“Is the coast clear?” Uncle Parry’s voice hissed from inside the kitchen with such sudden force that it made Mr Aubrey startle and drop his book.
Rose caught it with ease. “It’s only me out here, Uncle,” she called cheerfully as she handed the book back. “I’ll close my eyes if you’d prefer. But I promise I won’t tell Mrs Davies about whatever you’ve been up to.” Trust Uncle Parry to feel guilty about ‘stealing’ food from his own pantry! If he wanted to store a few illicit snacks in his office to eat across the day without the pressure of Mrs Davies’s disapproving gaze, Rose certainly wouldn’t be the one to betray him.
“There’s a good girl. You can keep your eyes open – only keep your lips sealed. And remember, there’s nothing to worry about!” Uncle Parry hurried out, his jacket bulging oddly as he wrapped it around what appeared to be various sorts of foodstuff in unlikely combinations. “If anyone asks, you saw nothing.”
“Nothing,” Rose repeated obediently. She kept her lips compressed in a properly grave expression until he was safely out of sight, first bounding down the hallway and then scurrying noisily up the stairs that led to the sanctum of his study. Only then did she finally allow herself to smile, as she rose to her feet and reached out to take Mr Aubrey’s arm. “I think we can safely say that Mrs Davies is not in the kitchen after all, so we may as well go directly to the breakfast room. You can tell me all about Griff’s powers, and no one will miss any meals.”
Chapter 16
For once, Rose felt relief rather than disappointment to see Cwtch lying outside the morning room as she approached, his long brown and white snout pointed mournfully at the door. That desolate pose was always a sign that the room – while full of food – was empty of relatives.
However, Rose’s relief only lasted an instant. Cwtch twitched his tall brown ears, sniffed twice, with vigour, and then leapt to his feet, barking wildly as he hurled himself down the hallway towards her.
“For goodness’ sake!” The silly canine was coming after the dragons, of course. Here in this remote bit of Wales, he would never have had any prior opportunity to meet the species and become accustomed to them. “Cwtch, no!” Rose dropped to her knees, flinging out her hands before her in a hopeless attempt to ward him off.
Griff plastered himself to her back, shivering desperately and letting out a low, chuckling sound of strangled panic. Hissing, Rhiannon scrambled up in a wild rush to perch atop Rose’s head, long claws tangling in Rose’s hair, tail wrapping around her neck, with inadvertent scratches burning a path of fire along the way.
Mr Aubrey, with an air of startling authority, stepped forwards before them all. “Sit.”
Cwtch dropped to his hindquarters with an alacrity that Rose had never before witnessed. With her hair cascading from the loosening bonds of its topknot, Rhiannon’s thick, strong tail wrapped halfway around her neck, and her eyes still watering from all the tugging at her scalp, Rose let out a sigh of admiration. “How in the world did you manage that?”
Cwtch’s tail thumped hopefully against the ground at her words, but his big, brown eyes remained fixed on the dragon scholar. A low whine of frustration sounded from his furry throat.
“Oh ...” With his embarrassed shrug, Mr Aubrey returned once more to his usual unassuming self. “Dogs are fairly simple creatures. My grandfather keeps a whole pack of them at his country house, and I spent a good deal of time with them as a boy.” Shaking his head, he leaned over to scratch carefully behind Cwtch’s ears, and Cwtch leaned with unmistakable bliss into his touch. “This fellow was only curious and hoping to play.”
“Well, that certainly wasn’t the impression these two gathered.” Grimacing, Rose attempted to peel Rhiannon off her head, with very little effect from her awkward and constricted angle. “Do you think you could possibly—? Ah, thank you.” She sagged with relief as Rhiannon’s weight was lifted off her. “There is a reason that dragons ride on people’s shoulders, not their heads, you know!”
Still, she gathered Rhiannon willingly back into her arms, holding her cradled at a more comfortable angle, and then clicked her tongue beckoningly at Griff, who was still squashed, trembling, against her back. “You see? Cwtch isn’t going to hurt either of you. He was only overexcited.”
Neither of the dragons seemed inclined to be persuaded by any soothing words she offered, but with Mr Aubrey’s help, she finally managed to gather up both of them, out of Cwtch’s reach, to perch one on each of her shoulders. As she took her first, careful step, she felt almost like one of those elegant debutantes she’d seen sketched in newspapers, attending society balls with their glittering, draconic shoulder-ornaments ... but she doubted that any of those fashionably well-trained dragons wriggled quite so much along the way or dug their claws with such intensity into their mistresses’ skin.
By the time they reached the long, oblong breakfast table, she was ready to collapse. “Oof!” With a groan, Rose helped them both slide down to the polished tabletop, then massaged her aching shoulders. “It’s no wonder most people only carry one at a time. I cannot imagine trying to dance like that!”
Rhiannon was too busy investigating every inch of the tabletop to take offense at her words; Griff, too busy craning his long golden neck and staring with hopeful eyes towards the enticing buffet spread on the tall sideboard three feet away.
Mr Aubrey said, “There are few families that could ever afford to buy more than a single dragon.”
It was a surprisingly pragmatic note to hear from the absent-minded scholar. Rose turned to him, eyebrows rising, and he continued, “For so long as the national limits on breeding keep the cost of individual animals high, even the finest scholars in Britain can generally only dream of the chance to inspect a single dragon for any length of time.”
“And you?” Rose remembered her aunt’s words about his expected inheritance, and the quality of Mr Aubrey’s traveling carriage. “Haven’t you ever wished to purchase a dragon of your own?”
“Ah, well ...” His lips quirked into a rueful smile. “I may spend most of my time thinking about dragons, but I do possess some degree of self-awareness. I believe everyone who’s ever known me has found me useless at seeing to my own practical needs in life, let alone caring for a dependent animal.”
“You certainly should take better care of yourself,” Rose agreed, “but I can help you with that part, for now. Just wait here and keep these two from falling off the table, and I’ll bring food for all of us. Not including you,” she added in a firm aside to Cwtch, who was sitting in his best ‘good dog’ pose and trying his hardest to imply imminent starvation. “You’re the only one of us who’s already eaten this morning!”
Sunlight streamed through the big windows, and pleasure hummed through Rose’s skin as she bustled around the sideboard, gathering a good variety of foodstuffs for every possible taste, from kippers to honey cake, ginger cake, brioche, eggs, and liver. For months, she had felt frustratingly useless in her temporary home; now, she carried back her heaped findings and took deep satisfaction in seeing the eyes of every creature at the table, man and dragon alike, light up at the sight.
For the sake of her dignity, Rose waited until she was safely seated before she slid Cwtch a surreptitious slice of kidney under the table. Those brown eyes had, after all, been too imploring to resist.
“So,” she said, once everyone around her had had the chance to take their first few restorative bites, “how wealthy is Sir Gareth, if he can afford to buy two dragons only to treat them badly? Judging by the state of his overgrown drive, he certainly doesn’t appear to be spending any funds on the repair or maintenance of his new estate.”
“Mm ...” Mr Aubrey winced around an enthusiastic mouthful and took a long moment to swallow before answering. “Your uncle asked me the same question by post last week. As I informed him, I’ve no knowledge of such matters, but my man-of-business, Chalmers, ought to be able to find out. I’ve already posted him a letter of enquiry about it.”
“My uncle asked you about Sir Gareth’s income?” Rose’s eyebrows shot upwards. Uncle Parry had been firm in warning her and her cousins off from the gentleman. He would never approve of an immoral son-in-law, no matter how wealthy the man might be. So why should he be concerned about Sir Gareth’s finances?
“What I find far more mysterious,” said Mr Aubrey, “is that he apparently had multiple dragons with ... unusual powers.”
“With magic, you mean.” Rose smiled fondly at the two little dragons, both of whose faces were completely buried in the heaped plates on either side of her, bits of food flying in their wake. “You were going to tell me what you’d learned about Griff’s magic, weren’t you?”
