“Doesn’t the house get damp with a moat around it?” I asked Mia.
“Only in the cellar. We have to run a dehumidifier constantly down there.”
“You have a cellar?” That sounded romantic.
“Dungeon, really. It’s where we stash visitors when we’re sick of them,” she said with a grin.
“Mia.” Archer’s voice was soft but the warning was clear.
Her shoulders drooped slightly.
“Hey, I was thinking.” I said the first thing that came into my mind, wanting to cheer her up. “Do you think tomorrow, after I’ve looked around the gardens, I could polish the silver candlesticks in the dining room?”
Mia’s surprise disappeared as she looked at the silver cuff on my wrist and evidently understood. “I don’t know if we’ve got any polish,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It might need to go on the shopping list. But yeah, fondle them to your heart’s content. I guess we’re going to have to search you when you leave.”
“Mia.” Archer’s tone was much sharper, and I winced. How he conveyed so much disapproval and discipline with one wordwas beyond me. Mia was being playful. It wasn’t her fault she was still a little young and evidently didn’t understand that the one thing dragons never joked about was their treasure.
“Tell me about the donkeys,” I said in another change of subject, surely safe this time.
She did, and showed me some photos. “Donkeys are hardcore, Sally says. In some countries, they’re used as guard animals for flocks of sheep. They’ve even chased off wolves.”
“So a dragon or two shouldn’t faze them too much,” I interpreted. “Sorry, who’s Sally?”
“Oh, she owns them. That’s a point, actually—if you see a stray human woman around, it’s likely to be Sally.”
“Anyone else I should be aware of?”
“No,” Mia said. “It’s just us. Me, Tim and Archer.”
“And approximately fifty million loudly quacking ducks,” I pointed out, and the sadness that had shown on her face disappeared as she laughed at me.
ARCHER
I’d taught Mia better than that. I could understand how Ollie’s enthusiasm and liveliness might cause her to ignore stuffy-seeming rules. But Ollie would be going home, back to his family, and although I didn’tthinkhe’d be malicious about us, a little questioning would elicit a torrent of information from him. If they learned that I wasn’t in complete control even of my immediate family, that would be a weakness they could exploit against me.
I didn’t know why we were always looking for weaknesses in other families to take advantage of. Did human families do the same, or was this a dragon thing? We’d kept separate for so many years now that we all assumed hostile intent. Perhaps Margaret’s idea about closer integration would change things.
I put my phone to one side and watched Ollie and Mia. They were giggling together over something. I was glad that it was Ollie who had come to stay with us. He and Mia appeared capable of entertaining one another endlessly despite the age difference, meaning I wouldn’t have to take too much time away from my work.
We were finally on a more or less even keel financially. Dad’s debts had died with him—he hadn’t been able to secure them against the Court, thank God, because it was tied up in a trust. But he’d drained the accounts he’d inherited, and it had taken me years to get to a point where every waking hour wasn’t worrying about paying the bills. Things were no longer that tough, but I still had to work every hour I could.
Mia’s phone sounded, and she looked at Ollie with laughing eyes. “Apparently, you’ve broken Nick’s heart by not flirting with him.”
“What’s that?” My fingers dug into the arms of my chair, my dragon sounding in my voice.Mineechoed deep inside me.
Ollie’s eyes widened as he stared at me, his cheeks flushing. “Just some guy,” he said. “I thought he was being friendly. Guess I missed the bit where he was flirting.”
I felt he wasn’t being honest with me, and my anger flared. But I had no claim on Ollie, and that was the way it should be. If I were to make a move on him, how could he refuse the head of family he’d been forced to stay with? Even if somethingwereto happen between us—and for an instant, I let myself think about his face turned up to mine, that smile aimed at me and me alone—it would destroy what I was so drawn to in him. There was no room for joy in my life, and if Ollie were to be with me, it would slowly be sucked out of him, leaving him a bitter shell like me.
My silent disapproval changed the atmosphere in the room. When the silliness and the laughter stopped, I realised I’dactually quite liked it, so I left to go and make hot chocolate for us all. Maybe in my absence, they’d start having fun again.
By the time I returned with their chocolate, they were laughing. Although I’d wanted that, it hurt that they couldn’t do that with me there, even as it reinforced how wrong I was for Ollie.
I took mine to the dining room to work in peace and found myself listening for Ollie’s laugh, clear and bright, wondering how it had the power to make the house feel warmer and more alive.
It didn’t matter. He was only here for three months. Any change would be temporary.
OLLIE
