Chapter 2
ELIZABETH DARCY
LIZZY
“Elizabeth,” my husband said in my ear. “I must speak with the constable.”
I nodded, and Darcy crossed to the constable, joining Mr. Knightley, who had helped subdue the attackers. One attacker had been taken away, but the other lay tied at the constable’s feet. Behind the men, the chill autumn wind gusted through the windows, thrown wide to clear the smoke.
Memories of the attack clicked through my mind as if I were watching a reenactment. The gunmen brought their weapons to bear so slowly. They were fools. I had an eternity to act.
But that was a strange way to think of it. I knew nothing of weapons, other than profoundly disliking them.
My recollection froze at the moment I had commanded the three draca to attack.
The sensation hung, bitter in the back of my throat.
I had not commanded a draca since I forced the Longbourn drake to stay after Papa’s death.
The concept of command repelled me—compelling any creature was wrong—but beneath that, a rawer emotion lurked. Exhilaration.
Why had this happened?
I crossed the room and sank to my heels by the man who shot at me. He lay on his side, glaring at me with an uneven squint.
Above us, the gentlemen’s conversation fell silent. Three pairs of trousered legs and polished shoes turned in my direction.
“Why did you try to kill me?” I said.
“That bleedin’ Negro got ’is hands all over me!
” The man launched a spittle-spewing tirade, although at Mr. Knightley, not me.
Five months ago, I would have known few of the words, and fled blushing from those.
Now I had sterner standards from my visits to the slums of London.
The desperate poor were usually polite, even starving in a wealthy city, but the men who earned enough for drink were unpredictable, some admirable, others as vile as this one.
“You might want to take your lady away,” the constable suggested to Darcy above my head.
“Mrs. Darcy is resilient,” Darcy said. He offered me his hand with a lift of his eyebrow, and I rose, very satisfied with my choice of husband.
Mr. Knightley gave me a refined bow at odds with his disheveled collars from tussling on the floor. He frowned at the man by our feet. “This fellow has consumed my entire reserve of string.”
“String?” I asked, looking at the fine coils around the man’s wrists.
“Mr. Knightley is a violinist,” Darcy explained. Mr. Knightley’s and my introduction had been rather rushed. “He is a founder of the Royal Philharmonic Society.”
“I know these two ruffians,” Mr. Knightley said. “They have caused trouble at meetings of the Freedom Society.”
“What is the Freedom Society?” I asked. It did not sound musical.
“We assist refugees from slavery who wish to settle in England,” Mr. Knightley answered.
“Would you be an abolitionist, ma’am?” asked the constable. “These two were with those pro-slavers. That might be the cause.”
“I support abolition, but not in a public manner.” If they wished to hurt an abolitionist, Mary would be their target.
She was positively strident. I cast a worried glance to where she stood by the pianoforte, speaking to Georgiana.
She seemed unshaken. Mary had become very steadfast in the past year.
Darcy indicated a vacant corner, and he and I moved to speak privately.
“That man sought you by name,” he said. “It is not hard to guess his motive. You are bound to a creature that could destroy the French army. Napoleon sought to raise a legendary dragon and failed. An informer could have reported that you succeeded.”
I snorted. “Except the Council of War insists we keep Yuánchi secret.”
After Lord Wellington told the Council that Yuánchi had risen, they sent a delegation to Pemberley. Three pompous cabinet ministers had lectured a bemused Darcy, saying that dragons did not exist and he had likely seen a distant wyvern—which reached seventy pounds or so. They thoroughly ignored me.
I led them to the shore of Pemberley lake where Yuánchi’s arrival shook the stone beneath our feet. One minister, blanched and trembling, extended a gold-sealed proclamation. Yuánchi nosed the ribbon, informed me silently he was as unimpressed as I, then departed in a storm of wind.
I noticed Darcy was developing a frustrated glower. To head him off, I added, “Whether Yuánchi is secret or not, I have no intention of being drawn into the war.”
“The French do not know that.”
“You are being dramatic. I cannot imagine an emperor sending a man to kill me. Even if I am bound to a dragon.”
Darcy took my hand. “Elizabeth, you wield power that Napoleon covets. You are dangerous to his empire. More dangerous than Lord Wellington, for all the armies he commands. And you are far more vulnerable.”
“I am not so vulnerable.” I flicked at the ash on my shoulder but only ground it into the light blue cloth.
“Any idiot can aim a pistol at a person’s back. Prime Minister Perceval was killed this spring.”
Mary and Georgiana had crossed the room to join us, and they heard our last exchange.
Georgiana looked alarmed, Mary thoughtful.
Both knew of Yuánchi. Georgiana was present when he destroyed Wickham’s rebel army and killed Wickham, and Mary was so close to Georgiana that excluding her would be silly.
Darcy’s explanation did not sit right. “Then why have a pro-slaver attack me? Why not a French spy? Any well-dressed man could approach me on the street without raising an iota of alarm.”
“I do not know,” Darcy admitted. “I cannot even understand how they knew you would attend today.”
“That I understand,” I said, casting a glance at Mary, author of provocative programs. She looked abashed.
“I am concerned for Miss Woodhouse,” Darcy said abruptly.
The salon was almost empty, the excited ladies having reluctantly departed at the urging of the constables. But Emma remained, sitting on the floor, her back propped against a wall and her arms hugging her knees. Her friend Harriet was kneeling beside her, evidently worried.
“Was she hurt?” I asked.
“She fainted,” Darcy said, and he strode in her direction. I followed, surprised by his attention. They had barely spoken.
Even in a crowd of London ladies, Emma had shone with her coiled gold hair and a bright gown and bonnet of saffron silk.
With the room emptied and darkened by smoke and soot, her clothes were even more striking, but her pose was fragile.
She sat curled and staring at the ash-stained floor.
The hems of her gown and petticoat formed immaculate curves on the floor, each point of lace precise.
Fastidious. I thought of her habit of straightening her friends’ clothes.
“Miss Woodhouse,” Darcy said, bending stiffly to address her on the floor. “Are you well?”
“She is hurt. She is hurt.” Emma whispered the words to her knees. Her fingers hugged her shins so tightly that her arms quivered.
“She is very worried about the maid, sir,” Harriet said. “The one who hit her head.”
“I am sure she will be well,” I said.
That was the accepted response in matters of health, but it seemed the wrong thing to say.
“No!” Emma gasped, twisting. “She is hurt!” She began panting with distress.
I opened my mouth to offer more reassurances but stopped when Darcy crouched beside Emma, the tails of his coat brushing the floor.
“Miss Woodhouse,” he said. “The maid has been taken to a physician. If her injury is serious, she will be treated. Whether that succeeds or not, her health is out of your hands. There is nothing for you to do.”
That seemed a strange sort of comfort, but Emma looked at him and nodded, her eyes wide. One hand released her knees and reached out. Her fingers fumbled at his waistcoat buttons.
“What?” I said. Darcy caught my eye and gave a reassuring nod.
Mystified, I watched as her shaking fingers touched each of his buttons in turn.
Mary’s head cocked. She knelt by Emma’s other side and laid two fingers on Emma’s wrist, then untied Emma’s gold bonnet, touched her temples, and probed gently in her hair. All that time, Emma’s fingertips traced Darcy’s waistcoat buttons.
“There is no evident injury,” Mary said. “I wondered if she struck her head.” Mary had been studying medicine for several months, as much as was possible for a lady. She assisted a prominent and suitably radical London physician.
Emma’s fingers had reached Darcy’s bottom button. She began again from the top. “A scarlet draca,” she murmured. That was strange. Yuánchi was scarlet, but regular draca were not.
The room’s door had been left open for the constables. From the stairway beyond, voices rose in disagreement. I heard a shouted question.
“That is a reporter for The Morning Post,” Mary said in an aggrieved tone. She must know from the protests she organized. “He will gain admittance.”
Darcy said to Harriet, “Miss Woodhouse would not wish her presence reported in the papers. I am sure you share her concern.”
“If you say so, sir,” Harriet answered uncertainly. Despite her friendship with elegant Emma, she seemed unaware of how damaging it was for a lady’s name to appear in print. Perhaps Harriet was not gentry.
“The constables are finishing,” Darcy said. “I suggest we depart. Where are you staying in London?”
“Miss Woodhouse did not say,” Harriet said, sounding stricken. “We talked of returning to Surrey this evening.”
“That is hours in a coach,” Mary protested. “That would be unwise.”
The voices outside were becoming more distinct.
“Miss Woodhouse,” Darcy said to Emma. “We must leave this place. Would you honor us by accepting an invitation to Chathford House?”
“Chathford?” I said, surprised. “Is it ready?” Chathford House was the Darcys’ London home. I had never seen it, as it had been shuttered since the death of Darcy’s parents. Darcy had spoken vaguely of reopening it now that Georgiana and I were spending time in London.
“Mrs. Reynolds has some rooms open.” His smile was rueful. “I had planned to surprise you.”
Emma had not answered him. Her fingers continued their ritual pattern. Muscles worked along Darcy’s jaw, then he turned to Harriet. “May I have your permission to assist your friend?”
“Of course, sir,” Harriet said, awestruck. Darcy glanced for my nod before he gathered Emma in his arms and stood.
“Oh. He does that so easily,” Harriet whispered to me as Darcy strode to the door, Emma’s skirts hanging gracefully. They looked like an illustration in a scandalous novel.
“He does,” I said, vaguely proud that I felt not a flicker of jealousy.
My curiosity, however, was raging. I knew my husband. He would not sweep a strange woman into his arms unless she was in graver danger than an encounter with a reporter.