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“Damn it to hell!”

“Roland, if you do not sit down, I swear by all the powers, I’m damn well going to tie you down!”

Jane scowled as much as her torn face would allow. Shaking off the restraining arms, she flung herself down into the surgeon’s chair. “You forgot to mention you would be using a damned sabre to stitch me together again, Hopkins,” she grumbled.

The surgeon gave her an utterly dry look. “You’re lucky to have a face left, you know.”

She rolled her eyes, then grimaced. “So I have been told,” she said, tilting her head towards the light. The needle pierced her skin, but she made barely a sound, even if her knuckles whitened, her hands closed around her knees.

The ward was stuffy and reeked of the sweat of dozens of injured aviators. They had the lower levels, away from the main buildings. It was in part due to the dragons sprawling in sun, but also a safer measure lest the naval wounded discover they had fought alongside women along with dragons.

The Captain currently being tended shot a sidelong look at Admiral Bedford, who was standing close-to. “No need to nursemaid me, Admiral,” she said shortly. “One would imagine you have seen far worse than a little gash like this.”

“I have indeed, Roland,” he agreed, “but I have also never seen such folly in face the face of your enemies.”

She snorted. “Yes,” she said, “you have. You knew my mother after all.”

The Admiral’s lips twitched upwards. “Folly of a different kind,” he said. “I doubt she would approve of leaping from your dragon’s back to evade being taken hostage.”

The woman shrugged as much as the surgeon would allow. “It seemed like the best course of action,” she said. “Excidium and I had practised mid-air catching in case such a thing became necessity.” A dark eye fixed on him. “If you intend to reprimand me, I remind you that we righted ourselves, dislodged the boarders and brought down a Grande Chevalier or two.”

“Indeed.”

He folded his hands behind his back in silence.

Roland eyed him, then the needle which was moving back and forth across her line of sight.

When it finally stilled, she burst out, “Well, whatever is it?”

“I find myself wondering,” he replied, teeth showing in a smile, “what kind of deranged hellcat your daughter will be once she’s grown.”

Jane grinned, even though it ached to stretch her torn cheek so. “She will be an aviator,” she said firmly. “Just like her mother, and her grandmother, and great-grandmother.” She waved the surgeon away and rose. “And,” she continued, thumping Bedford heartily on the arm, “she will fly rings around you.”

The Admiral laughed. “That, I do not doubt,” he said. “Come. Excidium will have paced all the sand from the desert if you do not come and show him that your head was not cut off after all.”

She groaned and stormed ahead of him, calling out her dragon’s name as she stepped into the blazing north African sun.

The leave was unexpected.

Excidium took a ball to his leg, over the Channel, and despite insisting all was well, an infection had inflamed it. As tolerant a patient as his Captain, he gloomily accepted the direction to rest and recover.

Roland sympathised with him, remembering her own bout of fever in the Indies and the boredom that had followed hard upon it. It seemed a suitable time for them both to spend a little time with her daughter.

Little Emily had finally become more interesting. She was speaking well now, and could climb a dragonet as well as any of the cadets twice her age.

Bringing the girl to Excidium’s shelter, Roland set the child down and - corrected on occasion by her old companion - proceeded to tell Emily of her own training and earliest experiences of battle when she was only in her eleventh year.

It would have been unfair to miss out the miserable moments and tell only the delightful parts, and Emily looked quite sick to the stomach when she was told about the occasion when Danvers had erupted as a ball tore through him.

“You must never forget the damage that can be done,” Roland advised. “One must always be on the alert.” She tapped the side of her face. “Let this be a reminder.”

“Yes, mama,” Emily said at once. She had large eyes, quite different in colour and shade to Jane’s own. Roland supposed she looked quite like her father that way. He had been on the crew of Mortiferus before she ever became Captain of Excidium.

She remembered watching him, occasionally, and when she had become Captain, and she knew her duty to the Corps and to Excidium, she knew who it was that she wanted. Of course, he never knew that, and should anyone ask, she would merely laugh and say he was a decent aviator, capable and steady handed.

He had been close to: capable and steady handed. She had come upon him in the mess, late in the evening, and by the firelight that hid the only girlish blush to ever court her cheek, she had told him directly what she required of him. And in her mind, what she wanted of him. He had stared, and she had mind enough to snort and tell him he looked a buffoon.

She took him to her bed a good number of times, even when it was no longer necessary. A little selfishness could be allowed, she had told herself. For the greater good, of course. Not for the smooth, broad back under her hands and the coarse hair of his arms and legs brushing against hers.

She remembered his grin of delight when she told him.

“Job well done,” she had told him, slapping him on the back. “Now, off with you.”

When she grew larger, she had seen him again, and he still smiled to her, but she made herself hide her own smile in response. An aviator’s first responsibility always and ever would be the happiness of their dragon. The minute she started thinking about her own desires and happiness, her focus would be gone.

Roland pushed down the face of times past. They occasionally saw one another in the mess, but that was all.

“Now, Emily,” she said, turning her attention to her daughter, “Tell me what are the basic tools that every aviator must always have to hand.”

The girl smiled her father’s smile, and began to recite the lesson she had been taught from the cradle.

Temeraire was unusual.

However, it was not the dragon but the man who caught Roland’s interest.

After so many years surrounded by the men born and raised by the Corps, it was a fresh breath to have Laurence stumble into their particular world. For once, she knew what it was like to have a gentleman talk to her. He even recovered from the shock of her scar, which always earned her horrified and pitying looks when she walked abroad.

The poor fellow was still finding his feet when he met her, so she took him in hand. Had he a moment to think, she doubted he would have followed her as docilely as he did, and when she took his wine glass from him and drew him to her, she gave him plenty of opportunity to flee.

He rose in her estimation when he chose to stay.

Even more so when he chose to return.

At first, she wondered if it was mere gratitude for his treatment of Emily, and if he took her offer as acceptance to keep her daughter on his crew. Then, she began to wonder if she were merely making excuses for herself. After all, Emily was an efficient young cadet, and there was no doubt Laurence took her on, upon her own merits. And he, after all, was a gentleman. He would not seek recompense for her daughter’s presence, she knew.

It came as a surprise to realise she enjoyed his company, peculiar as it sometimes was.

When days, and brief liaisons, become more frequent, and one or other of their beds were going cold for weeks at a time, she found herself wondering once more on the nature of what could be between a man and a woman.

The physical aspect was pleasant, of that there was no mistake. Laurence was not young, but he was well-worn by life and bore his years proudly. She was no fresh dragonet herself, and together, with his slightly soft belly and her own flagging bosom, they managed to fit quite nicely.

She watched him sleeping one night, fair hair a tangled mess on the pillow, a small, knowing smile curving his lips. She touched the delicate dimple at the very corner of his mouth lightly. He stirred briefly and turned towards her.

“Morning?” he asked, eyes barely opening.

“Not the least, old boy,” she murmured, covering his lips with her fingers. “Get some sleep. We have a long day.”

His smile broadened briefly, and his eyes drooped closed.

Roland, she thought to herself with a smile, you are a sentimental old baggage.