With a moan, he turned her face towards him and kissed her, deeply, ardently.
“Do not disappear like that ever again, Elizabeth.”
His fervent command reminded her that it had not been her choice to do so. The nightmarish moment when she had been drugged returned to her. The mawkish scent of the laudanum tincture. The rough hands holding her captive. The drowsiness that took over and controlled her magic. She had been completely at the mercy of Ramon de Riquer. He could have killed her, and she would never even have known it.
She began to tremble as the magnitude of what had happened sunk in. She drew back, out of his arms, away from him.
“The whole household has been turned inside out, searching for you.”
She knew that, as well as the conclusion they had reached, and it chilled her to the bone to remember what she had seen in the mirror. He was right. None of it was a laughing matter.
His gaze was intense, probing. She squirmed. There was no putting off the tale, even if she was uneasy about it.
“I will tell you everything, but please do not interrupt or ask me questions until I finish. And we need to set up Wards first. I do not want anyone overhearing us.”
Darcy was not going to like it. She did not want to talk about it, not ever, but she did not have that luxury.
She looked around for Jane, noticing her absence for the first time.
“Where is my sister?”
“She has gone to bring you some food, and I believe she wanted to give us a moment alone.”
He strode to the door. Jane had already returned, carrying a plateful for Elizabeth, who realized she had not eaten since last night. It seemed a very long time ago.
Jane entered and sat on the bed next to her, on the left. Darcy brought the chair and placed it at Elizabeth’s right. He waited for her to eat, then took up her hand and held it. She was grateful for its quiet strength as she related the story.
She muddled through it somehow. It was beginning to seem like a nightmare, unreal, improbable, even to her own ears.
When she finished, she leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes. She had nothing more to say.
“They should be tried for murder.”
She cracked open her eyes to find Darcy sitting with his arms across his chest. His face was hard and sculptured again, but she could sense the anger roiling inside him.
“I came to no harm, Darcy. Riquer is a gentleman.” More than that, he had helped her escape. He had saved her.
“Fortunately. What if he were not? What if he had taken this opportunity to destroy one of England’s greatest mages?”
Despite the situation, a warm sense of happiness fluttered like butterfly wings inside her. Had Darcy finally come to accept her and respect her as a mage?
“And you have no idea who it was?”
Jane had been sitting there quietly listening. She was distressed, but even under these circumstances, she remained serene.
“None at all. The mage who first attacked took me too much by surprise. It all happened so quickly.”
“Of course,” Jane put a soothing hand on her arm. “No one expects it of you. I was only thinking that, if you do not know who did this, you cannot tell the Council what happened.”
“I cannot tell the Council about it any way. The moment they know that de Riquer helped me escape, they will be after me again, shouting treason. They are like wolves, howling for blood.”
Darcy’s eyes were hooded, but there was no hiding the anger that was rolling off him in waves.
“By forcing you to lie and cover up what happened, they are forcing you also to conceal their perfidy. We should not have to skulk around trying to hide the truth. We should expose them to the light. But your sister is right. Whatever you say, you cannot reveal that you have spent the night with the French mage.”
“We could say that you were accidentally locked in somewhere overnight.”
Elizabeth smiled at Jane. Trust her to come up with a simple and elegant solution.
