Dragon Lord

by Dragon Lord (NCP) (lit)

  She’d never spent a lot of time worrying about what she wasn’t, but she envied that dead woman more than she’d ever envied any living woman in her life. If she could’ve just been half that beautiful, elegant, and graceful …. The truly ‘stunted’ like her couldn’t attain elegance and sophistication, though. The best they could hope for was ‘cute’ and she’d missed that, too. She didn’t have the face for ‘cute’, or the figure--or the temperament, if it came to that.

  And she didn’t want to be cute, dammit to hell! She wanted to be taken seriously. She’d never wanted to be cute, and she damned sure didn’t want Simon to think so. She wanted him to look at her like he’d looked at that beautiful woman in the portrait--like she was a goddess or something.

  “…. The handyman has arrived to repair the … uh … damages. When he has finished inside the main house, he will repair the apartment above the garage.”

  Raina blinked, dragged from her abstraction by the keyword ‘handyman’ so that she caught the tail end of the conversation. She perked up instantly. “Really?” she asked hopefully, feeling such a dizzying rush of relief she forgot the ‘neither seen nor heard and never, under any circumstances, look directly at Mr. Draken, or draw attention to herself, or address him directly unless he has addressed you’ rule.

  She remembered all that when Mr. Draken and the housekeeper both looked at her. Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she frowned at the potato in her hand. She would’ve picked up the knife and focused on peeling except, one, the housekeeper still hadn’t given it back to her and, two, she didn’t want to cut her thumb off in front of the boss and spoil his lunch.

  Apparently, Higgenbottom didn’t trust her not to bleed all over the vegetables either. She put the knife away and searched the kitchen tool drawer until she’d unearthed a potato peeler when Simon Draken left. Raina tried for a while to mentally calculate how long it might take the handyman to get around to the bathroom in her apartment, but since she didn’t know the full extent of the ‘damages’ Simon had mentioned, and she didn’t know anything about handyman work and how long it took to do things, she finally dismissed that exercise in futility.

  She hadn’t wanted to mention anything that might give Hatchet-face the opportunity to raise hell at her for her part in the fight the day before, but since Simon had already introduced it, she decided to see if the housekeeper knew where Audric stood now.

  She cleared her throat. “I haven’t seen Audric today,” she said tentatively.

  Higgenbottom stiffened and turned to look at her. Raina wasn’t looking at the woman, but she sensed the movement and then the burning laser effect of her gaze. “Mr. Smith?”

  Raina frowned, trying to decide what the undertones were in that query. “His name isn’t Audric?” she asked doubtfully. She still hadn’t completely got the hang of those names. They were just too ‘generic’ to keep straight.

  “He is Mr. Smith to you!”

  She didn’t really want to get into another argument with Hatchet-face, but that irked her. “He told me to call him Audric,” she said, turning to look at the woman.

  Higgenbottom’s lip curled like she smelled shit. “Earth …. American women, bah!” she muttered to herself. “No respect for their betters! If he said to call him that when you are romping in his bed, then that is his decision! Otherwise, you will respect his station and refer to him as Mr. Smith!” she added, turning to fix Raina with a hard glare.

  Raina reddened, her hand tightening on the potato peeler. Maybe it had been a really good idea to take the knife and give her the potato peeler before she insulted her? Briefly, she indulged a little fantasy about shoving the peeler up the woman’s flared nostril. She gritted her teeth, counting to ten, and then to twenty. “Right,” she said sarcastically. “When we’re fucking, I can call him Audric. Otherwise, Mr. Smith. I’ll remember that.”

  She fumed while she attacked several more potatoes, but when she got her temper under control, she tried again. “I guess that means Mr. Smith didn’t get canned?”

  The woman stopped and turned to stare at her.

  “Fired? Dismissed?”

  “He is not a servant,” the woman responded with obvious disgust. “He is Mr. Draken’s half brother.”

  That startled Riana so much she forgot about being angry. “No shit?” she asked, turning to look at the woman.

  Again, the woman looked at her as if she smelled shit.

  Riana counted to ten, and then to twenty, and she was still pissed off. “Look, lady! I don’t know what your damned problem is, and I don’t particularly give a flying fuck if my breathing offends your delicate sensibilities. You are a servant here the same as I am so you can just get off your high horse and stop acting like you’re better than me! I am trying to get along with you, but I’m not going to take your lip every time I open my mouth!

  “Whatever you think, I’m not screwing Audric! He’s been nice to me and I just wanted to know if he was alright.”

  Higgenbottom stared at her for a long, long moment. Finally, some of the tension went out of her. “The boys can get rowdy at times--that is the way of men, especially men of war such as they are--but they are deeply attached to one another and extremely loyal. Nothing you could do is likely to change that after all that they have been through together.”

  Intrigued as she was by the first part of that speech, it was completely overshadowed by the snide remark at the end. Raina glared at the back of the woman’s head but finally decided to let it slide. Nothing she could say was likely to change the woman’s low opinion of her, and she didn’t care what the old battle ax thought about her anyway.

  She shouldn’t have even asked the old bitch, she thought irritably, but at least now she knew Audric hadn’t been fired, which was the main thing she was worried about. She’d get the chance to see him when she served lunch so she could reassure herself he wasn’t the worse for the battle.

  She didn’t get to see him at lunch, however. His seat was vacant when she took the food in. That worried her. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, though. She couldn’t just stroll around the mansion looking for him. Higgenbottom made damned sure she kept her well occupied.

  Apparently there was work for the handyman upstairs and not just on the handrail and lower floor. Raina got the chance to see him climbing the stairs later carrying an entire window, which explained why Simon had taken up residence in the library, and made her wonder when the handyman might get around to working on the garage apartment.

  Since the library was currently off limits, Higgenbottom sent her to clean up the front parlor. Most of the breakage had already been removed, but there was a good bit of glass and pottery shards still on the floor, which required a broom and dust pan for removal, and she saw the handyman was probably going to be working on the room after he’d fixed whatever needed fixing upstairs, and the handrail. Aside from several pieces of furniture that had been overturned, there were holes in the walls that were the size of heads and fists and broken chunks of molding lying around--which marked the room as the main battle ground.

  She stared at the carnage of the once beautiful room in dismay, more because it brought home how much battering the men had taken than because of the lovely things that had been destroyed. ‘Things’, no matter how nice, could always be replaced--usually, anyway. People that sustained that kind of damage usually wound up in the hospital.

  She wondered worriedly if that was why Audric hadn’t been at lunch.

  Surely the old bat would’ve said something, though, if one of the ‘boys’ had ended up at the hospital?

  She comforted herself with that thought right up until she entered the dining room that evening and got her first look at Audric.

  Chapter Nine

  Raina really hated the soup that generally constituted the first course, not that she had anything against soup, but it was hell getting through the kitchen door with a tray loaded down with dishes of soup and even worse trying to get the plate and sl
iding bowl on the table without spilling anything--because Higgenbottom always set the bowls on top of a plate for some reason that defied logic in Raina’s opinion since it obviously wasn’t there to catch the soup she spilled.

  She’d just breathed a sigh of relief that she’d managed to negotiate the door and looked up as she moved toward the table to gauge the distance between herself and anything that might trip her up or that she could bump in to, when Audric looked up and directly at her. Sucking in a sharp breath when she saw his handsome face was battered almost beyond recognition, Raina dropped the tray from suddenly nerveless fingers.

  Naturally enough the clatter of breaking dishes drew every eye in the room. Raina had just looked down in dismay at the mess at her feet when Higgenbottom charged out of the kitchen to see what had happened, stepped in a puddle of soup on the floor and executed the most amazing slapstick pratfall Raina had ever been privileged to witness first hand. She gaped at the woman in dismay as her feet flew out from under her and up into the air, her long, black, demure skirt flapping upward to display her granny panties and the hose rolled to her knees. The woman landed flat of her ass in the middle of the soup, mopping up a good half of it as she skidded across it.

  Before she could stop herself, or even realized it was coming, a gale of laughter erupted from her. She clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle it. “Oh my god! Are you hurt?” she gasped when she thought she had her untimely mirth under control.

  Not surprisingly, since her voice was shaky with suppressed laughter instead of the least bit sympathetic, Higgenbottom’s shocked surprise gave way to indignation and she glared up at Raina.

  For some reason, that struck Raina as even funnier, probably because the usually excruciatingly dignified woman was sitting in the middle of the puddle of soup with her dress in her lap and her carefully coifed hair all askew. She tried not laugh. She really did. Another string of giggles erupted, however, as she bent down and tried to grab the woman’s arm. “Here! Let me help you up.”

  Someone at the table coughed, which drew her gaze automatically, although she’d been at pains to try to pretend they weren’t there. She registered a couple of grins before she discovered that Audric had gotten up to help Mrs. Higgenbottom up. “Watch the soup!” she warned, just before she stepped incautiously into a glob herself as she tried to brace herself to help pull the woman up. She skidded. “Whoa! Shit!” she exclaimed as she fell against Audric.

  It was touch and go for a moment, but he managed to steady both of them, grabbing Raina as she plastered herself against him and started to slide toward the floor. As he righted her, she looked up at him, wincing at the painful looking bruises on his face.

  It embarrassed him. She could see it did. He moved away from her and made his way around the mess cautiously until he was behind Mrs. Higgenbottom. A fist crashed on the tabletop, rattling dishes and glasses, as he bent down and hooked his hands beneath her arms to help her to her feet.

  Raina’s head swiveled toward the sound. Simon was glaring at her, obviously furious. “Woman! You are a walking disaster!”

  Blood flooded her cheeks. Raina bit her lip and looked down at the mess, realizing that she’d just ruined their dinner--again. “Sorry, sir! I’ll get it cleaned up!”

  She stepped into the soup in her rush to get to the kitchen. Her feet shot out from under her and she landed, hard, on her ass, spreading the mess before her. Stunned, it took several moments for her to realize what had happened. She lifted her hands and studied them, realized she had soup soaking through her jeans and snickered. Audric, she saw, had gotten Mrs. Higgenbottom to her feet. When she looked up at him, he shook his head ever so slightly.

  She knew it was a warning and she still couldn’t help giggling at the look on his face, even knowing it was probably going to enrage Simon more. Trying to disguise it as a cough, she moved cautiously to her knees. Audric extended a hand to help her up. She’d already reached to take the offering when she realized her hand was covered in soup. She came up on her knees, looked down at herself in search of a clean spot to use to wipe it off and finally rubbed her hand on her shirt.

  She’d managed to conquer her mirth by the time she got to her feet and leaned down to examine herself. Clearing her throat uncomfortably, she grabbed the frame of the door and managed to make it into the kitchen without falling again. Mrs. Higgenbottom had disappeared by the time she got back to the dining room with the dust pan and a broom to get up the broken dishes and as much of the soup as she could.

  She hoped the dishes didn’t cost much. She’d really been looking forward to seeing a paycheck. It was nice that she got room and board as part of the package, and one of the main things that had made the job so appealing in the first place, because she’d been expecting to be evicted any time from her apartment, but she needed money to buy personal items and she had to save up for when she got fired--which probably wouldn’t be long now.

  She was already a mess. There didn’t seem much point in worrying about her clothes getting in a worse mess and in any case, she could feel Simon’s simmering gaze the whole time she worked frantically to scoop up the soup and broken dishes. Fortunately, she and Mrs. Higgenbottom between them had already mopped up most of the spilled soup. She had to fight another round with her untimely mirth as that thought flickered through her mind. “Almost there!” she called out to the waiting diners as she dropped to her knees with a wet kitchen towel and quickly mopped up the residue on the floor.

  When she’d finished and inspected the floor to make sure she’d gotten everything up, she dashed back into the kitchen. Mrs. Higgenbottom still hadn’t returned and she hurried into the pantry to see what she could give them to take the place of the soup she’d spilled. Spying a row of canned soups, she grabbed them up and dashed into the kitchen.

  There was no microwave, she noted in dismay. Grabbing a large pot, she started opening cans and dumping the contents into the pot on top of the stove, then read the directions on the can and added water. While the mixture was heating, she grabbed another dishtowel, wet it and worked on cleaning herself up as much as she could. The soup came to a boil and overflowed the pot before she could get back to it, extinguishing the fire on the stove. Shrugging, she turned the gas off and scurried to the dish cabinet.

  It didn’t seem like a good idea to try the tray again. Instead, she took out a new stack of plates and bowls and ferried them in to the men one bowl and plate at the time. She’d just returned from delivering the last bowl when Mrs. Higgenbottom reappeared, once again immaculate. She stared at the pot on the stove, and then the cans. Moving to the now empty collection of cans, she picked them up one by one and examined them and then looked at Riana.

  “I improvised,” Raina said uneasily.

  The woman looked at the can again and then moved to stare down at the remainder of soup in the pot.

  Raina bit her lip. “There didn’t seem to be five of a kind … it was sort of a vegetable/noodle soup medley.”

  Hatchet face stared at her for many moments, apparently wrestling with the urge to explode. Finally, she merely grabbed the cans up and threw them into the trash receptacle. “Go and clean yourself up! You can not serve looking as you do!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Riana responded, thoroughly subdued by the realization that she probably hadn’t ‘recovered’ the situation as well as she’d thought she had.

  She discovered she didn’t have much of an appetite by the time she got the chance to eat. Afterward, she escaped outside for a walk in the garden, feeling too restless and depressed to hide in her room. She’d been sitting on one of the garden benches for perhaps twenty minutes, staring glumly at her soup spattered shoes, when Audric joined her. Immediately, her spirits lifted but they sank just as quickly at the look he gave her.

  “I’m going to get fired, aren’t I?”

  He shook his head and settled next to her on the bench. She studied him, wondering if that meant he didn’t know, he hadn’t understood the ques
tion, or if it meant that he felt sorry for her and she was definitely going to get fired.

  “You should no have laughed,” he said carefully. “Bad ting.”

  Pleased to see he’d obviously been practicing his English, Raina smiled at him until the comment sank in. Biting her lip, she stared down at her toes. “No, I shouldn’t have, especially since Hatchet-face might have been hurt. I just couldn’t help myself.” She studied it over for a moment, remembering the incident. She chuckled, glanced at him and let out another chuckle when he smiled faintly. “She looked so funny, though!”

  He hesitated. Finally, he lifted his hand to mimic the skew of her hair when she’d landed. “Hair flop over.”

  Raina burst out laughing. “I think that was what was sooo funny! She’s always so prim and proper and dignified … and the look of disbelief on her face!”

  Audric’s eyes gleamed. He chuckled, then winced.

  Raina didn’t miss the wince. Her amusement died. “I am so sorry, Audric. Your poor face! Does it hurt very much?”

  He shrugged. “Only when ha, ha,” he said finally, his lips twisting in self-depreciating amusement.

  Raina felt a smile tremble on her lips in response. “You shouldn’t have done it, you know. It was … really sweet that you wanted to protect me, but even if he’d done something--which he didn’t--I don’t want you fighting with your brother on my account. I can take care of myself.”

  He gave her a doubtful look, but she thought it was probably because he couldn’t understand half of what she’d said.

  “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was sixteen,” she added, just in case that doubtful look had anything to do with disbelief that she was capable of handling herself. “My granny died and I didn’t want to end up in foster care like my little brother and sister, especially since I was almost legal anyway, so I took off. I hated that I couldn’t take them with me, but I could barely manage taking care of myself then. If my father,” she added, making quotes in the air with her fingers, “hadn’t been such an asshole and taken off when mama got cancer and died, they wouldn’t have ended up in foster care, either.