Scales and Sensibility by Stephanie Burgis

Chapter 25

Sir Jessamyn, of course, protested. But it took only a moment to set him down on the boulder, and he never minded stretching out to sun himself at leisure on a warm day.

As for Elinor… It was no wonder people tossed aside everything for love, she thought dizzily. Who needed food or drink, compared to this?

She could have kissed Benedict forever in the wilderness. The trees and plants around them rustled in the soft, warm breeze, and sunlight caressed her skin as Elinor wrapped herself around him, discovering a wholly unexpected core of wildness inside herself. Benedict’s kiss was more intoxicating than any wine she’d ever sipped; his thick hair softer against her hands than she had imagined; his arms warm and strong around her.

And Benedict himself…

He drew back, panting and laughing, and cupped her cheek in one big hand while he wrapped his other arm around her waist. “It really is you,” he said. “No flickering between different faces anymore. Just you, and me.”

“Just us together,” Elinor said, and felt wonder nearly break her open. “You really wanted it to be me?”

“Are you actually jesting, at such a moment?” He shook her lightly, his eyes sparkling. “Look at me, Elinor Tregarth. Do you think there’s any chance in the world that I am feeling disappointed right now?”

“No.” Elinor laughed breathlessly. “I only…” A bird squawked raucously overhead, making her jump. It was a great black crow, settling onto one of the long, knobbled branches of the tree nearby, and Elinor sucked in a breath at the reminder. Crow... The word even sounded in her head with Penelope’s contemptuous intonation, repeated so many times with such vicious precision. You look just like a crow. You’re such a crow. You…

She looked up at Benedict grinning down at her, and with an effort of willpower, she set the words aside—for good, she hoped. “No,” said Elinor, and shook her head. “You’re not disappointed.”

“I should say not.” He kissed her again, as if he couldn’t help himself. She couldn’t help herself either as she melted against him. He tasted like salt and sweetness and everything that she had ever wanted but known she couldn’t have.

She couldn’t have…The words took shape and resonated with horrible force inside her. She shoved them aside.

He rested his forehead against hers. Their noses bumped companionably. “Anyway,” he murmured, “I shouldn’t dare be disappointed in the great Mrs. De Lacey, should I? I’ve seen you stare down enough challengers, these past few days. Utterly terrifying!”

He was laughing as he said it—but it broke the spell. She pulled back, fighting to catch her breath. “Wait,” she said. “Wait.”

“For what? I’ve been waiting three days already. No, four days—ever since we met. Ever since that first moment when I saw you walk towards me covered in mud and holding your chin up like an empress. I’m so grateful Aubrey wasn’t clever enough to get out of the carriage himself and fall under your spell.” He leaned back in, his breath warm against her lips—but she pushed him back.

“Wait!” She stepped back herself, forcing her hands to let go of him. Her palms felt cold, parted from his warmth. “We cannot do this!”

“Whyever not?” Frowning at her, he shifted closer. “I’m not actually betrothed to Penelope, remember? I’m not even trying to betroth myself to Penelope. Thank God, the Armitages made that impossible. I take back everything I said before. I’d shake Gavin Armitage’s hand to thank him if he were here. The only person in the world I want to marry is—”

“Stop!” Elinor’s voice broke on the word. She wrapped her arms around her chest and turned away. She couldn’t look at his face while she said this. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want it to be true.

But it seemed that a lifetime of common sense couldn’t be thrown away so easily after all…not even for love.

“We cannot marry,” she said, “and you know it. I have no dowry. Soon, you’ll have no income and no home, either. How could we possibly marry?”

“We’ll think of something.” Benedict’s voice was quieter and more subdued than before, but he didn’t move away. “We have to think of something. If I—”

“And what of your brothers?” Elinor said. “Not to mention your five-year-old niece? What will they do, while we think of something for ourselves? Do you truly think you can forget them?”

“I don’t want to forget them,” Benedict said. “For God’s sake—!” He cut himself off with a jerk and spun around to glare at the ivy-covered stone wall of the wilderness.

Elinor waited through his silence. She wouldn’t cry. Not anymore.

But inside her chest, she felt as if she were breaking.

When Benedict turned back to her, his face was grim. “I don’t know how we’ll manage,” he said. “You’re right about that. But I do know we can’t just shrug our shoulders and walk away from each other as if this had never happened. Could you do that, now? Truly?”

Elinor bit her lip hard and forced her voice to steady. “We have to face the facts. If you don’t find some promise of income within the next few weeks, whether it’s from Penelope or someone else—”

“Good God!” He stared at her. “Are you actually trying to persuade me, now, to pursue another Penelope Hathergill?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Elinor said miserably. “Your—”

“I am not marrying any other woman, any more than you are going to voluntarily enslave yourself to Mrs. G. Galsworthy without even getting any salary in return!” Benedict held his body rigidly still, but his voice lashed out like a whip. “I read the newspapers, too, you know, including the advertisements. That one was absurd, and so is your plan for me.”

“But how else can you save your estate, and your family, in time?” Tears blurred Elinor’s vision, but she blinked them away and clenched her jaw to keep more from escaping. “Of course I don’t want you to marry anyone else. But—”

“Then stop trying to throw me away!” Benedict glared at her. “Damn it, I’m not a handkerchief or a—a bloody pincushion to be given away to one of your friends when you don’t want it anymore. I’m in love with you!”

Despite everything, Elinor felt the tightness in her chest melt at his words. Her treacherous lips softened; the cold, hard words she’d been about to speak faded out of her grasp.

Relief lightened Benedict’s expression. He stepped forward, his lips curving gently, and ran one hand over her hair. “What?” he said. “You don’t want to tell me all the practical reasons why I can’t be in love with you? Logically, rationally?”

Elinor shook her head against his hand. “That wouldn’t be sensible at all,” she said, “because I’m in love with you, too.”

His lips were just as soft this time, his shoulders every bit as warm and solid against her hands. But when she drew back and rested her cheek against his broad chest, she heard his heart beating as rapidly as if he’d just run a race.

“I don’t have any perfect answers,” he whispered. “All I know is…” His voice dropped to a low rumble against her hair. “In the last few years, I’ve lost too many people. I can’t lose you, too.”

Elinor tightened her arms around him as the pain in his voice resonated through her own chest. Grief and loss might be too well hidden under his easy charm for most observers to ever guess at, but she knew Benedict Hawkins. And she had known, from that very first night when they had traded their stories, how much lay underneath his lighthearted exterior.

“I don’t want to lose you either,” she said, “but—”

“There has to be a way,” said Benedict. “That’s what you told me earlier, wasn’t it, when we were talking about my problems? So, how about this astonishing dragon of yours?” He turned her towards Sir Jessamyn, who had sprawled across the boulder in an attitude of pure bliss, eyes closed and scales glittering. “He’s already performed two miracles, hasn’t he? How about a third?”

Elinor winced. “I don’t think I would call them ‘miracles.’ More like horrible accidents.” Memory flooded in upon her, sickeningly. “My poor aunt…”

“What did Aubrey say, when you asked him about it?”

“He didn’t,” Elinor said bitterly. “He thought I was playing a practical joke on him. And then you interrupted us and accused me of trying to trick him into marriage.”

“Ah. Yes.” Benedict’s lips twitched. “Perhaps you could forget that part? It was a long time ago, you know. Days and days.”

“I have an excellent memory,” Elinor told him.

“That is a pity,” Benedict said. “You’ll have to fix it before we’re married.” He laughed when she rolled her eyes at him, and grabbed her hand. “That’s the first thing we should do, then. Come along! Aubrey may have brushed you aside, but he won’t dismiss me so easily, I promise you. I have years of experience in badgering him. That was how we both survived school.”

“Wait!” Elinor dug her heels into the path as he tried to drag her forward. “We can’t just go rushing in on him like this. What if he’s in company with Sir John and the others? What if—?”

Benedict stared at her. “Aubrey?” he said. “Voluntarily in company? Involved in social conversation with our host? My dear Elinor, have you lost all of your wits?”

Elinor sighed and scooped up Sir Jessamyn from the boulder. His eyes fluttered open; he muttered grumpily but nestled into her chest almost at once. “Very well,” she said. “But if Mr. Aubrey starts shouting about fairy tales again, Sir Jessamyn isn’t the only one who might lose control.”

She had to drop Benedict’s hand, of course, as soon as they left the wilderness. Neither of them knew who might be standing at the windows of Hathergill Hall, hidden by the sunlight striking against the glass. But it was only as they approached one of the back doors a few minutes later that Benedict sucked in a harsh breath.

“What is it?” Elinor asked. She spun around, searching the horizon. “What did you see?”

“Mrs. De Lacey.” He gave her a twisted smile. “She’s back.” He gestured to her face.

Elinor put one hand to her cheek. “You mean—?”

“It’s been too long since we touched...but never mind.” He reached for the door handle. “That just gives us one more reason to talk to Aubrey at once. This illusion may have served a purpose in the beginning, but I think it’s high time to be rid of it.”

Mr. Aubrey wasn’t in the library, where they first looked, but Benedict walked past the drawing room without a pause, ignoring the hum of voices rising behind the door. Instead, he led Elinor up the staircase to the second-floor wing of the house where the bachelors were quartered. While Elinor looked guiltily around the empty hallway for observers, he knocked sharply on the fourth door to the right, then turned the door handle and walked inside without waiting for a reply.

“Leave your books for a moment, Aubrey! We need your help.”

Elinor whisked in and closed the door quickly, before anyone could catch sight of her. She was the only one who seemed worried about the proprieties, though…and the room she walked into bore little resemblance to anything she had ever imagined as a dangerous bachelor’s bedroom.

Much like the carriage they had traveled in, Aubrey’s bedroom was entirely carpeted with papers and books. He sat on the floor in the center of it all—indeed, there would have been no space to sit on the bed—and his hair looked wildly rumpled. as if he’d been dragging his fingers through it.

But actually, Elinor corrected herself, it must have been his pen that had done that rumpling. There were several distinct spots of blue ink scattered among the wild blond tufts.

“It’s all very well to say ‘leave your books,’” Aubrey muttered, “but it isn’t as simple as all that. I’ve had another letter from my friend in Wales, and if he’s right, there’s a devilish complicated situation springing up that needs my urgent attention. If I can just figure the probable length of a wingtip when—”

“You will,” Benedict said, “but have a heart, Aubrey. I’m in urgent trouble of my own right now.”

“Again?” Mr. Aubrey sighed and took off his glasses. “This isn’t to do with your marriage scheme, is it? I must say, I don’t care for your future fiancée. If she knows a single word of Latin, I’d be surprised.”

“Ah…” Benedict’s lips twitched as he looked at Elinor. “Miss Tregarth?”

She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her own lips. “My sister Harry knows Latin very well,” she offered. “I suppose she could teach to me by post if required.”

“Only for Aubrey’s wife,” Benedict assured her. “Never my own.”

“Hmph,” said Mr. Aubrey. “More fool you. How could you ever have an interesting conversation with anyone who can’t even debate a Latin manuscript?”

“Some of us find a way,” said Benedict. “But I think you will find this interesting, even though it’s not in Latin. I have a question for you about dragons.”

“Oh?” Mr. Aubrey put his glasses back on. Then he looked at Elinor and his eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, no. This is Mrs. De Lacey, isn’t it? Hawkins, if you dare tell me you’ve joined in that offensively foolish practical joke she tried to play on me when we first arrived—”

“I’m deadly serious,” said Benedict, “and so is she. There was never any joking involved.”

Mr. Aubrey looked at him for a long moment. Then, without a word, he rose to his feet. His hands had clenched about his pen and his open book; his face was pale with fury.

“If the two of you will excuse me,” he said with icy courtesy, “I’m afraid I need to pack. I am leaving Hathergill Hall immediately.”