Page 167 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
I offered the traditional, vacant sympathies. Lizzy stared at the floor as if shamed by their failure—deserved or not, blame fell on the wyfe—but her pose was unconvincing after her frank grief for her deceased sister. Mystified, I braced myself and grazed her gloved hand again. Her binding flashed scarlet in my mind.
Why would a bound wyfe pretend she had failed to bind?
Here is my second secret. I sense the bindings between wyves and draca. This secret is not illusion; bindings are real. But only I can sense them. It is a strange skill, and harmless, but I conceal it. A gentleman and wyfe bind draca through the passion of their marriage night. That makes curiosity about binding improper, but my skill is even more troubling—too much like the powers claimed by sinful crones who peddle binding charms to desperate brides.
These first two secrets are a dangerous pair. One senses truth but must be concealed. The other fills me with false terrors I must ignore or be declared a madwoman.
Hand-in-hand, the pair of fashionable ladies left the larger group and crossed the room to join us. The remainder of the group quieted, every eye following. These were the salon hosts and influential in London society.
“Mary!” Lizzy said as they arrived. “Imagine my surprise when I discovered my name printed in your program.”
Miss Mary Bennet was an intense young woman in an unremittingly black gown, her only jewelry circular gold spectacles and a delicate gold musical note hanging on a hair-thin necklace. Her brown hair fell straight to her shoulders, a peculiar style but one shared by several guests. Some trending London fashion.
“The male aristocracy has conspired to restrict binding to gentry,” Mary replied, her words so rapid they were almost staccato. “You should be the speaker, as you made me aware of it.” When Lizzy seemed taken aback, Mary adjusted her spectacles—inexpertly; they must be new—and added in painstaking tones, “Ourthemeis society’s conventions that disempower women.”
“I did not intend to give a public speech on the matter,” Lizzy protested.
Mary squinted through her spectacles. “Why not?”
“Did you not evenaskher?” said the woman beside her. She was younger yet but blooming into a beauty, black-haired with ocean-blue eyes, although slim as a reed. She wore an unembellished, exquisite blue watered-silk gown. Around her neck hung a twin to Mary’s musical note necklace.
The three women launched into overlapping claims and counterclaims, all delivered with the happy annoyance of loving family. Harriet and I exchanged an amused look.
Mr. Darcy’s powerful voice intervened. “Miss Woodhouse, Miss Smith. May I present my sister, Miss Georgiana Darcy, and my wyfe’s sister, Miss Mary Bennet.”
Miss Darcy was the young beauty. She greeted us with unselfconscious grace, her hand elegant as a duchess and her voice a song. Behind her back, Miss Mary Bennet traded sisterly scowls with Lizzy before shaking my hand distractedly.
While Harriet listened to the ladies debate the merits of public speech, I stole a glance at Mr. Darcy. He no longer watched me. His gaze hung on his wyfe, enthralled. They were very obviously in love. That was by no means the rule for a gentry marriage.
I examined his snow-white waistcoat. It fastened with a single column of seven oyster-shell buttons. Each button had grooves dividing it in quarters. All the buttons were oriented identically, one groove precisely vertical. I exhaled a long breath as the last crawling twinges of my panic cooled.
This could be a good day. A day with no need for deception. London might be more tolerable than I thought.
A sharp motion drew my gaze to the salon’s doorway. The dour maid had her arm extended, blocking the entrance of two rough men in leather cloaks. I recognized the stubbly man from the protest on the street.
One man grabbed the maid and dragged her aside, his hand stifling her mouth. The other man strode into the unaware crowd.
“Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy!” he shouted. “Where is she?”
Shocked faces turned to him, but also to Lizzy. The man’s gaze followed, and his eyes narrowed. He drew his hand from his coat pocket. Steel and brass gleamed as he pointed his arm at Lizzy. He held a pistol.
Mr. Darcy wrapped his wyfe in an embrace that drove her against me. We stumbled sideways in a tangle. The pistol flashed dirty-orange with an ear-thump of sound, blowing a ragged hole in the wall a foot from my shoulder. Plaster dust stung my face. Settled on my eyelashes.
Mr. Knightley charged at the gunman. They collided with a yell, then pushed across the room to slam the wall. A painting fell, and they fell on top of it, wrestling and shouting. Mr. Darcy ran to help.
Like a choir after a synchronized breath, a chorus of ladies’ screams sounded. Pastel and print dresses retreated to press walls and chairs. The center of the room emptied other than the sulfurous smoke from the pistol shot.
The second man stood unnoticed by the entrance, the silenced maid struggling in his arms. He shoved her viciously, banging her head into the doorframe, and she collapsed, skirts askew. He strode across the room, his eyes on Lizzy.
Lizzy was beside me, her gaze on her scuffling husband. I shouted, “Lizzy! Run!”
Her eyes turned to me, then she saw the other man. Her empty hand rose, a finger outstretched as if to point.
Authority hammered my awareness. Command drove the air from my lungs. I had never felt this. I did not understand what I felt.
The man reached the abandoned center of the room. He pulled his cloak aside and reached for a huge pistol on his belt. The barrel was flared like the blunderbusses favored by coach drivers.
The broccworm ran forward and gaped its jaws, throwing a raging wall of blue flame between the man and us—inches from the man’s hands and so hot that it scalded my face a half-dozen yards away. The man fell backward, his arms flailing. The edge of his cloak swung through the flame, and the heavy leather crisped and blew away like paper in a bonfire.
