Chapter 7 #3
She watched a woman in a silver mask laugh at a joke she could not hear.
The world was a strange place, full of people pretending to be things they were not.
But for a few moments on the dance floor, she had felt something real.
She had felt the heat of Darcy's hand and his steady gaze, and she knew that whatever happened next, her life would never be the same.
The masquerade would end, the sun would rise over the river, and the masks would be put away. But the secrets would remain, buried in the mud of the Mississippi, waiting for the storm that was coming to wash them all away.
Elizabeth adjusted her own mask and stepped back into the crowd. She had a role to play, and she would play it well. But she would keep her eyes open, and she would watch the shadows. For in New Orleans, the shadows were where the real stories were told.
* ? * ? *
Darcy walked through the dark streets toward his lodgings.
The noise of the ball had faded, replaced by the sound of the wind in the trees and the distant lap of the river against the levee.
The silver coin pressed in his pocket, the one the Choctaw had given him.
It was a reminder of the fragility of his position.
He was a man of the law, a man of order, and yet he was operating in a place where the rules were different.
He thought of Elizabeth, of the way she had looked in the emerald dress, and the way her eyes had challenged him.
She was a woman of extraordinary spirit, a woman who saw through his pretenses with a clarity that was both terrifying and attractive.
He had never met anyone like her. In the drawing rooms of London, women were expected to be polite and predictable. Elizabeth was neither.
He reached his door and turned the key. The room was dark and smelled of old paper and wax. He did not light a candle. Sitting in the chair by the window, he looked out at the river. The water was black now, a deep, impenetrable void that seemed to swallow the horizon.
He was a spy. He had said the word to himself before, but it felt different now that someone else knew it. Elizabeth had called him a soldier, but there was little glory in this kind of warfare. It was a war of whispers and measurements, a war of lies and half-truths.
He thought of his sister, Georgiana, safe in England.
He was doing this for her, or so he told himself.
He was doing it for the safety of his country and the honor of his family.
While he sat in the dark, he wondered if the cost was too high.
He was losing himself in the shadows, becoming a man he did not recognize.
On the table beside him lay a letter that had arrived with the afternoon packet. He had read it twice already, but his hand found it again in the dark.
Dear Brother,
Mrs. Annesley says I must not worry, and so I am writing to tell you that I am not worrying, which is of course a way of worrying at greater length.
Pemberley is well. The roses along the south terrace have come in very full this year, and I have been practising the sonata you left open on the pianoforte.
I play it badly, but I play it every day, because the sound of it fills the room in a way that reminds me you were here.
I do not know what you are doing in that place, and I know you will not tell me. You never do. But I ask you, Fitzwilliam, to remember that you are not only a servant of the Crown. You are my brother. Whatever duty requires of you, do not let it take the part of you that comes home.
I have enclosed a pressed flower from the garden. It is a poor substitute for company, but it is the best I can send across an ocean.
Your loving sister,
Georgiana
A small, dry petal had fallen from the fold when he first opened the letter.
It lay on the table now, a pale ghost of an English garden pressed flat by the weight of its journey.
He touched it once, carefully, as if it might dissolve.
The flower was a white rose, browning at the edges.
It smelled of nothing. The sea had taken its scent, as the sea took everything eventually.
The river moved on, indifferent to his doubts. It would continue to flow long after the war was over, long after he and Elizabeth were gone. It was the only thing in this city that did not wear a mask. It was simply itself, a powerful, dark force that carried everything in its path toward the sea.
Darcy closed his eyes and listened to the water.
He was a long way from Pemberley, and the road back was getting harder to find with every step he took.
But he would keep moving. He had a duty to perform, and he would not fail.
Not for his country, and not for the woman who had seen the man behind the mask.
He would be ready for the next dance. And he would be ready for the war.
The city of New Orleans slept, unaware of the secrets that were being kept in its courtyards and its bedrooms. But the river was awake, and it was rising. The dark water was coming, and it would change everything.