Page 48 of Claws and Contrivances
It would be absurd to feel betrayed, so Rose did not. After all, he wasn’t her true fiancé; she’d only trapped him in the role. No matter how immediate and compelling an emotional connection she might have imagined – and regardless of any other, more physical, sense of confusion she had occasionally experienced in his company – she could hardly expect him to treat her with the trust and respect he would grant a fiancée he had chosen for himself.
And the very idea of a brilliant, kind-hearted, and scholarly gentleman choosing a reckless, impoverished dreamer like herself was so laughable that she should only find it amusing.
So she did. She was excessively amused. Her chest hurt from the effort of withholding what could only be laughter ... but she swallowed it down, because there was no time to indulge in frivolity when yet another dragon might be in danger.
“Well, then.” Rose fixed a bright smile to her face and icy sweetness to her voice, and she pretended not to notice both gentlemen flinch at the full effect. “I believe it’s time to tell me everything.”
There was no practical space to sit and talk at length on the open road, and even on the warmest of summer days, the stone ruins outside Gogodd Abbey were out of bounds for any private conversations. Serena was far too fond of meditating on her back amidst the tall grass, unobserved until she finally surged upwards to proclaim her latest epiphany to the world.
Instead, for the first time since her arrival seven months ago, Rose found herself invited into the mysterious sanctum of her uncle’s study. Or rather, she led the way into that room with confidence, and Uncle Parry made an unhappy sound but allowed it. She would have liked to check first on Rhiannon and Griff – and meet whichever new dragon Rhiannon had brought to live with them – but she didn’t dare give her uncle enough time to regroup and decide to keep his secrets after all.
Still, as she looked around his study at last, her eyebrows rose higher and higher. It wasn’t the clutter that astonished her. She knew her own scholarly younger sister too well not to expect books and papers cast about in vast profusion. With the housemaids permanently refused entrance to this room, there had never been any hope for the existence of order visible to an outside eye.
She had, however, expected less outright rubbish spread across the floor. As she gazed at the wreckage of half-chewed books and boots – even the grand walnut desk itself hadn’t escaped, with one scrolled leg gnawed perilously thin – her outrage finally sank away, concern rising to take its place.
“How many days have you been keeping your poor dragon cooped up in this one room? It must be wild with boredom and lack of exercise by now!”
“Boredom?” Eschewing formality, Uncle Parry dropped heavily into the big wing chair behind the desk ... and then leapt upwards, cringing at whatever he’d found on that seat. “Deuce, take it!” Groaning, he sagged forwards over the paper-covered desk, planted his elbows amidst the clutter, and buried his face in his hands. “My stolen dragon may indeed be wild, but my dear girl, I can safely assure you that this room has known anything but a tedious existence in this nightmare of a past fortnight. My heart has been on tenterhooks the entire time, only waiting for all to be discovered! I was not born for a life of crime.”
“Oh, dear.” This really was the problem with the sort of inflexible ethics her uncle had always possessed. “Do let me order you some tea.” Stepping forwards, Rose tugged firmly at the bellpull, which itself looked ragged at the end. Whichever sort of dragon Uncle Parry had rescued, it must be a surprisingly high jumper. Unless it had scrambled up onto the desk and stretched from there, perhaps?
As footsteps sounded on the staircase outside, Rose took pity upon her uncle’s nerves and stepped halfway out of the room. She carefully shielded its interior from view as she called down, “A pot of tea for four, please, Carys, along with something nourishing for my uncle. And could you please let Georgie know she’s wanted, too, as soon as possible?”
“Georgie?” Uncle Parry bleated behind her. “Must we really—?”
“Yes, we must.” Rose firmly shut the door behind her as she turned. “And you must tell Aunt Parry everything, as well.” Never again would she be complicit in dangerous secrets between spouses. “Just now, though, we most urgently need Georgie’s assistance in mounting a search. Where was the last place you saw your dragon? And where did you find it to begin with?”
Giving in, whether to reason or to Rose’s unbending tone, Uncle Parry scooped up a folded blanket from the floor, laid it carefully upon the mucky seat of his wing chair, and sank down onto it with a sigh. “Well, you see, I had been harbouring certain suspicions ever since Sir Gareth’s arrival ...”
As Uncle Parry spoke, Mr Aubrey silently removed a pile of books from the single remaining chair on the other side of the desk and gestured for Rose to take it. In such a small and cluttered room, no matter how hard she tried to avoid stepping too close to him, it was impossible not to breathe in the mingled scents of lemon and sandalwood from his skin as she passed. Really, it did seem most unjust for him to use such an enticing shaving cream. How was she meant not to move closer to such a lure?
She could only imagine how much sarcasm her sisters would shower upon her, though, if she were ever to share such a thought about any gentleman, no matter how attractive his scent. Heaving an internal sigh, Rose sat down, straight-backed, upon the edge of the chair and tried not to notice Mr Aubrey stepping into place behind her, a silent but attentive presence.
The prickling nape of her neck felt suddenly very bare indeed. Breathing slowly and deliberately, she forced her attention back to her uncle.
“... And you may be aware, my dear, that although we live quite distant from most society, your aunt and I do both have a wide circle of corresponding friends and relatives who keep us well informed.”
“I had noticed, Uncle.”
No matter how thick her personal fog was in her first several months at Gogodd Abbey, it would have been impossible not to notice the number of letters that flooded into their home on a daily basis – along with the replies that flew out in abundance. It took hard written work to maintain true friendships and connections at such a distance, but as she knew, her aunt and uncle were unstinting in their care and affection for all those they claimed as their own ... and they spread that net wide.
“So, I had heard of Sir Gareth before, and in no sympathetic terms, I’m afraid. He was widely known as a brute to his fellows, both at school and university. And in the years afterwards, well ...” Uncle Parry’s face wrinkled in distaste. “I shall not sully your ears, my dear, with the unpleasant details rumoured of his behaviour afterwards in regards to innocent young ladies.”
Rose repressed a sigh. “Of course not.” She’d simply have to ferret those details out from Mr Aubrey later ... unless that, too, would run amok of his aggravating commitment to keeping even the secrets that she badly needed to know.
Ever since Rose had learned exactly what kind of secrets he was keeping, Miss Thomas’s own ire had become uncomfortably understandable. If Georgie’s secret-keeping grated against Miss Thomas even half so much as Mr Aubrey’s did against Rose, then ... well, Rose could only wish her cousin luck in recovering the other girl’s trust for any more shared confidences or earnest, private conversations.
Rose’s fingers tightened on the arms of her chair at the memory of just how earnest and vulnerable her own conversations with Mr Aubrey had been. Thankfully, her uncle was too preoccupied with his story to take note of her simmering tension.
“Suffice it to say, I was quite taken aback to receive a letter from Sir Gareth himself, more than a year ago, enquiring after my opinions on the recent rediscovery of dragons and wondering whether there might be any truth to the old legends of draconic magic.” Uncle Parry sighed. “Perhaps I should not have answered him at all. But as my long decades of research have proven, all rumours must be considered academically inconclusive until they have been fully proven. So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and took his letter in earnest. He said he had been referred to me by other dragon scholars, whose names I recognised and respected, so I responded with the respect and care that all of those gentlemen deserve.”
Rose’s eyes narrowed. “Did he say why he was asking about dragons?”
“He did not. Nor did he ever respond to my reply. In fact, I had almost forgot the whole matter by the time your aunt heard that Sir Gareth was taking Penryddn House for his own. She was intrigued for the sake of our girls until I disclosed the more unfortunate rumours I had heard, at which point we both agreed it was best not to pursue any family acquaintance. Still, for the sake of courtesy, I did send him a note upon his arrival, inviting him to visit my library at any point if he had any further questions about dragons. There was no reply, so I thought perhaps my message had gone astray in the chaos of his house move ... which was why, a fortnight ago, I finally took it upon myself to deliver the invitation in person.”
Of course he did. Rose let out a long, heavy sigh. How could her uncle have resisted the temptation to lecture upon his favourite topic to a new and willing audience? “And what did you tell him while you were there?”
“Nothing! I assure you.” He held up his hands, palms empty. “I was never even allowed through the front door. Instead, a most unpleasant sort of fellow barred the opening ... at least once he finally bothered to answer my knock. He informed me, quite aggressively, that Sir Gareth was not accepting any visitors and the house was in no state for company. I attempted to explain that I was merely inviting Sir Gareth here to Gogodd Abbey, but he would have none of it. And it was no easy conversation, I must say, as there was a shocking amount of commotion taking place inside the house. I had to raise my voice only to be heard! From within the house, I heard shouts, as of multiple men in chase, along with—well, rather rude language, to be frank. Someone yelled, ‘He could be anywhere – you know what they’re capable of!’
