Page 158 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
Lydia was screaming at Wickham about losing their drake. Wickham seemed not to hear. A smoking musket hung from one hand. The firedrake lay dead at his feet, her head blown away. Because I had asked her to fight for me. Regret and guilt surged.
Near him, a monstrous foul crawler twined, larger even than the one that had killed Denny. The broken ground revealed a dark tunnel. It had hidden until the drake’s attack.
Lydia’s shouting became frustrated silence. She came to me and crouched. I looked up at her from Lord Wellington’s lap. Her makeup had smeared, revealing a frightening network of blackened veins.
She lifted my left hand, and her thumbnail dug into the ring of braided hairon my finger. “Clever Lizzy. You have been keeping secrets.” She must have heard Lord Wellington call me Mrs. Darcy.
“Lydia,” Wickham called. “This is over. We must go.” He rested the musket against a rock, removed a pouch on his belt, then picked up his discarded pistol and began methodically reloading it.
Lydia shook her head. “No. I want my gift for Napoleon. I want to be Empress.”
“Stop!” Wickham’s voice was desperate. “This is madness. We have gold. We can hide—”
She jumped to her feet, shrieking, “I am not mad! I will be Empress, and you will be the handsome captain of my guard, and we will dance at all the balls!” She stalked to where the guards held Mr. Darcy. “Lift him.” The men dragged Mr. Darcy to his knees.
“Darcy is mine,” Wickham said. He rammed the charge into his pistol and screwed the ramrod under the barrel.
Lydia shook her head. “Not yet.” She reached to stroke my husband’s hair, but he strained back in disgust. She laughed. “I read the French legends ofl’enfant du lac, the great wyfe who draws a dragon from the water. That is me! I am the Child of the Lake. And Iwantthe wyvern that hides in the water.”
Mr. Darcy’s reply was coldly exact. “I told you before. I know nothing of this.”
Lydia’s lips spread in incongruous delight. Smudges in the crimson covering her lips revealed dark purple flesh like a spreading bruise. “Before I did not care much, so you thought it was safe to lie. Now, Ineedthat wyvern.” She stepped back, considering him. “Do you know my husband admires your sister?”
Behind her, Wickham had been listening with angry impatience. At her words, he stiffened. “That is not true.” His voice was tense.
The man who had shot a woman in cold blood was afraid.
I would have laughed if his fear was for himself. But he had cast a worried glance at Miss Darcy. Could he be fond of her? Before his schemed elopement, they grew up together, almost as brother and sister. But it was hard to believe a murderer could care about anyone.
My head still spun from the shock of the drake’s death. But under that, strength remained from Miss Darcy’s song. My abilities hummed in resonance.
What if Lydia’s claim about Pemberley lake was true?
I cast my mind toward the lake. I no longer needed to close my eyes. It was like part of me could fly, piercing the first hill that blocked my view, then thesecond. I fell into the water—clear, nurturing, and pure. But there was nothing. I sank ten feet. Twenty.
I was stopped as if I had struck impermeable ice. Hidden depths remained below.
Lydia raised her voice. “What did you tell me about his sister, Wickie? She plays harp… no. Pianoforte. Endlessly. I should find endless scales most dull. Shall we break her fingers?”
Miss Darcy had been huddled and pale since the Frenchwoman was shot. She scrambled to her feet in an attempt at flight, her thin limbs gawky as a frightened deer. One of the guards restrained her effortlessly.
Mr. Darcy also tried to rise. His guards beat him down, striking his legs with the butts of their muskets. He fell back, gasping.
Lydia’s lips stretched in fascination. There was no concern. There was no feeling at all. Not even the empathy of cruelty.
I drove my mind against the impenetrable barrier deep in the lake. It was like pressing a finger against a mountain. But I was an idiot even to try. This was not about force.
I understand, I thought.Everyone is wrong. They think we claim you. That marriage gold grants power to enslave. But it is just permission, like signing a contract to show we are willing. You are the ones who choose. You bind us for a lifetime to share our world. I will share my life with you. My soul. But I wish you would save these people I love.
The guards had wrestled Mr. Darcy to a rigid, kneeling standstill. Lydia grabbed a handful of his hanging hair. “Or is a sister not enough? I do not likemysisters much.” She lifted Mr. Darcy’s left hand, her thumb pressing the ring on his finger. “What of awyfe?What of Mrs.ElizabethDarcy?”
Wickham spun. In two steps, he reached me and yanked me to my feet.
“Nothim!” he cried. “He ruins me for sport! You will be nothing to him. A pawn to hurt me.”
“I love him,” I said.
Wickham slapped me, driving my face against my shoulder. My cheek burned under my tumbled hair.
