The Spectral Orchid ** PRE-ORDER**

Drake’s Bend, early summer

Fern slipped through the wrought iron gates of Wyndham Hall with her thoughts in as much turmoil as when she entered. That was probably why she never saw the bat that slammed into her face, its claws tangling in her hair.
“Ugh!” she cried out as her vision was momentarily blocked by wings covering her eyes.
Reaching up, she was about to fling the confused nocturnal creature away when her brain registered that bats weren’t usually covered in looping purple scales. Nor did they excitedly puff warmed air.
“Squib?” Fern managed to hold the small creature far enough away from her face to get a better look at it.
The pixie dragon trilled and snorted a short burst of air at her nose.
“Let’s see if we can get the claw out.” With care, Fern unhooked his wing claw that had twisted in her hair. “What are you doing so far from the village on your own?”
Once free, she placed Squib on her shoulder, where he trilled and bounced up and down.
“Fern! Fern!” Millie called from along the shady road. The writer held up vibrant blue skirts with one hand, her other steadying her bonnet as she hurried towards them.
“Millie! I didn’t hear you.” Fern’s thoughts had been in a shadowy room lined with dragon skeletons, remembering a heated kiss that even now, she could still feel on her skin.
“I was calling your name, but you seemed a thousand miles away. Squib took it upon himself to attract your attention.” Millie dropped her skirts and fanned herself with both hands.
“Sorry. My mind was somewhere else.” About a mile up the driveway of Wyndham Hall. “What brings you out to this end of Drake’s Bend? You’re not leaving us to walk back to Warrington Manor are you?”
Millie blanched, the rosy pink draining from her cheeks and her eyes widened. “Oh. No.” She swallowed as though her mouth had gone suddenly dry. “I…I…wanted to explore a little.”
Squib fluttered to his mistress and nestled under her straw bonnet.
Mentally, Fern chided herself for not having asked if Millie wanted to ramble over the countryside surrounding Drake’s Bend. “I am sorry, Millie. I have been rather tangled in recent events, rather like Squib’s claw in my hair. I should have offered to take you out on some walks.”
Millie rested one hand on the pixie dragon as she chewed her lower lip. “We have both been busy. And it has taken me some time to realise the cottage won’t disappear when I walk out the front door. It’s just that I used to love roaming the countryside as a girl. When Father died, Bertie said it wasn’t seemly and I was forbidden from leaving the immediate garden. Although I rather suspect he thought I’d run off and do something unseemly.”
Fern’s heart ached for her friend who had been confined to her family estate. Her brother didn’t want his sister to embarrass him with her wild flights of fancy. She threaded her arm through Millie’s. “No one is going to stop you now. I will join you, if you tell me what direction you had in mind?”
A brief smile crossed the other woman’s features and the worry lines eased. “I wanted to see the cemetery, I was told it’s out this way? I find them peaceful and inspiring.”
“Perfect. That is exactly where I am going.” Fern guided the other woman along the road and towards a gap in the trees. The passage of many feet, horses, and carriages over the years had worn a dipped path in the earth. “I was on my way to talk to my parents as I have much to tell them. But I am curious, how do you find a graveyard inspiring?” Fern asked as they entered the tunnel created by the foliage of the closely growing trees.
“Cemeteries are libraries of souls,” Millie said with a hushed, reverent tone as they emerged from the tunnel into the picturesque meadow bathed golden by the sun.
They paused, and Fern saw the little graveyard through her friend’s eyes. With its enclosing boundary of ancient trees, the weathered stone church at one end, and wildflowers scrambling among the tombs it did create a restful and peaceful place.
“A library of souls? I’ve never thought of it that way before.” Fern led Millie along the main path that led from the tunnel to the church. The surface was laid with cobblestones to stop anyone slipping in the worse of the winter rain.
Millie paused and rested her hand on a gravestone, the etched words turning green with moss. “A tombstone is like the title of a book. It is but a hint of what lies beneath. Each of these graves holds a story. Some are grand romances, others are adventures, and some are quiet tales of hardship and endurance.”
They moved on and stopped at the small grave of a child enclosed by an ankle high railing. Both of them fell silent as they considered a life snatched before the youngster had ever learned to walk.
“Some stories are tragically short,” Millie whispered as she read the dates that began and ended in the same year. “Everyone here took the lead in their tale, and I like to sit among them and see if I can hear what they have to say. You probably think I’m silly.”
Fern swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat. “No. On the contrary. I think that is a beautiful way to look at a cemetery. My parents had a grand romance, with a dash of adventure if half the stories my Uncle Ambrose tells are true. Then it ended in tragedy, with both of them taken too early.”
“Why do you keep touching your lip? Is something wrong?” Millie abruptly changed the direction of the conversation.
“Um…” Fern stared at her raised hand, unaware she had been rubbing her lip. “I might have…kissed Lord Drakeman.”
“What? No wonder you were so distracted earlier.” Millie grabbed both her hands and pulled her down to the grass. “You must tell me everything!”
“There’s not really that much to tell. I kissed him and I should probably go back and apologise.” Fern crossed her legs and plucked a blade of grass. She seemed to be making rather a number of apologies to the lord of Wyndham Hall. There was something about being around him that made her more impulsive than usual. Perhaps the Moray sisters could create an amulet to shield her from his dragon gaze.
“Why do you need to apologise? Oh, Fern…” Millie’s eyes widened. “Did you make an unwelcome advance?”
Squib, unlike his mistress, narrowed his gaze and huffed at Fern in disapproval of her actions.
Had the kiss been unwelcome? There had been a crackle in the air between them as though someone had been frantically turning the crank on a galvanism machine. As she recalled, he had leaned closer to her first.
“I…well…he did kiss me back.” Fern replayed the moment over again.
Lord Drakeman had remained still for the first moment of their kiss. Then his hands had cupped her nape as, rather enthusiastically in her opinion, he took control of the kiss. It had been Fern who had broken away.
Millie huffed and shared a long look with Squib. “Him responding is not quite the same as having permission beforehand. What happened next?”
Fern threw herself back on the grass and stared at the fluffy clouds above. She couldn’t face either her friend or the pixie dragon when she said the next bit. “I ran off.”
Millie’s tinkling laughter was joined by the huffy chortle of a tiny dragon. “You don’t strike me as the sort to take flight all because of a kiss you started.”
“It wasn’t the kiss that bothered me.” Fern heaved a sigh and glanced at her friend, who appeared to be sucking in her lips to stop either laughter or more questions. “It was what might have come next if we continued that made me need fresh air.” It had been a thrilling kiss. Even now she curled her toes as she remembered how her body had reacted.
“Did you desperately want him to ravish you on his desk?” Amusement sparkled in Millie’s warm gaze.
“Desk? No, it was a rather substantial table.” In her mind, Lord Drakeman swept the surface clear in the heat of their passion as their entwined bodies tumbled to the wood… No. Wait. He couldn’t do that because of… “Dragons!”