by Maria Grace
“Lord Matlock is rather intimidating, I grant you. I would certainly rather not meet with him. But still, Fitzwilliam seems—disconnected, perhaps?”
Darcy shrugged. Pray she did not ask him a direct question he dared not answer.
She turned her face upward, toward a pale blue sky, currently devoid of flying creatures. “With April … away … I think I understand him a bit better than I have before. He is surrounded by Dragon Mates on all sides, both in his family and among the Order. He hears but has no Friend of his own. Think about how many individuals highly placed in the Order are in that situation—practically none. It must be incredibly isolating and lonely. I am sure it makes him question his own suitability. No wonder he was so ambivalent about befriending Cait’s egg.”
“I suppose.” That much was entirely true. Pray he could continue to avoid any falsehood with her.
“I am certain of it. He will be better after the hatching. I have often seen that chicks, particularly those of the same sex, take after their parents. Walker is fond of you. Fitzwilliam shares many of your qualities. Walker’s chick should find him agreeable.”
“You make this all sound so very simple.”
“It really is not that diffi—”
Two familiar forest wyrms poked their shaggy heads out of the deadfall near their feet, their yellow eyes wide and agitated.
Elizabeth fell to her knees near the wyrms. “What is wrong? Has someone threatened you? Come close. You are safe with us.”
“No, no! It is not safe here, not anymore!” The little female wove in circles around them, looking to and fro for something fearsome.
The male rose very high on his tail and looked Elizabeth in the eye. “We are all in the gravest of peril!”
“We must flee! The blue one … he says we must all be on guard for our lives!”
Darcy sprang to his feet, casting about. “Where is he? Has the lindwurm threatened you?”
“No, no!” The female hid behind Elizabeth’s skirts.
“Not him. He is our friend now! He has promised protection.”
Elizabeth carefully placed a hand to either side of the male’s face, encouraging him to focus solely on her. “Protection from what? Is there a new dragon in the vicinity? Has a strange dragon—perhaps of a kind you have never seen before—appeared in the territory?”
By Jove! The last thing they needed was the Eastern Dragon envoy suddenly arriving among them.
“No, not a dragon!” The male hissed, tongue flicking as he wove back and forth, rather like an Indian cobra. His mane, matted with leaves and forest debris, stood out, resembling a snake’s hood.
Elizabeth leaned down and whispered with the barest of musical lilts, “What then?”
That had a calming effect on the wyrms.
“The danger is not a dragon.” The female pressed into Elizabeth’s skirt.
“Then what? Answer and you may have a beetle.” She glanced at Darcy’s coat pocket.
He withdrew the tin and held it in their sight. The object helped them focus.
“Now, tell us. What is the danger?” Elizabeth stroked the female’s head.
The wyrm leaned into Elizabeth’s hand, uttering contented sounds that were difficult to name. “A man. A man with a sword.”
No! No! No! Stupid, stupid creatures! Why did they meddle in what they did not understand?
“What kind of sword?” Her words came in a breathy staccato.
“A Dragon Slayer!” A shudder coursed down the length of the male wyrm. “There is a Dragon Slayer. In the barn. We have seen it in the barn. There is no mistaking such a blade.”
“There is a Dragon Slayer in the Netherfield barn.” She stood and stared directly into Darcy’s eyes, color draining from her face.
The male hissed and bared his fangs. Darcy edged back. “It is not in my possession. I do not carry such a weapon.”
“The newcomer. It is his.” The female quivered.
Elizabeth took the tin from Darcy’s hand and placed a beetle on the ground for each wyrm. Somehow they seemed to set aside their agitation long enough to relish their duly-earned treat. But it came back on them as soon as they finished.
She folded her arms over her chest, her voice full of authority. “I promise you, on Longbourn’s honor, no harm shall come to you because of that sword. It will not taste dragon blood, not so long as I am here.”
The wyrms wound around her ankles, rubbing their cheeks against her petticoats. “You are friend.”
She crouched to pet them both. “Indeed I am. You can trust me.”
They circled her one more time, then disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
Elizabeth stood, slowly, deliberately, catching his gaze as she stood. It was the same gaze Rosings used when she was not pleased. Pemberley would probably learn it from one of them as well. “Have you neglected to tell me something?”
“It was not oversight.” He held her stare with a resolve of his own that seemed to set her back just a bit.
“Then it was deliberate deception.” Icy venom dripped from her words.
“I have never lied to you, and I will never lie to you.”
Her brows furrowed, shading her eyes. “Perhaps you and I differ on what constitutes deception. Deliberate omission of crucial information is something I consider deception.”
“There has been nothing that occasioned bringing it up.”
“Do not hide behind that sort of excuse.” She stepped closer, slow and intentional, until her toes nearly touched his. “My father has played this sort of game with my mother all my life. Be assured, I have no desire to continue it in my own home.”
“Fitzwilliam—”
“Clearly he is under instructions from the Blue Order—there is nowhere else to have obtained such a weapon. He asked you not to tell me.”
That knowing look she wore! How could he make her understand?
“In fact, he did. What do you expect me to do? We are all required to abide by the Blue Order’s commands.” Darcy slipped back half a step.
“I am quite certain the Order did not explicitly state I was to be kept ignorant of its plans. Or are you suggesting it did?”
He stammered something far less informative than he hoped.
“I thought not.” She tossed her head, not unlike the way she had in her first meeting with Cait. “I expect you to treat me like a rational creature and trust me as you claim you do.”
“I do trust you. Do not pretend to know my mind for me.” He rose up on his toes. Perhaps this was why dragons had the need to feel bigger when confronted.
“Apparently not enough.”
“Do be reasonable! You are able to see things from dragon perspectives easily enough. Can you please try to do it for men as well?” He raked hair back out of his face. “You do recall what you did the last time the Order sent the sword into Hertfordshire.”
“Just how do you remember those events?”
“You rushed out in the middle of the night to confront not one, but three dragons. One of whom was trying to eat another—”
“A wild-hatched firedrakling that no one was sure could be successfully imprinted. But she was!” Elizabeth bared her teeth, snarling the words.
“You endangered yourself—”
“For the sake of dragonkind! For your dragon!” Her fists shook at her sides “How easy it is for you to forget. I had very sound, experienced-based reasons for what I did.”
“You had no experience with a firedrake.”
“Now you sound like my father. Need I remind you of the outcome? Pemberley was saved, and you were delivered from a fate you dreaded like death itself. You were not complaining then.”
But he was also not profoundly in love with her then, either. Was she not aware of that? “Yes, I realize that, too. But the outcome does not always justify the means.”
“You would rather I had stayed behind at the ball and allowed you to carry out the will of the Blue Order without considering better
alternatives?”
“Do you not think that perhaps you set a dangerous precedent, deciding which of the Blue Order mandates you will follow and which you will not?”
She winced and jumped a step back. No, she did not appreciate that challenge. “And mindless obedience to hidebound curmudgeons who willingly refuse a complete understanding of a situation is better?”
“You assume anyone that does not agree with you is refusing to see the entirety of the situation.” Darcy threw up his hands and paced along the front edge of the folly.
“And you refuse to believe there can be an answer that lies outside the canon of dragon lore.”
“That is entirely untrue, and you know it. It is you who fail to acknowledge the true nature of the situation.”
“What are you so certain I have overlooked?”
Darcy drew a deep breath, carefully moderating his tone. Perhaps she might listen this time. “French dragons are not governed by the Accords. Expecting them to behave as English dragons is not reasonable, no matter how much you wish it otherwise. Fitzwilliam has had dealings with them—of a variety we can hardly conceive of here. Believing this does not make me hidebound and narrow-minded.”
She huffed and pumped her fists again. “The fact remains. You did not—would not—trust me with Fitzwilliam’s true purpose.”
“You have already resolved there can be a diplomatic result and will accept no other alternative. You did not exactly present yourself as open to hear other possibilities.”
“You seem to see Fitzwilliam’s way as a foregone conclusion. When did you give up on me?” The pained note in her voice ripped at his soul.
“It is an alternative that must be considered.”
“And without me, it is a foregone conclusion. Can you not see that? Truly, will Fitzwilliam consider anything else? Forgive me, but who else will negotiate with Netherfield? You are hardly likely to strike up a casual conversation with him.”
“You think so little of me as a Dragon Keeper? I thought I had earned your respect.”
“By your own admission, you do not excel in those arts that allow you to make friends easily.” Elizabeth stood very straight, her voice dropping to near a whisper. “Do not expect my help in luring him into a trap.”
“I would never ask that of you.”
“But Fitzwilliam might have. Keeping the knowledge of his purpose from me could readily have been part of trying to use me against my will.”
“He is not the sort of man—”
“One who would encourage you to lie to me, to distrust me, is exactly the sort who would do such a thing.”
A cockatrice screeched above them. Walker dove between them and landed on the bench. “The egg! Bennet says the time is very near. You must come.”
“Pray inform Fitzwilliam. I will ready the curricle.” Darcy reached his hand toward her. “Come with me, please.”
Elizabeth stared at him. “No.”
“But Cait—”
“Cait’s welfare is not in jeopardy now. My father has attended more hatchings than any living Order member. His help will be far more useful than mine.”
“Cait will want you there.”
“I am weary of being pulled this way and that because some being more powerful than myself wants me to do so. I need time to gather my thoughts and clear my head. It seems I have a great deal of thinking to do. Things are not at all what I thought they were.” She turned her back on him.
“Elizabeth, it is not as you think.”
“Oh, I think it is exactly that. Excuse me.”
He reached for her elbow, but she pulled it away and turned down the path that led back to the garden. Her shoulders hunched as she pulled her shawl tight across them. Never had she looked less like herself than she did now.
He took one step toward her, but no. There was no purpose to that now. She was certainly in no mind for conversation. Perhaps he would send Walker to her after the hatching. If she was going to listen to anyone right now, it would definitely be a dragon.
Chapter 8
Fitzwilliam clung to the side of the curricle, wild-eyed and breathless. Probably with good reason. Bits of gravel and dust flew up behind them as Darcy took a corner a bit too sharply. He had never seen Darcy drive with such reckless abandon. No one had.
“I was given to think that we had time to arrive there a little more safely,” Fitzwilliam shouted over the pounding hooves. “Where is Elizabeth?”
Darcy snapped the reins, urging the horses still faster. “She will not attend.”
“She found out?”
“You might recommend to the army that wyrms make excellent spies, able to ferret out secrets and convey them to the very person to whom that information will be most relevant.”
“Damnable creatures. All mouth and stomach and little brains.” Fitzwilliam clutched his hat. “Do you want me to talk to her?”
“If you befriend the chick, you will be occupied for several days at least sating his hatching-hunger. It is possible she might be ready to talk by then. But she may never speak to you—or me—again.”
“I am sorry—I did not mean for this to come between you and your betrothed.”
If she still was that at this point. He had promised he would find a way out for her if she desired it. Now that the banns had been read, it would be incredibly difficult, maybe impossible. But he would not hold her to a marriage she detested. “The time for talk will come, but for now, we must deal with the urgent matter of a hatching egg.” Darcy stopped the carriage at the front door of Longbourn House.
Mary met them at the front door and hurried them to Bennet’s cluttered, claustrophobic excuse for an office. There had to be some better way to store books than on the floor.
Bennet and Collins stood near the nesting box—what the devil was Collins doing there? No doubt the man would make a cake of things—maybe even teach the chick to despise men the moment he hatched. What was Bennet thinking?
Walker and Cait shared the dragon perch which had been moved to one side of the nesting box. They crooned sounds that were probably encouragements in dragon tongue. They looked like doting parents, so domestic. Not that the tableaux would last long. It was a shame Elizabeth was not here to see. She would probably be able to infer a great deal from just the looks the two shared between them—no, now was not the time to dwell upon that.
“Good, you are come.” Bennet waved them in, not rising from his seat near the nesting box. “Where is Elizabeth?”
“She declined to come, fearing that the chick might like her best of the party.” Fitzwilliam chuckled, tossing an easy salute toward Walker and Cait.
How easily such disguise poured from his lips. Was that something he had learned as an army spy?
Walker and Cait exchanged creased-brow looks and turned to Darcy. He twitched his head, the traces of a frown at the corner of his lips. Both raised their wings a bit and snapped their beaks. How quickly they fathomed that something was seriously wrong.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam, you need to be here, next to the box.” Bennet pointed to a nearby footstool, an air of impatience in his voice.
Fitzwilliam wove his way through the room and perched on the footstool. It was just the right height to place him waist high to the nesting box. Though it probably should not bother him, Darcy did not like the way it put Fitzwilliam below Collins, allowing Collins to peer down at him.
“Have you read the material I sent you on hatching?” Bennet sounded like a tutor Aunt Catherine had hired for them when they had stayed with her one summer—cranky and demanding.
“Thrice. And I have taken notes.”
“Excellent. But I would expect no less from an officer of His Majesty.” Bennet pointed to Fitzwilliam’s cravat. “You have a flannel under there for the chick?”
Fitzwilliam fumbled at his neck, finally giving up and tearing the knot out of his starched cravat. He produced a faded flannel cloth that had been tucked under the stock supporting his cravat. “Here.”
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“Keep it in hand to clean the hatchling. Giving him your scent will help him recognize you. Mary, you have the chicken?” He waved at the doorway.
Mary pushed in with a plucked whole bird on a wooden platter. Bennet pushed a small table near the dragon perch. Walker and Cait set upon the chicken, shredding it in moments. Good thing there had been no feathers, or the room would be awash in them, floating about as the pair cast them aside. Not an attractive sight by any stretch, but fascinating. Sometimes it was easy to forget how formidable even small dragons could be. Pity the creature that fell under their beaks and talons.
“Look!” Collins pointed at the nesting box.
The mottled grey-green egg wobbled. The shell stretched and wiggled a bit like a tall jelly. The needle-sharp tip of a beak poked through.
Darcy held his breath as it disappeared inside the egg. He counted silently. At ten it had not reappeared. The mantle clock ticked loud minutes, and the egg stopped moving all together. That was a very bad sign. If the chick was not strong enough to break through the shell, it would not survive outside the egg. The kindest thing was to allow it to pass in peace within the confines of the shell.
“Will not someone do something? Should it not be breaking out by now?” Collins reached for the egg.
“No, you must not interfere!” Bennet slapped his hand back faster than Darcy thought him able to move.
The egg rocked hard, as though startled by the sounds. It rolled end-over-end toward Collins’ edge of the box. Somehow Collins caught it as it tumbled out. He held it up, mouth agape, face pale, and hands trembling.
“Just put it back in the box.” Bennet pointed frantically, probably afraid Collins might drop it.
The egg cracked down the middle and fell away in two large pieces. A matted, bedraggled chick stood in his palm. He turned jet black eyes on Collins and squawked, “Hungry!”
Collins stared at it with such a peculiar look. “What is it saying?”
“Hungry!”
Collins ran a finger gently over the chick’s wet, matted head. “I do not understand.”