Chapter 23 The Prince Regent
THE PRINCE REGENT
EMMA
The wyvern’s eyes shimmered, and the chaos around me faded.
The day before the ball, my compulsions began a wicked spiral.
By the time Harriet and I entered the museum doors, the crowd was blurring—a wet oil painting smeared by an unseen palm, first one way, then the other.
Isolated details stuck in the air. An unbuttoned cuff.
A gold cross hanging crooked below a necklace.
Miasma trickled thirty feet from the ceiling, pooling wetly on the floor, splashing hems and slippers with colorless pestilence while hunting a victim I would mourn.
Now, the wyvern’s eyes shone, steady as summer sun. A single word chimed in my mind like a crystal bell:
healer
“I hear you,” I whispered—not even whispered, just shaped words on my lips. I knew she heard.
The wyvern’s thought, healer, did not thump my skull like Yuánchi’s mind, but it sang of inhuman wisdom.
Then my disbelief bristled. I had served Nessy tea brewed from the green leaves from the physic garden.
It tasted pleasant enough—I had tried it, as well—but there was no miracle.
This talk of healing was a fool’s dream.
it is long since great wyves gathered. together, you are strong
“I do not feel strong.”
you must bind for strength
That again. Aware of the watching eyes, I did not even mouth my next words. I only thought, I would fail if I tried to bind.
The wyvern’s head cocked, avian in her curiosity. the dragon songs broke. together, the wyves are strong. healer, can you heal a song?
“I do not even know what that means.” Frustration swamped the last of my awe. “Stop saying I can heal! My papa died in my arms.”
I remembered the firedrake healing in the physic garden. But that was like a country doctor straightening a bone. Everyone knew draca healed quickly all on their own.
the great wyves gather. the great ones stir. a messenger awaits to the north
The facets of her eyes glimmered with the gold of my gown and the yellow pinpricks of distant candles. Then she simply trotted off, her tail lifting in a curl and her claws rasping the stone. The flex of her muscles hinted at untapped, explosive speed.
The world flooded back as I rose. I half expected a miracle of my own—the miasma banished—but the room resumed its skittering and shifting.
The wyvern reached the isolated corner where Jane’s gold wyvern had settled. The two touched noses, and the crowd’s silence burst with amazed exclamations and admiring claps. As a rule, draca ignored each other.
“What triviality,” Lady Catherine said. “Why has my nephew not presented himself?”
“He is engaged with other guests,” Lizzy said. “Shall we rescue him?” They excused themselves, Lady Catherine parading first through a thickening rain of miasma.
“Emma,” said Georgiana’s voice.
“Yes?” I said, forcing the expected smile, my gaze on a lady’s bare forearm swelling into huge, red pustules.
Georgiana’s voice came again, urgently. “Listen to me.” Melody flitted through my mind, then I heard it in my ears, a barely hummed tune beneath the bustle of the crowd.
Layers of crumpled fear folded into tolerable apprehension.
The trickling miasma thinned to flickering illusion, a conjurer’s trick that could be ignored.
“Is that better?” Georgiana asked. “The world was all dissonance about you.”
“Much better, thank you,” I said, although fear still scrabbled at the underside of my mind. Had I been this bad at Hartfield? No wonder Harriet had guessed the truth.
I realized Mary Bennet stood at Georgiana’s shoulder. “Good evening, Mary.” At first, I thought the daring color she wore was a trick of my mind, but the hues shifted too subtly with the light and shadow. “What a beautiful gown.”
Mary wrapped her arms around herself and muttered, “I regret it already.” Her dress was night-black satin and vivid crimson, with more crimson than black. The dark, slim sleeves and dagged cuffs exposed red lining and black lace.
“It is beautiful,” Georgiana told her. “I am so happy you wore it.” Her middle finger grazed the side of Mary’s wrist, the touch gone almost before I saw. Their gazes locked, and their posture became so still they could have been caught in unseen chains.
Feeling extraneous, an intruder who had stumbled onto a private intimacy, I looked away, hunting unsuccessfully for Harriet. Imperfect clothes snagged my gaze, but at least the crowd was no longer putrid madness.
Instead of Harriet, Mr. Tinsdale emerged from the throng. He bowed. “Miss Woodhouse. You look bright as a summer day.”
Unease tensed my cheeks, but I forced an untroubled expression. This was his proposed meeting—the chance to secure Harriet’s status through a listing in Debrett’s. “You are kind, sir.”
“I see you are acquainted with Miss Darcy.” He bowed to Georgiana, who returned a polite greeting. His gaze shifted to Mary’s dramatic form. An impressed smile stretched his mustache.
“I know who you are,” Mary said with scathing distaste. “An introduction will not serve us well.”
Georgiana blanched. Mr. Tinsdale frowned. “We have never met. Miss?”
Mary uttered a scoffing laugh, apparently at his foolishness for ignoring her advice. “Bennet. Mary Bennet.”
Mr. Tinsdale’s barrel chest puffed. His face reddened. “Not that Mary Bennet. The one who writes offensive letters to newspapers and parades her black-clad Marys?”
Mary smiled fiercely. “Not that Rosdan Tinsdale, the Jacobin turned royalist who parades his Blackcoat bigots?”
“Excuse us,” Georgiana said with a brilliant smile and whirled Mary into the crowd. I caught Mary’s indignant “And he is a Tory!” before they were out of earshot.
“How exciting,” I said with a hostess’s smile.
“Quite. You met her through Miss Darcy, I suppose.”
“Yes.” I felt an unprecedented urge to defend Mary, but I did not dare. Once Harriet was secure, I could purge this unpleasant man from our lives.
“Miss Darcy, at least, is a valuable acquaintance. I was intrigued to learn you are a guest at Chathford House. When we last met, I had no idea you were so close to the Darcys.” He paused meaningfully. “That you had such privileged access.”
He did not know I had left Chathford House. But it was not the house that interested him. It was the Darcys.
“The Darcys are good friends,” I confirmed, then added firmly, “both to myself and to Harriet. I was intrigued to learn you would be meeting Mr. Debrett. Perhaps he could correct a tiresome oversight. Harriet’s remarkable affinity for draca should be publicly recorded.”
It had not occurred to me to call her “remarkable” before, but it sounded wonderfully important.
“That… disadvantaged woman has the ability to bind?” Mr. Tinsdale frowned and crossed his thick arms.
Despite his offensive tone, I settled for a nod.
His jaw worked as if chewing a tough piece of mutton.
“I will speak frankly. You know the Darcys are caretakers of an extraordinary creature. The government is eager to protect the beast, so much that they would transgress on the Darcys’ rights.
I, however, wish to protect the Darcys. Shield them from embarrassing inquiries. ”
I had no idea what that meant. “What inquiries?”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We cannot locate the dragon. The Pemberley staff display such perfect ignorance that the lair must be elsewhere. If I were privately advised of the creature’s location, I could reassure the War Secretary.
The Darcys would be undisturbed, and their creature guarded.
” He smiled shrewdly. “His Majesty’s government would be indebted for that information.
A debt worthy of an introduction to Mr. Debrett. ”
It was so simple. I could tell him Yuánchi’s location with my next breath. But would he deliver his promise? His claim of helping the Darcys was transparent manipulation. Still, Lizzy spoke of him as an ally.
His eyes narrowed. “You do know something. Miss Woodhouse, I meet Mr. Debrett tomorrow. This offer ends tonight. Help your friend while you still can.”
Mr. Tinsdale’s pressure was eroding my precarious calm. The flickering trickles of miasma thickened. I searched the room for a reprieve, spotted a friendly profile, and stared hopefully. I was rewarded when Mr. Knightley turned and caught my gaze. He smiled and began walking over.
Relieved, I returned my attention to Mr. Tinsdale, then realized my blunder just as Mr. Knightley arrived.
“Miss Woodhouse,” he said, bowing, then he froze when he saw Mr. Tinsdale, whose eyes had hardened.
“Uh… are you acquainted?” I said desperately. “One discovers the most unexpected connections at a ball.”
The two men glared at each other in deadly silence.
I seized the explanation that saved me with Mary. “I believe Mr. Knightley is an acquaintance of Miss Darcy.” The silence thickened, and I babbled on, frightened that I had ruined Harriet’s chance. “A musician, is it? Have you come to entertain us?”
Mr. Knightley turned to me, his posture impeccable, his neckcloth a cascade of silk between velvet lapels. “Your pardon. I mistook you for a friend.” He inclined his head and strode away.
“Callow and rude,” Mr. Tinsdale declared very loudly. “Proof that dressing in fine clothes cannot make an Englishman of… that.”
“Excuse me. I am unwell.” I staggered aside, then dove between strangers, my vision blurring with shame for how I had treated my friend.
Whatever hope Mr. Tinsdale offered for Harriet, I could not proceed like this.
Tears heated my throat and spilled on my cheeks.
With shaking fingers, I groped at the drawstrings of my reticule.
If I soiled my gloves, the evening was lost.
A gentleman’s hand appeared before me, presenting a handkerchief with a discreet D embroidered on the corner. Mr. Darcy said, “May I assist you, Miss Woodhouse?”