Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled. “How very typical of you, Darcy, jumping up from your sickbed. Now I am sure you are perfectly recovered, I will leave you to your wife, and she will explain what is going on.”
Darcy turned his gaze on Elizabeth, who quickly summarized what had happened.
"Your uncle is injured. So is my father.” She indicated the room. “As are many others.”
This was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. Perhaps he should lie back in bed and wake up again to find out it was just a bad dream.
He took a deep breath. “We had better convene everyone and discuss the situation,” he said. “The French may attack any moment.”
They left Lord Matlock and Mr. Bennet to rest and gathered on the beach with their fellow mages. Darcy was relieved to see that the officers had the situation well in hand. The men were still on full alert, watching for any sign of activity.
Everything was much the same as it was when he left it, except that the sea was perfectly calm now. Miss Bingley’s cloud Illusion was still in place, but the rocky coast had been dispersed, possibly because it had not proven useful. The ice that was scattered across the beach was beginning to melt. The enemy ships were still exactly where they were earlier.
Elizabeth took out a spyglass and looked across at them.
“There is no sign of movement,” she said.
Darcy did not understand why they did not persist in the attack when it was clear they were winning. They had certainly achieved their objectives. They had inflicted damage, while remaining unreachable. Why, then, had they not landed? The unexpected reprieve did not sit right. There was something else going on, and he needed to get to the bottom of it. They weresurely planning something else — something the Royal Mages would, yet again, be unprepared for.
“We have to try and envision their next move,” said Darcy. “They cannot keep surprising us with the unexpected. We need to think like them.”
“Easy enough to say that,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But it’s very hard to guess. I’ve been racking my brain while you were all asleep, and I could not come up with anything.”
“You are complicating matters too much, Darcy,” said Lady Catherine. “The reason they have not attacked is that they are waiting for the rest of their ships to arrive, and they have been either chased away by the Royal Navy, or caught in the tide. That is the simple explanation.”
He was not convinced some of the French vessels were being pursued by naval vessels. The wind had dropped, and without magic on water, the Royal Navy could not fill its sails, unlike the French vessels that were moving of their own volition.
“It is possible, I suppose,” said Lord Grayson. “But foolish. If they have the advantage of being able to move their flotilla using magic, why risk being out there when an actual storm might be brewing. They must know they have caused havoc here. Why not press their advantage?”
“That is the crux of the question,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Our defenses are in tatters, our mages weak. They should be making the best of it. What could they be doing out there?”
The Royal mages all stared at the ships, as though they could discern their intentions. Elizabeth once again pointed the spyglass towards the ships, then lowered it, confusion and shock written on her face.
“I can no longer see them.” Her voice was thin. “They’re not there.”
The older boatman with the beard pointed a gnarled finger to the sea. “Either my old eyes are deceiving me, or the French boats are gone!” he shouted to the other boatmen.
Everyone turned to gaze out to sea.
“They have slunk away like cowards,” cried someone.
“Or they have all sunk! We defeated them!”
Darcy stared out to sea, scarcely believing what his eyes were telling him. How could they all have sunk so quickly?
“Very likely, like our mages, they were simply too exhausted to control the boats anymore,” remarked Miss King.
The colonel shook his head. “But how could it have happened to all of them at the exact same moment?”
“What if they received a command to turn back,” said Darcy, “and they are using some kind of spell to hide their departure?”
“A Concealment spell,” murmured Elizabeth.
Lord Harcourt nodded. “Or the Navy has arrived to chase them away.”
Darcy had already discarded that possibility. “There is no wind.”
“They could be rowing,” said Lady Catherine.
