Page 55 of Claws and Contrivances
Was all that shining bravery to be wasted for the sake of one man’s greed?
It was insupportable. No, more than that: to betray any of the dragons’ trust by handing them back into misery was impossible. And yet ... how could she betray her family’s trust?
“I should never have come here in the first place,” she said softly. “If I hadn’t drawn Sir Gareth’s attention with that visit ...”
“Then he would still have eventually come to Gogodd Abbey as he expanded the search for his escaped dragons. You neither chose nor committed any of his crimes along the way.” Mr Aubrey’s gaze was steady as he stood before her, laying out his calm, factual words like stepping stones to guide her out of the swirling morass of her emotions.
Rose took a deep, cleansing breath as she met his eyes past Rhiannon’s rectangular head and felt the final fragments of white fog clear away at last. “Leaving now would do no one any good.” Sir Gareth would hardly refrain from carrying out his threats only because she wasn’t there as a witness, and abandoning either her family or her dragons was unthinkable.
“Oh, no. You’re not the one who must leave Gogodd Abbey.” The voice that rang through the room with operatic resonance came from the door closest to the pantry, which Rupert and Llewellyn had fled through earlier ... and which, Rose now remembered, had creaked slightly during her confrontation with Sir Gareth. Apparently, it had been eased ever-so-slightly open by an eavesdropper.
Serena stood in the fully open doorway, her face chalk-pale against her deep black hair, gripping the doorframe with one hand. She looked both tragic and magnificent as she declaimed, “Have no fear, cousin Rose. I won’t allow anyone else to pay the price for my terrible mistakes ... so I will leave now, to save all of you.”
For a moment, Rose simply stared at her cousin in open-mouthed shock. Then Serena turned, with a swish of skirts and a throbbing, “Farewell ...”
And Rose leapt to her feet. “Wait!” She shifted Rhiannon to the seat of the couch, lunged across the room, and reached the doorway just in time to grasp the back of Serena’s gown and drag her cousin to a halt.
Serena let out a long-suffering sigh. “Really, cousin, I know you’re soft-hearted, but even you must see that there is no sense in trying to stop me now. I have brought scandal and disrepute upon our family, so—”
“Georgie!” Rose bellowed at the top of her lungs.
“Ugh!” Serena’s lovely face contorted into a mutinous scowl as she attempted to yank free from Rose’s grip and failed. “Must we really bring Georgie into this? You know she’ll only—”
The other door opened, and Georgie ducked her head inside, looking flushed. “What’s amiss? Did you find Papa’s missing dragon?” Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of Rose and her sister’s respective positions. “What’s Serena done now?”
“I beg your pardon—!”
“She’s trying to run away and martyr herself.” Rose wrapped her fingers even more tightly around the muslin of Serena’s gown.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Rolling her eyes, Georgie let the door fall shut behind her and strode across the room to join them. “Shall I bring Mama to talk sense into her? Or should we just lock the door and sit on her until the madness shifts?”
“You’re both being impossible!” Serena’s voice rose to a near shriek and, for the first time, Rose spotted the tracks of real tears on her face. “I know none of you have ever taken me seriously, but this is no laughing matter. If only anyone in this family would listen, for once, and believe me ...!”
“You’re right,” Rose said. “This truly is a disaster, and it isn’t amusing in the slightest ... so, Georgie?” She turned to her favourite cousin and braced herself. “I think you should go and get your mother – and your father and Beth, as well. It’s time for all of us to stop keeping secrets.”
Chapter 26
It took a full twenty minutes to find and herd nearly all of Rose’s relatives into the cosy family parlour, along with Rhiannon, Griff, and Cwtch. Llewellyn was still sheltering with Rupert in the nursery under the resigned eyes of Rupert’s nurse; Rose could only assume there must be another unknown dragon hiding somewhere in the abbey, too, after Rhiannon’s earlier rescue mission. She would deal with that addition to the growing menagerie later. First, she had to face the family that had granted her own safe harbour seven months ago.
“Well, child?” Aunt Parry, who had more than one fresh streak of dark ink smeared across her cheek, looked up expectantly from the sofa where she had settled beside Uncle Parry, with Cwtch sprawled comfortably across both pairs of feet. “What was so urgent that we all needed to be summoned with such speed? Are you and Mr Aubrey ready to discuss your wedding plans?”
“No!” Rose jolted in her own seat, a high-backed chair that she had placed to face her aunt and uncle while her cousins filled in the circle around them, and Mr Aubrey sat beside her.
Rhiannon was still refusing to move more than a foot away from Rose, so she was wrapped possessively around one of Rose’s legs now, her back half hidden beneath Rose’s skirts, while Griff sat nervously perched in Rose’s lap, accepting her soothing strokes and watching the rest of the room with wary golden eyes. He jolted, too, at Rose’s sudden movement, so she forced herself to lower her voice as she continued, “It’s nothing to do with that matter, Aunt.”
“Hmm. The time is coming soon, remember, when we will have to begin our discussions ...”
“Eleven more days!” Rose blurted out the words like a shield. “We’ll talk about it in eleven more days, I promise. At the moment, I’m afraid we have more urgent concerns.”
“Indeed?” A frown settled between Aunt Parry’s eyebrows. “You’d better explain the matter to all of us, then.”
Serena, who had collapsed facedown across the neighbouring settee, let out a throbbing moan of despair. Beth, perching on the arm of the settee, patted Serena’s disordered hair consolingly while Georgie gave Rose an encouraging nod from her sprawled position on the other side of the circle. Uncle Parry, at a pointed prod of his wife’s finger, finally lowered the book he had been sneak-reading.
“Yes, yes.” He sighed. “I suppose we must, at this point. You may as well tell her everything, my dear.”
“Almost everyone here knows at least a piece of what’s been happening,” said Rose, “but it’s time for all of us to fit those pieces together.”
When they did, and her aunt and uncle learned what had come of her own impetuous interference ...
