looked a little hard at Rankin before answering Laurence. “Can’t say that I did; squalled a little, I suppose, but one gets used to it, and we run the squeakers about to keep them from getting too homesick.” He turned back to his food with no attempt to keep the conversation going, and Laurence was left to turn back and continue his discussion with Rankin.
“Am I late—oh!” It was a slim young boy, his voice not yet broken but tall for that age, hurrying to the table in some disarray; his long red hair was half coming out of his plaited queue. He halted abruptly at the table’s edge, then slowly and reluctantly took the seat on Rankin’s other side, which was the only one left vacant. Despite his youth, he was a captain: the coat he wore had the double golden bars across the shoulders.
“Why, Catherine, not at all; allow me to pour you some wine,” Rankin said. Laurence, already looking in surprise at the boy, thought for a moment he had misheard; then saw he had not, at all: the boy was indeed a young lady. Laurence looked around the table blankly; no one else seemed to think anything of it, and it was clearly no secret: Rankin was addressing her in polite and formal tones, serving her from the platters.
“Allow me to present you,” Rankin added, turning. “Captain Laurence of Temeraire, Miss—oh, no, I forget; that is, Captain Catherine Harcourt of, er, Lily.”
“Hello,” the girl muttered, not looking up.
Laurence felt his face going red; she was sitting there in breeches that showed every inch of her leg, with a shirt held closed only by a neckcloth; he shifted his gaze to the unalarming top of her head and managed to say, “Your servant, Miss Harcourt.”
This at least caused her to raise her head. “No, it is Captain Harcourt,” she said; her face was pale, and her spray of freckles stood out prominently against it, but she was clearly determined to defend her rights; she gave Rankin a strangely defiant look as she spoke.
Laurence had used the address automatically; he had not meant to offend, but evidently he had. “I beg your pardon, Captain,” he said at once, bowing his head in apology. It was indeed difficult to address her so, however, and the title felt strange and awkward on his tongue; he was afraid he sounded unnaturally stiff. “I meant no disrespect.” And now he recognized the dragon’s name as well; it had struck him as unusual yesterday, but with so much else to consider, that one detail had slipped his mind. “I believe you have the Longwing?” he said politely.
“Yes, that is my Lily,” she said, an involuntary warmth coming into her voice as she spoke her dragon’s name.
“Perhaps you were not aware, Captain Laurence, that Longwings will not take male handlers; it is some odd quirk of theirs, for which we must be grateful, else we would be deprived of such charming company,” Rankin said, inclining his head to the girl. There was an ironic quality to his voice that made Laurence frown; the girl was very obviously not at ease, and Rankin did not seem to be making her more so. She had dropped her head again, and was staring at her plate with her lips pale and pressed together into an unhappy line.
“It is very brave of you to undertake such a duty, M—Captain Harcourt; a glass—that is to say, to your health,” Laurence said, amending at the last moment and making the toast a sip; he did not think it appropriate to force a slip of a girl to drink an entire glass of wine.
“It is no more than anyone else does,” she said, muttering; then belatedly she took her own glass and raised it in return. “I mean: and to yours.”
Silently he repeated her title and name to himself; it would be very rude of him to make the mistake again, having been corrected once, but it was so strange he did not entirely trust himself yet. He took care to look at her face and not elsewhere. With her hair pulled back so tightly she did look boyish, which was some help, along with the clothes that had allowed him to mistake her initially; he supposed that was why she went about in male dress, appalling and illegal though it was.
He would have liked to talk to her, although it would have been difficult not to ask questions, but he