“No time,” growled an unfamiliar male voice.
With a sigh, Elizabeth pursed her lips and blew to dismiss the illusion of a mouse sniffing at Cerridwen’s back leg. Pity, as it was one of her best yet of a moving creature.
A knock sounded on the door, and Hobbes intoned in his most disapproving manner, “Madam, Colonel Fitzwilliam has come to call. Are you at home?”
Frederica jumped to her feet, her eyes wide. “My brother,” she hissed to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Hobbes, pray admit him.” At least it would be a distraction. More than a week of worrying about whether Darcy’s wound had festered, and if she would ever have news of him again. Every day, when Georgiana said there was no news, was another disappointment.
The doors opened to reveal a man who was dressed for travel. Even with his greatcoat removed, he was covered with spatters of mud and dust. A blood-stained bandage circled his left sleeve.
“Richard!” Frederica hurried towards him as if to embrace him but stopped short. “Good heavens, what a mess you are!”
“Comes of riding straight through from London, with no sleep and a nasty skirmish with the highwayman.”
“Some people take the stagecoach,” she said pointedly. “Elizabeth, may I present my brother Richard? Although you might not believe it at the moment, he is usually quite tidy and presentable. Richard, this is Mrs. Darcy.”
“Welcome to Pemberley, Colonel. My husband has mentioned you often.”
He made a perfunctory bow. “Charmed, madam, but there is no time for niceties. We received information that it is unsafe for you to remain here, so I must beg you to permit me to escort you from this place to safety.”
“Richard, you cannot simply announce something like that! What is the matter?” Frederica demanded.
Oh, dear. Ever since sending word to Granny – by private courier, no less –about Napoleon’s true nature, Elizabeth had been expecting…something. “Does this have something to do with the letter I sent to Lady Amelia?” Elizabeth hazarded.
“Letter? I know nothing of a letter. No, this is news fresh from Napoleon’s court, or at least only a few weeks old. The emperor has put an enormous bounty on Darcy’s head, and also any member of his family. Assassins have been sent here.”
“French assassins in England? Richard, have you been drinking?” Frederica scoffed.
“Not according to one of Boney’s aides, who has nothing to gain from telling us that you need protection. Apparently Napoleon is furious over something Darcy learned and will do anything to stop it from getting out.”
Elizabeth’s chest tightened as she exchanged a wordless glance with Frederica. “I already know the secret Darcy discovered.”
He swung to face her, seeming to truly see her for the first time. “You know? How? Not even the War Office has heard a word from him!”
How could she explain it without mentioning the dragon scale? “It was a brief sending. My Talent entwines with his, and he used the link through our unborn child for it.”
He seemed to accept her explanation. “What did he learn?”
She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Napoleon is a dragon in human form. He can take on other shapes. My husband saw him change into a falcon.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “Ridiculous! As if a dragon could—”
Moving almost as quickly as a kestrel, Frederica clapped her hand over her brother’s mouth. “Before you say anything further about dragons, I strongly urge you to look over at the hearth. Very strongly,” she said sweetly.
The colonel, with a thunderous expression, turned his gaze on the fireplace where Cerridwen rested. His eyes bulged. “I am not seeing that,” he moaned.
This was more than enough for Elizabeth. “Yes, she is a dragon, but my immediate concern is that you have news of my husband that you have not yet related to me.”
His color rose, though he kept glancing at Cerridwen. “Madam, I will be glad to do so, but dragons are a grave danger.”
“Not this one,” said Elizabeth sharply, struggling not to strangle the news out of him. “I have been bonded to her since I was eight years old. Now, about my husband.”
The colonel straightened his shoulders, but his eyes kept flickering towards Cerridwen. “We know very little. The attack on Napoleon failed. Darcy escaped, but the two Frenchmen did not. They revealed his true name under questioning, and no, I have no idea why anyone was foolishenough to tell it to them in the first place. There is a huge manhunt going on for him, but he has not been found. Or at least not as of the last word from France.”
Elizabeth’s heart turned over. The colonel’s news was no more recent than what she had heard from the fae, but it was a reminder of the grave danger Darcy faced.
Frederica said, “We received a message through a fae – oh, yes, Richard; there are a great many lesser fae lurking here unseen – that Darcy was shot in the shoulder, but he lived through it.”
