Page 145 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“Really, Mary, you are becoming positively frightening.”
She blinked at me, unconventional with her straight hair and elegantly fitted but inky-black gown, and she looked like a fierce-minded northern baroness in one of Georgiana’s moody, romantic paintings.
“I am making my way to the garden,” I said, as a gentle reminder.
“I know it is time. I was just not yet… able.” She settled her spectacles. “I have some books from Longbourn. I thought you might wish to take these?” From a stack on another shelf, she offered me three slim volumes titledVisions of a Fair Societyby James Bennet.
“The books Papa wrote,” I said, looking them over.
“You intended to read them,” Mary noted, “and they are not very big.”
“Are they good?” I did not need to ask if she had read them.
Mary seemed mystified. Finally, she emphasized, “They are byPapa.”
“You do not need them?”
“I remember them,” she said. “And I have this.”
She showed me a different book from that stack, opening it to the title page:A Vindication of the Rights of Womanby Mary Wollstonecraft. It was signed by her in June 1793, two months before Mary was born.
Below that, Papa had added a later dedication:
“Dear Mary. Play all the Beethoven you like. With great love, your foolish father.”
She said, “He gave it to me because of the ball…” then her voice failed.
“How lovely.”
She removed her spectacles to wipe her eyes. “I shall miss you, Lizzy.”
“And I, you.”
Family and friendswere assembling in the north garden. Kitty ran to me while an unfamiliar Navy officer followed in her wake looking hopelessly smitten.
“Goodness, Lizzy!” she said to me. “You are dressed like a man!”
“Flying gear,” I explained. “It is cold and windy up high. Damp, too, in the clouds.” I showed her my goggles, which I would not put on until the last moment. She pursed her lips, unconvinced by my fashion choices.
The Duke of Wellington was waiting with a characteristically quirked smile. His bow was casual. “Mrs. Darcy. I have not gotten a straight answer from your husband on where you two will go.”
“We have not fully decided,” I said. “Darcy has arranged meetings in Egypt, so we shall start there. That is where the song was broken. But the history of draca and binding are farther east, and much more ancient.”
“What do you expect to learn?”
I lowered my voice. Some here would understand; some would not. “It is not about learning. I am… overfilled with the passions and vengeance of past wyves. I hope to set them to rest, one-by-one, or at least to understand them better. It will be a long enterprise.”
The duke’s gray-blue eyes were compassionate. “May they, and you, find rest.”
Mary and Georgiana arrived then with Darcy. He took his place at my side, looking very technological wrapped in leather flying gear with several unnecessary attachments, compasses and sextants and the like.
The duke nodded a greeting to Mary and said to us both, “Tinsdale sends his regards.”
“He would not dare,” Mary scoffed.
“He certainlywoulddare,” I said. “That man has always fantasized he had influence and respect beyond his merits.”
“I think his merits fit very comfortably in his small prison cell,” the duke replied.
