Armitage’s voice was warm. “I think it sounds as if you were very generous indeed, Lady Hathergill. What more could any girl expect in her situation? I do feel sorry for her, I confess, but really—what could she have been thinking to run away like that for no reason at all?”
