Chapter Four
THE SUNRISE LOOMED, and the Bennet sisters were guided to two rooms where they could sleep. They were tucked away in their beds, the doors shut, and left to dream.
Mr. Darcy lingered outside Elizabeth’s door until he realized Caroline was lingering, too.
Then he turned away from the door and began to walk down the hallway towards the part of the house that was safe from the sun.
Caroline caught up to him. “Thank you for your assistance. It will be a little lark, having them here with us. We haven’t done anything fun in some time.
It reminds me of the days when things were easier, when we had much more freedom, back when we could spend days feasting and no one was the wiser. ”
“I don’t think we had more freedom then,” he said. “I think we have more freedom now, in cities, because cities afford more anonymity than ever before. Besides, I never liked those feasts.”
She snorted, falling into step with him. “Of course you did.”
“They are not…” He could not find the word.
He wanted to say that they were not food, but of course, they were.
Even so, he knew there was a difference between the way that they interacted with humans and the way predators interacted with prey.
Because they were too much the same as the humans—they looked just like humans and they dressed and spoke like them and they wanted to do things with them that at least mimicked romance, even if it wasn’t really romance, and…
“We are different than them, Caroline, it is true. But I don’t think we’re superior. ”
She laughed. “I never said we were.”
Not in words, he supposed. But he was sure she thought it. She behaved as if she did.
“I didn’t assist you with your scheme because I wish to trap two pretty young girls here and use them for our pleasure,” he said.
“No?” she said, laughing. “Why did you assist?”
“It’s just the madness of the sirensong is all,” he muttered. “She makes me foolish.”
“Does she.” There was sourness in Caroline’s tone. “And yet, you have showed marvelous restraint with her, have you not?”
“Have I?” He didn’t feel as if he had.
“She’s alive,” said Caroline. “You haven’t attempted to turn her. You have not locked her away somewhere for easy access. So, yes, I think so. If I did not think you capable of that, cor meum, I would not have implemented my little plan to keep her here.”
“It doesn’t seem to me as if your plan was very well thought out at all,” he said. “It seems to me that it was impulsive and reckless.”
She huffed. “Oh, do tell me exactly what you think, then. What is your first name now? Some awful mouthful, isn’t it? Fitzwilliam?”
“I am not at all in control of myself when it comes to her,” he said. “She is awakening me in ways I thought long dormant. I haven’t felt so full of aching need in such a long time. So, I don’t think you should have tried to trap her here.”
“Well, that is what you think, Fitzwilliam,” she said. “But ask yourself if I have ever failed you, cor meum?”
He stopped walking to look at her. “What do you mean? You do not, as a general rule, do things for anyone except yourself.”
“You wound me. That is not true, at all!” The look she gave him did look wounded, indeed. “I cannot believe you do not see all I do for you. How is that possible?”
“There is no reason for you to do things for me,” he said in a low voice. “I am not your heart, Caroline, and you are not mine.”
Her expression froze.
Perhaps he had been overly harsh on her, but she was quite capable of handling it, he thought. She could be vicious, after all. He turned on his heel and walked away from her without another word.
ELIZABETH SLEPT HALF the day away, likely because she’d been awake all night.
She woke sometime in the afternoon to the knowledge that she must get out of this place. She knew not what had driven her so far out of her wits to have consented to have slept here, in fact.
She did not think Mr. Darcy’s assurances that there was no harm in whatever it was that he and his fellow demons did was at all trustworthy. There was clearly harm. They were imprisoned here to be toyed with, used for the pleasure of these monsters, and she knew it.
It horrified her, in fact.
Well, this was not true.
When it came to Jane, it was horrifying, most especially since Jane had not been herself at all last night, but when it came to her, it was different. Because Mr. Darcy, with his deep voice and his bobbing Adam’s apple and his broad shoulders, was quite welcome to use her for his pleasure.
This was mad, of course, and she didn’t actually believe it, or at least, she didn’t wish to believe it.
It was only that the thought of being used by Mr. Darcy, being bitten by him, being his to do with as he pleased, made her feel flushed full of deep pleasure, and she was so swept away by it that she was not making very intelligent decisions.
She got out of bed and dressed herself, and then she went to Jane’s room, but Jane wasn’t there. The bed was made up and the room was empty.
In alarm, Elizabeth ran down the stairs to look into the sitting room where they had all been the night before, but that was empty too.
At this point, a servant found her, and asked if she would be joining Miss Bennet in the breakfast parlor.
“Breakfast?” said Elizabeth faintly. “It must be past time for luncheon.”
“Even so, there is food laid out for you both if you are hungry,” said the servant. “Mr. Hurst eats daily also but he often wakes quite late. The others are sequestered away during the daylight.”
Elizabeth let the servant take her to the breakfast parlor.
Jane was there, eating, and—upon sight of her—exclaimed that it was really quite hospitable that the Bingleys had allowed them to stay there, and that the food was quite good, and that Elizabeth should try the chocolate in the pot there, that Jane had never had its equal.
Elizabeth was rather famished, as it happened. She got herself a plate of food, dipping it herself at the sideboard and then she sat down. “Jane, after we eat, we must go home.”
“Oh?” said Jane. “Must we?”
“What do you remember about last night?”
“Well, nothing,” said Jane. “I slept quite a lot but that must be because I am ill.”
“Ill?” said Elizabeth. “Do you feel ill?”
“Oh, terribly,” said Jane, eating an orange section. “I think I must stay here and recover for several more days.”
“No, Jane, you do not seem ill to me at all, and we must leave this afternoon.”
“Well, I don’t see how we could even do that,” said Jane. “No one else is awake, and we cannot ask them for the carriage.”
“We could walk, of course,” said Elizabeth. “How do you think we got here in the first place last night?”
“Lizzy, this is the second time you have said something strange about last night,” said Jane. “I got here for dinner last night, fell ill, and then you came this morning to see me because you were worried.”
“That… what?” Elizabeth sighed heavily.
“I wouldn’t waste your breath,” came a male voice.
Elizabeth turned to see Mr. Hurst leaning his shoulder into the doorway. He yawned. “Good morning.”
“Good afternoon,” said Elizabeth pointedly.
Mr. Hurst sauntered into the breakfast parlor and helped himself to some kippers. “I wondered about that one. I wondered if she’d be clearer today.”
“Clearer?” said Elizabeth.
“Different people seem to take to the charming more easily than others,” said Hurst, sitting down with them. “She seems to be quite, quite charmable. You? Not so much.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “Oh. So, I shan’t talk her out of it, then?”
“Likely not,” said Mr. Hurst with a shrug. “I’ve been with them years, Miss Elizabeth. I’ve never seen them kill anyone, if that eases your mind.”
“I…” Perhaps it did, but also, it didn’t matter. “You don’t mind it?” she said. “Being there for their nibbling?”
“It’s a bit disconcerting at first, I suppose,” he said with a shrug.
“Rather like being some rich man’s kept woman or something, perhaps?
I don’t mind it, though, really. Louisa is lovely and doting and quite enjoys me, and I can’t say it’s a bad life at all.
And I am hers, of course, so the others are not…
nibbling on me. Anyway, it’s not a nibbling sort of activity.
There’s no chewing, you realize. She drinks from me. ”
“Yes, of course,” said Elizabeth, nodding. “And I suppose it’s different when it’s just one of them, isn’t it?”
Hurst pointed at her with his fork. “You likely oughtn’t be alone with him, though, I must say.”
“Because of this siren business.”
“I don’t know anything about it except what I hear them say to each other,” said Mr. Hurst. “I’ve not seen anyone with a sirensong, whatever it is, but they talk about awful things happening to them.
Darcy is different than they are, though.
He’s better, sort of noble in some odd way.
He still has the tie to a family, which is the old way of it, as I understand it. ”
“What do you mean?” said Elizabeth.
“Well,” said Mr. Hurst, buttering a slice of toast, “the Bingleys created their identity whole cloth, you see, but what vampires usually do is offer their services as protector to some respectable family or other. They will live as a son or daughter, never the heir, usually not the heir, anyway. They get respectability this way, and they will stand in for threats against the family, offer whatever they can in that respect. It’s been going on for generations.
Darcy has been the third in line for the Matlock earldom since time immemorial, as I understand it. Well, maybe a hundred years, anyway.”
“A hundred years?” whispered Elizabeth.
“That’s quite foolish,” said Jane. “One hundred years! What a funny joke, Mr. Hurst.”
“They are very old,” said Mr. Hurst, nodding. “It can be difficult to reckon with that.”
“How old?” said Elizabeth.
“Hundreds of years,” said Mr. Hurst. “A thousand, perhaps. More, even? I don’t really know. It’s rude to inquire overmuch about one’s lady wife’s age, is it not?” He grinned an insouciant little grin.
“A thousand?” Elizabeth felt cold all over. They really must go.
“At any rate, something happened to the Darcy boy, the real Fitzwilliam Darcy. He died in a fire, along with his mother and father, and the Darcy line, well, anyway, there’s money there, but the property isn’t entailed or anything of that nature.
There was a girl left, a small girl, twelve years younger than the boy who had died.
She was only eight or ten herself at the time her entire family died.
She could not manage it all herself, so Darcy stepped in.
He will be Darcy for some time, until the girl, Miss Darcy, is old enough to properly manage it all, and then he will fake his death and go back to being the Matlock enforcer.
He is devoted to the family, you see? He is, as I say, noble.
But the Bingleys, they are beholden to no one, just themselves.
Louisa, she… well, I love her, and I couldn’t love someone who was nothing but cruelty. It’s only that her sister, Caroline…”
“What?” said Elizabeth.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Hurst, shrugging. “I never allow myself to be alone with her, let’s say that.”
Elizabeth got up from the table. “Jane, come now. We must go.”
“But I am ill, Lizzy,” said Jane, taking a sip of chocolate. “I am far too ill to travel.”
Elizabeth began to pace. “Caroline went to charm everyone in my household, she said.”
“Aye, they all think this same story that your sister thinks,” said Mr. Hurst.
“So, if I leave and go home and try to tell them that Jane is in danger?”
“They will likely laugh at you,” said Mr. Hurst. “She would have put some directive into it that they should pay no mind to outside worries.”
Elizabeth wrung out her hands. “It’s a nightmare.”
“You’re looking at it the wrong way, Miss Elizabeth,” said Mr. Hurst. “It’s an adventure. And I saw the way you look at him, and I know what it’s like to have a set of vampire fangs in one’s neck. You like it.”
She clenched her hands into fists. “So, I should simply stay here, let them have their way with us, do whatever they like to us, and then let them all charm me into forgetting it?”
“I’d beg them to let you remember,” said Hurst, chuckling softly. “But yes, you should stay. You know you wish to stay, anyway.”