Page 144 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
“I am honored to attend,” I said.
The boy who met Lord Wellington and me walked solemnly into the clearing. He knelt and began sawing a bow back and forth to spin a stick, the bottom end buried in wood shavings. When a thread of smoke rose, he set the bow aside to blow gently. Flame crackled to life, and a cry rose:Teine eigin! Teine eigin!
The strange trumpet blew again, and a flutter of wings rose from the forest—a flock of wrens. They swirled into the clearing, a darting cloud that circled three times then soared into the sky and scattered.
Mr. Digweed returned to our table. He removed his heavy horned headdress and thumped it onto the bench, saying wryly, “Gets hot, that.” Lord Wellington asked him about the ritual, and they began conversing, for all the world like two gentlemen at a refined dinner. I overheard their pleasant surprise at discovering they both attended Eton. It seemed Mr. Darcy’s father had sponsored Mr. Digweed’s education.
“Would you care for mead, Lizzy?” Aggy was balancing a carved platter with a half-dozen wooden cups.
“Is it strong?” I asked doubtfully. I still remembered my headache after gulping Colonel Forster’s drink at the wedding.
“A bit. I’ll give you a lady’s taste.” She poured most of one cup into another then passed me the almost empty container. I sipped. Honey and spirits swirled on my tongue, but no more potent than port.
“Mr. Darcy?” Aggy offered him the platter, a little shy.
“Thank you, Aggy,” he said and took a cup.
In the clearing, four enthusiastic boys had built the kindled flame into a roaring fire. They placed spits with trussed hares and joints of goat.
“Is that the end?” I asked Mr. Darcy.
“No, only the start. There are other ceremonies after the feast.” The fire reflected in his eyes as his mood became grave and disciplined. “Miss Bennet, when the army has restored order, I must ask that you leave the Pemberley grounds.”
“Because the ‘darkness of Pemberley’ is such a danger?” I asked lightly. He nodded. “I am afraid, Mr. Darcy, that you have not convinced me. ‘Darkness’ sounds frightening, but all I have observed is an area without draca. In fact, I have learned the emptiness is not due to Pemberley at all. It is an effect of the lake. All three sister lakes are surrounded by an area empty of draca.”
He pushed his hands through his hair, his knuckles white. “You do not understand.”
“Inform me, then. But do not decide for me. You have a habit of secretly solving problems—real or imagined—with excessively noble solutions. I prefer more communication and less self-sacrifice.” His eyes had widened. Good. “I am aware you seek to divest yourself of Pemberley.”
“How can you know that?” He seemed stunned.
“Your aunt visited with the sole purpose of castigating me.” Mr. Darcy closed his eyes and groaned. “Also, Lord Wellington told me.”
He took a deep breath. “Abandoning Pemberley would remove the risk. I am more than willing—”
“Really, Mr. Darcy,” I exclaimed in my most affected imitation of Miss Bingley’s coquettish tone. “You must pay attention. Men are convinced that grand self-sacrifice is romantic, but women are practical. I quite like Pemberley. I shall be vexed if you lose it.”
I thought he would smile at that, but he became more serious.
“You are right,” he said. “You deserve to understand. If my hesitation seems cowardly, it is because I am sharing a secret so dark that I have told no one. Not even my sister.”
My teasing mood fell away. He wet his lips and began:
“The darkness of Pemberley stains the death of both my parents. My father was a vigorous man. His death was tragic but innocent, a fall from a spooked horse where he struck his head. The suddenness would shock any family, but to my mother it was… devastating. Her affinity with draca revolved around skills of healing. These were most remarkable when tending wyves and their draca, but she was a great healer for all, and it was rare when she could not save a life.
“When my father fell, she was miles away. She had ridden far to be outside the darkness of Pemberley, which she found oppressive. ‘A lifeless void,’ she called it. I had been hunting with my father, and I tended him while Mr. Rabb raced to find her. They returned at a gallop, but my mother was too late to save her husband.
“She blamed her absence for my father’s death. Blame became obsession, and her obsession fixed on the darkness of Pemberley. She would sit for hours, eyes closed, immersed in it. She began to rave. She claimed it was aware. Lurking. She became convinced her wyvern was blocking her from seeing the truth of it. ‘Too bright,’ she cried when her wyvern was near. One day, a month after my father’s death, she invoked incredible power. My sister, Georgiana, felt it. She screamed in her room. And I… I felt something also. I saw something. A flash in my mind. My mother had severed her binding to her wyvern.”
He stopped speaking, his eyes narrow with remembered pain.
“A wyvern’s awareness is a wonderful thing,” I said softly. “Wise and old. But brilliant to behold.” It was hard to imagine the pain that would drive a wyfe to such a choice.
Mr. Darcy continued as if he had not heard.
“My mother’s sanity had held until then. She had been unbearably saddened by my father’s death, crying for hours each day, but rational. But when her wyvern left—when she commanded him to leave, for he did not leave willingly—binding sickness attacked her mind. When a wyfe has bound before, it is fast, much faster than you saw with your sister. And before she married, my mother battled her own evils of the mind. Those returned to torment her.
“In days, she was retreating into fantasy. But I was certain she had the power to cure herself. When she was lucid, we discussed it. When she asked me to gather rowan flowers for the ritual, I rejoiced, thinking her senses intact. But when I returned, her face was sunk in her bath, weighted with a scarf tied around heavy ornaments. Her death was unnatural. Self-inflicted. If I had stayed, I could have saved her, but like her, I was away when I was needed by someone I loved.
