Page 4 of Claws and Contrivances
“I’ll need to borrow a cloak with a hood,” she told her cousins, and she gave the little dragon a reassuring nod. “I’m going to pay a private call upon the ghoul.”
Chapter 3
There were some families in the world who would have reacted with horror to the news of an unmarried young lady planning a social call upon an unrelated gentleman.
Rose’s cousins threw themselves into the task of disguising her appearance with undiluted enthusiasm.
“I’m certain we have a wig about here somewhere,” Georgie said as she tore through two different boxes in the attic with abandon. “Remember when we did that musicale two years ago, Beth?”
“Serena’s terrible aria!” Beth giggled as she held up a glamorous black half-mask from the single box that she was slowly and carefully investigating. “How could anyone forget? I thought she’d break every glass in the house with that high C. Poor Cwtch’s howls—”
“And as for your face paint—”
“I don’t need to be disguised as a harlequin!” Rose clamped one hand on the edge of the cobweb-covered attic floor to keep her rickety ladder from wobbling too violent an accompaniment to her protest. She stood, balancing precariously, between the upper landing of the house’s east wing and the crowded attic, keeping one wary eye on the curious dragon below and another, even warier eye, on her cousins above. “That would draw more attention from everyone who saw me. All I need is a way to keep my face hidden from view.”
She had to do what was right for the little dragon, but she wouldn’t repay her uncle and aunt’s generosity with a local scandal.
“Hmmph.” With visible reluctance, Georgie lowered the box of paints she’d just found. “Well, if you’re going to be tedious about it ...”
So in the end, Rose set out with neither a painted face, the hooded cloak she’d first imagined, nor the towering and moth-eaten white wig from the previous century that Georgie had unearthed with wicked glee. Instead, Rose drew a plain but voluminous white walking veil firmly over the brim of a large straw bonnet, making sure to cover every trace of her upswept golden hair. She concealed the rest of her figure in a shapeless, old-fashioned brown gown that was remarkable only for its extreme dowdiness, and she tried hard to repress a thrill of illicit delight as she strode briskly down the long, grassy slope behind the main house, past the oldest of Gogodd Abbey’s medieval ruins and towards the long, wide river and the small dirt road that would lead her over a mile to their mysterious neighbour’s dwelling.
This was, of course, not an adventure; certainly not. This was a simple act of charity, exactly the sort of endeavour at which Rose had been trained and encouraged as a good vicar’s daughter ... but oh, it had been so long since she’d dared to take any risks at all!
She hadn’t even realised just how much she’d missed the feeling of confident purpose that expanded her chest now. The deep breaths that she took with every stride felt as if they were clearing the last of the lingering white fog from her senses, allowing her to soak in the warmth of the mid-August sunshine without any of the distancing chill that had clung to her skin for so many months. The river churned steadily and triumphantly below, heedless of every rock or other hurdle in its path. Ducks and moorhens waddled busily around its long bank, while two red kites circled high overhead, letting out high, arrogant screams of self-announcement, and a cloud of swifts darted past in a sudden, wild rush from the thick woodland that covered the rolling hills between Gogodd Abbey and Penryddn House.
It was all so utterly glorious that Rose wanted to yank the obstructive walking veil from her face, tip her head back and soak in every single vivid sensation; but she had a mission to fulfil, and she wasn’t the only one who’d been in hiding until now.
The little dragon had pattered close behind Rose’s feet, anxious and alert, all the way to the side door of the house’s final wing. The moment that she had stepped outside, though, it had shrunk back with a hiss of fear and then a low, chortling noise that sounded nothing like amusement ... Rose had immediately altered her plans.
“You stay here with Beth, safe and quiet,” she’d instructed it. Georgie might have an easier manner with the dragon, but she was also far more likely to wander off and leave it untended on the assumption that everything would be well. Beth, with her own jittering nerves, would understand the dragon’s fear and take much closer care of it. “I’ll see if I can find your owners for you, and they can come to collect you afterwards.”
Who knew how long the poor creature had already wandered, lost and alone in the wild, before nosing its way through one of the cracks in Gogodd Abbey’s walls? It might look like the miniature version of a fire-breathing legend, but every newspaper article since their rediscovery had been crushingly clear: there was nothing magical about real dragons. With their wings clipped by breeders, they couldn’t even fly away from any danger ... and this little one hardly looked capable of defending itself against a determined tomcat, much less a large dog or a badger. No wonder it was so afraid of everything.
At any rate, it wasn’t as if she needed to bring it along for the purposes of identification. A strict royal licence had been granted and an annual limit established on dragon-breeding in Britain upon their rediscovery. Less than fifty of the creatures had been shipped from South America in the first place before a ban had been placed upon their export. It was the fact that they were still so rare that made them wildly expensive – and meant that there truly couldn’t be more than one dragon missing in the middle of the Welsh countryside, much less more than one dragon with the same vivid colouring. All that Rose would have to do was knock, safely veiled, at the entrance to the house and enquire of the footman at the door whether Sir Gareth happened to be missing a beloved pet ...
... Unless the Ghoul of Penryddn House was out stalking the grounds himself today.
No one could see behind Rose’s walking veil, which made it perfectly safe to allow her lips to curve into a wicked grin as she reached the narrow, winding dirt road at the bottom of the field, lined by trees on one side and the riverbank on the other, and began the last mile of her journey.
Wouldn’t Serena swoon over the idea of coming upon the man of mystery himself? Rose knew exactly how that meeting would go in the sort of delicious Gothic novel her Aunt Parry always wrote. Rose wasn’t reckless enough to believe in such impossible fantasies for herself, of course, but with such a long trudge ahead of her in the increasing heat, and with her veil feeling more and more smothering around her face with every step ... well, really, what could it hurt to let herself drift into a harmless story just this once, in private? As Georgie had pointed out, no one ever drove down this branch of the road along the way to anywhere important. Far from the nearest village, it only meandered between the two estates and everyone knew that Penryddn House was never open to visitors.
But! In the perfect scene from a Gothic novel, Sir Gareth would be prowling around his estate like a wild and predatory animal, no doubt with a heavy black cloak billowing dramatically around his broad-shouldered figure despite the balmy August air. The heat that rose from his tanned skin would have nothing to do with the summer sun and everything to do with the simmering force of his own darkly brooding concentration. He would, naturally, be plotting some desperately sinister revenge, unbeknownst to whichever innocent maiden was about to be caught up in his dastardly schemes; but at the very moment that his piercing gaze fell upon her, she would be lanced, against her will and despite all her higher morals, by the desperate, undeniable urgency of his—
“’Ware!” A raised voice broke through her fantasy, along with a loud thudding sound. “’Ware behind! ’Ware!”
What? Blinking hazily, Rose began to turn ...
And found four horses hurtling directly towards her as their carriage driver yanked frantically on their reins.
The white walking veil was beyond any hope of salvation. Rose couldn’t even remember how it had come off in her escape – the knots of her bonnet strings must have loosened along the walk somehow, for her borrowed straw bonnet was missing, too – but she found herself sprawled across the grass on the riverbank, gasping for breath and yet uninjured, while the veil lay in tatters across the road, shredded and filthy from the impact of horses’ hooves.
The carriage had drawn to a stop just a few feet beyond the veil’s pathetic remains, and the driver seemed to be saying something, but Rose couldn’t make out any of his words – not over the deafening thunder that filled her ears.
“A carriage accident ...”
“There’s been an accident, a terrible accident ...”
“The vicar was off in one of his dreams, no doubt, wasn’t paying enough attention to the road when that young fop came wheeling around the corner far too fast—”
