Chapter Thirteen #2
“I shall,” she said.
“Oh, and for that matter, no one in the Matlocks or the Darcys or any of your relatives have met her either,” said Bingley. “I overheard a conversation with Colonel Fitzwilliam, who is in town and is supposedly close to you, and he did not even know you had gotten married.”
Darcy scratched the back of his head. “I take your meaning. I shall remedy this.”
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Elizabeth was surprised when she was summoned by a servant to greet her visitors, who were in the sitting room. She had not conversed with anyone except servants during the day in quite some time.
She left the letter she was composing to her sister Jane to go down to meet her guests.
There were two people there, a smiling man with a crooked nose and a girl who seemed young but was a bit taller than Elizabeth herself, with a shy smile.
The man said, “This is all highly irregular, but we received a missive from Mr. Darcy bidding us come, and he said we would have to conduct our own introductions, so we must see to it ourselves. I am Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s cousin, and this is his sister, Miss Georgiana Darcy.”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth, smiling brightly, “it’s so wonderful to meet you both. I have heard so much about you.” Well, she’d heard about Miss Darcy, anyway, but not the colonel. “I am Elizabeth Darcy, his wife. Please do make yourselves comfortable and I shall ring for refreshments.”
They settled in and had a bit of awkward small talk, establishing where everyone was from and what they all thought about the weather and if they’d done much to celebrate Christmas.
And the colonel said, “Well, you don’t look as if you’re wasting away, though I understand he engaged Mr. Adams to look at you, and Adams himself said he was frightened my ‘cousin’ was going to kill you. But you seem in good health. You know, of course, he’s not my cousin.”
“I do,” said Elizabeth, looking away, feeling herself flush.
“Apologies,” said the colonel. “But I know we were only asked here to keep up this ruse of his, that he is human. And all of us here know he is, in fact, not human.”
Elizabeth looked at both of them and then nodded. She was still blushing.
“Richard?” said Miss Darcy, furrowing her brow. “You seem a bit out of sorts.”
“Do I.” The colonel was sarcastic. “Well, here I am, being ordered about by the demonic ageless thing pretending to be your brother so that no one suspects he is going to murder this lovely young lady he’s swindled into marrying him. Why would I be out of sorts?”
Miss Darcy’s eyes widened.
The colonel sighed heavily. “Oh, Georgiana, perhaps I oughtn’t say this in front of you.”
Miss Darcy squared her shoulders. “I am sixteen now and preparing for my own Season in a month or so. I am quite old enough to hear anything at all.”
The colonel looked from his cousin to Elizabeth and then back again.
“All right, perhaps you are. After all, it is you who may be harmed by this if he doesn’t end up killing her.
” He looked back at Elizabeth. “Has he told you his plan for you, madam? Does he plan to give you Miss Darcy’s lands or properties, because when he stepped in to pretend to be Mr. Darcy, it was with the understanding that he was only a steward until such time as Miss Darcy could be capable of taking charge of her own inheritance.
But now he has all manner of legal sway, and he is Mr. Darcy for all intents and purposes, so if he wishes to do our family harm—”
“He would never,” Elizabeth broke in, certain of this. “He is a very honorable sort of person. If you knew him, you would understand this about him.”
“But has he spoken to you of what he intends for you?” said the colonel.
She shook her head. “No.” Even though he’d said that thing about giving her children, the ones she was going to have with some lover or other that she was going to take, lands and money, and she didn’t know where he thought to get that from.
“But my understanding is that he and I will live here, in this house. I cannot think it is easy for him to reside many places, given the way sunlight affects him.”
The colonel nodded slowly.
“And,” said Elizabeth with a little smile, “he is not going to kill me.”
The colonel looked up at her. “No, perhaps he is not. He has been associated with the family for a long time and he has been nothing but good to us, I suppose. In all that time, however, until you, he’s never wanted anything for himself, never used any of his resources for his own gratification.
Of course, looking at you, perhaps I understand it. ”
She found herself blushing again, shaking her head at him. “You are a flatterer, are you not, colonel?”
He smirked. “Perhaps, I suppose. I like to make pretty ladies smile anyway, and if that makes me a flatterer, so be it.”
“He is rather ruinously drawn to me, I admit,” she said. “But it’s not because of my beauty, rather some strange magical quirk to the way my blood smells to him, or tastes, or I don’t know. It’s all quite confusing. You, on the other hand, sir, must see that I am but ordinary.”
“Indeed, you are not that, Mrs. Darcy,” he said, and he was still smirking a bit. Despite his crooked nose, there was something appealing about his visage when he smirked.
She checked herself, a bit horrified. How could she be finding anything appealing about other men when she was Mr. Darcy’s wife? She had not thought of herself as that sort of person.
“What do you mean, ruinously?” said Miss Darcy with some anxiety quite plain in her expression.
Elizabeth shrugged eloquently. “I know not how free I should be with either of you, I must say.”
“Quite free,” said the colonel. “We are tied to him now, and we cannot get extricated from the other without causing each other damage. You may not worry that we shall work against him.”
“Yes, but you do seem to wish to,” said Elizabeth, tilting her head to one side.
“No, no, only if he moves against Georgiana,” said the colonel.
“He is very fond of her,” said Elizabeth. “He speaks of you, Miss Darcy, with a great deal of tenderness and says he thinks of you as a sister or even a daughter. I cannot think he would do anything if it were not in your best interest.”
“But,” said Miss Darcy, “what if your interests, Mrs. Darcy, and mine, are at cross purposes?”
“Well, I shall be sure to look out for you myself,” said Elizabeth. “Anyway, I know not, but I cannot think there will be any concern. He cannot father children, after all, so it is not as if he and I are going to need to take your inheritance for me or our progeny.”
“Right, right,” said the colonel thoughtfully. “Yes, I am worrying for nothing, I think, am I not?”
“You are indeed,” said Elizabeth.
The conversation turned again, to more pleasant topics. Presently, the colonel asked Miss Darcy if she might play for them, and the younger girl sat at the piano and proceeded to play and sing like a songbird, with a clear and sweet voice.
Elizabeth was quite free with her praise, and it was well deserved, for Miss Darcy was very talented in that respect.
She extended an invitation for them both to stay for dinner, so that they could see Mr. Darcy as well, and Miss Darcy seemed willing but the colonel said they must be leaving, so they did not.
When her husband woke, she relayed the concerns of the colonel, and Mr. Darcy took all of that in stride, saying that the colonel worried for no reason at all, that he was bound to protect the Matlock family, and that he would do exactly that.
“I fear I have made a mess of your very ordered life,” said Elizabeth.
He smiled at her, indulgent. “Perhaps so. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He drank from her that night, only a little, and then he stopped.
She was sitting on his lap on a couch, and she lay her head on his chest and piteously begged him to taste her again.
It had felt so nice and she did love it so, not only because of the sensation of it, but because of something else, because of being something he needed and wanted so badly, because of being his guilty indulgence, because of being the thing he wanted so very desperately.
But he said they must not. He held onto her, running his fingers over her spine, and told her they must grow used to only drinking a bit of her blood each night and work up to such time as he might feel comfortable having her in his bed.
Then they could be locked up for an entire day together again, which he longed for, saying he missed her desperately for the times they were separated.
“But I must make sure I can trust myself with you, my love, my Lizzy.”