Chapter Eight
A footman brought Taz the order to present himself to the butler.
“Now. Immediately,” he said.
“What’s it for?” Taz asked. It was unexpected. He didn’t answer to the butler, but to the head gardener, who worked under the land steward.
“They don’t tell the likes of me,” grumbled the footman.
“All I know is there’s a big kerfuffle in the house.
The dragon lord is upset about something, and the rest of us are copping it.
Might be to do with his daughter, the snake girl.
She went missing this morning, seems like, but they found her again, so I don’t know why a lot of the servants have been questioned. ”
It didn’t seem to have anything to do with Taz, but he followed orders, and presented himself at the butler’s parlor, which was just through the baize door on the kitchen side of the great divide between servants and their employers.
“His lordship has some questions for you,” said the butler. “Take a seat on the bench out in the passage, and someone will come for you when his lordship is ready.”
Taz took the seat as commanded. He was tempted to reach out to his spy flowers to try to hear what was happening, but it was too risky.
Instead, he sat and waited. The interruption was annoying, for he had decided to spend the day cataloguing the seed store he had inherited from his predecessor, and the morning was wearing away.
However, Lord Baradine paid his wages, and if Lord Baradine wanted his gardener to kick his heels in the house for half an hour, said gardener had no right to complain.
It was closer to forty minutes before a footman came to fetch him.
This was a different footman, but when Taz asked what he was wanted for, he got the same answer.
The footman knew only that their employer was upset about something, and many servants were being questioned.
“Just tell the truth,” the man advised. “Can’t see it could be anything an outdoor servant has to worry about. ”
But when Taz stepped into the dragon lord’s study, the first thing he saw was the row of roses on the desk.
His roses, each with its green string. Instinctively, he reached with his mind, and hit a barrier.
They were under some sort of powerful spell that isolated them from the room around them, a kind of invisible dome—or, perhaps, a box.
Lord Baradine had been in conversation with his lady wife, but when the footman said, “Barberry, my lord,” he turned his full attention to Taz, and Taz felt the gaze from those tawny eyes like a weight.
He had seen Lord Baradine before, of course, but not this close, and never face-to-face. Never with the dragon lord aware of him as an individual rather than a nameless figure quietly carrying out his background role of caring for the lord’s gardens.
The lady catalyst was different. Taz bowed a greeting to her.
When he had received her instructions for various gardens, he had been impressed with her grace and her courtesy, and today she inclined her head in greeting and said to her husband, “Barberry is the gardener who looks after the roses. He is helping me with the new garden along the Long Walk. Barberry, his lordship wishes to ask you a few questions about the flowers you supply for the house.”
Taz had trained for this. Weeks, even months, where he’d had to deceive Hebog on some matter, then feign ignorance of the deception through questioning, beatings, imprisonment, torture, and starvation.
It was a progression. The more he gave away, the worse it got, until he learned to project his innocence as if it was the one truth in the world.
And he had been practicing ever since, on mission after mission where he was a lone Cymry agent in a crowd of Englishmen.
The feared dragon lord was no match for his hard-acquired skills.
It was easy, in fact, for his answers to Lord Baradine’s questions were all true.
“Yes, my lord. I pick and supply the flowers and foliage for the house’s vases.
Unless the housekeeper orders particular colors or species that do not grow in the gardens under my care.
In that case, I ask the relevant gardener for suitable blooms or branches. ”
“The roses, such as those on the table,” said Lord Baradine. “Did you supply those?”
“I believe so, my lord. We have that particular variety of rose, and I certainly picked a number of them for the housekeeper this week.”
“The housekeeper has mentioned that Miss Thornton brought in a basket of roses two days ago. You do not mention this?”
Botheration. Taz had hoped to keep the lady out of this. “She told me what she wanted, my lord, and I picked them. I have done the same for Lady Baradine, from time to time.”
“That is true,” Lady Baradine admitted.
Taz did what he could for Miss Thornton.
“I do not remember picking roses from that bush, my lord, and I am reasonably certain that I didn’t, since the housekeeper’s order requested four dozen pink roses and I’d cut all of the blooms that were ready and sent them up to the house.
” That was also true, but he would have lied if he had to.
In the next moment, he was glad that he hadn’t, for Lord Baradine said to his wife, “He is telling the truth,” and Taz suddenly remembered the legend that dragons could detect lies. Thank goodness he had been able to honestly answer the questions he had been asked.
“He is not using magic,” Lady Baradine said, “though he has some. Garden magic, at least. I have seen the results.
“Small magic,” said the dragon lord dismissively. “Barberry, do you use magic on your plants?
“Magic, my lord? I sing to them,” said Taz. “If that is magic, I reckon so.”
Was that close enough to the truth for Lord Baradine to accept it? He kept his breathing even and his gaze level as he waited for the dragon lord to react. One breath. Two. Three, and then came the nod.
“Very well, Barberry. That will be all for now. If I have any further questions, I shall send for you.”
Relieved not to be caught, but painfully worried about Miss Thornton, Taz bowed again and left the room and the house. Now. How could he find out what had happened to his colleague without giving himself away?
*
When she saw the roses on Cousin Jasper’s desk, Sephie knew she was in trouble. Her cousins must have seen it in her face. No. Not her cousins. Today they were very much the dragon lord and the lady catalyst.
Lord Baradine took the lead. “You recognize these,” he said. “You placed them in the vases intended for this room.”
There must be something Sephie could say that would save her, but as always when she was under pressure, her mind froze and her tongue seemed to go numb in her mouth. She said nothing.
“Who are you working for?” the dragon lord demanded. “The French? The Welsh?”
Sephie shook her head.
“Persephone,” said Cousin Delia, her voice soft and kind, “we know the flowers were intended to spy on the meeting yesterday. What was your purpose? Who are you reporting to? If you help us now, we can try to save you.”
Even now, Cousin Delia was trying to help her. They had been so good to her, and Sephie had betrayed them. And yet the cause was just, was it not? Tears rose to her eyes at the conflict between her guilt and her conviction.
“If you will not tell us,” declared the dragon lord, “we shall have to fetch an enchanter to get it out of you. Save yourself the indignity of having your mind taken over by someone else, Persephone. Tell us what you can.”
Barberry! If Sephie confessed now, he would be taken, too. She had to stay silent and hope he had time to escape before the enchanter arrived. The tears kept falling, even as she shook her head again.
And though the couple tried several more questions, she continued to refuse to talk, until at last Lord Baradine escorted her back to her bedchamber.
“I am spelling the lock on both the door and the window, and placing an anti-translocation sphere around you,” he told her.
“You obviously have more control of your magic than you have previously admitted, but you’ll not break one of my spells.
Take the time to think, cousin. It will not be too late, right up until the lady enchanter casts her charm. ”
With that, he left, and Sephie sank down on the bed, despair consuming her, all but for a stubborn core determined to hold on to give Barberry an opportunity to escape.