Page 98 of Ashes and Understanding
The scope of it—espionage, assassination, traitors in the militia, the near-destruction of London itself—it defied imagination. And yet Darcy knew the colonel too well to doubt him. His cousin had always been clever, yes. Witty, charming, quick with a joke and quicker still to rescue Darcy from any awkward moment in society.
But this… this was something else entirely.
Darcy had known Colonel Fitzwilliam served in Spain. He had seen the hardened edge that wartime left in a man. But he had not known this.
How many dinners had they sat through at Matlock House, his aunt complaining about the state of the Empire’s trade while the colonel merely sipped his wine and nodded? How many assemblies had they attended where the colonel flirted and danced and laughed, never revealing that he had once chased a ghost across the breadth of Europe?
Darcy felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle. He had always thought of himself as the more serious of the two, the more responsible. But now he realized—perhaps Fitzwilliam had simply been the better actor.
He turned slightly, just enough to glance at Elizabeth.
She was leaning forward towards the colonel, her face unreadable in the firelight. But her eyes—those eyes he had come to study with such devotion—were dark with something deeper than fear. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, white-knuckled. She was not merely shocked. She was absorbing every word, just as he had.
And something in her expression… something told him that she understood the weight of what had just been placed in her lap. She did not look away. She had not flinched. He felt the swell of pride for her—pride and something fiercer still.
When the colonel finally leaned back and exhaled, it was with the weariness of a man who had dragged a mountain behind him.
Darcy cleared his throat. It was a moment before he could speak. “And all this time…” His voice came out quieter than he intended. “You let me believe you were merely drinking brandy with generals and writing reports.”
The colonel gave a tired smile. “I was drinking brandy with generals. And writing reports. Just… occasionally under fire.”
Darcy let out a breath and shook his head slowly. “You are the Raven.”
The colonel shrugged. “The name suited.”
It did. And Darcy saw now just how well. The cunning. The patience. The careful observation masked by charm. He had never fully seen it before. And now he did.
The fire popped in the grate, breaking the quiet.
Darcy looked to Elizabeth again. Her brow furrowed slightly, lips parted as though still considering what to say.
“What does it mean now?” she asked softly. “If Le Corbeau is in Hertfordshire—what happens next?”
The colonel’s eyes met hers. “It means the baby is still vulnerable, and there is far less time than we thought.”
Darcy’s jaw clenched. Elizabeth was in danger.
∞∞∞
Elizabeth was in shock, unable to do anything more than sit in stunned silence.
The fire flickered and popped in the hearth, but its warmth barely touched the chill that had taken hold of her. The colonel’s tale had unfurled like something from the pages of a gothic novel—mystery and murder, spies and shadows, a decades-long hunt that had spanned nations.
And she had sat through it all without interrupting, breath caught tight in her chest, heart hammering behind her stays.
Tell the raven it was the crow.
Tell theRavenit was theCrow.
An assassin. A ghost. A legend.
And now he was in Meryton.
In her mind, she pictured Benjamin asleep in his cradle just up the stairs in the nursery—innocent, unaware. Her arms suddenly ached to hold him tight against her, to keep him safe from the evil that had intruded into their lives.
She had thought she was saving a baby from a life of misery—or even death in an orphanage.
But no—she was saving the last hope of a noble line, one related to French royalty. A symbol of everything the revolutionaries had sought to erase.
