Chapter Five
ONE MORE NIGHT, Mr. Darcy told himself.
He would only let it go on for one more night. After that, they must leave, because it was wrong to keep them here, and it was wrong to coerce Elizabeth to stay when she clearly didn’t wish it, not truly. He had used the sheer pleasure of the bite against her, and he mustn’t do that in the future.
But one more night.
He thought it was possible that he’d wake to find she’d left, anyway, but she was in the dining room when he appeared that night. The humans were all eating chicken and potatoes and green beans. They were drinking wine and they all smelled rather delectable, though Elizabeth smelled the best.
He excused himself before he simply pounced on her. He wished to savor this, after all. He would taste her again that night, but he would put it off as long as he could possibly stand it. He wanted her in his arms when he did it. Perhaps in his lap. He wanted to be touching her all over. He wanted—
Damnation.
After dinner, they all retired to the sitting room and there was talk of playing cards or reading or other amusements.
“Is this how you do this, then?” cried Elizabeth, very agitated. “You act as though you are simply going to pass the time in this manner when we all know what you have in store for us?”
“Miss Elizabeth is a great reader,” said Caroline archly. “She prefers books to positively everything, it seems.”
“I am not a great reader,” said Elizabeth. “I am only pointing out the fact that you have us here for your amusement, and you can pretend all you like that we are simply guests, but we all know the truth of it.”
Caroline shrugged. “Well, perhaps you could be a good little guest, then, and join in the pretending, for you did agree to stay, did you not?”
“Miss Elizabeth,” said Mr. Darcy, coming over to sit down across from her. “You must not see it this way. You are, indeed, guests, and we are not only trying to… to prey upon you. We cannot help the fact we need to drink your blood to stay alive, you see. It is simply the way it is.”
“You weren’t always this way, I suppose?” said Elizabeth.
“No, we were all human once,” said Darcy. “A long time ago, though.”
“I think,” said Caroline, “that a very good guest should have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, and the modern languages. A good guest must be very pleasing to her hosts, and she must have something in her bearing, her manner, her walking and expression, a sense of, well, accomplishment.”
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Darcy, “and added to all this, she must be a great reader.” He smirked at Elizabeth.
Elizabeth couldn’t help but smile back.
“Cor meum, really, she knows her place. You have already gotten her to agree to be here to please you,” said Caroline. “You needn’t sell her on anything else. She will obey you if you but ask. Try it.”
“I don’t want obedience,” said Mr. Darcy. “It’s rather nice that you aren’t charmed, you know, Miss Elizabeth. Rather nice indeed.” He considered. “Of course, I know it doesn’t really mean you are choosing to be here.”
Elizabeth squirmed. “I want to leave,” she said.
“Yes, and I shall release you,” he said. “I promise it will be soon.”
She looked into his eyes, as if she was seeking the truth of what he had said there. But then, she could not seem to look away, and she was so pretty that way, gazing at him with obvious adoration, that he wanted to bite her right then and there.
With effort, he tore his gaze from hers, letting out a low groan. “Perhaps I must occupy myself in some other manner,” he said, and he got up to walk across the room. He found some paper and an inkwell and he sat down to compose a letter.
Miss Darcy knew he was not truly her brother, but she had been so young when they had imposed the ruse upon her, they had thought it kinder to say he was a cousin, like Richard.
Hitherto, he had been posing as Richard’s younger brother, in fact, so it was what she thought of him.
And Richard was also her guardian, so she did not question it.
She was also willing to take on the ruse that he was her brother.
At any rate, he wrote her letters often, and he did what he could to protect her, when he had to protect her, which wasn’t always often, but was sometimes. That business with the Wickham boy had been a bit of a mess, after all.
He began to write, dimly aware that there was a card game going on, and that he thought Elizabeth was, in fact, going to read a book, and that Caroline would read as well.
But then, Caroline was hovering, too near. “Are you writing a letter, cor meum?” she breathed in his ear, her voice husky. “Let me mend your pen.”
He shook her off, disliking the thing she’d said and obvious double-meaning of it. “Thank you, but I always mend my own.”
She laughed, a long and throaty laugh. “Oh, do you, then?”
He rolled his eyes. “This is beneath us both.”
“Beneath,” she said, her voice very low. “It has been some time since either of us was beneath the other.”
He let out a sigh. “You are making it difficult to concentrate on the letter, I must say.”
“Write, then,” she said, straightening, but continuing to stand behind him.
He looked up at her, annoyed, hoping she would take her leave of him.
She only smiled, gesturing for him to go on and write.
He turned back to the page, and began to compose the letter.
“You write uncommonly fast,” she said.
“You are mistaken,” he said in a clipped voice. “I write rather slowly.”
“And the evenness of your handwriting, so precise,” she said. “I should expect positively nothing else from you, however.”
Another voice interrupted, from the card table. “Caroline! Leave Darcy be, and come here to join the card game.” It was Mr. Bingley.
Darcy glanced at him over his shoulder.
Caroline turned to the other vampire, smiling carelessly. “Oh, Charles wishes I was reading over his shoulder, I suppose, commenting on his writing.”
“Indeed not. My style of writing is different than his.”
Darcy realized that Bingley was coming over to the both of them. He set his pen in the inkwell, for he was not going to be able to write this letter, after all.
“Your style of writing,” scoffed Caroline. “What you mean is that you blot out half your words and it reads like a child composed it.”
“My ideas flow very quickly,” said Bingley, squaring off with Caroline, “and I cannot keep up with that flow, I find.”
She scoffed again.
“Might the two of you do this somewhere else more private?” said Darcy, leaning over the back of the writing chair. “Work that entirely out of your individual essences, and then we can all come back and have a pleasant evening.”
“I have nothing in my essence for Charles,” said Caroline.
“And I have nothing in mine for you,” said Darcy to her pointedly. “So, whatever it is we are doing here—”
“Your humility, Fitzwilliam, is beyond all measure,” said Caroline. “No one is asking you for anything at all.”
“This isn’t about you,” said Bingley to Darcy.
Darcy sighed heavily and got up from the writing desk.
“If you weren’t such a tall fellow, of course, I should not pay you half as much deference,” said Bingley to Darcy. “I declare, I do not know an object more full of awe and dread than Darcy, when he has made up his mind about something or other, no matter if it is the truth or not.”
Darcy glanced back and forth between the two of them. Perhaps he should never have come with them to the country. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sought them out at all.
It was odd, because for much of the time, he was happy never to seek out another vampire, though he knew many others of his kind were not happy unless they lived in little groups like the Bingley group.
He was not happy keeping the company of other vampires constantly, but he did get these longings from time to time, wishing for another of his kind.
However, he had forgotten what this was like, all these ancient wounds and jealousies and slights. They had all been hurting one another for centuries. It was an exercise in torture, perhaps.
He resolved, yet again, to quit the country. He would go tomorrow night, at moonrise, and he would remember not to seek out the company of the Bingley vampires again, not for some time.
For now, his gaze fell on Elizabeth, who he realized had been watching and listening to all of this, her expression rapt. He went directly to her and sat straight down on the couch where she sat, right next to her.
“I see your design, friend,” called Bingley after him. “You dislike argument.”
Darcy looked up at Bingley. “Argument is pointless when neither side can change. And we are all changeless, are we not?”
Caroline looked up at Bingley with a pitiful expression on her face.
Bingley put his arm around her and she snuggled in against him.
There.
That was that.
Darcy turned back to Elizabeth, who was seemingly scandalized by how improperly close the two were.
“They are not brother and sister, are they?” she said, eyeing them.
“They had the same maker,” said Darcy.
Elizabeth looked at him. “Vampire maker?”
“It is like a familial relationship in some ways, but not in other ways,” said Darcy.
“Who made you?” said Elizabeth.
“I don’t talk about that,” he said immediately.
She raised her eyebrows.
He looked away. “Apologies. It is only that it is complicated and a bit shocking. It’s not the sort of thing to get into in the middle of a pleasant evening’s conversation.”
“Not my concern, I suppose,” she said. “I am to be vulnerable to you, easily swayed, easily influenced, and you are to remain aloof and impenetrable.”
“I am just as easily swayed when it comes to you,” said Mr. Darcy. “More so, in fact. I want you more than you want me.”
Her top teeth sank into her bottom lip and she drew in a breath around them. She smelled like the sweetest of temptations, like honey.