Tears moistened Elizabeth’s eyes. “Nothing,” she said. “There is nothing at all.”
For a moment, the only sound was the restless shifting of the sailors outside the crevice, and the wind threading through the gorse and heather. Wickham’s face twisted, his bravado draining away beneath the weight of her words. He stood abruptly, pacing the grass at the entrance to the crevice. The fear in his eyes was unmistakable, though he tried to mask it with a sneer.
“You’re trying to frighten me,” he spat. “Some trick, some woman’s fancy. I’ve seen you before, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and I know your sort—clever, too clever by half.”
Elizabeth did not flinch. She leaned back against the rough stone, letting her exhaustion show. “Believe what you will. But if I could change what I see, I would. Tonight, I see nothing for any of us. Not you, not the men. Not even myself.”
Wickham shook his head, muttering curses under his breath, but he looked far less sure. He drew his pistol from his belt, checked the priming, then slipped it back again. “I’ll not be caught unawares,” he said, his voice shaking.
Beyond them, a sailor snorted, then fell silent. A hush settled on the camp. Elizabeth closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her lips, stifling a sob. She felt Lydia stir beside her, the girl’s breathing shallow and quick.
“Lizzy?” Lydia whispered. “What’s happening? What did he want?”
Elizabeth brushed her sister’s hair back from her forehead, her hands trembling. “Nothing, dearest. He’s only frightened, that’s all. Try to sleep.”
But sleep was as distant as hope. The darkness pressed in, thick and absolute, and Elizabeth listened to the dread in every whisper of the wind, every scrape of a branch against the cliffs. She did not dare to hope for rescue—she had quite succumbed to despair. She held Lydia and Georgiana close, her back squeezed against rough stone, and waited for dawn.
* * *
Chapter 13
Asturias
The tide had long since turned, and theWasphad manoeuvred away from the danger of the rocks. She could ill afford to linger, for a fierce onshore wind threatened to blow the ship towards the cliffs. There was a single shot from a cannon, and Colonel Fitzwilliam watched in the dying light as the brig moved away down the coast. Mayhap, if the wind changed, Captain Lanyon would return. More than likely, he would head further west to meet up with Commodore Collier’s squadron—and write his report to be sent to the Admiralty in London.
The ripples would move outward: the First Sea Lord would convey the news to Lord Matlock; an urgent letter sent to Colonel Forster in Brighton; the Colonel would ride to Longbourn, informing the Bennets that two daughters, Miss Elizabeth and Miss Lydia, were lost on the north coast of Spain. How long before the newspapers took up the story?Gentlewomen snatched by the French from the beach at Brighton. The niece of an Earl carried away under the very nose of the Prince Regent.It was not to be borne! Lord Liverpool, the Minister of War, would be outraged. Likely the whole country.
The last gold traces of daylight bled away behind the cliffs. The sea stretched out, black and indifferent. Somewhere ahead, lost in the dark, were Miss Bennet, Lydia, and Georgiana.
Darcy stood a little apart, his silhouette sharp against the dull sheen of the surf. He had not spoken since landing on the shore. His gaze was fixed on the shadowed escarpment.
Behind them, the riflemen gathered in a loose group, their green jackets mottled with sand and spray. Will Goulding moved among them, his voice pitched low but urgent. He was the last to join the Colonel and Darcy at the base of the cliffs.
Fitzwilliam turned to Goulding, his tone clipped. “What do we know?”
Goulding shook his head. “They took the women up that gully, there—” he pointed to a jagged seam in the cliff face, “—before we made the beach.”
The Colonel drew a sharp breath through his teeth. “Too dark to follow them now. Too risky. We’d be lost or seen before we got halfway up.”
Darcy’s hands were clenched at his sides. “We cannot wait for dawn.”
Fitzwilliam glanced at him, then back at the assembled riflemen. “No. But we cannot blunder, either. Wickham is clever when cornered, and the French are—” He let the sentence hang, unfinished. The wind whipped up, rattling the brush clinging to the sparse soil above the high water line.
The Colonel raised his voice, projecting it just enough for the green-jacketed men to hear without echoing off the rocks. “Has any man here been a poacher?”
The question hung in the air, perfectly serious. The riflemen exchanged glances. Goulding’s brow furrowed, but he did not speak.
Fitzwilliam stepped forward, voice low. “I need men who can move quietly. Who know how to track in the dark, how to read the land by touch and sound. If you have hunted by moonlight, if you have slipped from the gamekeeper’s hounds, I want you.”
A moment’s hesitation; then a squat, broad-shouldered man stepped forward. His name was Donnelly—Darcy recognised him from the Marine Parade. His face was unremarkable, but his eyes were sharp, and there was a certain cockiness to the way he carried his Baker rifle.
“Sir, I’ve known the woods at night,” Donnelly said. “Rabbits and pheasant, mostly. Sometimes a bird for the pot, sometimes a bit of venison, when there was need.”
Behind Donnelly, another rifleman—tall, ginger-haired, with a broad grin that did not quite reach his eyes—nodded. “And I, sir. Grew up near Nottingham. You don’t eat if you don’t hunt quiet.”
Goulding looked to Fitzwilliam, who nodded. “Good. You and you—Donnelly, and—?”
“Call me Simms, sir.”
