“I only learned of it after she helped with your healing. I am told my father had sent her away as a child, but after his death, Mrs. Sanford quietly came back to care for her ailing mother. She assumed I would insist that she leave if I ever discovered her presence, so she avoided coming to my attention – at least until my lynx gave her no choice.”
“Did you speak to her, then?”
He hesitated. “My steward felt she would not be comfortable with that. Instead I instructed him to give her the deed to her mother’s cottage and to tell her that it was not in payment for her help when you were ill, but because it should be hers by right.”
Of course, he had fixed the problem, at least as much as he could. He always did. It was a shame, though, that he never had the chance to know his half-sister, but that could still change. “Well, I will meet her and try to persuade her to attend me. Perhaps now that she knows she can stay, she will not be so shy of me.” And she wanted to find out how the midwife had learned to spin her land Talent into fabric.
“I would not wish Georgiana to be aware of the connection,” he said in a low voice. “She worries so much about not being my true sister that I fear what she would think if she discovered it.”
Poor Georgiana! It would be hard for her to learn that Darcy had a blood sister living right on the estate. “I shall not tell her.”
Darcy pushed aside the heavy bed curtains and swung his feet over the edge, wincing at the sore muscles in his legs. The sun through the mullioned window looked to be near its zenith. He must have slept nearly round-the-clock, despite the creaky bed and the coarsely woven, too-short nightshirt someone had found for him. And his stomach was grumbling.
He was alone, but somehow he knew Elizabeth was nearby, her sparkling presence imbuing the air. Was this one of the changes in his Talent the dragon had predicted?
He rubbed his chin, the stubble scraping against his hand. It would be too much to hope for a shave, much less fresh attire. If there was any to be found in this place, it would doubtless be from a previous century. Nothing to be done for it, though, besides shrugging himself into yesterday’s clothes and doing his best to tie a simple knot in his cravat. His fingers seemto lack something of their usual dexterity, as if he were recovering from a severe illness.
At least there was a comb, so he made himself as presentable as he could. Then he set off to follow that ineffable sense of Elizabeth in this ancient house.
He found her in the great hall sitting at a trestle table with a sturdy young woman. “Ah, there you are!” she exclaimed. “I hope you are well rested.”
He grimaced, knowing better than to mislead her. “Rested indeed, although I feel as if I had been through a particularly bad drubbing. Better than yesterday, though.”
The woman stood. “Tha’ must be hungry. Shall I bring tha’ summat to eat, then?”
His stomach growled. “That would be most welcome.”
As she bustled out of the hall, Darcy asked, “Human servants among the dragons?”
Elizabeth nodded. “They are called Kith, local people with a bond to the Nest. They provide service to the dragons in exchange for protection. Food during poor harvests, healing, that sort of thing. I was just asking her about it.”
So there were common folk who served the hidden dragons. Curious, but it made sense. The few people who scratched out a living in the poor soil of the Dark Peak likely needed all the help they could get.
Elizabeth reached out her hand to him, and he could not resist leaning over and tasting the sweetness of her lips. How fortunate he was to have her!
When she finally broke off this kiss, she said archly, “I see you are much improved.”
He laughed. “Indeed. Can we travel today? I am anxious to return home.” Especially as there might be a letter from the War Office. And grave dangers to come, but he would not think about that now.
“I suppose we must. Though I must admit, if it were not for that, I would not mind spending a little more time exploring this house and everything in it.”
Darcy nodded. “It is an odd place, but pleasant. Very quiet, as if the walls absorb sound.”
She tipped back her head to gaze at him. “Like your cottage in the oak grove. The heart of Pemberley.”
The cottage where they had first joined together in love, sharing their passion on the simple, narrow bed. “Ourcottage. I will never think of it without remembering our time there.”
A becoming blush rose in her cheeks, but the sound of approaching footsteps silenced whatever she might have said. Instead, she looked at the table before her. “I wonder when an outsider last saw this place. Probably not since the binding that failed. How strange that it would be empty for so long.”
It was the serving woman, now carrying a wooden platter loaded with dark bread, cheese, and a bowl of some sort of stew. She placed the dishes in front of him. “Sorry ’tis so simple. We had no warning of your arrival.”
Peasant fare had never looked so appealing. “This is perfect.” He bit into a slice of bread, finding it gritty, but with a pleasant, tangy flavor. The cheese crumbled at his touch and carried the sweet aroma of sheep’s milk. He followed it with a swallow of small beer from an ornate flagon that would have been hopelessly old-fashioned in his grandfather’s day. Shaking his head, he chuckled.
“Is something the matter?” asked Elizabeth.
“The strangeness of it. Yesterday I was an educated gentleman of our modern scientific age, and now I am a squire in the Middle Ages.” He gestured around the hall, the blackened beams overhead, and the food before him. “Eating as my many times great-grandfather might have done, and drinking from a goblet at least that old – and all of it after a consultation with dragons. As a boy, I would pretend to be Guillaume D’Arcy, who would have known dragons, and now I am living his life. This is not the world I was born to.”
She cocked her head and studied him. “Perhaps it is the world which you were born for, though. The Age of Concealment is over, for better or for worse. You could be a bridge between the ancient world of dragons andthe fine society of London, bringing modern science to the dragons and dragon magic to our mages. Perhaps a human natural philosopher could help the dragons solve their problem with bonding companions.”
