Chapter 2 #2
I tucked the Loch bairn journal under my arm.
The French had stolen books before, so the journal would be safer at Pemberley.
I added the three slim volumes Papa had published as a young man.
I had read them as a child; I read every book in the house.
They were social and political theory, not history, but they were by a Bennet.
Finally, I tucked in one more book, simply a keepsake.
A happy ruckus of children’s voices drifted through the open window, so I went out the back door into a bedlam of young laughter.
A dozen children between five and ten were playing around a shining gold creature as tall as my waist—Jane’s wyvern, sitting stoic as a sphinx while a little girl petted her tail.
Georgiana and Mamma were seated at our garden table with a pot of tea. Georgiana met me with a smile and dancing eyes. “Your mother has been describing the local gentlemen to me. The single ones, that is.”
“Mamma!” I scolded her.
“Why ever not?” Mamma said, offended. “Hertfordshire gentlemen are suitable for any class of society. After all, if Mr. Darcy can marry Lizzy—” She faltered and took a sip of tea.
Unannounced, my sister Jane appeared around the corner of the house.
She wore robin’s egg blue and had her new daughter, Jemma, in her arms. Jane gave a happy cry, then freed one finger to point at her wyvern.
“I knew someone was visiting! I feel her moods sometimes, and she is so excited. Has Lizzy…”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
Quieted, Jane took a seat. “We must be patient. It is just that Jemma is growing so fast. Lizzy has not even met her.”
Jane bounced her baby girl a few times, then passed her to me. I took her happily. Jemma gawked up, fascinated, her plump fists wandering.
This cheered up Jane. “Look! She adores her Aunt Mary. Of course, you are the first face she saw.” I had delivered Jane’s baby at Netherfield after a four-hour labor so routine I finished Anna Barbauld’s Eighteen Hundred and Eleven between contractions.
“She was too young to remember me,” I said, “but she enjoys my spectacles.” I grinned at her lively blue eyes. Her blonde hair had puffed into fine curls, and she had gained two healthy pounds. Already, she was the image of her mother. She likely slept through every night just to be considerate.
I offered her to Georgiana, who shook her head and sat on her hands for good measure. “Not me!” Everyone laughed, and she said, “No babies, thank you. Mary has mastered them sufficiently for us both.”
Instead, I passed little Jemma to Mamma. Mamma promptly began extolling the joys of motherhood to Georgiana. “Just wait until you marry! You will have little feet running all about.”
“I shall not hold my breath,” Georgiana said, slipping me an amused glance.
Impulsively, I said, “Georgiana and I are residing together. At Pemberley. But we have discussed taking a house.”
“That is a clever plan,” Jane said. “You must do it.”
Mamma was puzzled. “Unmarried ladies taking a house? That is for spinsters. You are not even twenty.” She eyed our clothes. “A house in town?”
That was an excellent question. One Georgiana and I had never discussed. Suddenly panicked, I looked at Georgiana.
She ventured, “I always imagined the country…”
“I also…” I said.
“…but your medical practice must require a city?”
“Only for study. Once that is done, London would not feel…”
“Exactly! The music and socialization are wonderful, but if one stays too long—”
“—it is exhausting,” I finished, and Georgiana smiled in radiant relief.
“Well, a Darcy can afford all manner of houses,” Mamma observed. “Just be certain to choose a town with a regiment, or you shall have no officers.”
Having survived one improvisation, I sidestepped that one. “Is Kitty in Meryton?” She was likely shopping for officers herself.
“She is helping Harriet at Netherfield,” Jane said. “Most of the teachers went home after the invasion. They were frightened, but that left poor Harriet teaching herself hoarse. Kitty is trying, but I am not sure she is very good. She reads them novels.”
“Your wyvern seems helpful,” Georgiana noted.
The children had formed a spinning circle around the draca. The scene was very Jane-like, children playing with a creature that a troop of armed soldiers would fear to approach.
“The children adore her, and she does like to keep watch,” Jane answered. Softly, she added, “The poor thing was very affected by what happened at the ball. Spending time with the children helps her mend. She has become attached to them, and to baby Jemma.”
Unwanted, that horrible moment filled my eyes.
It had been five months since the London ball where Jane’s wyvern killed my friend Miss Rees.
The wyvern had been compelled to attack—the madness of Fènnù reached through Lizzy and seized her mind—but those very claws had torn my friend from my outstretched hands.
Images of that memory, as vivid as life, overcame the idyllic garden scene and turned it into a spectacle of terror. The muscles rippling beneath those adamantine scales seemed tensed for violence. The four-inch claws cutting Longbourn’s turf were poised to strike.
As my heart pounded, the wyvern’s muzzle swung to me. Her faceted eyes sparkled in the sun, and a river of calm washed away my fear. The memory retreated.
An ethereal voice chimed in my head:
hear me, wyfe
Wonder filled me. When I was with Lizzy, Yuánchi had spoken to me this way, his dragon thoughts thunder in my mind. Afterward, I decided that Lizzy’s extraordinary skills fostered that connection.
But Lizzy was not here. Jane and Georgiana were chatting. Neither seemed aware of anything unusual.
The wyvern’s voice chimed again, aged and wise:
the wyfe of song shines. you shine. you are paired
“I love her,” I said. Mamma was laughing at the others’ conversation. Nobody heard me.
The wyvern rose. Delicately, she sidestepped the playing children, her wingtips flicking for balance. She took three swift, avian strides to stand by Jane.
you have seen visions from the past. wyverns, too, hold the lore. but look forward, shining wyfe, and see: i will never fail your sister again
Jane, delighted by her wyvern’s arrival, dangled her enchanted baby a few inches from the gleaming, fanged muzzle.
The baby cooed, as fascinated by golden scales as by my spectacles.
The wyvern stood regally, watching the garden around us, and I knew Jane and her daughter would be defended to the death.