“Lizzy! Oh, Lizzy, is it really you?” Lydia rushed to embrace Elizabeth. They both laughed, tears of joy moistening their eyes.
“And you, Lydia. You look so very well.” Elizabeth stepped back to regard her sister. Indeed, Lydia was glowing with good health. Certainly, their mother, Mrs. Bennet, would complain about her tanned skin and the line of freckles dusting her cheeks, but the wan girl Elizabeth had last seen in the hills above León was gone. “Georgiana—is she also well?”
“She and Mr. Darcy are staying in Colonel Fitzwilliam’s lodgings. He sent for Mrs. Hurley, and… now I am here!” Lydia grasped Elizabeth’s hands. “And you, Lizzy, I hear that we beat thecrapaudsat Salamanca.” She paused. “Lizzy, did you really enter the French camp? Eduardo said you did, but we were never sure.”
“Let us just say, Lydia, that we discovered the French intentions. Colonel Fitzwilliam, Major Hurley, and Lord Wellington, with that information, planned how to turn the French attack. He engaged them at Salamanca, tricking Marmont into thinking the army was fleeing east, directly into the arms of the FrenchArmy of the North. It was a great victory. You should also be proud, for the French believed yours was the main party—that intelligence of their army would not reachWellington in time. You may not have known it, dearest, but you too helped defeat Napoleon.”
Lydia regarded her sister; she knew Elizabeth was dissembling. There was a sorrow in Lizzy’s eyes, pain that had not been there before they parted. “I am here, Lizzy, if you ever wish to talk of it. I know that at Longbourn I was just a silly flibbertigibbet, but I think that girl is long gone.”
“I’m all right, Liddy, truly I am. It is just that I find myself surrounded by soldiers, their thoughts pressing against me. Enough! It is so wonderful to have you here, to know that you are safe, and Georgiana is well.”
Mrs. Hurley returned from the kitchen. She set down a tray. Elizabeth poured, her hands trembling only slightly. Lydia watched her with a new seriousness. “Lizzy, on the way here, Mrs. Hurley said you rarely go out. That is so unlike you.”
Mrs. Hurley looked at Elizabeth, the same concern that Mrs. Gardiner would have shown reflected in her eyes. “Elizabeth, it is not right, your staying all day in the parlour,” she said. “While there is not much to see in the town, at least a walk along the river would do you very well.”
“Perhaps, if Lydia will take my arm, then I shall do that. But as I have said, I find living in a town filled with soldiers—many of whom suffer dreadfully from their wounds—that there are too many bitter futures clouding my mind.” Elizabeth laughed. “But, already with my sister nearby, their thoughts intrude just a little less. Oh, my apologies, Mrs. Hurley. I do not mean to disparage your company, nor your kind attention. It is just that it takes time for familiarity to lessen those memories, letting them fade away.”
“Miss Lydia,” said Mrs. Hurley briskly, “then you must brighten Elizabeth’s day. Talk of fashion if that is her interest, of Byron’s poetry, of Cowper’s scenes of the gentle English countryside.”
Lydia stood. “Come, Lizzy, I have yet to see the great fountain in the plaza—’tis said to be very grand.” Lydia pulled a reluctant Elizabeth to the door, glancing conspiratorially at Mrs. Hurley. “In this, I will not be disappointed.”
* * *
Elizabeth was a little hurt that neither Georgiana nor Mr. Darcy had called on them. She and Lydia had visited Colonel Fitzwilliam’s lodgings, where the Darcys were staying, but none were at home. They had left a message, but there was no return call.
Was he too proud, perhaps, to allow his sister to visit with a woman who was so seriously compromised by visiting the French camp at León, escorted by a Spanish pimp? She could understand his reticence—yet her understanding made it all the worse. Lord Wellington had decided that the actual method of obtaining information as to the French army’s plans was not necessary to the dispatches he sent to London. He praised Colonel Fitzwilliam—though greatly annoyed by his impertinence in threatening a challenge—and merely said that Miss Elizabeth Bennet had accompanied the Colonel and Don Mateo from León. Her entering the camp had been erased from history—why was Mr. Darcy unable to forget it as well?
Riflemen were always welcome, and Donnelly and Simms quickly found a place with the 95th Rifles on the slopes of the lesser Arapil. Wellington kept Fitzwilliam close, for he recognised in the Colonel a keen tactical sense and welcomed his opinion as to the deployment of his divisions. Occasionally, his thoughts drifted to Miss Bennet; she was a true beauty and a woman he would gladly wish to know better. Perhaps he would invite her to dine when he was in London—she was a damned fine woman.
Some five days later, Elizabeth learnt that Georgiana and Mr. Darcy were gone with Colonel Fitzwilliam to Lisbon, and then to London. So ended the strangest and most cruel episode of her life. Had she, in truth, wished for Mr. Darcy’s company solely because she found such solace when he was near, such profound relief from thoughts and memories? Had he not been handsome, had he been lacking in dry wit and intelligent conversation, would she have wished he had not gone away? Of this, she could not tell.
The days that followed passed in a peculiar state of limbo, for a message had reached them from Porto that Uncle Gardiner had arrived by packet, and was even now making his way inland to meet them. Elizabeth busied herself with small duties—writing a careful letter to Jane, tending to Lydia’s restless spirits, and walking the battered hills outside Salamanca. She climbed the Greater Arapil and felt all the astonishment and sorrow of knowing that men had willingly climbed its steep slope under heavy fire.
Yet nothing could quite lift the heaviness in her chest. She missed the sense of purpose that had come with their desperate journey, the shared danger, and even the uncertainty. Now, every morning dawned with the same dull ache of disappointment.
Lydia, for her part, had so changed that Elizabeth hardly knew her. Each morning, she would accompany Mrs. Hurley and the other officers’ wives to visit the wounded, the sick, the women who followed the camp with their children. She became a well-known figure—Señorita Lidia—as welcomed by the Spanish inhabitants of the town as by the British soldiers. Elizabeth tried to temper her sister’s wilder inclinations, but Lydia had tasted freedom—and the thrill of adventure—too recently to be content with embroidery and polite conversation.
Most afternoons, Elizabeth sat alone with her thoughts. The quiet was a balm, and she let herself recall Colonel Fitzwilliam’s smile, the richness of Don Mateo’s voice, and—most of all—the silent regard of Mr. Darcy. She wondered if he thought of her at all, or if, once returned to the familiar comforts of London, she would be no more than a fading memory.
She folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head, wishing, for a moment, that her heart were not so easily bruised. Yet she would not regret what had passed; she would not wish herself back in the dull safety of Hertfordshire, no matter how much simpler life had seemed there.
* * *
Elizabeth stood at the window of their quarters, watching the late Spanish sun cast long shadows across the street. Had two months passed since that dreadful day on the Marine Parade in Brighton; two months since she, Lydia, and dear Georgiana had been bundled across the Bay of Biscay like contraband? She took up the guitar that Mrs. Hurley had purchased in the market—though battered, it was a fine instrument, likely sold for bread and wine. The music eased her mind, the thoughts fading as she sang a Spanish song of love and longing.
She turned, hearing footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, the door burst open and a man, so familiar that she could barely contain her tears, entered. Uncle Gardiner’s face was flushed, his eyes bright with relief and worry all at once.
“My dearest girls!” he cried, striding forward with arms outstretched. “Thank God, thank God. I have you safe at last.”
Elizabeth barely managed a word before she was enveloped in his embrace. His coat smelled of travel and sea salt. She clung to him as if she were a child again, all pride and composure gone,and felt her eyes sting with tears she had managed to suppress for weeks.
Lydia, characteristically, was less restrained. She gave a delighted shriek, flinging herself upon him and bombarding him with questions all at once. “Uncle! Oh, Uncle, have you seen Mama and Papa? Have you brought news of Jane? Of Kitty and Mary?”
Mr. Gardiner laughed, a little choked by the force of Lydia’s affection. “All are well, my dear. Your mother was beside herself, of course. Your father kept contact with Colonel Forster, but it was a letter from Lord Matlock who said you were safe at Salamanca. I have business interests in Portugal, so I elected to bring you home. We are to travel first to Porto—there is a ship waiting—and then, God willing, to England.”
Elizabeth’s heart leapt, but then faltered beneath the weight of her memories. Home! The idea was like balm and yet, as she looked around the sparse little room with its battered wooden chairs and the window that overlooked the city, she felt a strange and unexpected reluctance. She did not wish for Hertfordshire; yet, she did not wish to remain in Spain. There was a part of her which was empty; it needed filling, but she knew not what it was. Certainly, she was not the same young woman who had stood on the Parade in Brighton. None of them were.
Mr. Gardiner’s expression softened. “You have been remarkably brave. I am proud of you both.” He turned to Lydia, who had flopped onto the bed, her cheeks flushed with excitement. “You, especially, have grown, my girl. I hear you are something of a nurse now?”
