Page 107 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
The drake’s chest swelled, and blue flame roared past inches from my side, scouring the ground and crisping stray hairs beside my face into fleeting curls of flame that fell as ash.
Into the raging gale, I whispered, “You will not hurt me.” I summoned every trick of focus I had learned. I tore away the conventions and doubts that tangled my mind. My grief and loss and loneliness sank through me like molten iron pouring into a mold—a mold that spits flame, then cools to birth a new form, harder than bone and colder than flesh.
I threw out my hand and screamed, “I command you to stay!”
The drake’s blue fire roared closer. The edge of my sleeve burst into flame. Then the weight of my mind struck, a thrown anvil, and the crystal wall shattered like thinning ice on a spring pool.
The drake’s roaring defiance broke into wails and whimpering. He slithered down from the perch, awkward and groveling, pressing his bronze belly and neck flat on the earth, wings outstretched but shoved into the dirt, helpless and fragile and subservient.
I heard my gasping breaths. The smoking earth snapped and sizzled. I wiped the tears from my face, then beat at my sleeve until it only smoldered.
I turned to go inside. Mary stood by our door, watching, and Mrs. Hill was beside her, open-mouthed.
39
ACCUSATIONS
I blew over the paper,drying the glistening ink to dull black. The loops in my signature,Elizabeth Bennet, looked like the lace on my ebony sleeve.
This last note ordered a bolt of cloth for mourning dress. We all had dark outfits for calling on bereaved friends and had worn those for the funeral, but mourning required more than one gown. The traditional fabric was bombazine, a twill of dark silk. It was expensive, so I hoped one bolt would stretch to fashion dresses for six ladies.
No, it was dresses for five. Lydia was gone to Newcastle and would not return.
I sealed the note and dropped it on a stack of correspondence, a mix of social notes required after Papa’s funeral and business affairs too urgent to defer.
I stretched to unwind my shoulders, then laid my fingers on the old walnut of Papa’s desk. I was using his library. The business journals were here, and Papa would have told me to make it my own, doubtless adding some dark joke. He had little patience for what he called the “social pretense of mourning.”
But I had never sat in his chair before. That thought caught me off guard, and I dabbed some tears into my handkerchief before I finished cleaning the pen.
I left the library, met Mary in the hall, and stared in disbelief.
Mary was wearing a vibrant canary-yellow dress printed with little flowers, brighter than anything she had worn since she was a child.
“What are youwearing?” I burst out, even as part of my mind recalled that Mary had an armoire full of black clothes, so it was dresses for four, not five.
“I am mourning Papa,” Mary said. “He was cross when I began wearing black, so it seems wrong to wear it now. He would like this more.” She held out the skirt, considering. “He was angry with Lydia, so I stole this from her clothes. I took in the bosom myself.”
An unexpected laugh reached my lips. “You are right. Papa would applaud.”
Mrs. Hill joined our hallway assembly. “Ma’am, the parson is here with other gentlemen, calling on Mrs. Bennet. But she does not wish to see them.”
“Very well.” I blew out an unenthusiastic breath, but with some sympathy for my mother. Our parson was a petty gossip and dismissive of the women in his congregation. He had been priggishly disapproving when we provided a single male mourner for the funeral—my mother’s brother—and had added a five-shilling charge for “another man to attend the committal.”
I asked Mrs. Hill to accompany me. Our uncle had departed yesterday, and I did not wish to face unfamiliar gentlemen alone. Mary could not come as her dress would raise eyebrows, while Kitty would be little help, and Jane was impossible.
The men rose as we entered our drawing room. I curtsied and sat, while Mrs. Hill stood to one side, looking nicely formidable.
“Good morning, Miss Bennet,” the parson said. “We had hoped to speak with Mrs. Bennet?”
“My mother is resting. May I help you?”
A notch appeared in the parson’s narrow brow. Apparently, my mother’s absence was an issue.
I knew his two companions by sight, gentlemen who held estates in Hertfordshire. Both were stiff, and one was frowning at me.
The frowning gentleman spoke in a contemptuous tone. “There are concerns for the Longbourn firedrake. We thought it best to see for ourselves the keeping of the animal.”
“I have not the honor of our introduction, sir,” I said tightly.
