Chapter 47 Reunited #2
We sipped nettle tea and chatted about village life.
Although her conversation was light, Aggy was worried about her husband’s absence.
When any voice called, she stopped mid-word to listen.
Her nerves were contagious, and I became more worried for Mr. Darcy.
When she straightened in her chair then dashed out the door, I dashed out myself.
Mr. Darcy was on the other side of the clearing, clasping arms with Lord Wellington.
I stopped. Seeing him was a tumult—a shock of relief, a pull like a magnet, then acute uncertainty for how I would be greeted. An unannounced visit was a far cry from our choreographed meetings at Jane’s wedding. And he had forbidden me from Pemberley.
Behind Mr. Darcy stood my driver from Longbourn, his head hanging. He looked exhausted. Beside him, a fair-haired man in a cotton shirt was being hugged by Aggy.
Unlike Lord Wellington, Mr. Darcy still wore his coat, but he had discarded his waistcoat and neckcloth, leaving his collar open.
A curved saber hung from his belt, and a pistol handle protruded from his coat pocket.
His face was grave and determined. There was a cut and bruise high on his forehead, half-hidden by his mussed, hanging hair.
“—I must go back,” he said. “They have Miss Bennet. I still do not know—” His eyes found mine, and he stopped.
Then I was crushed up against him, the side of my face pressed into his chest, his arms enclosing me. I slid my arms up behind his shoulder blades and held tight. After a breath, his arms loosened. “Do not let go,” I whispered, and his grip tightened again.
Finally, the silence made me self-conscious. I heard only the forest—tweets and chitters, rustling leaves. I relaxed my fingers, and Mr. Darcy let go a moment later.
I stepped back, looking up into his eyes, brown with flecks of green like the woods around us.
“I was most worried for you,” I said. He nodded. A barrier between us, something that had been tearing and reforming, seemed to fall at last.
Lord Wellington was winding his watch with many meticulous shakes and peering adjustments.
My driver was staring at Mr. Darcy and me with wide eyes.
But Aggy and her husband were oblivious, their arms around each other’s waists, foreheads pressed together while they murmured inaudible secrets.
I felt a surge of jealousy for their openness.
Lord Wellington looked up from his watch to Mr. Darcy. “Ah. I see you spotted Miss Bennet. Excellent. If you no longer need to run off and search for her, we should pool our information. I—and Miss Bennet, for that matter—have made discoveries.”
“By all means,” Mr. Darcy said. He gestured for me to precede him to one of several long tables at the edge of the clearing.
We walked, and I imagined his eyes on my hanging hair and bedraggled dress.
The sensation was oddly pleasant. His clothes were as bad as mine; when we embraced, my temple had pressed bare skin through his open collar.
That thought heated the back of my neck, a heat that drifted down to stir unexpected warmth low in my belly.
While I bit my lip and stared at my toes to settle myself, Mr. Darcy recounted how he and Aggy’s husband approached Pemberley House.
“We saw no guards, so moved closer. There was raucous noise inside the house. Yells and coarse songs. Many horses were tethered in the yard, with few men watching them. We swung by the stables and observed they had a new prisoner, which irritated me as we had so diligently relieved them of their last batch.” He acknowledged Lord Wellington, who returned a polite nod of his own.
“That, and the temptation to reclaim my horse, convinced me to confront the sole guard in the stable, a man of poor loyalty who was willing to be tied and gagged rather than run through. We untied their prisoner and discovered he had driven Miss Bennet here from Longbourn.”
Mr. Darcy stopped then, his eyes distant.
“And you chose to investigate further,” Lord Wellington said.
“We three chose that together. Even Miss Bennet’s driver. He is a stout man and was determined to save his passenger. Together, we snuck into the house cellars.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “You went into a house full of enemy soldiers?”
“It is my house,” Mr. Darcy said as if that explained it.
Lord Wellington seemed unsurprised by this idiotic behavior. “What did you learn?”
“Nothing useful, other than confirming there were no prisoners in the cellars. There was some excitement, and we were forced to depart. But we escaped with my horse, and two others.”
“Capital,” Lord Wellington said with a grin, as if Mr. Darcy had described an afternoon of shooting quail.
I, however, was annoyed by this masculine bravado. “Wickham is defiling Pemberley House. Portraits were ripped down and burned. Furniture and decorations smashed.”
“It is only a house,” Mr. Darcy said.
“It is a very nice house!” I exclaimed, then remembered that was not my point. “You must be cautious. Wickham’s vendetta is personal. The French commander wished you captured, but if not for that, I distrust how Wickham would treat you. Your life would be at risk.”
“Indeed, he made that threat,” Mr. Darcy noted calmly.
I crossed my arms and gave Mr. Darcy a glare for his cavalier attitude. He had the decency to appear abashed.
Lord Wellington stepped into the breach.
“I counted thirty men around the lake. An even larger force is at the house, and at least ten deployed toward Lambton. We may face a hundred men. Half are disciplined soldiers, French from their training although camouflaged in English civilian clothes. The other half are a decrepit bunch in cast-off English uniforms.”
“The ones in uniforms are Englishmen, but of a most poor quality,” I said. Mr. Darcy nodded his agreement.
“Even so, we are vastly outnumbered and out-armed,” Lord Wellington continued.
“Our strategy remains the same: scout, do not engage, and wait for reinforcements.” To me, he added, “Darcy and I dispatched two Pemberley footmen by separate routes to raise the alarm. I sent written orders in my name with both. In Lambton, they will notify the constables to raise the army, then requisition horses to proceed to Sheffield. There, they can send notice to the navy by messenger pigeon. The navy will seal any chance of escape at the coast. I assume the French put their men ashore at Gibraltar Point—” He stopped, and his eyes widened.
“The French attack at Margate was a feint. They drew our navy south so they could approach this coast.”
Mr. Darcy said, “The claim that they would raid the Thames was always ridiculous.”
I waited for him to mention that I pointed that out to him, but apparently he had forgotten.
“Are we safe here?” I asked.
“Very safe,” Lord Wellington replied. “We have sentries posted, and we are four miles from Pemberley. A four-mile circle is fifty square miles of woods—far too much to search. If they are even searching. I have seen no sign of such an effort, and they cannot start so close to sunset.”
“The army will arrive in the morning,” Mr. Darcy said with some relish. “And the navy will prevent escape.”
“The impossibility of escape seems very obvious,” I said.
Lord Wellington looked at me thoughtfully. “Miss Bennet is correct. We have misunderstood something. Their plan is well-provisioned and executed. They would not ignore escape.”
“Perhaps they are not searching for us because we do not endanger their plan,” I said. “Even if we summon help.”
“What is their plan?” Mr. Darcy asked.
I realized he had missed the events by the lake. “They seek to bind a French wyfe to draca. They married three French couples by Pemberley lake. With a stupendous cache of marriage gold.”
“Then they may already have left.”
“Not yet,” I replied. “Wickham said, ‘Tomorrow, I am bound for France.’ Binding does not occur during the ceremony. The bond forms during the marriage night. It was close to dawn when my sister Jane bound.”
“How do you know?” Lord Wellington asked.
“I sensed the creation of their bond.”
Lord Wellington’s brows rose.
“The strange thing is why they came to the center of England,” I said. I looked at Mr. Darcy and braced to reveal a painful truth. “I regret that I believe Mr. Wickham and my sister were conspirators in the theft of books from your library.”
Mr. Darcy’s shoulders drew rigid. “That is how they knew the location of the library, and that it contained books on draca.”
His tone was coldly furious. Wickham’s actions were a betrayal. And I had not even shared my darkest suspicion that Wickham himself had shot Mr. Rabb.
“They came because Napoleon is obsessed with the legend of la Tarasque,” I said. “He believes it is in Pemberley lake.”
“The story of la Tarasque was more than a thousand years ago,” Mr. Darcy said. “In France.”
“What is la Tarasque?” asked Lord Wellington.
“A wyvern,” I said even as Mr. Darcy answered, “A dragon.” He clarified, “The French call it a dragon. The legends differ, but all describe a creature at least somewhat larger than a wyvern. If we are to name anything a dragon, why not that?”
Lord Wellington was musing. “That would answer another mystery: why attempt such an expensive and risky plot? One wyvern—or three—has no military significance. We proved draca will not fight in battle. And even if the French succeed where we failed, a wyvern would be a single weapon in a sprawling war. Formidable, but no worse than adding one more cannon.”
“A wyvern would be worse than a cannon.” I was remembering the destruction even our drake could deliver, and how men looked through draca eyes—clumsy, slow, and weak.
“Perhaps,” Lord Wellington conceded. “But something uniquely superior, like a dragon, has more than military value. It would be symbolic. A man who calls himself Emperor cares about symbols.”
Perhaps Napoleon actually would divorce his second, unloved wife to marry a wyfe who brought a dragon.
Lord Wellington spoke decisively. “None of this affects our military position. The sun is setting. We are secure until morning. Overwhelming reinforcements will arrive. As in many battles, victory is a matter of patience.”