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Chapter 1

June 9, 1815   Derbyshire, England

Pemberley!

Elizabeth swallowed back tears as the luxurious traveling coach, expertly driven by Alister Salt, crossed over that little, almost imperceptible bump in the road that meant home was around the next bend. Soon the steady clop of horses’ hooves and the scratchy footfalls of the guard drakes Kingsley and Sergeant, running beside the carriage, would stop. No more road dust leaving her eyes gritty and her nose itching. No more watching the world go by as she sat and sat and sat.

They would be home.

She leaned back with the rock and sway of the carriage springs, melting into soft squabs. One could hardly object to traveling in a conveyance endowed with every possible comfort: from sleeping platforms to a tiny desk that dropped down from one wall. The Blue Order spared no expense in assuring their comfort and protection on the journey back home. The size of their party proved the only disadvantage—three ladies, three gentlemen, an infant, and seven minor dragons—and meant the men traveled in a lesser coach, separate from the ladies. It might be proper, but traveling at Darcy’s side would have been far more agreeable.

Soon.

Soon that distance from him would no longer be nagging at the back of her mind. Soon this netherworld existence between here and there would be over, and life would begin again.

She drew a deep breath. There it was, a hint of peonies in the air. The bushes near the road that approached the house often bloomed earliest, in riots of pink and white, an exuberant greeting to Pemberley visitors.

Her nose wrinkled a bit. Anne’s napkin needed to be changed soon. She opened one eye and glanced at May, the little black tatzelwurm curled up beside Anne in her sleeping basket. The way her decidedly cat-like nose twitched, the little dragon agreed.

Anne had grown so much since they had left Pemberley—it seemed like a lifetime ago. What would life be like now that she was in leading strings, able to move about and discover for herself? Mrs. Sharp, the new nurse, would no doubt have her hands full, especially with all the household dragons that would be spending time in the nursery with Anne. Elizabeth had warned her that managing those dragon interactions would be part of the nurse’s duties, but it would not be surprising if Mrs. Sharp underestimated the sheer number of household dragons that would be involved. Babies did not usually receive so much company.

The manor house appeared as they rounded the final bend in the road, majestic, commanding, but most of all welcoming. The first time Elizabeth had seen the manor, it had intimidated her for so many reasons. She did not belong in such a fine place; she did not deserve such a home; she had no idea how to oversee such an establishment. So many tenants and servants depending on her to manage properly; an entire community looking to her for guidance and direction. Things Mama had never prepared her for.

But surrounded by people and dragons who wanted her to succeed, Elizabeth had found her place in the stately stone manor, serene and strong, as it looked out over fields and sheep. Oh, how she needed to be there once again.

They had definitely been gone too long.

“That is Pemberley?” Lydia squealed, face pressed against the side glass, eyes wide in little-girl wonder.

“No, my dear sister, that is the servants’ quarters and the actual house is another mile ahead.” Elizabeth quirked her eyebrow.

“You have become such a tease! Returning to Derbyshire is good for you.” Lydia chuckled.

“Indeed, it is.” Tiny fairy dragon April, in her turquoise-blue glory, hovered near the window with black- and-red Cosette beside her, her flight unhampered by her previous injuries. “You will like it here. It is a proper dragon estate, with proper respect for the minor dragons who live here.”

Truth and Mercy, Mrs. Sharp’s pair of little green zaltys, slithered over Lydia’s lap to the window to get a view as well, forked tongues flicking with excitement.

Mrs. Sharp tucked little Anne’s blanket around her shoulders. “I wish the same could have been said for our last family. My little Friends were not welcome there.”

“I wonder if it was for a general discomfort with dragons around children or it was something about snake-types in particular.” Elizabeth studied the pretty little zaltys with noses pressed to the side glass. Sleek and emerald green, “dainty” captured them better than anything else. Big, dark eyes framed by long eyelashes spoke of their gentle dispositions and caring nature, while their yellow-and-red head crests resembled women’s hats, giving them just a touch of whimsy. What was not endearing about the pair? “It seems that even people who are generally well disposed to dragons often have some discomfort when it comes to snake-type dragons, especially small ones.”

The late-afternoon sun bathed Mrs. Sharp’s deep-amber skin and shimmered off the soft grey curls peeking out from her cap. “It is not uncommon that people base their judgement on how one appears, Lady Sage. More than once, my Friends have been unwelcome in otherwise dragon-friendly company.”

“Well, that shall not be a problem here. You should know, Mrs. Reynolds has mentioned that the dearth of snake-types at the manor was a true disadvantage.”

“How extraordinary.” Mrs. Sharp’s eyebrows lifted so high they almost touched the silver curls on her forehead.

“You will find Mrs. Reynolds a remarkable woman for many reasons. I expect you will get on famously.”

Mrs. Sharp’s eyebrows rose even higher. Yes, it was a touch unusual to lavish such praise on one’s servants, but letting someone know they were appreciated was hardly ever a mistake.

“How many minor dragons are there at Pemberley?” Lydia alternately stroked Truth and Mercy as Cosette came to rest on her shoulder.

“On the estate as a whole, I really cannot say at the moment. We will have to conduct a census of the wild dragons come summer. All the staff, inside and out, are dragon-hearers and their Friends are welcome. Most of the staff dragons have Friends among the warm-blooded staff, but a few are with us simply of their own accord. We have no dragon-deaf living at the manor house.” A shudder slithered down Elizabeth’s spine. How complicated life would be to have dragon-deaf in the household.

“Does that mean you will not invite Mama, Jane, or Kitty to stay with us?” Lydia asked, with no trace of the petulance that once would have dripped from those words.

“That is a good question, one to which I do not have a good answer. With us back in the neighborhood and the Bingleys not living far enough away to discourage travel between the households, it may be difficult to avoid.”

“Cosette and I can easily persuade your mother that Pemberley is cold and drafty and she does not like such places.” April suggested, landing on Elizabeth’s knee, her head cocked just so.

“I do not think I will ask that of you just yet, but you can be sure it will be kept under consideration.” Elizabeth scratched under April’s chin. “We will have to see them soon in any case. Mama’s last letter to Papa suggested that they need his approval of Kitty’s beau soon.”

Lydia sighed, wistfulness in her eyes. “Kitty is quite smitten with him.”

“Has she been writing to you?” Elizabeth asked. “I thought she was quite put out at the idea that you were permitted to attend ‘finishing school’ and enjoy a ball for your come-out while she was not.”

“She was at first, but once she discovered the joy of being Mama’s only daughter at home, she quite forgave me.” Lydia shrugged. “In any case, it seems she is anxious for approval so that the banns might be read. Mama delights in the notion of four daughters married.”

“You do understand—”

“That my sisters are dragon-deaf and my own affiliation with the Order now makes things complex. Yes, Lizzy, even I am aware of the complications of the circumstance.”

“I did not mean to imply … I do not think you are stupid. That is not what I meant.” What a challenge, adjusting to this new Lydia.

“At Mrs. Fieldings’ school, there was a lot of talk about the difficulty of ‘half-Blue’ families. Quite a number of the girls there came from such situations.”

Perhaps she needed to take time to ask Lydia more about that. It was not something that Papa had ever talked about, but perhaps he should have. Were such families more apt to problems? It would stand to reason that they would be. Perhaps that was another topic she should write about. She needed to add that to her list.

“Oh, oh look! Is that the staff lining up to greet us? I had no idea our arrival would be so grand!”

Chapter 2  

Pemberley manor, the core of hearth and home, the seat of the Darcy family, so dear it was almost a member of the family, revealed itself as they completed the last turn on the way home. Sturdy pale stone walls, strong and unchanging, surveyed its domain and declared it secure. Something tight released in Darcy’s chest, and he leaned back into the carriage’s stiff squabs. Perhaps, just perhaps, life as he knew it might begin again.

“One never grows tired of that sight.” Richard Fitzwilliam chin-pointed out the smudgy side glass toward the manor. Sharp and rectangular like his father, Lord Chancellor Matlock, the lines beside his eyes spoke to the weariness the last few months had laid upon him. “Although that look of satisfaction you wear, Darcy, might become exhausting.”

After all that they had been through whilst in London—so many impossible things had happened—somehow it was a relief to see the manor’s classic lines and square countenance, still standing, overlooking well-groomed fields and flocks.

Better still to be standing on the doorsteps, not viewing it from a mile away, through the windows of a tired, dusty, sweat-stinking, coach. Soon, very soon.

“A man has a right to be satisfied at coming home.” Darcy glanced across the coach at the Honorable Undersecretary of the Blue Order, Mr. Swinton St. John, who snored softly, slumped against the sidewall, as he had been for much of their time on the road. The man’s hairline was receding, his belly paunchy, and his eyes close-set and squinty. Every time he spoke, his face screwed up like he had a bad smell under his nose, which entirely fit both his conversation and his personality.

Though being apart from Elizabeth was a form of torture unique unto itself, it was just as well that she had not been stuck in a carriage with the man. The years notwithstanding, she still bore him more than a passing resentment. Darcy was developing one of his own to match. St. John had been the one to conduct her testing for admission into the Order a dozen years or so ago. According to her and April, he had been insensitive, rude, and harsh throughout the whole matter. Though Darcy had thought their assessment might have been colored by the suffering experienced at his hand, after spending days with him on the road, he suspected they were actually gracious in their evaluation of him.

According to Castordale, Sir Edward Dressler’s Pa Snake and one of Elizabeth’s early champions among the Order officers, St. John disliked her father, resented that he held office as Historian, distrusted women, and did not believe that children should be able to hear dragons. So intent was he on proving his point, he engineered the entire experience to set Elizabeth up to fail.

Like many, he had been wrong, and not pleased to have been proven so—especially under circumstances so stacked against her. Circumstances he had conveniently arranged to deftly avoid criticism toward himself. What he lacked in character, he seemed to make up for in cleverness. Not the kind of man with whom Darcy wanted to have any dealings.

Neither his boorish manners nor his ignorant opinions on far too many matters seemed to have altered from Elizabeth’s early descriptions of him. St. John still thought women had no place in the Order, considered Bennet an irritating old curmudgeon—on which point he might not be entirely in error—and disliked the entire notion of establishing any new Order office, especially that of the Dragon Sage. Why should the Order change when it had withstood the ravages of time better than any other governmental agency?

But he was sympathetic toward minor dragons —his one, lone virtue.

After their first day of travel, Richard had privately suggested St. John was still grieving the loss of his Friend, minor drake Rottenstone, and his abrasive personality could be the consequence of his grief. The dragon had died two years ago or so. Sir Edward, Lord Physician to Dragons, said it was from an incurable case of talon rot that got into the blood, a truly horrid way to go.

But, even if that were the case, Darcy was disinclined to consider that an adequate excuse for persistent oafish tendencies.

On the other hand, Richard had on more than one occasion suggested that Darcy himself was not entirely good company on this journey either—even more so than his usual failings in social settings. Richard was probably being gracious. Considering the dangers of traveling, especially in such a large party with ladies and a child included, sociability was a low priority.

Neither the four guard drakes—Brutus and Axel, who ran alongside the men’s coach, and Alister Salt’s Friends, who guarded the ladies—nor his faithful cockatrice Friend Walker, who flew with Earl above their party, could calm his anxieties. Only being back at home would achieve that. Perhaps it was a little irrational, but Pemberley felt safe—far safer than being exposed on the road.

And finally, it was in sight.

“I imagine you will want the rest of the day to become reacquainted with your estate.” St. John muttered, his voice scratchy and irritating, as he righted his posture and straightened his brown coat. When had he woken up?

“It is customary. In fact, I think several days would be appropriate.” Richard rolled his eyes a bit—that favorite Fitzwilliam expression he would likely never give up.

“I have been away some months, and I will need to meet with my steward, the head shepherd, and several of the major farmers.”

“The local vicar, the magistrate, and the head of the parish council, as well, I imagine?” St. John all but sneered. “I find it telling where Order business falls in your priorities.”

“Excuse me?” Darcy might finally succumb to his urge to pitch the man out of the carriage, something he had considered more than once over the last several days.

“You do understand the seriousness of the matters at hand?” Something about St. John’s questions felt entirely insincere.  

Why had Darcy agreed to have a man who was a clear opponent to his wife and her office as a guest in his home? Now that same man was questioning his loyalty to the Order? The irony. “No other estate employs as many dragon Friends, dragons, and hearers without Friends as Pemberley. I would say the business of Pemberley is the business of the Order.”

“I am sure you would.”

“What precisely is that supposed to mean?” Darcy’s voice dropped in pitch as he pulled his shoulders back and expanded his chest.

“That you have an egotistical, self-serving estimation of what Order business entails.” St. John huffed and folded his arms over his chest. “Yes, yes, I am aware that you have carried the Dragon Slayer and that, in popular opinion, makes you quite the hero of the Order. But such showy demonstrations are not what keep the Order running. A true hero of the Order—”

“A true hero? Have you any notion of what you are saying, man?” Richard brought his foot down heavily and leaned forward, just a hint of danger in his eyes. “I would not so freely insult one who has come face to face with not just one, but two angry firedrakes with blood in their eyes and lived to tell the tale. Can you say you have done as much for the Order?”

St. John had probably not even faced an angry puck.

His cheeks seemed to puff and his face colored. “That is exactly the trouble with men like you. You see the sword as the final, best answer to all the Order’s problems, and it is not.”

“Then what would you suggest is the final, best answer?” Once offended, Richard would not be easily called off, so Darcy leaned back into the squabs to let them fight it out.

“Have you never heard the pen is mightier than the sword?” Such a smug look St. John wore.

“You are going to prove your point with a cliché? You must be mad. I have never had a man try to kill me with his pen.”

“You think not?”

“I am rather certain with what implements my life has been threatened.” Richard also bore the scars left by a number of those implements, but it would not be proper to mention that.

“Have you ever considered the orders that sent you into those actions?”

“What do you mean?”

“The king’s orders, the general’s order, all of the like, those were formed by a pen.”

Richard snorted, his upper lip curled back.

“You think that too literal? What about the Pendragon Treaty and Accords? Those came into being by an act of the pen, not the sword. They accomplished what the sword could not.”

Though Darcy loathed to admit it, St. John did have a point.

St. John leaned in, eyes narrow. “And how do you think the provisions of those documents are managed? I will give you a hint, it is not by the sword even now. No, it is by the office of the Secretary of the Order. Through our enforcement of each and every provision, in every county, every parish, every village, every estate. The state of the Dragon State rises and falls on the oversight of the Secretary and his division. Not even the Chancellor has so much influence on the day-to-day lives of those in the Order as we do.” The tight little smile that stretched his thin lips was nothing short of self-important. “And after the recent showing of the Derbyshire dragons, it is quite clear that the affairs of this county have not been properly managed for quite some time.”

Darcy stepped on Richard’s foot, hard; an unsubtle suggestion that he not comment on this new round of veiled insults. “Yes, that is quite obvious, and unfortunate, but I can assure you that Pemberley—”

“Did you not just say that you have been away for quite some time and are not even well-acquainted with the affairs of your own estate?” St. John settled his hands over his paunch, so pleased with himself.

“I said no such thing. I have left trusted men in charge of all aspects of the estate.” Heat crept up from Darcy’s neck to his ears.

“Who have run it in your stead, leaving you unaware of the specific details of the estate.”

“That does not imply that the estate has been ill-managed.”

“It does not imply that it has been well-managed.”

“I have faith—”

“That is well and good for you, but the Order does not run on faith. It runs on facts and on adherence to the rule of law. If your estate is as well in hand as you suggest, then I am certain you will not object to me beginning my audit of the region with Pemberley.”

Oh, how he enjoyed his show of power. Despicable creature. “Audit Pemberley?”

“Have you a problem with that?”

“It is a waste of your time! Pemberley has never warranted Order interference, and it does not now.”

“Are you refusing the Secretary of the Order?”

Richard leaned back, arms folded in a casual posture that he assumed when restraining himself from throttling an imbecile. “Auditing Pemberley is as absurd as auditing Matlock!”

“That is an interesting notion.” St. John rubbed his chin with his knuckles, eyes taking on a dangerous glint. “When was the last time that Matlock was audited?”

“Matlock? The seat of the Chancellor of the Order? You do realize what you are suggesting?” Richard bolted upright, barely choking out the words.

“I am well aware of the dragon and Keeper assigned to that territory.”

“Cownt Matlock attends to those matters himself. He has always overseen all Order matters on the estate.”

“As well he should, since he is the leading dragon of Derbyshire. His territory should be the exemplar of the region.”

“I am certain that it is. There is no need—”

“I will be the one to determine what is needed.” St. John drummed his fingers against his knee. “Now that you have suggested it, I think auditing Matlock is a good idea, a very good one. In fact, since it is the Chancellor’s territory, it deserves my first attentions. Then, no other Keeper can complain, with Matlock providing an example in all things.”

Richard’s features crumpled into a mix of dread, frustration, and rage.

“You will provide for me an introduction to your brother, the viscount, yes? As I understand, he is junior Keeper and running the estate while Chancellor and Cownt Matlock are in London.”

“I will do so, Mr. St. John. You will, though, do Matlock the courtesy of permitting me to call upon my brother first and inform him of your plans.” Richard muttered through clenched teeth. “I assure you, it is in the best interest of the Order to do so.”

“I suppose a day or so of warning will not make a significant change in my findings. That will be acceptable.”

Release date is April 30. Click HERE to preorder.