Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis
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?”
“Over me?” She frowned at him in obvious confusion. “Why, whatever can you mean? I am just the same as ever, Sir John. I have never thought any differently.”
“But—”
“I must say, though, I do feel better than I have in years,” she said. “I believe this new tea that Mrs. Braithewaite ordered must have beneficial properties!” She looked over his head and smiled at the maid who stood, open-mouthed and staring, in the doorway. “I see that luncheon is ready. We had better go in now, my dear. Food will settle your nerves—and, we may hope, Penelope’s temper, as well.”
Lady Hathergill swept out of the room with a confident stride and one hand on her befuddled husband’s arm, leaving the rest of the household to gather themselves up somehow behind them. Millie and Lucinda traded nervous glances as they flocked to Penelope’s chair.
“I’m sure she didn’t truly mean—”
“Oh, Penelope, are you—?”
“She—she—!” Penelope’s cheeks flushed deep pink. Her eyes sparkled with outrage. She looked, Elinor had to confess, magnificent. “My mother has gone mad!”
“Ah.” Benedict cleared his throat. “Miss Hathergill, if I may?” He bowed and held out his arm to escort her into the next room.
“Oh! Mr. Hawkins...” Penelope bit her lip and lowered her eyelashes. Tears hung, diamond-like, from her lashes. “How can I even bear to meet your eyes, sir, after what you’ve witnessed?”
“Please don’t trouble yourself, Miss Hathergill.” Benedict smiled at her with what Elinor recognized, with a pang, as real sympathy. “Every family quarrels from time to time. If you had seen some of the scenes between me and my brothers when we were younger—or heard my grandfather when his gout was paining him…”
“You are so kind,” Penelope breathed. Looking up at him meltingly, she set one hand on his arm. “I do wish I could accept your escort, Mr. Hawkins. But I believe, in terms of precedence, that Mr. Aubrey—”
“Mr. Aubrey,” said Elinor, “must escort me, in terms of precedence. How right you are, Penelope, to remember such niceties.” She gave her cousin a thin smile, not missing the quickly-hidden flash of resentment that she received in return.
Penelope, it was clear, knew already who Mr. Aubrey’s grandfather was, and exactly what sort of fortune he stood to inherit—so there was no time to lose.Elinor gently nudged Sir Jessamyn awake. Grumbling, he allowed her to pour his limp body onto her shoulders. Once there, he nestled his head into the left side of her neck and curled his tail around her right shoulders, so exhausted by his efforts that he barely even twitched as they passed Penelope.
“Shall we, Mr. Aubrey?”
“Eh?” He blinked up at her from his book, frowning. “You aren’t here about that flaming nonsense, are you? I told Hawkins very clearly—”
“It is time for luncheon, Mr. Aubrey,” said Elinor. “You may explain all the details to me while we eat.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose, if you’re hungry…” He picked up his book again. Then, at a pointed cough from his friend, he sighed. “Am I meant to be coming with you?”
Millie’s startled giggle competed with Lucinda’s gasp of horror. Elinor rolled her eyes inwardly. “If you would?”
“Oh, very well. Ridiculous habit, though. I had plenty to eat at breakfast.” He stood up and held out his left arm with a long-suffering air, still clutching his book tightly in his right hand. “In the wild, you know, dragons forage whenever they’re hungry. There’s no such thing as set mealtimes, to them.”
“Indeed.” Elinor set her hand just above his arm, keeping a careful half-inch of distance between them. Mr. Aubrey was the last person in Hathergill Hall who would ever pay any attention to what she looked like…but there was no point in courting danger. When she did ask him for his advice later on, she would do it in privacy, well away from Penelope and her friends.
Penelope flashed Elinor a quick, triumphant smirk as her own escort helped her to her feet with pleasing attentiveness. “Oh, Mr. Hawkins, you are too good!”
It was for the best, Elinor told herself, as she walked beside Mr. Aubrey out of the room. It was what Benedict and his family needed. It was what she wanted for him.
She slid a glance over her shoulder. Penelope was smiling waveringly up at Benedict as she brushed away the last of her tears…and Benedict smiled back down at her while Lucinda and Millie both watched with wide, delighted gazes.
“I’m actually afraid to go in there,” Penelope murmured. “Isn’t that absurd? But the thought of hearing even more cruel things said about me—and in front of you, Mr. Hawkins—! Who could ever possibly bear such a thing?”
Elinor yanked her gaze firmly forward and quickened her steps as much as she could without leaving Mr. Aubrey behind. Still, she couldn’t help overhearing.
“Please don’t worry, Miss Hathergill,” Benedict said. “I’ll be sitting beside you, and I promise I’ve no liking for hurtful gossip of any kind.”
“Oh,” she sighed, “you are so kind! And you make me feel so safe. Will you promise to talk to me for the entire meal?”
Elinor tasted something bitter in her mouth.
“Do you know what, Mr. Aubrey?” she said briskly. “I think you may be right about luncheon, after all. Set mealtimes are a ridiculous habit, aren’t they? Let us go and talk about dragons instead.” She aimed a bright smile at her cousin. “Do pass on our excuses to your mother, won’t you, Penelope?”
Before anyone could respond, she freed her hand from the crook of Mr. Aubrey’s arm and set off at a quick stride, placing one hand on Sir Jessamyn’s back to ensure his safety on her shoulders while he slept. Multiple voices rose in shock behind them, but she didn’t let them slow her down.
Mrs. De Lacey was allowed to be rude...and even if she wasn’t, Elinor found that, for once in her life, she didn’t truly care what anyone else thought about her. All that she wanted—no, needed—was to escape...and luckily, she knew just where to go.
No one was quick enough to stop her as she led Mr. Aubrey swiftly through the house to a never-used back parlour, still decorated in the style of the last century. Stalking through it, she pushed open the plain and unimpressive door at its opposite end, hurried through a crowded foyer that was stacked with odds and ends from the past two decades, and finally stepped outside with pure relief.
Fresh air and sunshine poured like a blessing across her skin as she walked into the hidden garden that sat between the main house and the stable block, with high hedges planted carefully on all sides to protect it from general view.
Unlike most of the gardens outside Hathergill Hall, this one was surprisingly small and unassuming. It grew vegetables for the kitchen rather than flowers, and only one—rather uncomfortable—rustic wooden seat was set nearby, under the shade of an oak tree. As far as Elinor knew, no one in the family had ever spent any time there.
That was why it had become her refuge in the last six months.
The green, vibrant scents of the growing plants mingled with the richer and more intense smells of the stables nearby. A breeze rustled through the thick hedges and the branches of the oak tree, and Sir Jessamyn sleepily lifted his head in response, stretching out his neck as far as he could and opening his mouth wide to taste the air current.
Sunlight sparkled off Mr. Aubrey’s spectacles as he looked around the garden in bemusement. “Is this really where luncheon is being served?”
Elinor laughed for the first time that day. “No,” she said. “Forgive me, Mr. Aubrey, for abducting you. We’ve abandoned the official luncheon, actually. If you find that you are hungry after all—”
“Oh, no,” he said. “No, this will do quite well. I enjoy reading outside, you know. So much less interference, except when the wind blows my papers away.”
“I can imagine,” Elinor said. And she could. But the idea of Mr. Aubrey chasing his papers around the garden, while it brought a smile to her mouth, was far more endearing than laughable. She liked Mr. Aubrey. She thought that Benedict Hawkins had good taste in friends.
It was a pity that…no. She cut off that train of thought with a snap.
Penelope might have spent the last six months being vile to Elinor, but that was no reason for Elinor to keep on returning the favor. Poisonous thoughts had been her only viable recourse as a poor relation, but over time, they had become a too-addictive habit that needed to be sharply cut off before she turned hopelessly bitter.
Releasing her held breath in a sigh, she walked across the garden to the big oak and set one hand against its wide, rough trunk. Its warmth sank into her skin like a blessing as she let her frustrations sink away. “I will leave you to read here undisturbed, Mr. Aubrey. I had hoped to ask your advice first, though.”
“About your dragon?” Mr. Aubrey perked up, his gaze sharpening as he turned to Sir Jessamyn. “You did mention in the carriage that he’s been exhibiting peculiarities. What are they, exactly? We can dismiss all that nonsense that Hawkins was gabbling about fire-breathing, of course.”
“Well…” Elinor moistened her lips. In the warmth of the open air, with the familiar hum of insects buzzing industriously around the garden, it did seem impossible that anyone could ever take her story seriously. But she looked at the hand that she’d set upon the tree trunk—its fingers long and its palm wide—and she summoned her courage. “Do you remember how you called me ‘Miss Tregarth’ in the carriage?”
“Eh?” He frowned. “Ah, yes. I was confused, you see. The lady who rode with us yesterday—”
“Was me,” Elinor said. “I am Elinor Tregarth.”
“I beg your pardon?” He blinked. “I could have sworn that Hawkins said—”
“He thinks I’m Mrs. De Lacey. Everyone does. I look just like her now, you see.”
Aubrey shook his head impatiently. “This is all very confusing. Mrs. De Lacey—Miss Tregarth—or whatever you choose to call yourself today—I still don’t see what this could have to do with dragons.”
“It has everything to do with them!” Elinor met his gaze with all the earnestness she could summon. “Mr. Aubrey, I know this may sound entirely fantastical, but Sir Jessamyn, my dragon, is the one who did it! He breathed fire on me last night after supper, and when I woke up this morning, my entire appearance had changed.”
Mr. Aubrey’s eyes widened behind his spectacles. “What did you say?”
“I was weeping before bed,” Elinor said quietly. “I was…unhappy about various things. So I said…” She tried to remember, even as Sir Jessamyn stood up on her shoulders, shook himself off, and wandered down along her outstretched arm to examine the tree she was touching. “I wished I was as handsome and stylish as Mrs. De Lacey, I think? At any rate, he looked me in the eyes and breathed flame upon my face, and when I woke up...” She shrugged helplessly. “I looked like Mrs. De Lacey in every way.”
“He breathed flame on your face and transformed you,” Mr. Aubrey repeated flatly.
His voice sounded decidedly odd, but Elinor pounced on the words with relief.
“Exactly! And then this morning he did it again. When I said I wished to know what my aunt—Lady Hathergill, that is—what she was thinking, he breathed flame upon me, and then she suddenly started talking!”
“Your aunt began to talk,” he repeated, even more flatly than before.
“Yes! You can’t know how unlikely that was, as you’ve only just met her, but you may take my word for it that it was unprecedented. And the things she said—!”
“Let me see if I understand you correctly,” Mr. Aubrey said, interrupting her. “You are telling me that your dragon can perform...magic?”
“Yes!” Elinor could have wept with relief. “You do understand. Thank goodness. But I don’t know what to do about it! I have to break the illusion somehow. I can’t look like Mrs. De Lacey forever! But if anyone at Hathergill Hall discovers who I really am…”
“He breathed flame and did magic,” Mr. Aubrey said, and this time, his voice was nearly unrecognizable.
“Yes?” She looked at him with growing concern. “Is there something amiss? Mr. Aubrey—good heavens, Mr. Aubrey, are you quite well?”
“Am I quite well?” Mr. Aubrey repeated. “Am I well?” His voice rose to a roar. “Good God, madam! Have I not suffered enough?”
She blinked at him, taking a step backwards, while Sir Jessamyn hurried back along her arm to take shelter upon her shoulders. “I don’t understand.”
“I am meant to be in Wales!” he shouted. “I am meant to be pursuing desperately needed research, but no, my friend needed me, so here I am. I am here, of all the godforsaken places in England! I ask you, madam, have you even seen this house’s library? Can you possibly imagine any way for me to work in such a place?”
“Ah…” She winced. “I do understand the inconvenience, but—”
“But can I leave?” Aubrey demanded. “No! I cannot even depart now as I ought, because I promised Hawkins. I gave him my word that I would stay, no matter how many young ladies giggle at me or how much horrifying talk of hunting, of all abominations, may take place. And now—now, when I am already dealing with deprivation and ignorance at every turn!—now, of all times, you’ve decided to play a practical joke on me?”
“No!” Elinor gasped. “Mr. Aubrey, please—”
“Oh, you may find me very amusing,” Aubrey said bitterly. “Society ladies generally do, I believe. But madam, I am no joke. I am a scholar. And now, if you will do the honor of excusing me…” He swept her a breathtakingly beautiful bow. “I have real work to do.”
He stalked back towards the house, gait stiff with outrage.
“Wait!” Elinor picked up her skirts and ran after him. “Mr. Aubrey, wait. I can prove it! The markings on my dragon’s face—they’ve changed again since this morning. And…” In desperation, she grasped his closest sleeve and pulled the cloth towards her, dragging his arm with it. “Here! Feel my face—you can feel it’s different, underneath, from the illusion you see. Just—”
The door swung open a moment before she could force Aubrey’s hand to touch her cheek. She gasped in surprise. Her hand fell off Aubrey’s sleeve.
Benedict Hawkins stood in the open doorway, staring at them. “I beg your pardon.” His gaze went from Elinor to Aubrey, still standing close together. He looked at Aubrey’s furious face, and then at Aubrey’s arm as it dropped to his side. When Mr. Hawkins looked up once more at Elinor, his expression was chilly and his tone coldly polite. “Have I interrupted something?”
“I—Mr. Hawkins…” Elinor swallowed hard, searching for an explanation. “I was only—that is, I was asking Mr. Aubrey…”
“You haven’t interrupted anything,” said Mr. Aubrey. “Trust me, Hawkins. There is nothing this lady has to say that could ever interest me.”