Free A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan Page B

many.”
    I could not think of a response that would not sound antagonistic, and so I kept quiet.
    Jacob, I think, had been hoping I would make small talk, perhaps help him find a graceful way into the conversation we could not avoid. Faced with my silence, he sighed. “I’m sorry for what I said last night,” he told me, his voice heavy. “The implication that you were … using our loss against me, as a way to get what you wanted. I should not have said that.”
    “No, you should not have.” My words came out harder than I meant them to. I sighed, echoing him. “But I forgive you. It’s true; I have maneuvered you before.”
    My husband came forward to lean gingerly on the edge of my working-table, careful not to disturb anything on it. He gazed down at me, and when I made myself look up, I could not read his expression.
    “Tell me truly,” Jacob said. “If I go to Vystrana without you—with travel time, it will take the better part of a year. What will you do?”
    Go mad in white linen … but I would not say that to him. Though true, it was not the sort of answer he deserved. I considered it for a moment, then said, “I would likely visit my family, at least to start. I would rather be in the countryside than engaging in empty rounds about Society. Here, I would have to endure too much gossip and false sympathy, and I fear I would hit someone and make a true disgrace of myself.”
    The corner of Jacob’s mouth quirked. “And then?”
    “In truth? I don’t know. Go to the coast, perhaps, or see if I might convince you to finance a trip for me somewhere foreign. People would think it less strange if I went to a spa for my health. But that would not keep me occupied; it would just remove my boredom to somewhere further from the public eye.”
    “Are you that bored?”
    I met his gaze directly. “You have no idea. At least when men visit with friends, it is acceptable for them to talk about more than fashion and perhaps the occasional silly novel. I cannot talk to ladies about the latest lectures at the Philosophers’ Colloquium, and men will not include me in their conversations. You allow me to read whatever I wish, and that spares my sanity. But books alone cannot keep me company for a year.”
    He absorbed this, then nodded. “Very well. I’ve listened to your side. Will you hear mine?”
    “I owe you at least that much.”
    His eyes roved across the ordered ranks of my sparklings as he spoke. “You would be thought odd for going on an expedition to Vystrana; I would be thought a monster. I care little for those who would tell me I should keep my wife in line; I have not made a habit of keeping you on a leash. But there are others who would ask what sort of gentleman would subject his wife to such hardship.”
    “Even if your wife volunteered for it?”
    “That does not enter into it. It is my duty to protect you and keep you safe. Protection and safety do not include ventures of this sort.”
    I folded my hands into my lap, noting irrelevantly that I had begun biting my nails again. It was a habit I have spent my life trying and failing to break. “Then the question, I suppose, is how much those criticisms concern you.”
    “No.”
    I glanced up at Jacob again, and saw the quirk in his mouth grow to a rueful smile.
    “The question,” he said, “is whether that concern is important enough to warrant making my wife miserable.”
    Hardly daring to breathe, I waited for him to go on. Whatever else he might say, I knew one thing: that I had been luckier than I knew, the day Andrew invited me to go with him to the king’s menagerie. How many other gentlemen would even have made such a statement?
    Jacob’s hazel eyes fixed on me, and then he shook his head. My heart sank, though I tried not to show it.
    “I am the greatest lunatic in Scirland,” he said, “but I cannot bear to deny you. Not with you looking at me like that.”
    His words took a moment to sink in, so convinced was I that I