Page 64 of Nine-Tenths

Chapter Forty-Six

" N o," Paulette says, when she gathers us all in the drawing room three days later.

"No?" Dav repeats, bolting upright in his chair, teacup hanging halfway to his mouth. "But we’re family! She really won't see me?"

Paulette's mouth twists sourly, the way Dav’s does when he's got to say something he'd rather not. "Her advisers have been, hmmn, 'made aware' of the difficulties you've created with the coffee shop, and declined the request."

"Isn’t it up to the queen herself to deny the request?" I protest. "Not her hangers-on?"

"Not if she never hears it," Paulette says, resigned, and flops back in her own chair. "I spent two damn days in that wretched palace and I'm convinced that not a single word I said to anyone made it any further than the ear it was spoken into."

"Simcoe," I spit.

"Simcoe," Paulette agrees. "I cannot say I'm best pleased with his audacity. Whitehall is far beyond his borders and the sphere of his Governorship."

"I spent so much time there as a child," Dav says, small and wounded. "We played in her apartments! She taught me the cotillion! And now she won't even see me?"

Dav never told me he'd grown up clinging to the queen's skirts. Christ. This is one secret I don't resent him for, though. I would have been way too intimidated to stick my tongue in his mouth if I'd known.

"Darling," Paulette says, sympathy and motherly concern radiating off her. "Please don't take this personally. This is political maneuvering. It’s not at all about your relationship with Cousin Lizzie."

Owain takes his wife's hand.

Dav is crushed . His teacup, when he puts it back on the saucer in his other hand, rattles so badly that I take it away and set it on the table.

Dav reaches for my hands as soon as they're free, a mirror of his parents, and I twine our fingers tightly.

He breathes deep though his nose, eyes closed, collecting his calm, and I stay still to let him ground himself in my presence, like a good Favorite.

"All political maneuvering, may I remind you," Paulette says softly, when we’ve all had a good wallow. "Can be out-maneuvered."

Everything is a frustrating misery for the next few days.

Prickly and unhappy, Dav and Paulette spend hours locked up together, calling, and emailing, and doing whatever else it is dragons do when they're trying to winkle favors out of one another.

While I, completely useless and resenting it, do my best to stay distracted.

But no number of garden walks, or castle explorations, or long calls with Gem and Stuart, or heading up to the nursery to have a good rambling conversation with the egg help.

"Alright, fetch your coat, lad," Owain finally says on day three. He grabs my elbow and drags me out of the library, where I've been trying and failing to choose a book for hours.

"I am not in the mood for another walk," I protest.

"No walks," Owain agrees, and hustles me into a waiting car before I have time to wonder why my de facto father-in-law is abducting me in the middle of the afternoon. "We're off for a cheeky one."

"A cheeky what?"

But we're already rolling down the tree-lined avenue, headed for town.

The car stops fifteen minutes later opposite what the signage proclaims is Cardiff Castle.

Or, from what I can see through the arched gateway, the ruins of it.

I wonder if this one is a real Castle, or just another grandly named fake.

How long ago did it fall? What happened to the dragons that ruled from that seat?

Looking at the Welsh flag flying proudly from a pole in the stone courtyard, I have a pretty good guess.

Owain hustles me in the opposite direction, down a narrow cobbled street so old it has carriage tracks worn into the stone, and into a black-and-white half-timbered building.

The sign above the door proclaims it The Goat Major , and our driver circles away silently as Owain holds the door to the pub open for me.

We're greeted by a cheerful "Waheeey!" from the sparse spattering of patrons.

The atmosphere is inviting—all hunter green leather, shiny brass fixtures, and low golden lamps.

The walls are filled with military memorabilia and photos or paintings of goats alongside men in uniforms (whom I assume all hold the rank of major).

"Free by the fire, your Earl-ship," the bartender says, nodding us toward a little cozy, his tone mocking in a friendly way.

"Come here often?" I ask as we settle ourselves in a set of club chairs. My butt's barely finished making a dent in the leather when two fresh pints of some sort of deeply red beer are deposited on our table.

"Since the day it opened."

"So, a couple of centuries?"

"Aye. Yachi da ," Owain says, holding up his glass.

I repeat the toast. We spend the next few minutes correcting my pronunciation, and then lapse into contented silence.

"This is nice," I say at length.

"Mmm," Owain agrees, and, shit, yeah, this is the first time the two of us have been alone all week.

"Thanks."

"Hmmmm."

"It must have been hard for Dav to leave here."

"Oh, no, lad," Owain says. "He was rarin' for the adventure. Spoke of nothing but coming back in glory." There's a touch of sadness in his words.

"And then he stayed?" I prompt gently.

"Aye, well." Owain sniffs. "That's all done now. When he told us he was trying to repatriate the territory to his friend, you know, we hoped… but he's got you, and a vineyard he's proud of. Sends us cases every year. We're just happy he's happy."

I set down my beer, nerves suddenly pricking. "You didn't drag me here to give me a shovel talk, did you? Because I promise you, his staff beat you to it."

Owain cracks one of his unguarded, jovial smirks at me, and the world tilts a little. It's weird to see a man who looks so much like my lover wearing an expression that I don't think I've ever seen on Dav.

"I'm not worried about you breaking my boy's heart," Owain says. "Nor am I worried he'll break yours."

"Oh." I force my fingers to stop twisting along the edge of my jumper. Dav had dug it out of a cedar chest for me, because the Welsh damp can sneak in and settle in your bones. The cabling is complicated, the ruby-coloured wool soft, and smells like a forest. "Thank you. So, why are we here then?"

"Oh, few reasons," Owain allows, finishing his pint and signaling the barkeep for another.

"First, because the tension in that house was like to make me scratch my skin off.

You'll learn that the more agitated the wyrms get, the more it makes us uncomfortable.

One of the downsides to The Gift. We're meant to go soothe them, but I'm telling you now there's no soothing a Tudor when the bit's between their teeth. Best to just give 'em space."

"Going to a pub seems like overkill."

Owain thanks the waitress who drops off a fresh round for us, and we toast again, my pronunciation just barely improved.

"That's the second part of it," Owain says. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"Is there a third?"

Owain reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring box.

"I'm flattered," I laugh. "But I think Dav would be peeved if I married you."

Owain chortles and sets it on the table. "This belonged to Paulette's father's Favorite. It never suited me—" he shows off a broad blacksmith’s hand. "But you've got them delicate fingers."

The ring is slender, but not girlish. The signet is stamped into a band of gold, the flower and the flames picked out in rubies. It's subtler than I had expected it to be when Dav had been musing about rings. And, unlike then, slipping it on doesn't send me into a panic spiral.

Dr. Chen would be proud.

The only finger it fits on, however, is my pinkie.

I decide to wear it on my left hand, where it won't get in the way. It has nothing to do with the fact that Dav almost always takes my left hand when we walk. Nope. Nosiree.

"Suits you, son," Owain says.

My chest is bursting with a kind of warmth I can't name, but don't hate. Pride swells in me. I feel like, for just a moment, my Dad is sitting here with us, approving, when Owain calls me that.

"Yeah," I agree. "It does."

Our dragons bluster in a few hours later, wind-swept and readjusting their clothes.

Dav crowds into the chair with me. It's way too small for both of us, so I end up perched on his lap. Owain and Paulette take over a sofa, too dignified to squish up like us youngin's.

"You smell like rain," I tell him.

"We came through a shower." He presses his cold nose against my nape and I yelp. I take both of Dav’s hands between mine to warm them up, which makes the ring wink in the lamplight. Dav gets a good look at my new accessory.

"Da," he says, looking up at Owain. "This is yours."

"And now it's Colin's," Owain says.

Vibrating with a joy so profound I can actually feel it thrumming between us, Dav lays a thorough kiss on me.

By the bar, two of the old regulars whistle and clap.

"Good flight despite the rain?" Owain asks when Dav lets me up for air.

"Mmm, yes," Dav says. "Long time since I've done that."

"And I missed it?" I grouch, working up a pout.

"We'll go flying together when the weather's nicer." He shakes the water out of his hair like a playful puppy.

"Promise?" I ask. "The first sunny day?"

Dav exchanges a long, meaningful look with his mother.

"Or when we're home." I pin Dav with a look, forcing him to elaborate.

"Simcoe's connections are simply better than ours.

Mother hasn't been to court in so long, and I've been absent for decades.

We find that re-entering politics once we've recused ourselves from it so thoroughly, is a challenge we're having trouble surmounting. "

I take a second to parse his meaning. "You can't give up ."

"We are out of favors to cash in, and every string has been pulled. We’ve been denied."

"Yeah, but by who ," I push. "Like, the queen hasn't actually told you this herself, has she?"