We watched for a minute, but Yuánchi did not emerge.
A rolling rumble began. Like thunder, but endless. Like a waterfall, but stupendous. It was behind us.
I turned just as a monstrous black form blew over the rooftops above us. Windowpanes rattled. A wind of biting cold swept the road, tossing leaves and papers.
There was only a hint of shape—a suggestion of head and the leading edges of wings. The rest was billowing black cloud, darker than thunderstorm and blacker than coal. Straight as an arrow, the trail stretched toward the palace, a roiling, soiled path that widened unnaturally fast and blotted the day.
I hugged my arms close, shivering. My exhalation misted, and flecks of frost landed on the fringe of my bonnet and my eyelashes. My drawn breath was a knife of cold in my lungs.
“What is that?” Mr. Debrett gasped through chattering teeth.
The black cloud obscured Westminster Palace. It writhed and rolled, thenripped open in golden radiance, brighter than the sun. We shouted inarticulate, amazed cries, shielding our eyes. The buildings around us glared, too brilliant to be distinguished, then darkened in dazzled gloom. My heart beat once, twice, then the air itself struck us, sharp as being slapped with a thick book. Shopwindows smashed as if kicked.
“Get inside,” Mr. Debrett shouted, pulling us toward his shop. “It is a hurricane.”
“It is dragons,” I said, but he could not hear me.
PART II
PEMBERLEY
29
MARY BENNET
MARY
Mary Bennet’s journal,1st day of December, 1812:
After eight creeping days, our coaches near Pemberley. The earth, frozen in this darkest season, is further chilled by war, but Georgiana, a being of music, hums and sketches. She sits opposite me, undisturbed by the clunks and slips of our wheels upon rutted snow.
While her sable lashes are lowered, I stare, entranced, and dream. We coast on the sunlit ocean’s surface, dare the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis with hands clasped, conquer dangerous tempests to leave behind this hostile land of Britain and settle mythically, a saved pair of lovers—
“What are you writing?” Emma asked me. She sat beside Georgiana. Harriet was beside me, while Lizzy and Mr. Darcy rode in another carriage with Lord Wellington. We had been stopped on the road for ten minutes.
I lifted my pen, feeling the shape of that last word,lovers.
“A draft of a letter,” I muttered. “A ruined one.” That word must not be set in ink.
My writing desk was balanced in my lap. I used the quill knife to cut the page from my journal, then a few strokes with an over-wet nib soaked the last passage to soggy black. I folded the page and tore it in halves, quarters, eighths.
Emma turned her bold eyes and blonde curls to Georgiana. “What areyoudoing?”
“Drawing,” Georgiana answered, melodious even in that single word. Her slim fingers, their oval nails brusquely short for the keyboard, held a pencil. A sheet of artist’s paper rested on her drawing board.
“May I see?” Emma asked.
Georgiana held up the paper, angled so Harriet and I could see as well. It was I—no, it was some romanticized alternate of me, blurred and contemplative, stilled and tense. Seduced. Seductive.
Emma looked between the sketch and me, then beamed at Georgiana. “You are accomplished at everything! It is quite unfair.”
An angry twinge tightened my scalp. Beautiful, broken, gifted Emma, who dotes on Georgiana, and when she tires of that, fascinates my sister’s husband, and when that grows dull, winds my friend Mr. Knightley tighter around her little finger.
“It looks just like Mary!” Harriet cried; then to me: “I mean, it is just how youseem, with your hair down that way you like. But it is a strange drawing. Is it modern?”
Harriet had changed. It was subtle yet sure. The balance between her and Emma had leveled.
Georgiana answered, “Fitz studied the Pemberley paintings for days to choose my drawing tutor. He picked Mr. John Martin, who insists I ‘free my hand’ from classical style, so I suppose it is modern. Mary does the same thing with her music. I think it suits her.” Her sapphire gaze studied me. “I am to paint as well as draw. Shall I make this into a painting?”
