She dressed and thought of girding her loins, then tried not to think about loins again.
When Mina strode into the dining room, it was with every particle of self-possession, every ounce of formality and propriety that she’d learned since she’d decided to become secretary to a scholar. Every muscle in her back felt rigid. She blessed her foundation garments.
MacAlasdair was at the head of the table as usual, with her place set nearby. As usual, he lowered the paper as Mina entered the room.
When he met her eyes, there suddenly seemed to be much less space around them. He filled the room as he filled the chair: big, powerful, commanding.
Mina quickly took her seat. Only then did she notice a difference in the table. At her right hand, a little ways away from her breakfast dishes, was a silver tray. Someone had laid out several sheets of stationery on its surface, as well as two envelopes, three black fountain pens, and a sheet of stamps.
Mina blinked.
Right, then.
Slowly, with careful, controlled movements, she poured tea. Added sugar and cream. Buttered a scone. Pretended that she wasn’t watching MacAlasdair out of the corner of her eye.
Then, when she could trust herself, she spoke. “That’s quite…comprehensive. Everything a correspondent could ask for.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said MacAlasdair. “I’ll be meeting with Carter this noontime, if you’ll be ready by then.” He sounded very casual, but his gaze never left Mina’s face.
She smiled. There was certainly no harm in that. He’d keep his distance now, and so would she. It was a virtue to be gracious in victory, Mina had heard. “I’ll write after breakfast,” she said. “If you’d like to read the letter before I seal it, I’ll be in the study.”
The door opened as Mina was on the last page of her letter, finishing a paragraph about the view from her bedroom window. It could have been a servant coming in to clean or to tell her something, but she knew it was MacAlasdair even before she lifted her head.
“The first two pages are on the table,” she said. “Have a look if you’d like. I’ll be done in a moment.”
“Thank you,” he said and smiled—diffidently, for the first time since Mina had met him. He ran a hand through his dark hair and seemed about to say something, but ended up crossing the room in silence.
Mina bent to her letter, trying to ignore the way her skin prickled at MacAlasdair’s approach. She saw his hand, large and firm, out of the corner of her eye as he picked up the sheets of stationery she’d already covered with writing. She heard the steady rhythm of his breath and the sound of paper crinkling as he read.
I hope that you’re all doing well, she wrote, concentrating—or trying to concentrate—on making the letters neatly. She’d mastered that particular art some ten years ago, but it never hurt to pay more attention, did it?
I’m not sure when I’ll get to see you again, but I’ll keep sending these letters. You can write to me in care of Professor Carter.
“That’s not a bad story you’ve told them.” MacAlasdair spoke from behind her. “Very close to the truth.”
Mina had said that MacAlasdair wanted her to help put his father’s affairs in order, that some of them were the sort he didn’t want anyone talking about, and that she’d be well paid and get a week’s holiday after she was finished. She intended to take one, too. A hundred pounds should more than cover the time, and Professor Carter would understand. She didn’t mention the hundred pounds in the letter—that much money would make people talk—just that she’d be well paid.
“Lying’s a sin,” she said demurely and then couldn’t resist a smile of her own. “And more importantly, too many lies are confusing.”
MacAlasdair chuckled, deep and rich. “Verra sound philosophy you have there. You don’t think they’ll talk about whatever secrets I want you to be keeping?”
“Not much. It’s business, and business isn’t really that interesting. They might think that your father had some opinions he didn’t want getting around—”
“He probably did, at that,” said MacAlasdair. “He was still bitter about the Rising, when I was young, and all that came after. Talked a great deal about it.”
“The Rising?” It sounded familiar, but it wasn’t new enough to be current or old enough to be antique, and so Mina sought for the reference amid memories of schoolbooks and the smell of chalk dust. “You mean the Scottish rebellion?”
“Aye.” MacAlasdair’s mouth was tight. “I wasna’ born yet, nor for a few years after, but I heard stories enough, and I understand the bitterness.”
MacAlasdair’s hair was rich red-black, without a thread of silver in it; his strong-boned face held a few sun lines near the eyes, but nothing more; and his body was straight and strong and vigorous. Looking at him, you didn’t think two centuries old, and then—
—and then she was in a room with someone who wasn’t entirely human, someone who remembered the world before her grandmother had been born. She wanted to put out a hand and touch his sleeve, just to make sure he was real.
Instead, she said, “But he couldn’t have fought in it. I mean—I don’t think we’d have won if we’d been fighting dragons.”
“And do you think that I and mine are the only such creatures in Creation?” MacAlasdair shook his head and laughed again, this time with a much darker humor. “Ye had your own creatures to send against us, you English, and your sorcerers and artifacts as well, the things that none of the history books mention. And we die from steel and lead if you put enough of it into us. My father fought, and one of his brothers died at Fort William and the oldest of my sisters at Littleferry.”
“I’m sorry,” said Mina.
MacAlasdair shrugged, and the darkness passed from his face. “It’s a family wound, and not my own, nor of your making. As I said, I never knew either of them. I did my fighting elsewhere.”
Still, there was nothing really to say to that, or at least nothing Mina could think of. She started to turn back to her paper, and then something MacAlasdair had said drew her attention.
“Your sister?”
“Our women are more…active than most,” MacAlasdair said. “There’s little difference between a female dragon and a male, at least where size and strength are concerned. It makes a bit of a difference in the way we view things.”
“If only the Pankhursts knew,” said Mina, thinking of the articles she’d read about the suffragists.
“There’s a bit more of a difference for mortal women, I’ll admit, but—no’ as much as people have been in the way of thinking lately. And at that,” said MacAlasdair, smiling again, “I’m surprised that you’re not out there attending meetings yourself.”
Despite the teasing tone of his voice, there was warmth in his smile and approval that Mina felt in her chest. Still, she tossed her head and fired back, “Well, I would be, if I had a bit more time for it. Speaking of which, are you going to let me finish?”
“Forgive me,” he said, still teasing. “I should have known your schedule would be crowded.”
“Oh, if only it were,” said Mina, and went back to writing.
Ten
Not too far from the British Museum and the office where Stephen had first encountered Mina, down several little side streets, one came to an ordinary-looking house. Like its neighbors, it was three stories of neat red brick, secure behind an iron fence and a tidy yard. Nothing was remarkable; everything was respectable.