Chapter 20 In the Aftermath
In the Aftermath
The bodies were gathered through what remained of the afternoon and far into the night.
Elizabeth worked until her arms trembled, the chill of the ground seeping through her boots.
Major Darcy moved among the men in silence, his face as pale as the smoke that drifted over the fields.
He spoke little, save to give quiet orders, and when he did his voice held no warmth.
Once, when she glanced up, she saw him standing apart beside the shattered wall of the manor, his head bowed as if in prayer.
Twice he turned toward her as if to speak, then altered course and addressed another officer instead.
The sight unsettled her more than the ruin itself.
He looked utterly alone, a man bearing more than any should be asked to endure.
Soldiers worked in grim silence, lifting the fallen from blackened earth, laying them side by side upon canvas sheets.
Surgeons passed among them with lowered eyes, recording names where they could, marking the rest as unknown.
Villagers were lifted too, charred beyond recognition, their cottages reduced to smouldering heaps. Even the children, too were not spared.
Elizabeth laboured beside William, smoke stinging her eyes and the smell of ash heavy in her throat.
Her hands, once accustomed to sewing or tending her sisters, now grasped rough canvas, shifted broken beams, steadied trembling men.
She longed to weep, yet no tears came; the silence of the dead pressed too heavily.
Through it all Major Darcy’s voice carried steady and unflinching.
He moved among the men, giving orders without haste, his grief masked by the composure of command.
It was he who directed the burials, who saw that prayers were read, who ordered the names written carefully into the roll.
He never faltered, not even when the body of General Fitzwilliam was borne from the wreckage and laid with the rest.
Elizabeth watched him often when she thought herself unobserved.
His face was composed, his posture unyielding, yet she sensed that every word he gave, every order he spoke, was weighed against a heart near breaking.
It struck her with strange force: how much he bore, and how little he allowed any to see.
When night fell the fires still smouldered, though the roar of the flames had sunk to crackling embers.
The column camped upon the edge of the ruin, weary beyond speech.
Elizabeth lay in her tent, but sleep would not come.
The image of blackened beams and still faces haunted her whenever she closed her eyes.
A shadow fell across the tent’s opening.
“Lieutenant Bennet,” said Major Darcy’s voice.
She started up at once, fear rising sharp and swift. “Sir?”
“Walk with me.”
He did not lead her into the fields beyond the camp, but to one of the officers’ tents standing a little apart.
The canvas flapped softly in the smoky breeze as he held it open for her to enter.
She obeyed without a word, her heart beating hard against its bindings.
Within, the lantern’s glow cast a warm, uncertain light, shadows shifting upon the canvas walls.
For a long moment he said nothing. He stood with his back to her, one hand braced upon the tent pole, his head bowed. When he turned, his face was pale and strained.
“I lost more than a cousin today,” he said at last. “Richard was as a brother to me. And yet I gave no sign. I stood as though carved from stone, for grief has no place in command.”
Without thinking she set her hand to his sleeve, as she would have done for Charlotte in sorrow. The cloth was stiff beneath her palm. He went very still.
Elizabeth’s throat tightened. “I am sorry for your loss, sir.”
The words seemed to pierce him. He turned sharply, his voice unsteady though his bearing remained proud.
“You should not pity me,” he said at last. “I have tried to think of you only as another officer. It is the safe way. When we came upon Haslemere and the parties returned from the search, I looked for you first. I thanked God to see you still standing.”
He drew breath. “I laid a man in the earth today who was as a brother to me. There is very little time in such a world. I cannot pretend I feel nothing when I look at you. Call it concern if you must. Call it folly. I have called it duty and found the word wanting.”
His voice roughened. “When Wicked would bear no other and quieted under your hand, I told myself it was prudence to trust you. It was not only prudence. I have held my tongue until now. Tonight I cannot.”
He reached, drew her in, and kissed her. Heat. Then terror.
Elizabeth stiffened in shock, her heart thundering against its bindings. Terror surged through her, mingled with confusion and shame. She wrenched herself free, her voice cold and cutting.
“Major, this is most improper. You forget yourself. Whatever you suppose, I do not.”
The silence that followed was terrible. Major Darcy stared at her, his face stricken, colour draining as if the life had been struck from him. Then, as though sealing himself against further disgrace, he drew up to rigid height, his tone flat and formal.
“Forgive me. It will not occur again.”
He turned at once, lifted the tent flap, and was gone.
Elizabeth stood in the wavering lantern light. Her lips burned. Her heart lurched between pity and dread. Shame rose and would not be swallowed.
It was not only the impropriety of the act, nor even the danger it posed to her disguise.
It was that he, her commanding officer, the man who had judged her wanting, who pressed her harder than the rest, who had even sent her away from the camp for supposed weakness, had crossed a line no rank should cross.
He had not kissed Elizabeth Bennet. He had kissed Christopher Bennet, who wore Thomas’s name.
And now she was all but ruined. The thought struck like a knife, yet it was not the whole truth. Not ruined, not yet. Her secret still held, her identity remained safe. But it was another hole in the armour of her disguise.
Worse still, she had refused him. He was her commanding officer, a man whose word held sway over her very place in the regiment.
One whisper from him, one hint of scandal, and she would be undone.
By rejecting him she had not only bruised his pride, she had placed herself in greater peril than before.
Her first kiss was gone, stolen in grief and ignorance, leaving her—disguise more fragile than ever. Her safety now rested on his self-command, and he had just shown how little command he held.
She pressed her hands against her face, willing the shame away, but it clung as fiercely as the smell of smoke upon her clothes. With effort she steadied her breathing, drew her coat about her, and slipped out into the night.
The camp lay hushed, its lanterns dimming one by one.
She walked a little way beyond the wagons until the trees closed about her, their branches whispering overhead.
There she stood still, listening to the sounds of the night: the faint call of an owl, the rustle of a hedgehog in the leaves, the distant creak of leather where a sentry shifted on his post. Each sound reminded her that the world went on, heedless of her turmoil.
At last, when the trembling of her hands had eased, she knelt by a narrow stream that wound past the camp.
She scooped the water into her palms, washing her face until the chill steadied her, then rubbed it dry against her sleeve.
Cold bit her skin and did nothing for the heat in her mouth.
Only when she was certain no trace of tears remained did she turn back toward the tents.
William was waiting when she slipped inside, his face drawn with worry in the dim light. He sat up on his pallet at once.
“You were long,” he said quietly. “I feared something had happened.”
Elizabeth forced her features into calm, though her voice trembled. “Nothing. Only the day.”
He frowned, unconvinced. “Major Darcy called you away. What did he want of you?”
Her breath caught. For an instant she could not frame an answer. At last she said, “He spoke of the losses we suffered. Of duty. Of burdens. Nothing more.”
William’s eyes lingered on her, but he did not press further. “If he presses you, Lizzy, you must tell me. Whatever else you carry, you do not carry it alone.”
She managed the smallest of nods. “I know.”
He settled back onto his pallet, though his unease lingered in the set of his shoulders.
Elizabeth lay down upon her own, turning her face toward the canvas wall.
She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come, but her mind raced on.
After a time she realised William’s breathing had not changed. He lay still, but not at rest.
A fresh wave of dread stirred in her chest. He knew she hid something, though not what. And if he continued to watch her so closely, how long before he guessed the truth?
Guilt pressed upon her, heavier than the bindings across her ribs.
William had trusted her, walked beside her since the beginning, and she had just lied to him.
She told herself it was necessary, yet the words tasted bitter even in her thoughts.
To confess the truth would be worse still.
If he knew what Major Darcy had said, what he had done, he would think less of her for yielding even a moment, and less of the man who commanded them both.
Shame and fear closed about her like a vice. She drew her blanket higher and fixed her eyes on the dark, willing her mind to silence. Long after the camp had stilled, she lay wakeful. Her lips still burned. Her secret weighed more than the night.