Richard made a shooing motion, indicating he would remain with his father. Darcy silently wished him luck.
“MISS BENNET WISHESto speak to you,” Colonel Fitzwilliam told his father a short time later.
Lord Matlock rose slowly. “Miss Bennet, I fear I am not good company at present.”
“I understand. I merely wished to check on your health before I return to the Dower House.”
He spread his arms. “I am quite well, as you see. Thanks to you.” His voice was heavy.
“I am glad. I also wanted to say that, while I cannot apologize for the conclusion I reached about you at our first meeting, I am relieved and happy to know it was based on false assumptions.”
“Very prettily said, Miss Bennet. I wish I could forgive myself as easily.”
Elizabeth cocked her head to the side. “Mr. Darcy also has an odd tendency to blame himself for things completely beyond his control. I would suspect it to be a Fitzwilliam family trait, but the good colonel seems free of the curse.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled. “Very perceptive, Miss Bennet. Sir, did you not wish to ask Miss Bennet about her healing techniques?”
“Not now, Richard,” the earl said wearily.
The colonel laid his hands on the desk and leaned over it until his face was a foot from his father’s. “Yes, now,” he said firmly.
“I can return another time,” said Elizabeth hastily.
Colonel Fitzwilliam turned back to her with a winning smile. “Miss Bennet, I throw myself on your mercy. You are my best hope for distracting my father out of his gloom. Once you start speaking of wild magic, he will be unable to restrain his curiosity.”
Elizabeth tapped her chin with her fingertip. “Now this is a dilemma. Naturally I would wish to oblige you, Colonel, but your father does outrank you.”
“I am glad someone realizes that,” grumbled the earl.
“Miss Bennet, must I threaten to tell my mother? I assure you she will take my side.”
“Colonel, your mother has been nothing but kind to me, yet to hear you talk, one would think her a veritable Gorgon!”
A smile twitched the colonel’s lips. “Exactly so!”
Elizabeth ostentatiously looked heavenwards, but from the corner of her eyes she could see Lord Matlock did look better for watching their banter. “Very well. Purely out of respect for the gentle creature who is your mother, I will torment his lordship with my inarticulate description of the indescribable. I hope that will satisfy you.”
“Very much so.” He offered her a chair.
She sat and folded her hands in her lap, trying to disguise her sudden anxiety. Was she truly going to explain her magic to the Master of the Collegium? “I hardly know where to begin. I will tell you what I can, but I beg you to understand that it might be completely different for someone else. There is a reason we call it wild magic. What would you like to know?”
“How do you do it? How do you reach inside a person’s body?”
She had never tried to put it into words before. “I start by feeling for the life force. It is like a tingling sensation under the skin. When I feel it, the force tugs at my hands, and I let it pull me inside. Wild magic tends to be metaphorical, so it transforms the complexity of the body into something I can understand. In your case, I found myself in a flat-bottomed rowboat skimming along the surface of a rocky river.”
“How did you know I was trying to sense what you were doing?”
She laughed. “That was simple. Suddenly you were standing behind me, looking over my shoulder and tipping the boat. Wild magic can be very literal.”
“Hmm. What did you do next?”
“After a time, I reached a pier and tied up the boat. I walked through a narrow valley until I came to a small clearing where I found a cabbage and an embroidery basket.”
“A cabbage! How...unique. Do continue.”
“It is not as odd as it sounds,” Elizabeth said. “I once saw a pig’s heart, and it had big veins branching off all over it, just as a cabbage leaf has veins. It looked like a brown misshapen cabbage. This cabbage was green, naturally, but one of the leaves had a small area that was wizened and gray. Since the wild magic had given me an embroidery basket to work with, I began to embroider new veins across that area.”
The colonel’s face was filled with mirth. “You embroidered a cabbage?”
