“Your eyes lit up, you know, when Violet talked about air-racing,” she said.
“Did they?”
“Do you remember the first evening we spent alone together—in the library downstairs, here in this house?When we first spoke of flying on a dragon’s back?”
“Of course,” he said.“I remember it very well.I could hardly breathe when I looked at you.”
She nestled closer.“I’m afraid, Simon.”
“Of what, precisely?”
She bit her lip.“I don’t want to tell you.”
“It helps to name it.”
“Oh, well, then!”She took a deep breath.“I’m afraid they’ll take you away and make you a captain of an air cavalry of dragons.”
She had expected him to laugh, but he didn’t.
“You always have these fears when there’s a baby on the way,” he said instead.
“Notthisfear,“ she said a little tartly.“Other ones.This one is quite new.”
“Sorry.If it’s any comfort, the population of English dragons is not nearly robust enough to support any such scheme.And if there’s one thing civil servants are good at, it’s counting things.”
“Yes, thatisa comfort,“ she said, relaxing a little against his side.“Tell me how impossible it is.It would take years, wouldn’t it?Decades, perhaps.”
She yawned.
“Ages,” he said, kissing her fingers very gently one at a time.“Breeding…training…development of armour…weaponry…testing…” His low voice was irresistibly soporific.“Go back to sleep.”
After that, it was Simon who lay awake.
Chapter thirty-five
Ormdale
Unalayinherbed, her thoughts racing about like ants from an upturned log.Violet had spent two years in the circus, doing only heaven knew what, and now she wanted to take the dragons out of Ormdale and make them compete against flying machines.
A few hours ago, at the absurd family dinner, Una had felt a tiny beam of hope that her sister might settle down into a quiet life in Ormdale.And now this!
A creaking floorboard outside her door set all of her senses tingling.
Oolong jumped softly to the floor and went across to the door.His tongue quested through the crack under it.
From the other side of the door came a fulsome sneeze.The sneeze of a woman who did not care about being thought insufficiently feminine.
Una padded across the floor and unlocked the door.
Opening it revealed the face of Violet, looking sheepishly up from a mess of blankets.
“Is there something wrong with Gwen’s bed?”asked Una, remembering Pip’s complaint about it.
Violet rubbed her nose.“Nothing at all.And I can sleep anywhere.”
“Then why sleep outside my bedroom door?I’m not the one who disappears.”
Violet sighed.“I wanted to be sure you were safe, Loon.”
