May 28, 1895 - Smoke & Scale Pub in Avalon Glen

Your roses looked sad last visit.

-A.

She was going to kill Anthony the next time she saw him, Lucy decided as she looked from the note in her twin's hand writing the pile of .... excrement that was lying on the walk in front of her beautiful London townhouse - again. If she were anything less than a lady she would have crumpled the note up in her fist in disgust. Her brother thought he was funny. She knew he did. But the gall of him!

Lucy's gloved hand reached out to the shovel the Avalon Glen employee had left unattended. According to the butler he'd made his delivery, dug the shovel in, provided the note to the butler, then strolled off down the street of London hands in his pockets whistling. Somehow she couldn't picture the surly man who had delivered the last load of dragon - there was no better word for it in her anger - shit to her house whistling. But he had and he'd left his bloody shovel behind too.

Apparently anger and indignation was a potent enough brew for Lucy to grab hold of the shovel despite who knew what being on it to soil her favorite pair of lace gloves. Her fingers wrapped around the wooden handle, note clasped in the other, when the world shrunk in on itself. It twisted and swirled in a dizzying way all too farmiliar to Lucy from her travels to visit Anthony's vineyard in France.

She only had time to think oh no before her feet hit the ground and she stumbled forward, the shovel falling to the dirty wooden floor with a clatter a moment before her silk skirts hit what turned out to be a sticky floor too. It most certainly was not the pavement of her well groomed London neighborhood.

A pair of boots were right before her and Lucy looked up to find herself staring up at the face of the man she hated second most in the world. Howell Howell.

Howell Howell

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   Anthony Alderton

Howell didn’t exactly take days off, as it were – because when you lived in the Keeper’s Cottage and rarely left the Glen, if something urgent was going on somewhere on the dragon reserve, it was hard to keep to your knitting and just ignore it.

But he had an afternoon off or thereabouts, so Howell had exchanged a few words (literally) with Pryce the barkeep and turned towards a table, pint of ale in his hand. He didn’t make it to the table before someone spun into the near-empty pub in what was very much a scene, fine skirts flailing about before him.

He held back a sigh. He was going to have to put down this pint, wasn’t he?

“Some entrance, huh,” Howell said, begrudging, as he stowed his pint safely on another table and offered Mrs. Hutton a hand up. Mrs. Hutton didn’t look happy. So that boded well for his peace. “How’d you get here?”

More importantly to Howell was the and why the hell – but then he didn’t particularly want to be the one here to hear her answer.

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"Some entrance?" Lucy seethed meeting Howell's eyes before taking his proffered hand. She hadn't meant to make an entrance, she didn't even know where it was that she was having to drag shreds of her dignity up off the floor as he helped her up. She'd much rather make a grand entrance to a ballroom looking her best than ... whatever that had been.

Her eyes widened further and she had to try and regain her composure before she replied - all too well aware that Howell was not the only one here. Why did it always have to be this man who riled her up?

Reigning in her temper Lucy pulled herself as straight as she could and aimed her best imperious look at the man's face, trying to ignore the onlookers. "You're guess is as good as mine." She informed him sharply, "One moment I'm having an unexpected delivery on the doorstep," Her tone conveyed just what delivery that might be, "And the next thing I know I'm here. Neither of which, I will add, I asked for."

  

It wasn’t even just the entrance she had made; it was the whole picture of Mrs. Hutton being here, in the Smoke & Scale, a grubby Welsh pub where practically everyone who passed through but the Yarwoods was a working man. She stuck out, in her fashionable dress and regal look, like a sore bloody thumb.

Ah. He understood immediately what she meant by delivery, though he didn’t know how that had happened again; and, once she had accepted his hand and was back on her feet, and he had spotted the stray shovel that had appeared with her, he understood just how it was she had gotten here. Evidently she had hijacked his dung lad’s ride.

Merlin’s boots, and was she going to dress him down now in front of the couple of locals and the barkeep? This hadn’t been Howell’s fault; he was fairly certain it hadn’t been any of his workers’ faults. “I don’t know a thing about it,” Howell said stubbornly, unable to resist the urge to fold his arms defensively (and never mind his manners when talking to – er, her.) “Once might have been a mistake,” (though not theirs, Howell refrained from adding), “but twice? No chance.”

Did Mrs. Hutton really think he had nothing better to do than dump dragon dung on her lawns?

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Mr. Howell's posture changed, his arms folding across his chest and a stubborn set of his jaw that she was (unfortunately) acquainted with. "I don't doubt that. It does not explain why I'm here though." She certainly wasn't going to deem him with the insight that it was a practical joke on the side of her nuisance of a twin brother. Truly how had he thought she'd find any of this funny?

"Do you truly train employees to leave portkeys unattended on the streets of London? Or rather, a lack of training." Her voice was more shrill and annoyed than she would care to admit now - or when she looked back on this situation.

  

“I think you’re here because you picked up a shovel that wasn’t meant for you,” Howell countered, bristling back because she was speaking quite loudly, and he was – almost – embarrassed.

She wasn’t going to let this go now either, was she? So he would have to let her wear herself out. “Can we do this in private, at least?” Howell muttered, aware that one or two people sitting about in the pub area were watching their confrontation. And Mrs. Hutton might not care, but Howell had a professional reputation here. The dragon reserve was still a ways off – and he didn’t fancy the walk with her at his heel the whole way – but the pub had rooms upstairs, where hopefully no one else would have to witness this.

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Lucy opened her mouth to retort but Howell's glance around them, the lowering of his tone... she wasn’t oblivious - nor heartless. Besides, she wanted a scene even less than he likely did. And surely a scene was what she was creating. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a few people nearby stilling and looking at them.

"I think that would be for the best." Lucy agreed primly, chin tilting upwards with agitated pride.