Chapter Seven
“HERE IS THE way I wish it,” Darcy said that evening, addressing all of them in the sitting room. “I wish Caroline to come with me to London.”
Caroline was seated on a couch, shoulders hunched up, looking like a very scolded little girl. She was saying very little, only flinching from time to time whenever he said her name.
He was disgusted with her for pretending to be so small and hurt. He knew better. They all knew better. Caroline was cruel and vicious and she had already killed one of his sirensongs, and he was not going to let her kill another.
“Why do you want her with you in London?” Bingley was sitting on an easy chair, and he put his feet up on the table in front of it, leaning back, raising his eyebrows.
“Oh, it’s not that way, Bingley,” said Darcy. “I only must keep her away from Miss Elizabeth, that is all.”
“Well, if that is all, then leave her to me,” said Bingley. “I’ll keep her from hurting your precious human girl.”
“No, you will not,” said Darcy. “You have absolutely no control over Caroline. She does whatever it is she wishes with you, and we both know that.”
“Oh, but you have control over her?” said Bingley, glowering at him. “She does your bidding?”
“I will be harsh with her is all I am saying,” said Darcy. “You are too soft on her.”
“I am not sending her off with you,” said Bingley.
“Fine,” said Darcy. “Then I’m staying.”
Bingley put his feet down on the floor. “All right.” He shrugged.
It was quiet.
“Well,” said Bingley, “I suppose that’s settled, so what do we wish to do with ourselves? I think we should throw a ball, what do you think? A ball at Netherfield. It will be a great deal of fun, and—”
“It really isn’t settled,” said Darcy. “I don’t wish her to simply get away with all of it.”
Bingley sighed heavily.
“I mean it,” said Darcy. He addressed Caroline. “Have you nothing to say for yourself, Caroline?”
Caroline wouldn’t look at him.
“You see how she is,” said Bingley. “She is sorry—”
“If she is sorry, let her apologize,” said Darcy. “We don’t even kill humans, Bingley! We have all decided that we do not do such things. We have been quite careful for hundreds of years not to be beasts, and yet, we find she is quite unruffled about killing.”
“She is obviously ruffled.” Bingley gestured.
“She killed my Maeve,” said Darcy.
“You have said that she did, but she has not admitted to that. It could have been some other vampire, and we have always—”
“She did it,” growled Darcy. “And she was going to kill Elizabeth. I caught her in Elizabeth’s bed, her teeth in Elizabeth’s neck, drinking Elizabeth’s blood, and do not tell me that she did not do that.”
“All right, yes, Darcy, but they are humans,” said Bingley.
Darcy seethed.
“What is that supposed to mean?” said Mr. Hurst from the other side of the room. He was shuffling a set of cards.
“Oh, nothing, Hurst,” said Bingley. “We would never harm you, and Louisa dotes upon you, so—”
“It is not nothing!” cried Darcy.
“Oh, all of us have made mistakes here,” said Bingley, getting to his feet. “You cannot claim to have never drained one.”
“Not in nine hundred years!” said Darcy. “Besides, Bingley, it is one thing to make a mistake, to keep going when one knows to stop, and it is quite another to go into a woman’s room with the intention of ending her life.”
“Well, all right, I suppose,” said Bingley.
“She did it because she wished to hurt me,” said Darcy. “She did it because she wants me to hurt the way she hurts.”
Bingley’s nostrils flared. “You have an overinflated sense of self, do you not? The simple fact you reject her means she seeks revenge against you?”
“Yes,” said Darcy.
They both looked at Caroline, whose shoulders were hunched up even higher.
“Tell him, beloved,” said Bingley. “Tell him why you really did it.”
Caroline said nothing.
It was very, very quiet.
“I think she was just thirsty,” said Bingley.
“Oh, that’s lovely,” said Hurst. “And considering I’m always here, and I’m always full of blood, and—”
“Stop making it about you,” said Bingley to Mr. Hurst.
Mr. Hurst set the cards down. “Oh, of course. How shortsighted and selfish of me to be concerned about dying.”
“Really, Charles,” said Louisa. She sat down next to her husband. “You must know I would never let Caroline touch you, John.”
Hurst glanced at her and then at Bingley and then picked up the cards again.
“She did not do this because of thirst,” said Darcy. “She will not admit it now because she wants your protection, Bingley, and she knows if she admits to caring overmuch about me, it will make you jealous.”
“I’m not jealous of you,” said Bingley. “And I think you should go back to London, Darcy. I think if you stay, you and I shall only quarrel.”
“I shall go back to London tonight if I can take her with me,” said Darcy, nodding at Caroline.
“No,” said Caroline. “I’m not going with you.”
“There,” said Bingley. “You see?”
“I am staying then,” said Darcy.
“I won’t touch your stupid human girl,” said Caroline, sulky.
“I don’t trust anything you say,” said Darcy to her. “Maeve was but eighteen years old. She was bright and boisterous and full of life, and you snuffed her out for no good reason.”
“It’s always about them, cor meum,” said Caroline, looking up at him. “But they are all only brief candles that flit out in seventy years. I am the one who is still here. I am the one you must come back to.”
“Have I ever come back to you?” he said in disbelief. “Hell and damnation, Caroline, we had a brief affair centuries ago. It barely lasted three months. You hold onto it for some unknown reason, but I swear to you, I do not.”
Her face twisted, and he would have felt guilty but she didn’t deserve it, not when she had tried to kill the woman he loved.
Wait.
What?
He did not love Elizabeth Bennet.
He backed away, shaking his head, feeling unsteady.
“Why?” said Caroline, her voice full of tears.
“What?”
“What is it that’s wrong with me?” she said.
He looked up at her. “Nothing,” he said in disbelief.
“Well, there must be something or else you wouldn’t have—”
“No, sometimes you simply don’t feel it, that is all,” he said. “I did not feel that sort of feeling for you. I do not know why, but it is just that.”
She drew back, stung.
He sighed heavily. “I am not leaving,” he said to Bingley. “Not unless I take her with me, away from Elizabeth.”
THAT NIGHT, ELIZABETH woke to find Louisa Hurst in her bedroom, kneeling to look into Jane’s eyes, murmuring to her a set of directives.
When the vampire noticed Elizabeth was awake, she shrugged at her.
“You are not charmable now that you have Darcy’s blood in you.
Try not to cause a panic, if you please?
We are not so easily killed, you see, so even if a mob of townspeople comes for us, we shall likely survive, and it will only be a lot of effort on everyone’s part for nothing. ”
“I… I shan’t,” said Elizabeth. “What are you telling Jane?”
“Oh, just releasing her. Had she been going on about how she was supposed to stay with us, that she was ill, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, actually,” said Elizabeth.
“Turned all that off. She should be quite herself now, and she won’t remember any of it.” Louisa smiled at her. “I wish I could help you out in that same way, of course. Would if I could.”
But Elizabeth was glad to remember.
Perhaps glad was the wrong word, for it wasn’t a pleasure, but she would have been stricken to have it all gone, to never remember the way it felt to have Mr. Darcy’s lips on hers, his hands roaming possessively over her body, his teeth sunk decisively into her skin.
Thinking this, she felt a surge of longing go through her, and it was not her own. It was Mr. Darcy’s.
He had felt her longing for him, and he had longed for her in return.
She shut her eyes and lay back in the bed and she shuddered. They were connected in some odd way, were they not? What did that mean?
It took her a while to sleep that night, but when she did, she dreamed of Mr. Darcy again, dreamed of his dark and deep kiss.
The next day, there was a letter, news that they were having a guest coming.
It was her father’s heir, a Mr. Collins, and the way his letter was worded, it seemed to indicate that he might be interested in marrying one of the Bennet sisters.
It would make sense. The estate was entailed and would be passed to him, so it would be polite of him to marry one of the daughters and keep the estate in the family, after all.
It would likely be Jane, Elizabeth supposed, for Jane was the eldest.
However, though Mrs. Hurst had claimed Jane would be back to herself, she was not. Jane was no longer speaking about being ill or staying at Netherfield, that was true, but she was dreamy and quiet, humming softly to herself much of the time, gazing off blankly into space.
Her mother called her name incessantly one evening after dinner. Finally, Jane heard her.
“What is wrong with you, Lord, girl?” said Mrs. Bennet. “Can you not hear me speaking to you?”
“Sorry, Mama,” said Jane. “I was preoccupied with my thoughts, I suppose.”
“Whatever were you thinking of?”
Jane blushed. “Nothing, no one.”
“Was it Mr. Bingley?” said her mother, raising her eyebrows.
“No, of course not,” said Jane in a voice that seemed to indicate it most certainly was Mr. Bingley.
“Hmm,” said Mrs. Bennet, thoughtful.
Elizabeth vowed that she would put a stop to whatever it was that her mother was thinking about or scheming about, because the Bingleys were monstrous blood-drinking fiends.
Though it had been said that Mr. Bingley could marry Jane, she would never saddle her sweet sister with a life like that, no matter how Mr. Hurst seemed to have enjoyed it.
But then Mr. Collins arrived, and she could not stomach the idea of Jane marrying him, and she said nothing at all.