“Tea or cordial?”Una asked.
“Tea, please,” he said, as if that answer were the only possible one.
“Sugar?”she asked.
“Two, please,” he said.
She was spooning the sugar cubes into his cup when Mr Anderson said sharply, “Two, not three.”
“Oh!Iamsorry,“ murmured Una, and gave him her cup instead, which she had not yet drunk from.
She eyed the vegetation—if one twin was there, the other could not be far.Ought she to toss another scone after the first, to keep them at bay?Or would they have the sense to divide it?
She must keep Mr Anderson’s attention from wandering to the bushes behind them.
“Mr Anderson,” she said brightly, “do please tell me all about your work at the Smithsonian.”
He began to drone about herpetology and American reptiles while Una smiled and nodded and spread jam and cream on scones for both of them.
“The Cornish way,” he muttered with an air of disapproval as she handed him his sprigged china plate.
“I beg your pardon?”Una asked.
“Never mind,” he said quickly.“I will write to George and tell him what an excellent job you are doing here without him, Miss Worms.Of course, you have a great many servants to help you, I’m sure.”
Una took a sip of tea.It was overly sweet, and brought her no pleasure.
The fern behind Mr Anderson trembled hungrily, and a small hand began to stretch towards the plate of scones.
Una was considering an impromptu diversion—hysterics?choking?—when one provided itself.
Two tiny dragons, wings whirring, darted close to them.
Mr Anderson jerked back.
“They are attracted to the sweetness,” Una explained, and she stretched out her teacup as an offering.A scarlet dragon the size of her thumb hovered at the lip of the cup, tasting the liquid with its proboscis, delicate as a crocus stamen.
“Oh, look there!”Una said, pointing upwards at the blur of an aerial combat.“A duel!”
While Anderson was staring up, shading his eyes from the glare, she tossed a scone behind him.It was caught by a small hand before it hit the tiled path.
“They fight each other?”he asked.
A strained quality in his voice came into focus, and she suddenly knew what he reminded her of.
A few of the men in the village had come back from the war in South Africa ten years ago.Some of them had been unchanged, but a few of them had been rather the worse for wear—she had noticed it herself, as well as hearing her aunt and uncle talking about what might be done for them.
“Yes, they fight over the females, you know,” Una explained.
She debated asking him about his leg, and if he’d been injured in the war, but then remembered that the Americans hadn’t had anything to do with South Africa; that was between the Empire and the Boers.
“The females,” he repeated in an ominously soft voice.“But they don’t care about the men fighting for them.It’s all one to them.Isn’t it, Miss Worms?”
Una was taken aback.Did he really expect her to have a special insight into the mating habits of nectar-eating reptiles by virtue of her sex?
“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” she replied sweetly.“More tea?”
She was looking forward to Mr Anderson’s departure.And not just because it would be a relief to her nerves.
