“I will perish from boredom,” Elizabeth said glumly.
Frederica said, “I can entertain you. Perhaps now you would like to read your letters? I know you did not want to before, but—”
“No.” Frederica had tried to give her the pile of correspondence from her sister Jane earlier, but Elizabeth could not bear to read about Jane’s happiness with Bingley and pleasure in the company of the neighborhood Elizabeth had lost. Their lives had diverged so far that hearing from Jane only made Elizabeth feel lonely. Perhaps someday they could meet and reconnect, but right now that seemed as hopeless as everything else. Just one more loss, on top of everything else.
“I could read them to you if you are too tired,” Frederica urged.
“No!” She was much sharper this time.
“But what if something is the matter? Would you not want to know? She has been writing to you every week without fail.”
Elizabeth pushed the letters away. “You can read them if you think them so important,” she said irritably. But she could not help growing tense as Frederica took her at her word, cracking the seal on one of them and slowly reading it. “Well?”
Frederica refolded the paper. “No bad news. Just that she is misses you and is imagining all sorts of terrible things that could have kept you from writing.”
When had she written last to Jane? Probably before her decision to go to France. No wonder Jane was fretting. “I suppose I should try to send her something,” she mumbled. But she could not face it. That would mean telling her of losing Darcy and the failure of his mission, and how it might still cost her the baby.
Frederica eyed her with concern. “If it would help, I would be happy to send her a note and tell her you are well, simply very fatigued by your condition.”
“That would be a kindness,” Elizabeth said. Jane would not believe a word of it, but it would be better than nothing.
When Cerridwen finally made it to Pemberley the following day, Elizabeth turned her head away. The sight of her dragon made her ill with regrets.
“What is it?” Cerridwen asked. “Why are you hiding your mind from me?
“I do not want to talk about it. Go to the Nest; they will want to see you.”
Hurt cascaded from Cerridwen. “And you do not?”
“I want my husband!” It was a cry of anguish, from deep in her soul. “I want him to be safe, as he was before we tried to rescue him. I convinced him to leave the house where he was safe. It is my fault he was captured.”
Cerridwen seemed to fold into herself. “You blame me, then, for it.”
Elizabeth waved her hand, trying to brush her words away. “I know you had no choice, that you had to follow your vision. But I did not realize the price I would pay. Did you know what would happen, that I would lose him?” She had not meant to ask that. She did not truly wish to know the answer.
The dragon lowered her head. “I cannot see the details, only the result at the end. I never meant to hurt him, or you.”
“But we did! Oh, how I wish I had refused to go. Now I will never see him again, and I may lose our child, too. All because I foolishly thought I could help.” She turned onto her side and buried her face in the pillow, tears cascading down her cheeks.
Silence. Only Cerridwen’s aura of distress, and even that was subdued, as if the dragon was trying to hide it. And then a small voice. “As I was leaving the Nest, they were planning to try to rescue him.”
Elizabeth picked up her head. “Do not give me false hope! It will only make it worse!”
“I do not know if they will succeed, but I let them think they must, that my vision would come true if they did not save Darcy.” Cerridwen sounded steadier now.
“You let them think that? What do you mean?”
Wretchedness rolled off the dragon. “I told them he had to be saved. They assumed it was because he was needed to prevent the disaster I foresaw, and I did not correct them. But I have had no visions about him.”
“Because you knew it was our fault, too!” It was unfair, but she could not bear to listen to this. Not when Darcy was suffering.
“I know there are no easy answers. All the futures I see contain death and suffering. In the best of them, some dragons and people will die. There will be sacrifices. And all of them will be my fault, for the choices I make!”
The door opened to reveal Mrs. Sanford. “My apologies for interrupting, but I must ask you not to upset Mrs. Darcy. It is very important that she remain calm, or she may lose this child.”
Cerridwen gave a guttural cry, and then she transformed. The wind from her kestrel wings blew against Elizabeth’s cheeks as she flew out the door.
Frederica settled herself beside Elizabeth’s bed. “Well, you look terrible,” she said.
