Empire of Ivory Page 0,37
fears.
Lord Allendale did not scruple, either, to approach and interrogate her; Emily, perfectly innocent of malice, answered in her clear girlish voice, "Oh, I have lessons every day, sir, from the captain, although it is Temeraire who gives me my mathematics, now, as Captain Laurence does not like the calculus. But I had rather practice fencing," she added candidly, and looked a little uncertain when she found herself laughed over, and pronounced a dear, by the pair of society ladies who had been persuaded to venture close to the great table, by her example.
"A masterful stroke, Captain," Wilberforce murmured softly; "wherever did you find her?" and did not wait for an answer before he accosted a few gentlemen who had risked coming near, and worked upon them in the same fashion, adding to his persuasions that if Lady So-and-So had approached Temeraire, surely they could not show themselves hesitant.
Temeraire was very interested in all the guests, particularly admiring the more bejeweled of the ladies, and managed by accident to please the Marchioness of Carstoke, a lady of advanced years and receded neckline whose bosom was concealed only by a vulgar set of emeralds-in-gold, by informing her she looked a good deal more the part, in his estimation, than the Queen of Prussia, whom he had only seen in traveling-clothes. Several gentlemen challenged him to perform simple sums; he blinked a little, and having given them the answers inquired whether this was a sort of game performed at parties, and whether he ought to offer them a mathematical problem in return.
"Dyer, pray bring me my sand-table," he said, and when this was arranged, he sketched out with his claw a small diagram for purposes of setting them a question on the Pythagorean theorem, sufficient to baffle most of the attending gentlemen, whose own mathematical skills did not extend past the card-tables.
"But it is a very simple exercise," Temeraire said in some confusion, wondering aloud to Laurence if he had missed some sort of joke, until at last a gentleman, a member of the Royal Society on a quest to observe for himself certain aspects of Celestial anatomy, was able to solve the puzzle.
When Temeraire had audibly spoken to the servants in Chinese, and conversed in fluent French with several of the guests, and had failed to eat or crush anyone, increasing fascination began at last to trump fear and draw more of the company towards him. Laurence shortly found himself quite neglected as of considerably less interest: a circumstance which would have delighted him, if only it had not left him subject to awkward conversation with his father, who inquired stiltedly about Emily's mother: questions whose evasion would only have made Laurence seem the more guilty, and yet whose perfectly truthful answers, that Emily was the natural-born daughter of a Jane Roland, a gentlewoman living in Dover, and whose education he had taken as his charge, left entirely the wrong impression, which Laurence could no more correct than his father would outright ask.
"She is a pretty-behaved girl, for her station in life, and I hope she does not want for anything," Lord Allendale said, in a sort of sidling way. "I am sure if there was any difficulty in finding her a respectable situation, when she is grown, your mother and I would be glad to be of assistance."
Laurence did his best to make it clear that this handsome offer was unnecessary, in some desperation turning to a lie of omission, saying, "She has friends, sir, as must prevent her ever being in real distress; I believe there is already some arrangement made for her future." He gave no details, and his father, his sense of propriety satisfied, did not inquire further; fortunate, as that arrangement, military service in the Corps, would hardly have recommended itself to Lord Allendale. The bleak notion came to Laurence only afterwards, that if Excidium were to die, Emily should have no dragon to inherit, and thus no assured post: though a handful of Longwing eggs were presently being tended at Loch Laggan, there were more women serving in the Corps than would be needed to satisfy these new hatchlings.
He made his escape, saying he saw Wilberforce beckoning him over; that gentleman indeed welcomed his company, if he had not immediately been soliciting it, and took hold of Laurence's arm to guide him through the crowd, and introduce him to all his prodigious acquaintance, amongst the curiously mingled attendance. Many had come merely to be entertained,