“Which offices exactly?”Simon asked.
“They did not say.”Edith’s father looked back and forth between them.“But perhaps you have the same thought—or fear—that I have.”
Edith suddenly felt the need to sit down.Simon sensed it, for he guided her to an old chest nearby.
“Has Stephen Fairweather said anything to you, sir?”Simon asked.
Father shook his head.
“But he would,” Edith said.“Wouldn’t he?”
They all contemplated this for a moment.Stephen had warned them in the past about Dr Farley’s influence at the War Office, but he had not been able to stop it.They had had to do that themselves.
Edith shook her head.“But people love the dragons, Father.They’re something everyone can be proud of!Surely they wouldn’t seriously consider Farley’s plan to make chemical weapons from dragon venom again?The man in the street wouldn’t stand for shutting them up in laboratories, not when so many people have come and seen how extraordinary they are!”
“Perhaps the man in the street wouldn’t,” her father said thoughtfully.“But I rather think the next temptation will take another form than the late unlamented doctor’s chemistry experiments.”
“You think there might be other applications,” Simon said abruptly.
“Don’t say it,” Edith interrupted fiercely.“Don’t say ‘The Next War’—the newspapers won’t say anything else.”
“Edith, you know there will be wars and rumours of war,” her father said gently.“Whether we say it or not, the fact remains.”
Edith deflated.“It’s foolish and selfish of me, but I thought we were safe from it all, here in Ormdale.”
Simon’s arm went round her.“You are as safe as I can make you.”
“But it’s not me they’ll come after,” said Edith sadly, “it’s the dragons.”
Simon looked at her father thoughtfully.“Could they take them from us, sir?”
“Though wekeepthem,“ her father answered, “they are not ours.They belong to the Crown.The Crown might very well direct us to place them at the disposal of His Majesty’s Government.So, I’m afraid, even if the situation with Elfed were different…”
“No Blackpool,” Edith finished.“Will you tell Violet?”
“Perhaps I should,” her father said bleakly.“But for now… I do so hate to discourage her.Emily and I have done our best to convince the girls that they have real choices, that they don’t have to keep secrets anymore.It seems like going backwards.”
There was a silence.
“Did we make a mistake?”asked Edith.The question might have been for any of those who had agreed to end the secrecy of England’s Dragon Families.“Ought we to have kept it all hidden, after all?”
“Father?”Simon asked softly.“What do you say to that?”
They all looked at Forrester, who had remained silent throughout, which was not uncharacteristic of the man Edith had once thought of as a shadow.
Forrester’s dark gaze went from Edith to his son, and she could trace his thoughts back to the web of deceit that had entangled his own family with the Drakes.Then he said deliberately, “Ormdale was sick.It was long past time to drag it all out into the light.We must take the consequences as they come.”
Simon nodded and gripped Edith’s shoulder, as if he would lend her his own strength.
“We acted according to our consciences,” agreed Sir George, “and that is all anyone can do.And it is what we must all go on doing, whatever happens.”
“Yes,” Edith agreed.But her heart was not in it.
“You’re awake,” Edith said in an accusatory tone, two hours later.
“Yes,” Simon replied.
Edith felt in the dark for her husband’s shoulder, then rolled closer and laid her head on it.
