the far end of the table. Woolvey shortly joined her, likewise dressed for riding; Laurence nodded to them both with bare civility and paid no attention to their idle conversation.
Just as he was finishing, his mother came down, showing signs of hurried dressing and lines of fatigue around her eyes; she looked into his face anxiously. He smiled at her, hoping to reassure, but he could see he was not very successful: his unhappiness and the reserve with which he had armored himself against his father’s disapproval and the curiosity of the general company was visible in his face, with all he could do.
“I must be going shortly; will you come and meet Temeraire?” he asked her, thinking they might have a private few minutes walking, at least.
“Temeraire?” Lady Allendale said blankly. “William, you do not mean you have your dragon here, do you? Good Heavens, where is he?”
“Certainly he is here; how else would I be traveling? I left him outside behind the stables, in the old yearling paddock,” Laurence said. “He will have eaten by now; I told him to make free of the deer.”
“Oh!” said Miss Montagu, overhearing; curiosity evidently overcame her objections to the company of an aviator. “I have never seen a dragon; pray may we come? How famous!”
It was impossible to refuse, although he would have liked to, so when he had rung for his baggage, the four of them went out to the field together. Temeraire was sitting up on his haunches, watching the morning fog gradually burn away over the countryside; against the cold grey sky he loomed very large, even from a considerable distance.
Laurence stopped for a moment to pick up a bucket and rags from the stables, then led his suddenly reluctant party on with a certain relish at Woolvey and Miss Montagu’s dragging steps. His mother was not unalarmed herself, but she did not show it, save by holding Laurence’s arm a little more tightly, and stopping several paces back as he went to Temeraire’s side.
Temeraire looked at the strangers with interest as he lowered his head to be washed; his chops were gory with the remains of the deer, and he opened his jaws to let Laurence clean away the blood from the corners of his mouth. There were three or four sets of antlers upon the ground. “I tried to bathe in that pond, but it is too shallow, and the mud came into my nose,” he told Laurence apologetically.
“Oh, he talks!” Miss Montagu exclaimed, clinging to Woolvey’s arm; the two of them had backed away at the sight of the rows of gleaming white teeth: Temeraire’s incisors were already larger than a man’s fist, and with a serrated edge.
Temeraire was taken aback at first; but then his pupils widened and he said, very gently, “Yes, I talk,” and to Laurence, “Would she perhaps like to come up on my back, and see around?”
Laurence could not repress an unworthy flash of malice. “I am sure she would; pray come forward, Miss Montagu, I can see you are not one of those poor-spirited creatures who are afraid of dragons.”
“No, no,” she said palely, drawing back. “I have trespassed on Mr. Woolvey’s time enough, we must be going for our ride.” Woolvey stammered a few equally transparent excuses as well, and they escaped at once together, stumbling in their haste to be away.
Temeraire blinked after them in mild surprise. “Oh, they were just afraid,” he said. “I thought she was like Volly at first. I do not understand; it is not as though they were cows, and anyway I have just eaten.”
Laurence concealed his private sentiment of victory and drew his mother forward. “Do not be afraid at all, there is not the least cause,” he said to her softly. “Temeraire, this is my mother, Lady Allendale.”
“Oh, a mother, that is special, is it not?” Temeraire said, lowering his head to look at her more closely. “I am honored to meet you.”
Laurence guided her hand to Temeraire’s snout, and once she made the first tentative touch to the warm hide, she soon began petting the dragon with more confidence. “Why, the pleasure is mine,” she said. “And how soft! I would never have thought it.”
Temeraire made a pleased low rumble at the compliment and the petting, and Laurence looked at the two of them with a great deal of his happiness restored; he thought how little the rest of the world should matter to him, when he was secure