“Do not be absurd,” Lord Allendale said. “I am not disowning you; not that you do not deserve it, but I do not choose to enact a melodrama for the benefit of the world. You will stay the night and leave tomorrow, as you declared; that will do very well. I think nothing more needs to be said; you may go.”

Laurence went back upstairs as quickly as he was able; closing the door of his bedroom behind him felt like allowing a burden to slip off his shoulders. He had meant to call for a bath, but he did not think he could bear to speak to anyone, even a maid or a footman: to be alone and quiet was everything. He consoled himself with the reminder that they could leave early in the morning, and he would not have to endure another formal meal with the company, nor exchange another word with his father, who rarely rose before eleven even in the country.

He looked at his bed a moment longer; then abruptly he took an old frock coat and a worn pair of trousers from his wardrobe, exchanged these for his evening dress, and went outside. Temeraire was already asleep, curled neatly about himself, but before Laurence could slip away again, one of his eyes half-opened, and he lifted his wing in instinctive welcome. Laurence had taken a blanket from the stables; he was as warm and comfortable as he could wish, stretched upon the dragon’s broad foreleg.

“Is all well?” Temeraire asked him softly, putting his other foreleg protectively around Laurence, sheltering him more closely against his breast; his wings half-rose, mantling. “Something has distressed you. Shall we not go at once?”

The thought was tempting, but there was no sense in it; he and Temeraire would both be the better for a quiet night and breakfast in the morning, and in any case he was not going to creep away as if ashamed. “No, no,” Laurence said, petting him until his wings settled again. “There is no need, I assure you; I have only had words with my father.” He fell silent; he could not shake the memory of the interview, his father’s cold dismissiveness, and his shoulders hunched.

“Is he angry about our coming?” Temeraire asked.

Temeraire’s quick perception and the concern in his voice were like a tonic for his weary unhappiness, and it made Laurence speak more freely than he meant to. “It is an old quarrel at heart,” he said. “He would have had me go into the Church, like my brother; he has never counted the Navy an honorable occupation.”

“And is an aviator worse, then?” Temeraire said, a little too perceptive now. “Is that why you did not like to leave the Navy?”

“In his eyes, perhaps, the Corps is worse, but not in mine; there is too great a compensation.” He reached up to stroke Temeraire’s nose; Temeraire nuzzled back affectionately. “But truly, he has never approved my choice of career; I had to run away from home as a boy for him to let me go to sea. I cannot allow his will to govern me, for I see my duty differently than he does.”

Temeraire snorted, his warm breath coming out as small trails of smoke in the cool night air. “But he will not let you sleep inside?”

“Oh, no,” Laurence said, and felt a little embarrassed to confess the weakness that had brought him out to seek comfort in Temeraire. “I only felt I would rather be with you, than sleep alone.”

But Temeraire did not see anything unusual in it. “So long as you are quite warm,” he said, resettling himself carefully and sweeping his wings forward a little, to encircle them from the wind.

“I am very comfortable; I beg you to have no concern,” Laurence said, stretching out upon the broad, firm limb, and drawing the blanket around himself. “Good night, my dear.” He was suddenly very tired, but with a natural physical fatigue: the bone-deep, painful weariness was gone.

He woke very early, just before sunrise, as Temeraire’s belly rumbled strongly enough for the sound to rouse them both. “Oh, I am hungry,” Temeraire said, waking up bright-eyed, and looked eagerly over at the herd of deer milling nervously in the park, clustered against the far wall.

Laurence climbed down. “I will leave you to your breakfast, and go to have my own,” he said, giving Temeraire’s side one final pat before turning back to the house. He was in no fit state to be seen; fortunately, with the hour so early, the guests were not yet about, and he was able to gain his bedroom without any encounter which might have rendered him still more disreputable.

He washed briskly, put on his flying dress while a manservant repacked his solitary piece of baggage, and went down as soon as he thought acceptable. The maids were still laying the first breakfast dishes out upon the sideboard, and the coffeepot had just been laid upon the table. He had hoped to avoid all the party, but to his surprise, Edith was at the breakfast table already, though she had never been an early riser.

Her face was outwardly calm, her clothing in perfect order and her hair drawn up smoothly into a golden knot, but her hands betrayed her, clenched together in her lap. She had not taken any food, only a cup of tea, and even that sat untouched before her. “Good morning,” she said, with a brightness that rang false; she glanced at the servants as she spoke. “May I pour for you?”

“Thank you,” he said, the only possible reply, and took the place next to her; she poured coffee for him and added half a spoonful of sugar and cream each, exactly to his tastes. They sat stiffly together, neither eating nor speaking, until the servants finished the preparations and left the room.

“I hoped I might have a chance to speak with you before you left,” she said quietly, looking at him at last. “I am so very sorry, Will; I suppose there was no other alternative?”

He needed a moment to understand she meant his going into harness; despite his anxieties on the subject of his training, he had already forgotten to view his new situation as an evil. “No, my duty was clear,” he said, shortly; he might have to tolerate criticism from his father on the subject, but he would not accept it from any other quarter.

But in the event, Edith only nodded. “I knew as soon as I heard that it would be something of the sort,” she said. She bowed her head again; her hands, which had been twisting restlessly over each other, stilled.

“My feelings have not altered with my circumstances,” Laurence said at last, when it was clear she would say nothing more. He felt he already had received his answer, by her lack of warmth, but she would not say, later on, that he had not been true to his word; he would let her be the one to put an end to their understanding. “If yours have, you need merely say a word to silence me.” Even as he made the offer, he could not help but feel resentment, and he could hear an unaccustomed coldness creeping into his voice: a strange tone for a proposal.

She drew a quick, startled breath, and said almost fiercely, “How can you speak so?” For a moment he hoped again; but she went on at once to say, “Have I ever been mercenary; have I ever reproached you for following your chosen course, with all its attendant dangers and discomforts? If you had gone into the Church, you would certainly have had any number of good livings settled upon you; by now we could have been comfortable together in our own home, with children, and I should not have had to spend so many hours in fear for you away at sea.”

She spoke very fast, with more emotion than he was used to seeing in her, and spots of color standing high on her cheeks. There was a great deal of justice in her remarks; he could not fail to see it, and be embarrassed at his own resentment. He half-reached out his hand to her, but she was already continuing: “I have not complained, have I? I have waited; I have been patient; but I have been waiting for something better than a solitary life, far from the society of all my friends and family, with only a very little share of your attention. My feelings are just as they have always been, but I am not so reckless or sentimental as to rely on feeling alone to ensure happiness in the face of every possible obstacle.”