Page 42 of Nine-Tenths
Chapter Thirty-Two
" T his isn’t a Halloween costume," I complain, as Dav ties my neck-cloth for me. I love period romances, but I have no idea how to get into the dandy clothes. Luckily, Dav has lots of practice. "Halloween costumes are supposed to be bloody, and scary, and stupid."
"It’s not a Halloween party," Dav reminds me, eyes on what his fingers are doing.
I haven't seen any difference in the three other ways he's constructed the knot every time he's stepped back to assess my reflection in the mirror, but he is now on his fourth go-round.
"It's an All Hallows Eve Masque, which is entirely different. "
"I want to stay and hand out candy."
"We don't get trick-or-treaters."
"Then let's go to Beanevolence—"
Dav looks at me sharply. "You know why we can't. I don't want to do this any more than you do, darling, but we have no good reason to decline the invitation."
"Sure we do. His Excellency is a prick."
He pecks a kiss off the tip of my nose. "True. But as that's not a new development, we cannot use it as an excuse."
I grumble, but sucking up to Lt. Gov. Bossypants is part of the game.
"There now. What do you think?" Dav asks, turning us to the mirror.
He looks delicious. He's in bleach-white stockings, and delicate black shoes with a slight heel.
His waistcoat is as red as his scales, which he's let out a little so that ruby fire reflects around the edges of his face, and the back of his hands.
His breeches and cutaway tailcoat are cloth-of-gold brocade, the same shade of deep shimmering yellow as his eyes.
I am, of course, dressed to complement Dav, because that's my role in life now.
Ugh.
And yeah, okay, it's flattering, I guess.
But if it were me, instead of a cobalt blue tailcoat embroidered with Tudor Roses, and a dusty yellow waistcoat, I'd be going for something a lot more Nightmare on Elm Street . That’s how I prefer my Halloween: fake blood, glitter, glow-in-the-dark-shots, pumping music, strobe lights, candy and condom bowls in every shadowed corner.
Not Regency recreations and delicate gold wire-work masks that perch artistically over half our faces. The craftsmanship is impressive, especially the way Dav's mask seems to highlight the scales along his forehead. But fire and water isn’t a costume, it's a concept.
Apparently, it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to be pretty.
We leave after an early dinner to make it to York, and the Lt. Governor’s summer mansion at Castle Frank, for sunset. Yes, Simcoe's mansion is called Castle Frank . To be fair, his father named it.
"You know he picked this theme because I hate it, right?" I grumble as I try to get comfortable in the back of the car. It'll be two hours and I am already not enjoying the way the waistband is cutting into my ribs.
"Shockingly, Mine Own," Dav says as he hangs his coat from the peg above the car door. "Not everything is about you. Last year the theme was the Twenties. I'm sure the party-planner meant Gatsby, but more than a few people dressed as plague doctors."
"Were you one of them?" I ask, as Dav leans over to help me struggle out of my coat, too. I should have done it before getting in the car.
The twinkle in Dav's eye is answer enough.
I'm feeling more relaxed by the time we get through urban Toronto and into York proper. Janet is wicked funny and tells the most elaborate, ridiculous stories about her amateur dirt bike circuit. By the time we’re at Castle Frank, my stomach hurts more from laughing than it does from the breeches.
I know better to expect an actual castle.
But to drive up a gravel road through a regimented pine forest, slowly winding up little hills to the highest point, and find what is basically a glorified log cabin is a disappointment.
Sure, it's shaped like an ancient Greek temple, columns and all, but it's still a log cabin. I expected it to be showy.
"While his Excellency is a nagging stickler, he's not a nouveau riche boor," Dav mutters to me when I make this observation. We’re standing on the drive and he's helping me back into my coat, which is too damn tight for me to manage on my own.
Of course, he can put his coat on alone, but this shit was the height of fashion when he was young. He's got practice.
"Not a boor. Just a Family Compact snob."
"Mine Own," Dav huffs. Then he comes around the front of me to adjust the lay of my lapels. "Peace. We're here to appease, not challenge."
"Yeah, yeah," I grumble.
"Here," Dav says, handing Janet a black credit card through the window. "Take yourself somewhere lovely for dinner. We'll text when we're ready."
Janet grins. "Thanks, sir."
As she pulls away, another limo comes up the drive. It would be weird if we were still dawdling on the steps when they pull up. So I square my shoulders, screw up my courage, and let him lead me on.
Favorites don't have to stand a few steps behind a dragon, but Dav thinks it would give the old-fashioned dragons in the room a favorable impression if I did so, at least when we enter.
I hate the idea that I'm supposed to behave as if I'm grateful to be able to toddle along in his wake, but we are here to appease.
Not to challenge.
Not yet, at least.
At the top of the stairs, we’re met with grandly carved wooden doors depicting scenes of early 1800s post-war bucolic bliss.
In the bias relief, farmers trade swords for plowshares; the Failed Rebellion of 1837 is put down; shackles fall away from the wrists of grateful enslaved Africans; Indigenous humans lead settlers to happier lands; and glorified portraits of the ten Fathers of the Family Compact, the dragons who came up with our system of government, and guide it all benevolently.
The dragon’s names are inscribed into their hides so the observer knows who each is.
As if any kid who went to school in Upper Canada wouldn't.
The scene is a mix of things I consider genuinely celebratory, and things that anger me now that I'm in the middle of the game, and have a better understanding of draconic politics.
The door reminds me of the front gate at the farm. Is this a thing all dragons do—lay out their accomplishments in figures and facades, so anyone entering their nesting ground knows who they are, and what they’ve accomplished?
If so, it’s telling that Dav's is devoid of any depiction of violence. The thing he is proudest of, the thing he wishes to show the world, are his accomplishments in wine-making and farming. All the human figures on his gate are fat and cheerful, and the dragon’s wings are outstretched to protect them.
In the center of this door, the dragon depicted is more cat-faced than Dav, with prominent nostrils and ghoulish eyes. The body is serpentine, but the legs and tail are lion-esque, with a sharp-spined sail down the back. According to the little name carved into the scales, this is Simcoe the elder.
I wonder how much it burns Francis to walk through his father's doors. I bet Chorley Park’s are bigger and more elaborate. Francis strikes me as the kind who needs to one-up his dead dad.
When we reach the top of the steps, two honest-to-god-footmen pull the doors open for us.
We’re greeted with a blast of warm air, and the sounds of a live orchestra playing somewhere in the depths of the building.
We step into the vestibule, filled with tastefully spoopy flower arrangements on pedestals.
We take a moment to smooth out each other's jackets, and adjust our masks.
"Now, Mine Own, when you’re introduced, no handshakes. You may not touch the skin of another dragon. It's—"
"Onatah's already told me."
"She has?" Dav asks, startled. "I'm grateful, it’s—"
The next set of doors, opened by another pair of footmen—oh my god, their jobs must be so boring—depriving us of privacy. Whatever Dav is grateful for, I don’t know. But as long as I don't touch anyone, I won't break any more dragony taboos. That's all that matters.
The vestibule deposits us in a room that looks more like a large drawing room than the sort of grand affair I assumed Lt.
Gov. Poshbritches would go in for. The floors are gleaming dark wood, the walls paneled in the same, and there’s an absolutely massive fireplace taking up most of the far wall.
There are two doors, one on either side of the open hearth, and I can see right through the fire to the ballroom beyond.
The front room itself is dotted with spindly, fancy conversation sofas and delicate tea tables, antique and uncomfortable.
Despite that, there are a few people taking advantage of them, sipping from fancy glasses, dressed in their own colorful versions of the masquerade historical attire from every century.
The decorations here match the room—tasteful wire-work bats, orange glitter gourds piled like a television decorating hostess herself had fairy-godmothered each one, and a galaxy of paper lanterns in the shapes of stars and all the phases of the moon hanging from the ceiling.
The fire is burning green from some additive, and it's a cooler effect than I expected to find in Simcoe's party cabin.
Dav enters first, and immediately what I had assumed was just a large group of people chilling by the entrance rearranges itself into a receiving line.
Dragons in front, humans lined up just behind them—some in the same livery as the door guys, some in costumes, and one holding a big silver tray of champagne flutes I don't want anywhere near me in case the trashfire part of my personality flares up. That's a lot of breakables.
Around the room, several people lift their faces, not exactly as if they're sniffing the air, but more like someone had strung a wire between them and Dav, and then plucked it.
They're all dragons. I can tell because they've got that deeply magnetic air about them.
That, and a smattering of their scales are out, too.