Page 102 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
The coach horses were blowing and stamping, cooling in the night air. My uncle had accepted my plea and hired four-horse teams. That made for a grueling but fast two-day trip home—days that passed in fear for Jane and Lydia, and in my own confused, lonely haze.
In the sparse light of the coach lanterns, our firedrake glistened, motionless on his perch, his eyes glinting like black jewels.
I cast my awareness to him.
This time, there was no wild squawk or retreat. Just sullen resistance. A crystal wall, gentler than the red fury when the tyke threw me out, but still a wall.
The drake began to hiss.
“Why do you fight me?” I whispered. I remembered the images he had shown before. Cages and traps.
“Lizzy?” asked my aunt, stopping beside me. I resumed walking to our door.
We had arrived as my family prepared for bed, and it was a reunion in nightclothes, happy and relieved and tearful and fraught. I hugged everyone and deferred questions about my hurt face while my uncle greeted my father in serious tones.
Mary hugged me tight, then murmured, “Mamma is retired with nerves.” Iheard my mother call from upstairs, demanding I attend her. “But you must see Jane first.” Jane had not come down to greet me.
“Let us go.” I already held the bottle of medicine. I had dug it out a mile from home, clutching it like a talisman.
In our room, Jane lay curled under the bed covers. I stroked her hair. “Jane, darling. I am back.”
Her face turned to me, and I stifled a gasp. Her bones stretched her skin like paper, gaunt and fragile as a bird. The sunken skin under her eyes was as dark as soot.
Like feathers, her wasted fingers traced my bruised cheek, which had turned a mottled purple and ugly yellowish-green. “You are changing,” she whispered. “You will be a dark fairy, with black wings.”
I held her. It was like embracing a bundle of sticks.
Mary had read the paper tied to the medicine, and she sat down beside us. “Lizzy has brought medicine for you.” She held out a teaspoon full of white liquid. Jane dutifully swallowed, then made a child’s disgusted face. I laughed, and then Mary laughed, and then we were all laughing in one desperate embrace.
My aunt and I visited Mamma. I tried to be patient while she rattled on about the agonies of her nerves. Then I went down to my father, who was in his library with my uncle.
“Papa,” I said from the doorway, and he beckoned me in. He had aged twenty years, his eyes red-veined, his white hair unkempt.
“Your uncle and I are discussing the recovery of Lydia,” he said. “Or whatever remote chance of that remains.”
“Do you know where she is?” I asked.
“Colonel Forster is ashamed to have failed in his protection of my daughter and has expended great effort to track them. First to London, where we feared they had remained. But they proceeded farther.”
“To Scotland?” I asked with a spark of hope. Maybe they had married.
“He has reason to suspect Derbyshire. Wickham had gambling debts in London, and so fled. But he grew up in Derbyshire and has nefarious acquaintances to shelter him.” He added dryly, “Doubtless my freshly nefarious daughter will be welcome.”
“Then they have been together, unmarried, for more than a week.” My hope was gone.
“Yes. Rumor already spreads amongst our neighbors.” My father steepledhis fingers. “Lizzy, you warned me of the dangers of permitting Lydia such freedom, and you have proved most wise. The blame is mine.”
“I think the blame is Lydia’s. Or Wickham’s.”
“Lydia is a child who should have been protected. For once, let me feel the blame I deserve. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass soon enough.” I reached out, and we held each other’s fingers. He exhaled a long, uneven breath. “I am thankful you have returned. It frees me to go after her.”
“You are not well enough,” I protested.
“I must be well enough. This is a father’s responsibility. I will not shirk it.”
“Let me go with you,” my uncle said. That made me wince. I had just dragged my uncle through a strenuous sprint from Derbyshire, and he offered to reverse that.
“I will meet Colonel Forster there,” my father told him. “That is sufficient. You have children of your own to love and care for.”
