Page 42 of Triumph at Pemberley

She shrugged helplessly. “Did you mean to kill them?”

He frowned. “Not as such. I just wanted them off my land. But many of them drowned.”

“Perhaps your intention makes a difference?” she hazarded.

He said nothing, but appeared to be steeling himself. His eyes unfocused as he reached out over his bond. After a moment they brightened, more like the Jack she knew. Then a look of horror suffused his face.

“What is it?” she asked. “Is Gentiane...gone?” Enslaved forever to the Wicked King. How could Jack live with the guilt?

“Not Gentiane,” he whispered, as if still miles away. “But the Channel... There are hundreds of boats. Maybe thousands. He showed me. They just keep coming.”

Bile rose again in her throat. If it was enough to frighten Jack, the professional soldier, it was very bad indeed. Perhaps she should have fled with Roderick - but no, there were French soldiers in Gwynedd, too, if his perception was correct.

This was the end of Great Britain.

Then she squared her shoulders. Once she might have been helpless against an invader, but now she had mage powers she could bring to bear and a dragon who might be willing to spy for them in hawk form, even if she would not go into battle. They would not go down without a fight, not if Frederica had anything to say about it.

The carriage shuddered to a halt at last, though Frederica wondered if her stomach would ever recover from the jostling. The door opened to reveal her brother Richard, dust-covered and disheveled. The acrid smell of gunpowder stung her nose.

Usually she would spurn his hand, but after that teeth-rattling ride, she was happy to lean on him as she stepped down to the muddy ground. Richard could not be much better off; he had set off on horseback just ahead of them.

Wherever here was. She stood beside a hedgerow in a marsh. A narrow channel of water bisected the wide, flat grassland. The sharp cracks of rifles sounded in the distance. A loud crash made her start - cannon fire?

Jack jumped down from the carriage, apparently completely recovered from whatever had left him semi-conscious for most of the ride. His eyes roved wide before focusing to their left. “There they are,” he grated, as if it was a personal insult.

“Get down.” Richard tugged Frederica over to the hedgerow and hunkered down. “We have to walk from here. A horse would give the bastards too much of a target.”

Jack gave a quick nod. “Let us go.”

“Not yet.” Richard stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Your name here is Captain Jack, a mage soldier with strange powers, sent by the King himself. The Darcy name is too well known, and we do not want Napoleon to make the connection.”

“Fine. How many soldiers do we have?”

“I am still waiting for a full report, but they outnumber us vastly. The first thing we need is a rampart. Otherwise they will mow us down. There is nowhere to hide once we get past these hedgerows. Can you raise one?”

Jack crouched down, stripped of his gloves, and put his hands on the ground. A wave of powerful Talent nearly knocked Frederica over. “One rampart, coming up,” Jack said.

And then he did knock Frederica over.

Chapter 17

The next morning, Frederica stood in a cloud of gunsmoke, her heart pounding. A circle of red-coated soldiers surrounded her. Of all the crazy dreams she ever had, she had never considered being in the middle of a battle. Much less as an active participant.

As Richard would say, she did not like it, not one little bit. Too frightening, even with all her defenders around her, all of them no doubt wondering if they could not serve their country better by charging the enemy instead of protecting a helpless lady, even one dressed in men’s clothing so she could run away faster if the need arose. And so no one would know a woman was there.

She fingered the knife in her belt. She did not like feeling helpless; all it would take to wipe out her human shield was a cannon shot from the French, and then she would be vulnerable.

She would not even have that much protection once she reached the top of the vast embankment Jack had raised. She would have to work fast with her Talent and hope that somehow the wind would deflect any bullets shot in her direction.

“There, m’lady,” said Sergeant Sutton, pointing at a wall of rough stones, perhaps three feet high, that stood atop the embankment. “Best we could do, I’m afraid, with those bas… them shooting at us.”

It would be some cover, at least. “Well done, Sergeant,” she said. “When I raise my hand like so, pray give the signal for our side to take cover.” If only she had spent all those years training her weather skills instead of assuming they would always be useless! Then she might have a better chance of directing her Talent in the right direction. As it was, all she could do was to hope the British soldiers took care.

“Yes, m’lady.” He gestured, and the soldiers in front of her split to each side, leaving an open path for her. A path straight towards Napoleon’s army.

Well, if this proved to be her last action, she would go out like a heroine. She gave her brightest smile to the soldiers as she thanked them for their protection, and set forth as if she were headed to her favorite modiste.

She ducked down as she reached the summit, tucking herself into a ball behind the stones. No shots whizzing by; that was a good sign. It gave her enough breathing room to gather energy from the air around her, braiding it together and coiling it in an imaginary pile, all the power she could manage to hold in herself. When she was full to bursting, she raised her hand.