Chapter 17 A Dangerous Game
A Dangerous Game
The halt came at last, the trumpet call carrying blessed release down the line.
Elizabeth slid from the saddle with as much composure as she could summon, although her legs nearly failed beneath her.
Two days astride had left her bruised in places she had never known could ache before.
She was a walker by habit, happiest with the earth beneath her boots, not with leather cutting at her thighs and straps biting at her shoulders.
Around her, men dropped to the grass with groans of relief, tugging boots from blistered feet and tearing at bread with tired jaws. Horses pressed their noses into the stream. William Lucas flung himself down beside Geoffrey Talbot, muttering something about never rising again.
Elizabeth longed to do the same. Instead she held her posture, bread untouched in her hand, willing herself to endure. Tonight there would be hot broth, perhaps even meat if fortune favoured them, and she clung to the thought as one clings to a distant shore.
She had almost convinced herself she might reach it when a shadow fell across her.
“Lieutenant Bennet,” said Major Darcy, his voice low and deliberate. “A word.”
Every ache in her body was forgotten at once.
Fear rushed swift and sharp. She rose, her stiff legs protesting, and followed him away from the men, past the wagons and into the dim hush beyond.
Each step pressed the bindings against her sore ribs.
Each breath reminded her how fragile the disguise truly was. Her thighs throbbed from the saddle.
Major Darcy stopped at last and turned to face her. The lantern at his belt cast a hard light across his features. His gaze was unwavering.
“You are not Thomas Bennet.”
Her breath faltered. For one terrible instant she believed the truth was known, that all was lost. Heat swept through her, to her bound chest, to her face, to her very fingertips. He had seen; he must know.
Yet Major Darcy continued with measured calm.
“The rolls are clear. Thomas Bennet, son of Captain Christopher Bennet, perished with his parents at Ashcombe. Your commission is entered irregularly.”
He drew a narrow slip from his coat and lifted it toward the lantern. “Look,” he said quietly.
Elizabeth stepped closer to read. The ground sank where her boot fell and she swayed a fraction toward him before she caught herself.
The long hours a-horse had left her unsteady, and the earth here gave like wet cloth beneath her heel.
His hand came up to her elbow and steadied her for the briefest moment, no more than a touch, then fell away.
The ink shone in the unsteady light. She read the name and let the slip go.
Elizabeth’s vision swam. For a moment she could not breathe. To hear the truth spoken so coldly, the truth she had buried beneath cloth and falsehood, was like a hand tearing away her disguise. He knew of the fire. He knew Thomas was dead. One word more and he might know all.
Her heart beat violently against the binding that held it flat. Terror surged first, and then a flood of almost unbearable relief. He did not see her as a woman.
Major Darcy was still speaking. She forced herself to attend to his words.
“A younger son perhaps, Christopher Bennet, bearing your older brother’s name in his stead.”
He thought her another boy, another son of Captain Christopher Bennet, who had stepped forward under the wrong name. But the peril was no less. One slip of expression, one crack in her composure, and he would see what no record could show.
She kept her features still, although she longed to sag with relief. When her voice came, it was strained but steady.
“I know who I am, sir. I serve as I am ordered.”
Major Darcy’s eyes lingered upon her, as if weighing the words against his own suspicion. Elizabeth held herself rigid, though every nerve cried out to flee. The name of her dead cousin rang in her ears like a knell, and she feared it was written upon her face.
At last he inclined his head.
“Carry it carefully, Bennet - secrets unravel. Better that you trust someone than have the truth forced from you.”
Her knees felt queer with weariness. His hand came flat to her shoulder and steadied her, warm through the coat, no more than a heartbeat. Then it was gone.
Only when he stepped back did she dare to breathe again. She drew a breath that trembled at the edges and bowed her head slightly.
“I thank you, sir.”
The words were simple, but she poured into them all the steadiness she could summon, as if gratitude might mask the storm within.
Only then did she turn, walking swiftly toward the glow of the fires, her legs unsteady beneath her. Relief coursed through her veins, but it was perilous relief, edged with panic. He had spoken Thomas’s death aloud. If he pressed further, the disguise would not endure.
* * *
Darcy remained where he stood, watching the young officer retreat until the firelight swallowed him.
Bennet’s final words lingered in his mind.
The bow of the head, the quiet “I thank you, sir,” had not been the insolence of a boy eager to defy, but the weary dignity of one who knew his place was precarious.
For an instant, when the ground had sunk, Darcy had set his hand flat to the young man’s shoulder to steady him.
The warmth of it had risen into his palm and would not leave it.
That acknowledgement persuaded him more than any record. Bennet was no adventurer seeking advantage by falsehood, but a youth compelled by circumstance, striving to carry a burden too heavy for his years.
Why then did Bennet occupy his thoughts so persistently?
He pressed the answer upon himself. Bennet was little older than Georgiana.
Too young, too slight, too unformed for the rigours of the field.
It was natural to feel concern. A brother might feel the same if his sister were exposed to trials beyond her strength.
He remembered, too, how it had been at school—the younger boys bewildered by the harshness of masters and the demands of the older.
He had stood between them and cruelty more than once, and Bingley had been among those who had looked to him for guidance.
It had been his nature then to shield the untried; and it was his nature still.
That must be it. Not admiration. Nothing more perilous.
Yet the image returned unbidden: Bennet leaning toward the lantern, the light on dark eyes, the brief weight beneath his hand.
With it came a thought he would not own, of what it might be to still that fierce composure with a kiss.
Shame rose hot and swift. He crushed it and set his shoulders rigid.
No. Impossible. It was only the instinct to guard one unready for such duties. Yes. Nothing more.
In other times the boy would still be at his books, not standing here in a borrowed coat pretending to be a man. Yet the war was no respecter of ages. It swallowed men whole, ready or not.
He told himself so with firmness, and yet as he turned back toward the officers’ tents the echo of that forbidden image lingered.
He reached for the jug of brandy upon the mess table, poured a measure with a hand steadier than he felt, and drank it down in silence.
The fire warmed his throat, but it did not quench the heat kindled by memory.
, a flame no discipline could wholly banish.
Yet the mind will make its own world when the real one gives no quarter.
If Bennet were a lady, all would be simple.
He would go to her father, set out the settlements with a clear conscience, and ask for her hand.
There would be letters and morning calls.
He would bring her north to a quiet house where the hills go blue at evening.
She would walk the lawns in fair weather and sit by the library fire in rain.
He could learn, day by day, what softened that resolute mouth, what turned reserve to warmth, and the world itself would call it right.
Instead he stood in a camp strung with dim lanterns and soup smoke, with a name set crooked on a roll and a youth who could not be safely courted by any honest rule.
If he sought Bennet’s company, it might be taken for the common kindness due an untried officer.
If he looked too often, it could be called surveillance.
If his voice gentled, it would seem only care for a subordinate who had endured a hard day.
Nothing he might do would answer the question that bit at him: whether Bennet felt any answering pull, or only gratitude and duty.
He turned the problem over and found no clean path.
A glance could be misread. A word could be repeated.
A gesture could ruin them both. In peace a man might wait upon a lady’s preference and be guided by her manner.
Here, with the dark close about the tents and the talk fallen low, there was no courtship, only the long weight of command and the thin comfort of a shared fire at night.
If he asked for even that small comfort, he might be told yes from obedience and not from desire.
If he kept silence, he would never know.
The hunger for nearness did not cool. It lodged beneath his ribs and would not be mastered. He tasted brandy and found it thin against it.
* * *
The firelight was a balm after the shadow of Major Darcy’s scrutiny, yet Elizabeth’s legs trembled as she crossed the camp. She lowered herself onto the grass with more haste than grace. William, who had been half dozing beside Geoffrey Talbot, stirred at once.
“You look pale,” he said softly, leaning nearer. “What did he want?”
Elizabeth forced a smile for the benefit of those nearest, then leaned closer. “Walk with me a little,” she whispered.
William rose without question, and together they strolled a short distance beyond the circle of the fire, to where the shadows of the wagons hid them from casual notice. Only then did she allow her shoulders to sag, her voice low and urgent.
“He has seen the records,” she said. “He knows Thomas perished in the fire at Ashcombe. He believes me to be Thomas’s younger brother, Christopher, who has come forward in his place..”
William’s eyes widened. “And what did you answer?”
“Nothing more than he already supposed. I let him speak, and gave him no contradiction. Yet to hear it aloud, so plain and cold, set my very blood to ice. He spoke Thomas’s death as if it were a line of ink upon a page, and I felt as though my cousin stood before me, accusing.”
William’s hand clenched at his side. “But he did not see the truth?”
“No,” Elizabeth replied. “He suspects only what suits the record. Still, he warned me that secrets unravel. And he is not a man easily deceived.”
For a moment she stared into the dark beyond the wagons, her throat tight. “I thanked him before I left. I scarcely knew why, save that gratitude was easier than silence.”
William frowned, thoughtful. “If he takes you for Christopher, then how old would that make you now?”
Elizabeth drew a steadying breath. “Christopher would be sixteen, nearly seventeen. Too young in truth, yet not impossibly so, if the commission were entered irregularly.”
William nodded slowly. “Sixteen. A boy still. Then you must be doubly cautious.” He glanced around to make sure no one was near enough to overhear before continuing. “That makes your part the more dangerous, Lizzy, for Darcy will watch you as one untried.”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened. “I know. He said secrets unravel. I fear he will not let this rest.”
William shook his head gravely. “But you do not bear it alone.”
She managed the smallest of smiles. “I know. And I am grateful.”
The two returned quietly to their tent. William dropped onto his pallet with a groan, muttered a weary goodnight, and within moments his breathing steadied in the deep rhythm of slumber.
Elizabeth sat a while in the half-dark, listening, waiting until she was certain he slept.
Only then did she draw off her coat and loosen her shirt.
The bindings had cut cruelly into her ribs during the long ride, but she dared not remove them.
If she slept unbound, even for an hour, she might shift in her rest and betray all.
With careful hands she unwound the strips of cloth, smoothed them, and rebound her chest tighter than before, wincing at the pressure. Her fingers trembled, whether from fatigue or fear she could not tell. Once more she buttoned her shirt, pulled her coat close, and lay down upon her pallet.
Her body ached for rest, yet her mind refused to still.
Major Darcy’s words returned again and again: Thomas Bennet perished in the fire at Ashcombe.
To hear her cousin’s death spoken so coldly had shaken her to the core.
She shut her eyes, but behind them she saw his gaze, steady and searching, as if he had looked straight through her.
She turned once, then again, but sleep eluded her. William breathed evenly beside her, lost to weariness, while she lay wide-eyed, staring at the dim canvas above. Fear pressed upon her ribs more heavily than the bindings ever had.
So she passed the night, wakeful and watchful, until the first trumpet call of morning cut the silence. She rose stiff and unrefreshed, bracing herself to play the part anew.