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When her son returns from breakfasting in town and tells her that he plans to move to Scotland to stay with his friend Mr. Tharkay, and that Temeraire will be taking one of the new seats in Parliament, Diana says only, “Well, dear, you must bring Mr. Tharkay to tea, then. Tomorrow?”
As Diana anticipated, her overture means that her daughter-in-law is then compelled to issue Mr. Tharkay an invitation to dinner on the following evening, which neatly prevents Will from dashing off at a day's notice as he is wont to do – a dreadful habit from his Navy days, made worse by having a dragon at hand.
Privately, Diana is much relieved at the news. She has seen the old signs of restlessness in Will lately, though they were slower to come than she'd expected. At least in Scotland, he is likely to be safe, and to come visit more often. She feared that he would follow Temeraire back to China for lack of a better alternative, where she might never see him again.
Not that she regrets Temeraire. For all the danger and painful decisions that the young dragon has brought to Will, she has never seen her son quite so peaceful and content with another soul. He has always been restive and stood apart from his friends, despite his gift for society and easy conversation, by cause of both his rank and the way he drives himself, demanding the utmost at all times from all people. Diana sees her husband's shade in that – Richard never had many intimate friends, either.
Tenzing Tharkay is another rare friend, it seems. His name is familiar, although she knows very little about the man. Her son wrote approvingly – even affectionately – of him in his letters, although the tales were regrettably sparse on the whole: a sure sign that Will was writing around the sort of dangerous adventures that he did not want his mother to worry over. He did not seem to understand that she would worry regardless, and his strategy only left the specifics up to her imagination.
Diana has pried some of the more harrowing details out of Temeraire these past months, on the few occasions when she managed to invite him to tea without Will, but he was sadly vague on many common social matters. She learned a great deal about Mr. Tharkay's skill at tracking in vast wildernesses and speaking dragon tongues, his predilection for falconry, and a rather confused story about him borrowing Will's clothing in Russia – which seemed to be a sore spot despite Temeraire admitting how helpful it had been – but very little about his family or upbringing.
In all, she knows that Mr. Tharkay is not an aviator, aside from a brief commission during the invasion, but nonetheless traveled with her son around the world, through danger and captivity, and out into retirement, offering a solution to Will's quiet purposelessness that Diana would never have considered. She is inclined to approve of him.
When she gently questions Will on the topic, he is unusually close-mouthed. “His father married a Nepali woman when he was with the East India Company, and Tharkay was raised and educated in Scotland. After his father died, his cousins filed suit to disinherit him,” he says, looking so thunderous that Diana is sure there is more to the story there. “He only just won his countersuit after many years of hardship working abroad. Tharkay is very private about the matter; I pray you will not inquire further. He is not...conventional, but he is one of the best men I have ever known.”
It is all very frustrating, and she perforce plans the tea with great care.
Indeed, the next day Anna has outdone herself with a beautiful spread of sandwiches and some clever pastries, the sun is shining brightly through the new curtains in her parlor, and her son arrives with his guest exactly on time.
Diana admits to herself that Mr. Tharkay looks somewhat incongruous in her parlor: one doesn't often see a person with his features in their society. Luckily, she has a great deal of experience with 'incongruous' these past few years, between her son the adopted prince of China, her friendship with Jane Roland, and the future dragon member of Parliament napping in her field.
He looks even odder sitting next to Will, for an entirely different reason. Will's knee breeches and queue are still perfectly correct, but increasingly old-fashioned for a man of his age – she does despair of him sometimes. Mr. Tharkay, on the other hand, has his dark hair cropped neatly to curl around his ears; his clothes are not of the first water, nor the very height of fashion, but are impeccably tailored and tasteful. When he makes his bow to Diana, only his hands betray his history: broad rough palms with the same callus as Will's, long fingers ending in short, practical nails, and everywhere covered in scars.
After Will introduces them, Mr. Tharkay sits comfortably and makes the usual pleasantries with ease, taking his tea with compliments. She responds in kind, but as the conversation continues, Diana begins to suspect an ironic edge in the absolute, bland perfection of his manners; his smile never truly makes it up to his eyes to soften the tension there.
Will is a better indicator than the impassive features of Mr. Tharkay, for he is earnestly and too-brightly telling a story about Temeraire offering to rebuild the old abbey ruins, and smiling between Mr. Tharkay and Diana. He so clearly wants them to like each other, and is clearly worried that it is not so.
Will finishes his story with, “I did not have the heart to tell Temeraire precisely how old the ruins are; he was so eager to help.” He looks at Mr. Tharkay in clear expectation of a response, but his friend only sips his tea, fractionally lifting an eyebrow but saying nothing. Will frowns at him.
“How old are the ruins?” Mr. Tharkay asks, after a pause too long to be truly polite.
Diana clears her throat and leaps into the breach. “Oh, they are over seven hundred years old; I believe there was a fire in the eleventh century....” She rattles off what little she knows about the history – it was not a very interesting abbey, all told.
The conversation limps along, somehow, with Will frowning pointedly at Mr. Tharkay, who continues to be reticent even in the face of Will's powerful glare. Diana has seen hardened Parliamentary members quail under that look from Will; Mr. Tharkay appears to be immune. He comments blandly on the food until Diana is forced into a terribly mundane discussion of recipes, which she knows perfectly well her guests cannot be interested by.
She has only just nudged the flow of talk in a more interesting direction by inquiring about the difficulties of travel cooking, drawing Will into a discussion of camp bread, when Will and Mr. Tharkay both cease speaking and turn their heads in eerie synchrony, as if hearing the same thing.
A moment later, she hears it as well: a dragon's wingbeat, drawing closer. They had heard him coming first.
“Laurence!” Temeraire calls, cheerfully. There is a gentle thump as he drops gracefully outside her garden gate; their spoons rattle a little against the saucers. “Laurence, can you spare a moment?”
“I beg your pardon, mother,” Will says, standing with a pained expression on his face for interrupting their tea, as if Diana did not know very well what Temeraire was like, “I should go see what he is about.”
“Of course, dear. Mr. Tharkay, would you care for more tea?” Diana asks, neatly preventing Mr. Tharkay from following Will into the garden, as he had half-risen from his seat to do. Her son exchanges a subtle look with his friend, who lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug; Will departs, but not without glancing back one more time.
She pours a fresh cup for Mr. Tharkay – sugar, no milk – but he only watches her, sphinx-like. She has dealt with more hostile guests, certainly, but rarely one who so utterly refused to play the game.
Diana opens her mouth, to say what she is not entirely sure, but Mr. Tharkay stands suddenly, leaving his tea on the table, and goes to the sideboard, where sits the glowing red Chinese vase that her son brought back from China.
“I remember this piece,” he says. “Laurence had a devil of a time getting it through customs at the border, until he told them it was a gift for his father.” Just as she realizes that the vase has been sitting in his view this whole time without him mentioning it – not until Will was no longer here – he darts a sharp-eyed look at Diana and asks, “Has it been on display since, or only since your husband died?”
“Since my husband died, yes,” she says calmly, although she does not feel it. The long enmity between Richard and Will is an old wound, hopelessly intertwined with the pain of Will's treason, and overlaid by the fresh one of her husband's death; it still hurts. Even worse, the matter is hardly a secret, and Mr. Tharkay is not the first person to dance atop the scar. It makes her want to lash out.
“Yes, I thought as much,” Mr. Tharkay says. His mouth twists.
Suddenly, Diana realizes: he is testing her. She had anticipated Will's protectiveness, but not this. Will did not need defending from her – though perhaps Mr. Tharkay does not know that.
Given what little she knows about his history with his family, perhaps it is understandable that he should expect the worst of her.
She is silent for too long, and Mr. Tharkay turns to the window over the garden and looks out, where Temeraire's voice is rumbling in conversation with Will's, too distant to hear. “Perhaps I should go see what Temeraire is here about.”
“No need,” Diana says, setting her cup down with a clink. This tea is not going to plan at all. She decides to take a page from Jane Roland's book and be uncomfortably honest, for she is quite at a loss for what else she can do. “Will's nephews have asked if they might go flying with Temeraire; I believe Temeraire is attempting to persuade Will, now, although I doubt his success.”
Mr. Tharkay goes still, his hand resting on the curtain. “You planned this,” he says slowly.
“Temeraire is unfortunately early, and I had anticipated the conversation would be going somewhat better at this point, but yes,” Diana says blunt with exasperation.
He shifts his weight onto his back foot, as if he would like to be moving away, and then stops himself. “If I may ask, why did you coax your grandchildren into supplying this tête-à-tête, Lady Allendale? I imagine you were not purposeless.”
She takes a deep breath. “I did not invite you here to take your measure, or to defend my late husband's actions to you; I only wished to thank you, without Will hovering, for all you have done for them. Temeraire has told me how often you have saved their lives, and Will has told me that you are a good man, and you have offered them a home that will make them happy, when I could not. I have no doubts as to your character; I should very much like to be friendly with you.”
Mr. Tharkay stares at her for a long moment, and then laughs quietly, his mouth crooking up into his half-smile again. “You are very like your son, Lady Allendale.”
“Thank you,” she says, folding her hands in her lap.
His smile deepens. “Although I have wished on occasion that he had your skill for subterfuge. A shocking neglect in his education, I must say.”
She laughs in turn. “It was not for lack of trying, I promise.”
“Truly, he has no inclination for it,” Mr. Tharkay agrees. “Nor does Temeraire. But I have been happy to serve that purpose, when I was available.”
“Yes, I thought as much, from what few stories I could extract. Something about Will's formal robes in Russia, Temeraire said?”
He bows a little, smirking, with the air of an actor facing applause, but doesn't elaborate.
Diana sighs. Someday, she will get that story out of one of them.
He steps back from the window and reclaims his seat. He is very graceful now that he has relaxed, enough that she notices the difference. Picking up his teacup, he says dryly, “From the sound of it, I am sorry to report that your grandsons have been disappointed; Laurence will be rejoining us soon.”
“Well, then there is one more thing I should like to bend your ear about,” she says, leaning in a little. “I have been considering taking a house in town next Season. If it were only for my own sake, I should not bother, but if Temeraire is to be in Parliament, it might benefit him and Will to have an experienced hostess at hand. Admiral Roland might hypothetically play the part for the dragon party, but she is...not particularly apt in this field.”
“No, she is not,” Mr. Tharkay says, his eyes twinkling.
“No,” Diana agrees. “I do not know if Will should like his own lodgings, or what they shall do now that they are no longer serving and cannot stay at the London covert, and I am sure that you will need to attend your estate a great deal, but any time you are in London, I should like you to know that you would be welcome as a guest in my home.”
Mr. Tharkay doesn't exactly startle, but his fingers go white on the delicate china of his cup for a brief moment. “You are very kind,” he says at last.
“I want my son to be happy,” she says, “whether that means having dragons in my garden, or hosting his friends in London.”
He smiles at her. “A worthy cause. I hope I may be of some assistance.”
“I expect you shall,” she says.
When Will returns, Mr. Tharkay is telling her about the state of Will's coat when he first met him, in mock horror, and she is laughing. Will's face lights up at the sound, even as Mr. Tharkay begins to tease him for wearing that makeshift Chinese jacket across two continents, and Diana thinks that this was an alliance well worth making.