Page 152 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
It was one of the French wives. Her beautiful gown had been replaced by a coarse-woven brown dress. A disguise for escape. One finger bore a plain gold wedding ring. Her face was not discolored, but her neck and chest were soaked in sticky, drying blood. A tiny gold cross hung askew from a chain around her neck.
Lord Wellington knelt beside her. “She died differently. Her throat was cut—” He stopped when I held out a hand. I had heard something.
I whispered, “Someone is alive.” I ran to another figure. Another woman.
A pair of gray eyes, crusted with dried tears and exhausted by pain, met mine.
“Dieu merci. La sorcière l’a prise…”
I knelt beside her. “Je parle très mal le français.” I speak very bad French.
Her hand caught mine and squeezed. “The witch. She took Alouette and her beautiful firedrake.Il était si beau…” Her voice became a ragged gasp. “Où est mon mari?” Her other hand fumbled until it found the hand of the dead man beside her. Her husband.
Lord Wellington knelt and lifted the torn side of her blood-soaked dress. He became still. Gently, he set the cloth back.
“Le lac tremblait,” she whispered. “The water moved.”
The lake was dark glass. But a few feet above the water’s edge, there was a line of damp flotsam.
“Did Alouette bind la Tarasque?” I asked. A worse thought occurred to me. “Did Lydia?”
Her head fell back. She whispered, “Stay away from the village.”
“What?”
“Lambton.Ses hommes le surveillent. C’est dangereux.” Her words were fading.
I looked at Lord Wellington. He said, “They hold Lambton. She says it is dangerous.”
The French woman rested, her eyes closed. Around me, the nightmare landscape seemed to flicker and jar.
My sister could not do this. This foreign woman was hiding the truth. She should not even be here. I pushed her shoulder. “Who killed the French soldiers?” She lay still. I shook her harder. “Who did it?”
Lord Wellington’s hand caught my wrist, his fingers digging in hard. “She is gone.”
I yanked my hand free and stood. Stones grated under my feet. I turned, looking for some way to understand what had happened. What was true.
“She had no reason to lie,” Lord Wellington said behind me. “There is no sign of English troops. I must assume our messengers were intercepted in Lambton. Wickham’s men could secure it by claiming to be English militia.”
“She said a French woman, Alouette, bound a firedrake.” My pulse was a hammer. It was hard to think. “Lydia wanted a drake, so she would take the woman with her. But she would not do… all this.”
I remembered being woken in the night by a binding. I remembered Lydia’s threat.
Lord Wellington was guiding me toward our horses. “We must go at once, and stealthily, to get word to the navy.”
I dug my feet into the gravel. “We must find Mr. Darcy.”
“Fifty armed men are unaccounted for. The third woman as well. While we speak, they may be escaping England with a French woman bound as a wyfe—and with one of the most lethal breeds of draca. They must not reach France.”
His face was earnest. I had seen that expression a dozen times in newspapers, captioned as heroic. “You wouldabandonyour friend?”
“Our enemy killed thirty soldiers in seconds. There is no chance that you and I can free Darcy, and an attempt would risk your life. Darcy must rely on the mercy of his captors. He would make the same choice if our positions were reversed. Miss Bennet, he is my dearest friend, but the security of England is at stake.”
“I am Mrs. Darcy. And you are a coward.” His face turned ashen. I walked to my horse and managed to drag myself into the saddle.
“Wait,” he called beside my knee. “Let me ride to Lambton to confirm her story. I will return soon, then go with you. You can do nothing on your own.”
I laughed at that, turned my mare, and galloped along the shore beside dark water.
