Chapter Ten #2
He felt that nearly split his chest in two. He had known she would marry, of course, but to that man, why, it was simply horrendous. She deserved better than the boorish Mr. Collins, who doggedly applied to Lady Catherine for advice on his every move.
The bond flared back, Elizabeth reacting to his reaction.
This was staggering, the strength of it, but he supposed he’d been so very overcome that it only made sense.
He had to excuse himself from Georgiana, claiming the sudden onset of illness, for he was too distraught at the thought of Elizabeth’s impending marriage to stay and continue to exchange pleasantries with her.
He had not taken a carriage, for he liked long walks on the London streets at night, so he walked back towards his house in the darkness, thinking of Elizabeth with that man.
He could hardly bear it. It seemed a crime for her light to be extinguished by that man’s heavy bluntness.
Then he thought of the fact that she would have to go to bed with him and that was too much for him.
He had thought of Elizabeth’s marriage to a man, of her eventual deflowering, in a hypothetical way, and it had always involved her being desperately in love with that man, a human man who could walk in the sun with her and give her children and grow old with her.
His imaginings of it had been desperately jealous.
He had never considered, never once, that she would be trapped in an unpleasant marriage.
But looking at it, he could see that she had little choice in the matter, that there would be all manner of pressure from her family to marry this man, so that their estate could be preserved.
This way, upon her father’s death, Elizabeth’s mother and any of her unmarried sisters would not have to be turned out of their home.
It all made a great deal of sense from a practical perspective.
But he couldn’t let her marry that man.
He turned down an alleyway, seeking a tavern where he’d been feeding lately.
He had only fed on men since leaving Elizabeth, not wanting her to feel any kind of jealousy, even though he supposed he’d had his experimentations with men, long ago.
The business about being turned by a Roman soldier hadn’t come about because he’d not allowed that man certain, erm, liberties, after all.
But even then, as a human, he had not been the sort who preferred men to women, as he had always liked them both the same, and now, he was never roused by men at all.
Of course, he would have said, before Elizabeth, he wasn’t roused by women either.
The point was, he wanted feeding to be about blood and nothing more. He did not wish her to have to endure anything through the bond that would be too painful for her.
His way was to find some man stumbling out of a tavern, drunk, strike up a conversation with him, walk a ways, get the man to look into his eyes and then charm him to accept a bite and to forget it had ever happened.
He did the same thing that night, feeding briefly, and then he went home.
He wished to go to her now.
He knew he could not.
He could likely ride on horseback to Meryton before sunrise, he thought, but he would have nowhere to stay if he did so. He could go to Netherfield, if he asked Bingley for permission—Bingley would likely grant it. But then Caroline would know of it, and that would mean her jealousy was renewed.
He should like somewhere else entirely to stay, and that would prove difficult.
He would need to make all manner of plans.
An inn might do if he brought the right things to cover the windows, but innkeepers were often nosy about things of that nature, and they often asked too many questions about people who kept to their beds all day and were awake all night.
An inn was a great deal of trouble.
Could he somehow entreat Bingley to keep it from Caroline?
Ah, he could, and Bingley might even agree, but he would probably end up telling her, anyway.
Bingley was badly gone for Caroline, truly, even though she treated him with disdain much of the time.
She was only good to Bingley when she wanted something from him.
Darcy had watched the dynamic between them for too long.
He could simply arrive at the house and demand to be seen to, and the servants would see to him.
However, they would send word to their master.
Unless he went armed with a great deal of gold, he supposed. He could likely pay them to stay quiet and keep his presence there concealed.
But by this time, he had been thinking on it for too long, going back and forth, and it was too late to set off. He would, however, leave immediately tomorrow night, and he set about telling his staff to make accommodations for him.
He had one moment to think it over, to wonder if he were doing the wrong thing, but then he did not care anymore. He knew, deep down, he’d been waiting for any excuse to go to her.
ELIZABETH HAD BEEN engaged for nearly a month now.
Mr. Collins had asked if she minded if they simply went through with it as soon as the banns could be read, because he had already come to visit here, and he said it would be so much less trouble than a long courtship with his traveling back and forth from Kent for an extended period.
Less trouble for him, she supposed, but she agreed to it, not having any reason to delay, not truly.
Though she was about to be married, there was not much cheer in the household.
Jane had been seemingly crushed by the disappearance of Mr. Bingley, and now she seemed a bit confused as to why Mr. Collins had skipped over her to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth tried to explain that it must have been their mother’s doing, but Jane said that no, it was Elizabeth herself, that men wanted her in a way that men did not want Jane.
She cited the difference between Mr. Darcy’s affections and Mr. Bingley’s as proof.
“Mr. Darcy was ever so enamored with you.”
“He was not,” Elizabeth said tartly. “Because he left, just as your Mr. Bingley did.”
But anyway, it was probably true that they were both well shut of those fiends.
Elizabeth tried to tell herself this, anyway, but she had a difficult time feeling as if anything could possibly be good at all.
Perhaps she was better off without Mr. Darcy, but why did being better off feel so numb and blank in the way that it did?
Nothing mattered anymore.
Mrs. Bennet assured Jane that someone else would fall in love with her, that she was a winsome and pretty girl who turned heads.
But Jane seemed listless in the wake of it all, and Elizabeth did not think that Jane was the same as she had been before the vampires.
Somehow, when she was charmed, she never quite recovered, and Elizabeth did not know what it was.
However, she was much the same, she supposed.
They were both pining for something, an unearthly something, a dark and dangerous something, and now regular life was simply not enough.
She saw Mr. Wickham once or twice when she walked into town with her sisters, but he did not speak to her. He was engaged with Lydia and the others, who were chattering gaily, and Elizabeth had little to say these days.
Whatever curiosity she’d had about Mr. Wickham, it seemed to have been doused along with everything else within her. She could not muster the energy to put questions to him or to study his reactions.
The one time they did speak, he only said, in a low voice, it was a good thing that the vampires had gone, and she inclined her head as if she agreed.
Sometimes she tried to think of her life, stretching out ahead of her, as Mr. Collins’s wife, but whenever she did this, she shrank from it, unable to accept that it was really happening.
So, instead, she lived her life in a muted, trancelike state, each day flowing into the next, time marching on.
The night that there were pebbles striking her window, she thought she was dreaming it. She dreamed of him sometimes, dreamed of his coming back for her.
When she got out of bed and saw him down on the lawn, peering up at her, she still thought it a dream.
It was only when she was down on the lawn and he had her by the shoulders and he was shaking her, saying, “How could you consent to marry that man?” that she knew it was not, in fact, a dream.
She gazed up at him, dazed. “You’re here.”
He let go of her. “Oh, don’t answer that. Obviously, I know why you did it. You have a duty to your family, you have a responsibility. It is not about you. It is about the good of everyone. I know about such things. I have duties and responsibilities as well.” He shook his head at her.
She shrugged at him, and now she was finding some thread of emotion, and it was fierce. “This is what you wished for me. You wanted me to get married, have a normal human life. I don’t see why you’re displeased.”
He let out a noise in the back of his throat, one of disbelief.
She started to walk, not waiting to see if he would follow her. “Why are you back now? It is done. The wedding is next week.”
He fell into step with her. “You don’t wish to marry him, though.”
“Oh, this is something that matters to you now? My wishes? I thought you were so ancient and wise that you simply knew better than me about everything.”
He sighed. “Elizabeth, please. Do you wish to marry him? You can’t be in love with him.”
She gazed at him askance.
He let out a guffaw. “Tell me you aren’t in love with that man.”
“What if I were?” she said.
He sputtered. “Fine, if you are serious, then I suppose I shall leave you to it.” But he didn’t go anywhere. He kept pace with her.
“Oh, do you have some plan to stop it, then?” she said. “Truly?”
He stopped walking. “Oh, dear. I suppose I hadn’t really thought this through, had I?”
She stopped walking, too. “Why are you here, Mr. Darcy?”