Chapter 40
TOGETHER
LIZZY
My feet sank into the damp winter soil of the Briton village clearing. I rested my gloved palms on Yuánchi’s side, feeling wobbly after two hours in the air, and thought, Thank you. Then I took a bracing breath and turned.
Darcy stood a dozen yards away, one hand firm on the neck of his wild-eyed gray stallion, frightened by proximity to a dragon. Behind him, Mr. Needham and the girl harnessers huddled, apparently attempting to sink into the earth.
From the air, I had seen Darcy wheel his mount when we glided overhead, then gallop like a madman to where we would land. Now, he was rigid and unmoving.
I wet my lips. “Love, I had to. They had captives. Mary’s friend was taken. After what I did, I could not go on—”
He rushed forward and trapped me in his arms, then whispered, “You are an insane fool. You are a miracle.” That was encouraging, and relief flooded me. I let myself be held, cheek resting on his chest and his heart thumping hard in my ear. He added more sternly, “Never leave me again.”
After hours of frankness with Mary, it was a shock to remember I had not told him of my illness.
Guilt for my silence and anger at fate’s injustice filled me, but there was less fear this time.
The rescue of those women had softened it.
Perhaps this was how soldiers survived the specter of death. Count those that you save.
Still, I swallowed, and guilt turned my voice foolishly bright. “About that…”
“What about that?” he said suspiciously, but then Mary clambered to earth, puffing in frank relief. He stiffened in my arms and said to her angrily, “You terrified Georgiana!”
“No more than myself,” Mary muttered.
His chest filled hugely, but all that came out was, “Did you retrieve the dagger?”
“No,” she said simply, “but we saved lives and slowed our enemies. And I have information about… whatever all this means. What happened to Fènnù. I must go to the library.” She began taking books from the saddlebag, then squinted at the clearing.
Looking very windswept and, missing her spectacles, strangely young, she frowned at Darcy.
“You rode all this way and did not think to bring a carriage?”
We rode back, although once Darcy got a good look at me, he declared me exhausted and insisted I ride with him.
So again, I rode tandem, pressed against my husband with his arm around my waist while Mary rode after us on the gentle mount I had brought—a good choice as Mary’s spare spectacles were at the house, where the horse was eager to return.
We trotted down the narrow trail, and it felt more dangerously steep and bumpy than flying with Yuánchi.
Darcy was working up to something. Finally, he burst out, “What was it like to fly?”
I smiled at that. “It was glorious. And interesting. The control is all subtle changes to the angles of the wings. I cannot believe I did not notice before, but flapping is less to rise, and more to maintain speed, like paddling a boat. I am certain a winged device could fly…”
I drifted with the sway of the horse, thinking about it.
Yuánchi was certainly heavy, so it was not about weight.
But he was immensely powerful. Could a horse fly if its feet were harnessed to power the wings?
Equine reluctance aside, I doubted it. Was a steam engine more powerful per pound than a horse? I had never compared them.
“You are plotting,” Darcy said. He sounded unaccountably cheery.
“I am considering how to weigh the school’s steam engine.”
He chuckled, then became serious. “What happened in London?”
The thought of the cruel shackles and vile stench prickled the hair on my scalp. “The men who have allied with the French are consummate evil. Why is it that collaborators are worse than the enemy with whom we war? It was the same with Lydia and Wickham. The French officer had more honor.”
“A soldier of any flag may have honor. A traitor has none.” We were emerging from the trees, and Pemberley House became visible. The horse picked up to a canter, jingling the harness. “You did not say what happened.”
The open sky had driven a pair of needles into the backs of my eyes. Phantasmic reds and yellows covered my vision, then drained away like an emptying hourglass. I tried closing my eyes, and the pain crawled into my skull.
“I am more tired than I thought,” I said. “Would you mind asking Mary? She was astonishingly brave.” Let her decide whether to speak of her aura as a great wyfe. “She is doing something special at the performance this evening. Promise me that we will attend.”
“Of course.” I had expected him to question that, but he sounded earnest and unsurprised.
With that secure, I put my hand on his and guided the reins, taking us from the main path toward a secluded garden. I waved Mary on toward the house, but she reined in where we had left the path, watching until we were out of sight.
When we were surrounded by the stark and spare beauty of winter, I said, “Let us rest here. I have something to tell you.”