Chapter 35 The Library
THE LIbrARY
The hallway was bright from the chandeliers, each a web of wrought iron that held twelve ivory candles.
Miss Darcy led me toward sweeping stairs.
The top vanished into gloom, and her brow furrowed while she lit a candle from a sconce.
“Mrs. Reynolds has the house lit for guests, but they have neglected the next floor.” After being so open with her brother, her glance was abashed.
“We do not light the full house for ourselves. Do you think that strange?”
“I think it dramatic,” I answered lightly as we climbed.
Actually, the sprawling darkness on the next floor was disconcerting for a stranger. Large, many-paned windows stared like faceted eyes. As we passed each, a ghost twin to Miss Darcy’s candle followed outside.
There were no servants. Our steps echoed. This was very different from Longbourn, which overflowed with bustle and chattering ladies.
“Fitz worries that I am lonely here,” Miss Darcy said. Her tentative smile glowed in the candlelight, and the gold note on her necklace gleamed. “I worry that he is too serious. So, I tease him.”
“It is good he has a sister, then.”
“He is changed since returning from Rosings. He wrote so often of you while he was there. I felt I almost had a sister.” That was a suggestive choice of words, and I wondered what he had written.
“You should tease him, also,” she added decisively, now sounding more like a girl of sixteen.
“He is far less formidable than he acts.”
“I shall have little chance. I depart tomorrow.” The flutter in my breast went still.
She stopped, her face falling. “So soon?”
“I must see my sister. She is ill.”
“Oh. I am sorry. I hope she is better when you return.” I nodded, the rote response sticking in my throat. After a silence, Miss Darcy held the candle forward. “There! They are lighting the library. It has a special chandelier. Let me show you.”
Ahead, light spilled from an open door.
When Mr. Darcy and I discussed the library, we assumed I would not visit. But Miss Darcy walked through the door with the candle, so I had little choice.
The room opened around us, sprawling and shadowed, lit by our candle and three lamps carried by men. Each man stood by a different bookshelf. The ovals of light from their lamps swung when we entered, revealing the room.
The collection was huge, which by now was no surprise. Shelves filled every wall. An oak table had neat stacks of books beside pens, paper, and blotters. Another was swamped with haphazard volumes spilled everywhere.
As the three lamps converged on us, they shone through a chandelier lowered for lighting. It rested crookedly on the floor, a confection of Venetian blown glass that reached my waist, swirling with violet and gold and crimson. Even in the poor light, it was a masterpiece.
“Who are you?” Miss Darcy said in a frightened voice. And I realized this was wrong.
The chandelier’s unlit candles were askew and broken. The crooked angle was from smashing into the floor. The base lay in a heap of glinting shards. Loops of iron chain had spooled down from the ceiling, snapping delicate flowers and birds of glass.
There was a flurry of steps and moving lamps. Heavy hands threw me against a wall of shelves. Books bounced off my shoulders and slapped the floor.
A man’s hand covered my mouth, shoving the back of my head against a wooden shelf. His eyes stared into mine, inches away.
“See this?” he said, and a knife blade rose between our faces, bright in the light. “You make a sound, and I cut your throat. Understand?”
I nodded against his hand, so shocked I was not yet frightened. His hand left, but the blade waited. After I made no sound but gasps for air, he stepped back.
A lamp glared into my eyes. Beyond it, the man joined two other dark figures and conversed in hushed, angry tones.
They spoke French.
“What is this?” whispered Miss Darcy, backed against the shelves beside me. I reached and met fingers seeking mine. We clasped hands.
“Thieves,” I whispered back. But in a library?
Some decision was reached, and a man began lighting the crooked candles in the fallen chandelier. They spat and flickered, burning fast from their angle. Their long, smoky flames drew beautiful glows from the broken glass.
The room brightened. We were against a bookshelf beside the doorway. A maid lay on the floor next to us, tied hand-and-foot with rope and gagged with white cloth. Frightened eyes met mine, and she made a muffled sound.
“Quiet!” a man said harshly. He had a pistol in his belt and a sword at his side. He drew the sword, a long, wicked piece of steel, and pointed it at the maid. She nodded.
The man was skinny and sandy-haired, with crooked, brown teeth. I had seen him before. The militia soldier who stopped our carriage.
He looked toward me. I turned my face away, instinct warning me not to be recognized.
The men’s French resumed, fluent and fast with a rough accent different than I had learned. I caught snatches. La Tarasque several times, which I did not know.
Then, urgently, l’enfant du lac.
Child of the lake.
I stole a glance at Miss Darcy. Her lips moved, silently echoing a word.
“What is la Tarasque?” I whispered.
“A French myth, very old. A fearsome dragon that lived in the water and was tamed by Saint Martha.” She listened. Presumably, she had excellent tutors for her French. “They are searching for it. No… searching for books on it. And the ‘child of the lake.’ I do not know what that is.”
“Stay still,” I whispered. “They will take their books and go.”
I was frightened, but not terrified. If they tied up a maid instead of harming her, they would not dare harm ladies.
And my mind was buzzing with the strangeness of their search. Child of the lake. The same name as my family’s journal, Loch bairn.
With the added light, two men swiftly searched the shelves while the sandy-haired man guarded us. One searcher cried out in triumph. He smashed a locked, glass-covered shelf. They began pulling out books and placing them in a large canvas bag.
Were those the prized draca books?
Abruptly, I realized I might be able to do something. Raise the alarm, if nothing else.
I closed my eyes and reached for the little tykeworm.
The void that surrounded Pemberley came first, like blindness. But where was the tyke? I concentrated, searching but finding nothing. I forced a calm breath. Forget the whispered French and the book spines pressing my shoulders. Open yourself.
The little gleam of the tyke appeared. A faint star, nothing like his usual rambunctious spirit. I nudged. Nothing. It was like prodding a lump of unresponsive clay.
He was sleeping. I remembered him lying down by the fire in the music parlor.
I prodded, hard. Nothing. “Forgive me,” I whispered, then threw myself into the little glimmer, screaming in my head, Wake up!
There was an alarmed scramble of awareness. And I could see.
One aspect of my mind was muddled with sleep, the other bedazzled.
A fire was a roaring conflagration a few feet away, a thousand indescribable shades.
The music room loomed, sized for giants and filled with hulking instruments.
Every color was wrong, replaced by vibrant hues distinct and different from the warm woods and fabrics I remembered.
The view swung, hunting for the wyfe who had screamed. She was not in the room. The view centered on a tall opening and began loping toward it. The doorway.
No! I thought. Do not come to me. Instead, I imagined Mr. Darcy, remembering how he appeared in the wyvern’s mind, all postures and angles.
The loping motion spun, bounced, then settled, looking upward.
A giant sat, his clothes shining warm, his hands and face even brighter.
He shifted the ponderous way giants do, looking down.
He spoke, but the sound was muddled and deep.
Unintelligible. His features were indistinct in the tyke’s perspective, but I sensed the shoulders and straight back of Mr. Darcy.
Now what?
Nudge him, I thought. Make a sound—
The tyke’s vision vanished as fingers grabbed my jaw and jammed my temple against the books. I opened my eyes to see the face of the sandy-haired man.
“I know you,” he growled.
I shook my head.
“Allons-y!” hissed a man by the door. “Tout de suite!” They were leaving. Only these two remained. The one with the bag of books was already gone.
The man let go of my face. Then he struck me—slapped me so hard that my head banged the shelf and my vision turned white. Hot pain flared on my cheek and lip.
“How do I know you?” he hissed.
There was rapid French. I blinked, head hanging, trying to clear my thoughts.
The tyke padded through the doorway. He trotted to my feet then sat and looked up, like five pounds of scaly, proud puppy.
If only the Gardiners had bound a firedrake.
The men had fallen silent, stepping to either side of the doorway. I heard familiar footsteps approaching. Mr. Darcy. The sandy-haired man pointed his sword at us, demanding silence, and the other man drew his sword.
Mr. Darcy’s steps halted outside.
Please have men with you. Please be armed.
Mr. Darcy entered as nonchalantly as the tyke, alone and unarmed. “Miss Bennet?” he inquired and then froze as the man on the far side of the door placed his sword against Mr. Darcy’s collar.
The sandy-haired man was looking from the tyke to me. “You was the lady in the carriage.” He spoke to the other man in French. They argued, loud now, abandoning silence. I heard the word for uniform.
Miss Darcy drew a horrified breath.
The sandy-haired man took a step back. His sword rose, the tip of the blade pointing at my chest. His expression was fierce, but the sword hung, as if caught in the air.
Part of my brain parsed the French I had heard. Tue-la. Kill her.
The other man shouted, goading, and gestured in a flamboyant, Gallic style. His sword left Mr. Darcy’s throat.