Mary pulled me into a ferocious embrace—far tighter than her examination. Some perverse anger made me push against her, then I collapsed and clung. She whispered, “Do not practice your wit on me,” and my tears burst free. They flowed for a long time.
Finally, though, I was simply leaning my forehead on Mary’s soaked shoulder while she sniffled in my ear. I pulled my head up. “I am very thankful that I married. Darcy and I wasted months staring at each other and exchanging trivialities. What fools we were to be bound by society’s strictures.” I pushed Mary back to see her red-rimmed eyes behind round glass circles. “You told me that you are in love. Do not waste it. Promise me.”
Mary choked, swiping at her eyes with both hands, then nodded.
Then, unexpectedly, hope burst into my mind. “Emma is a healer! She is treating Nessyfor consumption. She has that special tea!”
“I am considering that. But… Lizzy, I recognized the leaves of her tea. I have tasted it. It is common spearmint. Nessy improved for a time, but now she weakens quickly. I say nothing because Emma’s care does no harm.” Mary must have seen my crushed expression because she became resolute. “Ishallspeak to her. She has a remarkable skill to diagnose.”
“I am already diagnosed.” I knew Mary was right. Something had been seriously wrong with me for weeks. I had been deluding myself. Hiding from the truth.
“We will pursue every chance,” Mary said. “The issue is… the complication is that Emma must touch a patient to see.”
I breathed an ironic laugh. The great wyfe of healing’s skills required touch, but Emma could not touch me because I had bound her dragon.
Darcy, though, would never accept that Emma could not help. He would not accept thathecould not help. Every doctor within a hundred miles would be summoned.
Like my despair had been a fogged window to push aside, my choices turned clear. “Do not tell Mr. Darcy. Do not tell anyone.”
“This cannot be hid!” Mary exclaimed.
“The slavers use venom to ‘test’ their victims. I can sense a wyfe affected by venom. With Lydia, I sensed it miles away. I could search London in hours, find the wyves,andfind the dagger. But if Darcy knows I am ill, he will insist I am stuffed in a bed for a parade of doctors. And Lord Wellington will insist I stay toguard the royal family. Both would be foolish. If Fènnù attacks, Yuánchi cannot stop her. And if I delay for hopeless treatments, I will grow too weak to recover the dagger.” I grasped Mary’s fingers. “And I must free your friend. To atone for what I did. For the death of Miss Rees. It is all the more urgent to me now.”
Mary was staring in disbelief. “It is winter. If there is snow, the trip alone to London could take a week.”
“Not if I fly.”
Mary’s jaw dropped. “Lizzy. You are too ill. You cannot do this.”
I squeezed her hands between mine. “You do not know what I can do. I am the wyfe of war.”
34
MYSTERIOUS ERRANDS
EMMA
I enteredPemberley’s great dining hall through a stone arch thick as a medieval castle wall, the root of some ancient foundation that supported the modern building.
I arrived alone. I had dressed in the last hour, but Harriet had not come to our room. Her moods flickered, cool then friendly, all without cause. More likely, due to her newfound sisterly independence. Well, if independence meant she would go her own way, so be it. That did not mean I could not assist her success.
I had chosen a ruby silk gown, slimly fitted. Lines of tiny shell buttons decorated the breast while flat bows of red ribbon, all tied identically, adorned the shoulders and sleeves. It was a defensive dress, heavy with aligned detail. Luckily Lucy had looked in. She dismissed the chambermaid, then shaped bows and pinched buttons until the rows matched.
My cotton gloves formed the final defense. Their embroidery drew my gaze from the miasma glistening under chair legs and puddling beneath drapes.
When did I last touch Mr. Darcy? Three days. Too long.
This predinner gathering was social, although any gathering risked becoming another of Lord Wellington’s lectures on secrecy. The dining hall held a tremendously long table, twenty-five feet at least, partially set for thisevening’s dinner. There were white linen runners and fifty unlit, white wax candles high and low in silver holders.
A few members of the court wandered the room already. Freed of the trip’s prohibition against extravagance, velvet and fur swished. Beads and ruffles rustled. The layers gave them puffy, irregular silhouettes that marred the symmetries of Pemberley’s décor.
A lord whose name I had forgotten greeted me with drawling languor. “Miss Woodhouse. I gather your day has been as boring as mine?”
That was a joke because we had both arrived at the scheduled time. After a week of watching Lord Wellington fume over late courtiers, I knew timeliness was not a royal virtue. “I am simply interested, my lord. And I have no rank that requires formal entrances.”
“You understate your prestige,” lord whoever said gallantly. He had reddened his lips and darkened his eyebrows with something greasy. “I am sure you will regularly brighten our court when these French interlopers are tossed out.”
The white-wigged, frowning chancellor of the Exchequer joined us. “Killed, I should hope,” he pronounced. “It is past time to crush Bonaparte. If Wellington had not been so soft on him, he would not have dared send troops to England.”
