Vanessa blinked at that for some reason, as though Dora had revealed a great secret to her instead of a bit of idle gossip. “Well,” Vanessa said slowly, “the Lord Sorcier is almost certainly in London, far away from here. And I wonder if he would lower himself to answering such a question, even if it were the sort of impossible thing he could accomplish.” Vanessa cleared her throat and turned her eyes to the rest of the garden party. “But perhaps there are some here with a less impossible grasp of magic who might offer their expert opinion instead?”
Sir Albus’s moustache was all but vibrating now, as he failed to suppress his outrage at the conversation’s turn away from him and his prized horses. “Young lady!” he sputtered towards Dora. “That is quite enough! If you wish to discuss flights of fancy, then please do so somewhere far afield from us. We are having a serious, adult conversation!”
The man’s vehemence was such that a drop of spittle hit Dora along the cheek. She blinked at him slowly. Sir Albus was red-faced and shaking with upset, leaning towards her in a vaguely threatening manner. Dimly, Dora knew she ought to be afraid of him – any other lady might have cringed back from such a violent outpouring of passion. But whatever impulse normally made ladies wither and faint in the face of frightening things had been lost on its way to her conscious mind for years on end now.
“Sir!” Vanessa managed in a shocked, trembling voice. “You must not address my cousin in such a way. Such behaviour is absolutely beyond the pale!”
Dora glanced towards her cousin, considering the way that her lip trembled and her hands clutched together. Quietly, she tried to mirror the gestures. Her aunt had begged her to act normal at this party, after all.
For a moment, as Dora turned her trembling lip back towards Sir Albus, a chastised look crossed his eyes. “I…I do apologise,” he said stiffly. But Dora noticed that he addressed the apology to Vanessa, and not to her.
“Apologise for what?” Dora murmured absently. “For impacting your chances with my cousin, or for acting the boor?”
Sir Albus widened his eyes in shocked fury.
Oh, Dora thought with a sigh. That was not the sort of thing that normal, frightened women say, I suppose.
“Your apology is accepted!” Vanessa blurted out quickly. She pushed to her feet as she spoke, dragging Dora firmly away by the arm. “But I…I’m afraid I must go and regain my composure, sir. We shall have to discuss this further at another time.”
Vanessa charged for the house with as much ladylike delicacy as she could muster while hauling her older cousin behind her.
“I’ve fumbled things again, haven’t I?” Dora asked her softly. A distant pang of distress clenched at her heart. Acute problems rarely seemed to trouble Dora the way that they should, but emotions born of longer, wearier issues still hung upon her like a shroud. Vanessa should be married by now, Dora thought. She would be married if not for me. It was an old idea by now, and it never failed to sadden her.
“Oh no, you haven’t at all!” Vanessa reassured her cousin as they slipped inside the house. “You’ve saved me again, Dora. Perhaps you were a bit pert, but I don’t know if I could have stood to listen to him say that word even one more time!”
“What, purebred?” Dora asked, with a faint curve of her lips.
Vanessa shuddered. “Oh, please don’t,” she said. “It’s just awful. I’ll never be able to listen to anyone talk about horses again without hearing it that way.”
Dora smiled gently back at her. Though Dora’s soul was numb and distant, her cousin’s presence remained a warm and steady light beside her. Vanessa was like a glowing lantern in the dark, or a comforting fire in the hearth. Dora had no joy of her own – though she knew the sense of contentment, or a kind of pleasant peace. But when Vanessa was happy, Dora sometimes swore she could feel it rubbing off on her, seeping into the holes where her own happiness had once been torn away and lighting a little lantern of her own.
“I don’t think you would have enjoyed marrying him anyway,” Dora told Vanessa. “Though I’ll be sad if I’ve scared away some other man you would have liked more.”
Vanessa sighed heavily. “I don’t intend to marry and leave you all alone, Dora,” she said quietly. “I really worry that Mother might turn you out entirely if I wasn’t there to insist otherwise.” Her lips turned down into a troubled frown that was still somehow prettier than any smile had ever looked on Dora’s face. “But if I must marry, I should hope that it would be a man who didn’t mind you coming to live with me.”
“That is a very difficult thing to ask,” Dora chided Vanessa, though the words touched gently at that warm, ember glow within her. “Few men will wish to share their new wife with some mad cousin who wears embroidery scissors around her neck.”
Vanessa’s eyes glanced towards the top of Dora’s dress. They both knew of the little leather sheath that pressed against her breast, still carrying those iron scissors. It had been Vanessa’s idea. Lord Hollowvale fears those scissors, she had said, so you should have them on you always, in case he comes for you and I am not around to stab him in his other leg.
Vanessa pursed her lips. “Well!” she said. “I suppose I shall have to be difficult, then. For the only way I shall ever be parted from you, Dora, is if you become mad with love and desert me for some wonderful husband of your own.” Her eyes brightened at the thought. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we fell in love at the same time? I could go to your wedding, then, and you could come to mine!”
Dora smiled placidly at her cousin. No one is ever going to marry me, she thought. But she didn’t say it aloud. The thought was barely a nuisance – rather like that fly in the corner – but Vanessa was always so horrified when Dora said common sense things like that. Dora didn’t like upsetting Vanessa, so she kept the thought to herself. “That would be very nice,” she said instead.
Vanessa chewed at her lower lip, and Dora wondered whether her cousin had somehow guessed her thoughts.
“…either way,” Vanessa said finally, “neither of us shall find a proper husband in the country, I think. Mother has been bothering me to go to London for the Season, you know. I believe I want to go, Dora – but only if you swear you will come with me.”
Dora blinked at her cousin slowly. Auntie Frances will not like that at all, she thought. But Vanessa, for all of her lovely grace and charm and good behaviour, always did seem to get her way with her stern-eyed mother.
On the one hand, Dora thought, she was quite certain that she would be just as much a hindrance to Vanessa’s marriage prospects in London as she was here in the country. But on the other hand, there were bound to be any number of Sir Albuses hunting about London’s ballrooms as well, just waiting to pounce on her poor, good-natured cousin. And as much of a terror as Vanessa was to faerie gentry, she really was as meek as a mouse when it came to normal human beings.
“I suppose I must come with you, then,” Dora agreed. “If only so you needn’t talk of horses ever again.”
Vanessa smiled winsomely at her. “You are my hero, Dora,” she said.