Chapter 25 Into the Fire
Into the Fire
The dawn was sharp and cold, the sky streaked with pale fire above Kingston’s broken bridge.
Smoke drifted from the water’s edge, wreckage of muskets and timber strewn like bones across the current.
The army gathered on the high road, ranks drawn up in sombre silence, banners stirring in the bitter wind. London awaited.
Darcy stood at Wicked’s side, reins in hand.
The stallion tossed his head, eyes rolling, hooves striking sparks against the stones.
He would not be calmed. Each time Darcy set foot to the stirrup, Wicked pulled back, muscles taut, nostrils flaring, as though he knew the parting his master would not name.
“Leave him,” Doctor Russell said quietly from the inn yard, his coat still stained from the night’s work. “He is spent, and so are you. The grooms will tend him.”
Darcy’s hand lingered on the sleek neck, feeling the heat and the tremor that matched his own. To leave Wicked was to leave more than a horse. It was to leave his heart, his hope, his truest strength.
Duty called from the road, clear and inexorable. Drums rattled. Orders rang. Men looked for their major.
He loosed the reins at last, pressed one final stroke to Wicked’s flank, and turned away.
A fresh mount waited, a borrowed gelding plain of colour and spirit.
He swung into the saddle. The leather felt strange beneath him, and the loss struck sharp as a wound.
Wicked remained in Kingston. So did Elizabeth. He must ride without them.
The column gathered at the town’s edge, breath misting in the pale light. Smoke clung to the river, where the shattered timbers jutted like broken teeth. Victory had been bought, and dearly.
When the order to march was given, no cheer rose. The men stood bare-headed, muskets reversed upon their shoulders. The drummer struck a slow, muffled cadence, its hollow beat carrying down the frosted road.
Darcy sat his borrowed gelding at the fore, jaw set. He had given no command for this rite, yet the men had chosen it of their own accord, a farewell for the comrade they believed had saved them at the cost of his life.
Bingley’s voice carried low beside him. “They march for Bennet as much as for London.”
Darcy inclined his head. To them, Thomas Bennet had fallen, a lad of one-and-twenty whose courage had turned the tide. They would never know the truth, that she lived, that Russell had assured him her injuries were painful but not mortal. With rest she would mend, though never again as Thomas.
Hope and grief contended within him. He could not tell them. He could not even look back toward the inn where she lay hidden under another name. He set his face forward as the muffled drums beat on and the column moved out.
The road bent eastward, the Thames gleaming pale beside them.
Men marched in steady ranks, but the usual banter was absent.
They bore themselves as victors, yet each face was drawn by the memory of the night.
Bennet’s name passed in low voices, a pledge murmured from file to file that his place would not be forgotten.
Darcy kept his eyes on the horizon. The regiment’s grief was one burden; another waited in London.
Word of Richard’s fall would not yet have reached his father’s house.
That task would fall to him. To face the Earl, the Countess, Richard’s brothers and sisters, and Georgiana, to speak the words that would break them, hollowed his chest to imagine.
The muffled drum carried them onward, steady as fate.
* * *
Elizabeth stirred as the first light of dawn crept through the shuttered window. The air smelled of woodsmoke and spilled ale, the remnants of last night’s revelry clinging to the beams. Her ribs ached with every breath, but the pain was bearable, dulled still by the doctor’s draught.
The events of the night returned in fragments: Major Darcy’s voice, his hand over hers, the promise that she would live. She had slept since then, she knew not how long, and woke now to a world remade without her.
From below came the muted thunder of boots and the roll of a drum. Not the wild cheer of victory, but a slower, weightier rhythm that made her chest tighten. She drew herself upright, wincing, and pressed to the window.
The sight struck her still. The regiment was assembled on the high road, ranks straight, heads bare. Muskets were reversed upon their shoulders, and the muffled drum gave a hollow cadence that carried across the frosted fields. A funeral march.
Her hand rose to the glass. A funeral, but for whom?
The bridge had gone under them; the air had been thick with smoke and cries.
Darcy had been there, William too, and so many others whose faces she could no longer separate from the chaos.
Her heart gave a painful twist. Were they alive?
Had they reached safety, or were they the ones carried downriver and now mourned?
She pressed her forehead to the cold pane. She could not bear to think of it, not yet. The drumbeat went on, heavy and solemn, until it faded into silence.
A soft knock broke the stillness. A maid entered soon after, balancing a basin and a tray upon which a small brown bottle and a covered bowl steamed faintly. She bobbed a curtsy.
“Morning, miss,” she said quickly. “Doctor said you were to take another spoon of the draught if the pain wakes you.” She nodded toward the bottle. “And he left you some broth, said you were to try a little even if you have no appetite.”
Elizabeth’s eyes flicked to the bottle; the faintly sweet scent of laudanum drifted through the cork. She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“As you please, miss.” The maid hesitated, then set the tray by the hearth. “The broth will not keep long, though. Doctor was clear you are to eat and rest.”
She straightened the bedclothes. “We have no gown to hand, I am afraid. The Major said your trunks were lost in the river, carriage and all. Dreadful business. But he told us to see you had everything needful until your people come.”
Elizabeth stilled, her pulse quickening. “Lost,” she repeated softly.
“Aye, miss. They said it was the same fight where your poor cousin fell. Thomas Bennet, that was the name. The young officer who held the bridge till it broke. Brave as any man there, the Major said. London owes him its life, so the talk goes.”
Elizabeth gripped the sheet tighter. “And they think me…”
“His cousin, miss,” the maid supplied gently.
“Come down from Hertfordshire to be near him. The Major said you were near faint with grief when they brought you in, so he made the arrangements himself. This room, a doctor, broth for your strength, whatever you might need.” She gave a small, sympathetic smile.
“He has gone on to London with the wounded now. A fine gentleman, that one.”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened. “Yes,” she whispered. “Very fine indeed.”
“Will you be needing anything more, miss?”
Elizabeth hesitated. The room still smelled of smoke and laudanum, and the stiffness of her bandages made her long to be clean again. “Yes,” she said at last. “Some water, if it may be had.”
“Of course, miss. I will see to it.” The girl curtsied once more, soft steps fading down the passage.
When the door closed, silence settled again, not empty but weighted with invention. The story was complete. Thomas Bennet was dead, his cousin bereaved, her carriage lost to the river. And she, the ghost of both, must now learn to live again.
She drew the bowl nearer and ate as the household stirred below. The first sip scalded her tongue, the second eased the hollow ache within. Only when the bowl was half empty did she notice her tears falling into it, salt upon salt.
From below came heavy steps and the splash of water.
Soon the maid returned, followed by two men carrying a copper tub, which they set near the hearth.
They bowed and withdrew, only to return again and again with steaming buckets from the kitchen.
The maid poured each one carefully, testing the heat with her wrist before adding another.
When at last the tub was nearly full, she mixed in a little cold water from a jug and laid a clean sheet across a screen before the fire.
“There now, miss,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Doctor said not to sit long, but it will ease you. Ring if you feel faint.”
Elizabeth murmured her thanks, waiting until the door closed behind them.
The room was still and warm, scented faintly of soap and smoke.
Her limbs felt strange beneath the borrowed night things, softer linen against skin long used to coarse wool.
The doctor must have ordered her changed when they brought her in; she remembered nothing of it, only the roughness of hands and the sting of bandages.
Now, as the firelight danced across the copper tub, she began to undo the wrappings one by one.
The linen was stiff with sweat, smoke, and blood.
She eased herself into the water with a gasp.
The heat stung at first, then soothed, loosening the grime that had clung for weeks.
She had washed her hands and face when she could, splashed from streams, wiped away mud with a rag, but this was her first true bath in months.
The dirt lifted from her skin like another disguise falling away. She scrubbed until her arms ached, until the water ran dark, until her very flesh felt raw with newness. The smell of gunpowder faded, of horse and leather, of camp smoke. In their place rose the simple scent of soap and steam.
When at last she stepped out, shivering though the fire still burned, she felt scoured clean, as if she had shed not only the filth of battle but Thomas himself.
Her dressings were replaced soon after by Mrs Evans, the apothecary’s wife, who worked briskly and said little.
When the last bandage was tied she considered Elizabeth in silence for a moment.