Page 30 of Scales and Sensibility
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 aboutfire-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. “IamElinor Tregarth.”
“I beg your pardon?” He blinked. “I could have sworn that Hawkins said—”
“Hethinks 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—Istilldon’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. “Youdounderstand. 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…”
