The Highland Dragon's Lady (10 page)

Reggie let go of the last branch and thumped to the ground beneath the elm tree. The moonless night welcomed her. The wind was warm, and the stars shone down through the branches like the eyes of old friends.

She took a look around her just in case. No outcry went up from the house; she couldn’t see light in any of the windows above her; Pater didn’t keep dogs; and they had no neighbors within half a mile or more. The country did have advantages. Reggie knew she could never have gotten away with such a midnight excursion in London.

Then again, in London, she’d never felt such a strong impulse to wander after dark.

She struck off across the lawn with no real plan, only some idea of heading toward the lake. She could watch the stars in the water, listen to the bullfrogs and the owls, and be alone for once in what felt like a hundred years. Odd how six people could be a crowd when she lived daily among millions.

The grass rustled beneath her feet. It was still green, or would be in the sunlight, but it was drying out now. Autumn was coming. Soon the leaves would turn, and the chestnuts would fall; already most of society was out shooting in country houses like Whitehill.

Well, probably not
exactly
like Whitehill.

Reggie glanced back at the house over her shoulder. It looked normal enough: the long, low building of the original abbey, with the new portion rising to one side, a red brick Palladian square that managed by the grace of trees and gardens not to look utterly awkward. One wouldn’t have looked at it and thought of ghosts.

One wouldn’t have looked at Colin and thought of dragons, or at Reggie and of…whatever was in her bloodline.
Gods
or
fairies
or
fallen
angels.
That was a revelation to spring on a girl. She wondered if things would have been easier in her youth if she’d known where her talent had come from.

Probably not. History rarely made anything easier.

Besides, nobody needed a thirteen-year-old to think she was descended from Titania or Zeus, let alone anyone more Miltonian. Reggie had been bad enough at that age already.

She followed a path through the gardens, absently trailing a hand across the leaves of the hedges while listening to her own steps and the call of night birds. She recognized owls; the others were a mystery, and so were the dark shapes that flew above her head.

Then a white shape moved on the ground, at the edge of her vision. Reggie spun to look.

She saw a sexless human figure standing near one of the riding paths, completely white and slightly translucent around the edges. Shapeless robes, also white, wound around it. The face above them was masklike in its regularity, but Reggie could make out no edges to it, and none of the stiffness a real mask would have.

The figure stared at her. She stared back at it.

Then it vanished.

All of a sudden, the night air was much colder. Reggie sucked in a long, unsteady breath. Even after the past few days, even after growing up with her power, she still had to tell herself that she really
had
seen what she’d thought she had. She pinched herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

Then she took off down the path where the figure had been.

For all that Mater complained about the gardeners, the path was well-kept. The ground under Reggie’s feet was smooth and uncluttered, and no low branches or wayward briars got in her way. Without corsets or skirts, wearing a pair of flat-heeled boots, she ran lightly and well. There was joy in the motion, in the world streaming silently around her, even in the thrill of pursuit itself. She’d known similar thrills when she’d gone hunting, but never anything quite so visceral.

She could see no trace of the white figure, though.

That didn’t surprise her. Clearly it hadn’t been a person—or wasn’t a person now, even if it had been Janet Morgan once—and it didn’t have to follow the rules that people did. She ran thinking that there might have been some significance in the place where it had been standing, that there might be a sign at the end of the path: buried treasure, maybe, or Janet Morgan’s
real
grave.

Mostly, she just ran to be running.

Athletic as she was, she was a woman, not a horse or a dragon, and she couldn’t keep up her speed forever. Half a mile down the path, she slowed up enough to catch her breath and to let her vision clear.

When it did, she saw a small clearing ahead of her. The trees were young, not very tall or very wide, and Reggie could see the stars between them.

She saw more than that when her eyes focused. Something moved within the clearing. It wasn’t the white figure. This was dark, blending with the shadows except for the motion Reggie had seen and a faint suggestion that it shone in the starlight.

It was very large.

Another movement brought a glimmer of silver to her attention. It took Reggie a moment before she recognized it as an eye, about twice the size of her hand, with a slit pupil and no white around it. In the darkness, it shone like a fallen star.

It was looking toward her.

Reggie leaped backward, which might have allowed her a graceful escape—she wasn’t sure whether the shape had seen her yet—except that fear had narrowed her perception and skewed her sense of direction. In short, she ran into a tree. Her head hit the bark with an audible
whack
and a jolt of dull pain. She bit back a curse, then froze as the creature, alert now, turned to take another look at her.

Hitting one’s head was not a recipe for improved vision. She saw a dark shape, blurred around the edges, with those huge silver eyes. She managed not to shriek when it moved closer. Then she saw a hint of blue in the eyes, and the outlines of the creature became clearer. Reggie saw a long neck—curved horns—wings—

Fairy tales had been long ago for her, but a few images had stuck. She thought
dragon
with, possibly, the first sense of relief any human being had ever felt on making that identification.

“Colin?”

She whispered the name, partly because she wanted to be discreet but mostly because she didn’t think she had enough air in her lungs to speak louder.

Even as the massive head moved in what she could only assume was a dragonish attempt to nod, Reggie squirmed inwardly, embarrassed to have asked. As though there were many dragons around Whitehill—as though any sinister third cousin of Colin’s would actually bother to correct any mistaken identity.

“What are you
doing
out here?”

The mouth began to open, disclosing extremely large, extremely sharp teeth. Then Colin stopped and looked down at Reggie. She wasn’t sure what his expression meant—not until he sighed and lowered his head toward her.

Ah. He couldn’t speak English in this form. She couldn’t speak Dragon, if that was even a language. There was only one avenue of communication open to them.

Still, she hesitated with her hand half an inch away from his jaw. “Are you sure?”

In answer, he raised his head. Reggie had a moment to feel scales beneath her hand, metal-smooth and slightly chilly to the touch. Then a stream of images entered her mind: not a flood, as with most people on whom she’d ended up using her power, but a steady march of pictures and feelings.

She was Colin, looking out the window of his room and seeing, close up, the figure she’d seen from a distance. She knew that this wasn’t the first time he’d glimpsed whatever-it-was. Together, they remembered a much less human, much less
finished
form.

In their memory, Colin spoke a phrase in what sounded like Latin. Reggie thought one of the words might have been
sight
, but she wouldn’t have put money on it. She’d always been more interested in languages that living people spoke. (Although Latin might actually be one of those, depending on how one defined “people.” Quite a thought.) She saw the world blur into a mass of shifting colors and saw the figure’s gray-green trail.

The moment of shifting was a blur, whether because her human mind was too small and fragile to take all of it in or because even Colin felt it that way. Then she was flying, as she’d flown once before inside Colin’s memory, looking at Whitehill from above and feeling the ground fall away from her. He had been more businesslike on this flight than on the first one she’d called forth from his memory, but the sensations were still there, even if he’d paid less attention to them.

As him, Reggie saw the trail of the figure grow fainter, and then fainter still, and felt the dragon’s body dive to pick it up again, peering closer and closer to the ground until here, in this clearing, the trail stopped. It had been sudden. Colin hadn’t meant for that to get through, but Reggie felt it all the same. His landing had been clumsy, and he’d known he was lucky not to have injured himself.

And then—a human shape in the darkness.

Reggie stepped back. Colin wouldn’t want her seeing herself through his eyes—indeed, the memories were growing less orderly now—and she didn’t think she wanted to get that perspective herself.

Not really.

Not when she was being sensible, anyhow, and Reggie thought that this was one of the times when being sensible really was the best course.

Back in her own body, catching her breath and once more getting used to the feeling of human-sized lungs and human proximity to the ground, Reggie just stared for a bit. “I…” she managed eventually. “Well. Right.” She gave herself the best mental shake she could manage. “I think I’m rather jealous. Men might not ever fly like
that
, whatever they do on the Continent. But—”

Colin froze. Reggie stopped talking and listened. Footsteps were approaching, heavy ones, and bodies were coming through the brush.

Keen smell and hearing told Colin that the approaching forms were a man and a large dog. Experience suggested
gamekeeper
, given the evidence at hand. Probably looking for poachers. Damn. The dog would probably run—there had once been dogs, or beasts very like them, trained to attack dragons, but that knowledge was probably centuries old and certainly miles from Whitehill—but men were tricky when they were frightened. Some of them ran. Some cowered. Some went berserk, a more intimidating prospect in modern times. Two barrels from a shotgun would not leave Colin in an enviable condition, and would at the very least be the devil to explain in the morning.

He took a quick look at his surroundings. Hiding was impossible. Running along the ground would only result in a long chase through the woods. Changing back into human form would mean a long chase through the woods while naked, which would also be hard to explain, not to mention painful, between the cold and the likelihood of briars. Flight was the best way out. This close at hand, with the lantern that even now bobbed closer, the gamekeeper might well spot him, but Colin would simply have to take that chance.

In the trees beyond, not at all far away, the dog started to whine. Colin heard a man trying to keep his voice low even while he cursed at the animal, and he heard the puzzlement and fear beneath those curses as well. He gathered his body, preparing to spring into the air.

“Wait,” Reggie hissed. She held up one hand, the sleeves of her shirt flashing white. “I’ll handle it.”

Without another word, she headed into the trees. As she walked, Colin heard her start humming. A short distance away, her footsteps stopped, and Reggie raised her voice. “Good God!”

The man choked off a curse. The dog’s whining didn’t change. Colin could almost see it straining at its leash, desperate to get away from the smell up ahead. Humans might have spun legends about his people, animals knew them as large predators that stunk of magic.

The man spoke, hesitant this time. “Miss Talbot-Jones?”

“Hobb, isn’t it? Didn’t know anyone else was awake at this hour.”

“Well, miss, Rex was nervous. And I thought—it might do to check, that’s all.”

Even without Reggie’s power, Colin knew what the man had thought and not said: guests were trouble, or brought trouble with them. You couldn’t accuse an official visitor at Whitehill of poaching—even if you caught him with a trap on a moonless night, most likely—but most of them had brought servants, and catching a few unauthorized rabbits wasn’t the worst thing a man could get up to in the dark woods.

The thought of rabbits, authorized or not, had a visceral appeal. Not that they’d make more than a mouthful, but they would be prey, and that was rare enough in these lands. He thought of chasing deer back at Loch Arach, and the memory was vivid enough to make his stomach growl.

The dog yelped.

“Have you found anything?” Reggie asked, a little louder than conversation would have called for. “He does seem out of sorts.”

“Nothing so far, miss.”

Reggie made a small noncommittal noise. “Well,” she said, and Colin could see her now, shifting from foot to foot, her hands in the pockets of her trousers. “I thought maybe I saw a light near here. A little ways west.” She’d be pointing now, off to the side and away from Colin. “I, um, couldn’t sleep, you understand.”

“Of course, miss. A light, you said?”

“I thought so. But—I mean, it’s awfully dark out here, and I might have gotten the direction wrong too.” She gave a self-deprecating giggle, quite different from anything Colin had heard out of her before. “Actually, if you don’t mind—I’d really rather an escort back to the house. I don’t think I can find my way—got all turned around.”

“Oh,” said the gamekeeper. Obviously, he was suspicious. Just as obviously, he couldn’t ask the daughter of the house what she was trying to hide. Colin would have felt pity for the man, had his own thoughts not been rather thoroughly occupied. “Well—of course, miss.”

“Much obliged. And, you know,” Reggie said, “I don’t see any reason why anyone else needs to hear about this, do you?”

Her voice faded as their footsteps began again, moving farther and farther away. When they were out of earshot, Colin spread his wings and launched himself skyward, moving out of sight as fast as he could.

* * *

“Much obliged,” Colin said to her the next afternoon, when Edmund had briefly excused himself from the card table. The rain had returned, but this time nobody had suggested exploring the house. The “young people” sat in one of the drawing rooms instead. He and Reggie played cards with Edmund, while Miss Heselton produced some rather nice music from the piano and her brother talked books with Miss Browne. “For the rescue last night, that is.”

“Not at all,” Reggie said, not looking up from her cards. “He might not have noticed anything amiss if I hadn’t been out there talking to you.”

“All the same, I hope you didn’t have to go to very much trouble.”

“I gave him a tenner this morning. And I’m sure he thinks I have—” She bit her lip. Beneath violet-striped cotton, her breasts rose with a quick inhalation. “Some kind of secret.”

She still didn’t look at him.

“A lover out there, maybe?” Colin said, dropping his voice and coming closer to the truth than she’d managed. Reggie sat very still, except to swallow, and he watched the motion of her neck. There was color creeping up from the edge of her bodice, and he didn’t think it was all embarrassment. He laid down a card, remembered that they were surrounded, and asked more lightly, “Smuggler or poacher or wandering minstrel?”

“It’s several hundred years too late for that the last one,” Reggie said. She glanced toward the king Colin had played, then back to her hand. “And I’m not nearly romantic enough for any of the other options.”

“But your man Hobb doesn’t know that, I’d wager.”

“Probably not. No matter.” She shrugged, and then did lift her gaze. Now there was a hard edge to her smile, and her brown eyes flickered with challenge, though to what opponent Colin didn’t know. Despite her mortality, he was relieved not to think it was him. “Every village has to have its rumors, you know. Having me around might be doing them quite the service.”

He wanted to ask. He wanted, more than that, to put a hand over hers or an arm around her shoulders, but surrounded by people, and with her looking so spiky, he decided on discretion.

“For a time, perhaps,” he said lightly, “until the baker’s son gets himself called out for pistols at dawn.”

“People don’t duel these days,” said Reggie, and then she tilted her head to study Colin’s face, her own expression softened now by amusement and surprise. “And you know that.”

“It’s possible that I do.” Colin rearranged his hand, watching Reggie over the edge of the cards. “Laws change so quickly, you know. And I’ve never really bothered.”

“With dueling? I’m surprised.”

“Do you really think I’m the sort to go around calling men out?”

“No.” She dimpled. “I think you’re the sort to
get
a challenge every day or two, if people let you into polite company.”

“Hardly,” said Colin. “One only got called out, you understand, if one got
caught
. Credit me with some grace, at least.”

Hearing her fake laughter the night before gave the real thing that much more clarity and warmth. “Do you generally tell that to young women?”

“They generally don’t ask.”

“Fair.” Reggie put her cards down and leaned back. “Not even once? Really? The dueling, I mean, not the—er—asking.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Usually I refused. It didn’t seem precisely fair to the other fellows.” Nobody could ever have credited him with Stephen’s sense of honor, but there was such a thing as sportsmanship. “There were one or two exceptions over the years. Nasty sorts.”

“Oh,” said Reggie. He could see the curiosity on her face, and then her decision. Colin hadn’t pried earlier, and she wouldn’t do it now.

He smiled at her, unspoken thanks.

“How’s the translation coming along?” she asked.

“I truly wish that someone two hundred years ago had been bright enough to invent the typewriter,” said Colin. “Or longer-lasting ink, at the very least. Then again, perhaps it’s best that I only read this journal a bit at a time.”

“Is it that dire?”

“In a way. The author—and there are a few bits that make me think it’s Janet, offhand references and that—hasn’t mentioned anything very classically occult just yet. No arrangements, no sacrifices, not even any contacts. But”—he rubbed at the bridge of his nose with his free hand—“she’s very angry. Angry with everything and everyone who doesn’t come up to her standards, and I don’t think she’s mentioned anyone who
does
. I’ve met men like that a time or two.”

“And women?”

“Oh. Aye. Though fewer of them—or perhaps I just saw it less. When I noticed, it was because the men in question had power,” he said, thinking back to some very unpleasant years, “and it made their anger a formidable thing.”

“She wouldn’t have had much,” Reggie said slowly. Her fingers stroked the back of the cards while she thought. “Not the normal sort of power anyhow. Money, yes, and position, but that’s not power.”

“You should talk to my brother’s wife,” said Colin. “She’d have a bit to say about that theory.”

“Is she—”

“A typewriter girl. Or was. I’d pay red gold to hear the two of you thrash this one out.”

That drew a laugh, but Reggie went on. “Power’s not a constant, though. You have it depending on how much other people have. You know that—the Honorable Mr. MacAlasdair.” This time the challenge in her eyes
was
for him.

Before it, Colin bent his head. “It’s been a long time since I worried overmuch about titles and inheritance—but then, she wouldn’t have had that time to get used to the state of things, would she?”

“No. And she wouldn’t have been a man, and able to run off to London and not think about it, and she wouldn’t have been—well.” Reggie waved a hand at Colin, presumably indicating a dragon or a freakishly powerful immortal or a god’s bastard spawn
.
“It’s much easier not to be angry when you can get away. Not that it excuses hitting people with tables, or whatever she got up to before she died. Do you know?”

“The book hasn’t said yet, and I’ve not been able to meet with ‘Gammy Jones.’”

“The woman the sexton mentioned?”

Colin nodded. “I don’t suppose you’ve encountered her?”

“No. We’ve only been here a few years, if you’ll recall—and I’ve spent most of that time in London.” Reggie picked up her cards again and studied them, although Edmund had shown no signs of walking back into the room. “And I don’t spend much time gossiping when I am in the country. Usually, I just catch up on sleep.”

“Then this trip must be going sadly awry for you,” said Colin, “at least if last night is any indication.”

“It hasn’t been as restful as usual,” said Reggie, “but I can sleep in London. Or the grave. I’ll take excitement any day.”

She stopped pretending to look at the cards when she said that, and her eyes lingered on Colin’s—playfully, but play that was quite enough to make his body react. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “I’d much rather provide adventure than rest, myself.”

“I’m sure,” said Reggie, and then she laughed. “Though I can’t say you’re the person who causes the
most
excitement around here. Hope you’re not too disappointed.”

“No,” said Colin. He knew that Edmund had to come back soon, that the room was full of onlookers, and that one had to seize certain moments even if there was no hope of an immediate conclusion. He smiled at Reggie, letting himself feel the charge between them, letting it show on his face. “Most people like my sort of excitement better.”