Chapter Nineteen
DARCY WATCHED HER SPIN AROUND AND AROUND, PURE JOY CROSSING her features. Suddenly, he felt the weight lift from his shoulders, and it was all because of Elizabeth. Therefore, he did the only thing he could under the circumstances. “Elizabeth!” he called out.
She recognized the warning in his voice and turned to him. He stood playfully tossing a snowball into the air and catching it once again. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “William, you would not.” She backed away, a hand held out as protection.
“I would, my dear.” He lifted his arm as if to toss the snow at her, and she broke into a run in the direction of the tree line.
His long strides covered the distance faster than did she. With carefree abandon, he launched a snowball, which smacked her shoulder, spraying icy streams down her neck.
He noted when she scooped a handful of snow, but in his chase, Darcy did not expect the densely packed ball that blistered his ear and spattered across his cheek. “You dare …!” he threatened, still advancing.
Catching her in his arms, he swung Elizabeth around. He pretended to drop her just to hear her cry of alarm, and when he set her down, he scooped an armful of snow and dumped it over her head, covering her with frozen flakes.
Elizabeth flicked the cold away from her face with snow-covered gloves and came at him, bent on revenge.
Darcy sprinted to the safety of a copse of trees, darting behind one to hide from her onslaught of poorly formed snowballs.
She circled the tree. “Come, William, we will call a truce,” she enticed.
“Why is it I do not believe you?” He switched directions to escape.
“William, I am getting cold,” she said at last, and dropped the snowballs to the ground in defeat.
Darcy caught her to him, opening his greatcoat to wrap her in his arms. “I apologize. I should have considered as such. I will warm you.” He lowered his mouth to hers, tasting Elizabeth and snow and happiness.
At length, she loosened her grasp and stepped back.
Then he felt it. Snow rained down on his bare head, sinking into his shirt and sliding down his back.
He looked up to see the last of the flakes cascading from a low-hanging bough.
Elizabeth’s laughter taunted him as she sprinted away.
“I will have you, Mrs. Darcy,” he warned.
Darcy’s long legs and knee boots put her at a disadvantage, so she turned on him and frantically threw snow in the air, covering them both in a powdery spray of frosty crystals.
He fought his way through the snowy cloud, grabbing Elizabeth by the waist and dumping her none-too-gingerly into a pile of snow.
“You deserve this,” he asserted, as he unceremoniously fell on top of her, wrestling with her in the snow.
His weight held her down, although she continued to squirm against him.
Elizabeth’s grinding hardened him instantly.
“Surrender,” he said as he pressed harder.
“Never.” Elizabeth shoved a handful of snow into his shirt.
Darcy let out a gasp of surprise and a shudder before catching her wrists in his palm, locking them above her head. “Should I do the same to you, Vixen?” It was the first time he had called her Vixen since arriving at Pemberley. “Would those lovely breasts prefer a cold shock?”
“Only if you warm them for me afterwards.” Elizabeth arched forward, seeking his mouth for comfort.
Darcy brushed his lips across hers. “Woman, what are you doing to me? Such words!” His pulse raced.
“I hope to make you love me, Mr. Darcy.” Her words brought their struggle to a standstill.
Darcy gazed into her eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, and he lost all sense of reason.
“Cease your efforts, Mrs. Darcy,” he whispered.
“I loved you from the beginning of time.” He wondered about the sanity of admitting his true feelings.
What if she does not share my love? He kissed her, parting her lips with his tongue. “What am I doing?” he murmured.
“Kissing your wife. In public.” Her voice was breathy with desire.
Darcy chuckled. “I suppose we will be the talk of the servants’ quarters again tonight.”
“So much for my hopes of being a model of decorum,” Elizabeth observed.
“We have done enough damage to our reputations. We should return to the house.” He rolled from her. Standing, he extended his hand to her, but Elizabeth continued to lie in the snow. “Come, Elizabeth,” he demanded.
“No.” She did not move.
“No?” Confused, he asked, “Why ever not?” He dropped his hand to his side.
She licked her lips in a nervous gesture, before saying, “Because I have not told my husband I am completely and hopelessly in love with him.”
Darcy knew deep satisfaction. He extended his hand again, and this time Elizabeth took it. They walked silently to the house, arms wrapped around each other’s waist. At the door, he turned Elizabeth to him to tenderly kiss her. “You are everything: my world and my love.”
He sat in the Bennets’ parlor, paying homage to Lydia Bennet. Wickham despised such dalliances. He preferred the feast to the hunt. Yet he wanted no one suspicious until it was too late for the Bennets or the Darcys.
“Will you travel with the Forsters, Miss Lydia?” As usual, he held a glass of port. It amazed him no one ever noticed he did not drink.
Lydia frowned in response. “Papa has not relented.”
“I do so hope you attend the ball, Miss Lydia. I wish to claim the first set.” Wickham presented her one of his best smiles.
Lydia batted her eyelashes at him. “You will be in London, Mr. Wickham?”
To entice her, he lowered his voice. “I will be in London if you are, Miss Lydia, and it would give me great pleasure if I might escort you to see the sights. Obvioiusly, the beauties of the city will wane when compared to your fine countenance. If I might be so bold, I would take you driving in Hyde Park or to the theatre. Anything you wish, Miss Lydia.”
Other females would rebuke his forwardness, but Lydia Bennet relished his attentions. Wickham knew wedding vows filled her dreams, but marriage to him would be more than a life-long commitment. It would mean eternal damnation.
“Mr. Wickham, I would entertain your wishes most readily.”
“Then, Miss Lydia, we must convince your father to change his mind. Our happiness depends on it.”
The day the Darcys admitted to their love, the forces holding them changed dramatically.
For Darcy, his need to touch her became even more intense.
For weeks, he cautiously guarded his emotions.
Yet each resolution to ignore his wife disappeared the moment Elizabeth swept into a room.
The recognition of her certain consent tortured his body and his mind.
Lying beside her created a fire impossible to ignore.
The only thing that kept him in check was Elizabeth’s dreams of a family. Although she never mentioned the possibility of children, she flirted with him in the most outrageous ways, never passing up an opportunity to wrap her arms around him or to kiss him.
As such, their desperation to defeat Wickham increased. By silent consent, they set the day of Wickham’s demise as the day they would begin their “real” life. Their need fueled their searching the books she purchased in London.
“It says here,” Elizabeth summarized a passage, “that vampires often have the ability to physically transform. This makes sense. I thought I followed William through the woods, but it was really Wickham.”
“That does not make me feel safer,” Georgiana commented before adding transformation to their growing list.
“Repeat what we have on the list to date,” Mrs. Annesley instructed.
“Does not eat or drink, has the power of the wind, can disappear, carried forward at a great speed, has no reflection, is affected by iron and by holy objects, needs native soil to rest,” Georgiana recited.
Darcy repeated what he learned of Wickham.
“We think Wickham is from somewhere in Northumberland because Lord Arawn Benning’s estate was near Forth, along the Scottish border.
It only makes sense that he and Lady Ellender D’Arcy were close, and if Winchcombe was one of Ellender’s suitors, he must come from the same area.
People did not travel extensively two hundred years prior. ”
Georgiana retrieved another list. “The number of ways to kill a vampire grows. A stake through the heart, cut off and burn the head, pile stones on the grave, place a coin in the mouth, drive a nail through the neck, use a silver bullet. The list goes on and on.”
“If I find Wickham, I will use them all for good measure,” Darcy asserted.
Mrs. Annesley read from the book before her. “Burn the heart, producing a plate of ashes. Mix those ashes with local well water to create a drink to cure those infected by the beast.” She laughed. “Sounds delicious. I still think it best if we apply Mrs. Darcy’s dream to interpret what we read.”
“I dreamed of Wickham before my dream in London,” Elizabeth interjected.
Darcy demanded, “When?”
“The day of the attack at the manor house.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“I suppose it just slipped my mind.”
Mrs. Annesley interrupted, “What do you remember, Mrs. Darcy?”
“I was running through the woods, attempting to escape. Wickham did not run, but he kept pace. The wind carried him forward or perhaps he floated.” Elizabeth looked up at Darcy, ashamed of the next part.
“Wickham bade me come to him, and I could not resist. Then it began to rain, but only on me. Only I was tormented by the wind and the rain.”
Darcy sat down beside her. “Go on.”
“The mud was pulling at my feet and legs, but I reached for where Wickham stood. He waited for me. My body moved without my will. At length, a gigantic deer stepped from the shadows. He had your eyes, William, so I trusted him implicitly. Then he lowered his head, and I caught his antlers. Easily removing them, I charged at Wickham, and the horns pierced his chest. Blood of all different colors poured from him. The blood covered my hands.”
Georgiana leaned closer. “Then?”