Chapter 3
Darcy looked up from his book as Elizabeth entered the library. His heart lurched at the sight, even as the pressure of the elements receded.
She stopped short as soon as she saw him. “Pardon me. I did not mean to disturb you. I was looking for a book to read.” She stood poised like a doe preparing to flee the hunter.
How could her presence disturb him when he could hardly focus on his book for thoughts of her? He had not spoken to her alone at all yesterday, only a brief conversation in front of the servants about Lady Catherine’s health. Otherwise she had stayed in Lady Catherine’s bedroom all day. Since there had been no change in his aunt’s status, he could only assume she had been hiding from him, a bitter disappointment after the amicability of the end of their discussion of Pepper. “Pray come in and take your pick. I imagine it must be dull watching Lady Catherine sleep.”
She seemed to relax a bit. “I do not mind. It is a novel experience to be in her presence for so long without earning a reprimand of some sort.”
“Rosings does seem unusually quiet without her.” Clearly he still made her nervous. Perhaps he could remind her of their moment of agreement. “I have been hoping to ask you more about Pepper. I cannot recall ever noticing anything unusual about her apart from her eyes and her willingness to travel with you. She seemed like any other cat. ”
“I am glad to hear it.”
He decided to push his advantage. “If she is part fay, what is the other part? A normal cat?”
“I do not know. I have assumed she is not fully fay since everyone can see her, not just children, but she is not an ordinary cat. She can disappear when she wishes. Even I cannot see her if she does not want to be seen.” Elizabeth crossed to the window and opened one pane.
“Some fresh air?” It was a chilly day for it.
“Not exactly.” She studied the view briefly.
A white bird flew past the window and then settled on the ledge. Elizabeth whispered some words to it and held out her finger like a perch. The bird hopped onto her finger.
Astonished, Darcy said, “Is that a white raven? I have never seen one before, much less a tame one.”
“Look closer.” There was laughter in Elizabeth’s voice as she carried the bird towards him. “Pepper dear, do you remember Mr. Darcy? I have been telling him about you.”
Surely she could not believe this bird was her cat!
The white raven stretched its wings, showing a wider wingspan than Darcy had expected. With a soft caw, it took to the air, circled the library once, and landed on Darcy’s shoulder.
Darcy stared at the bird. He had never seen a live bird at such close range. How tiny the feathers on its face were! It tilted its head as if studying him. Was one of its eyes yellow? With a sudden move, it caught a lock of his hair in its beak and tugged it. Hard. Darcy winced.
“Be kind, Pepper. Mr. Darcy wants to help us stay safe.”
This was altogether too strange for Darcy’s comfort. “Are you telling me your cat changes shape?”
Elizabeth smirked. “Actually, I thought I was showing you.”
The bird pecked at his nose. Quite distinctly it said, “Mrrow.”
“Good God!” cried Darcy. Birds were not supposed to meow !
“Pepper, do take pity on the poor man. He has never conceived of a creature as astonishing as you.”
The white raven hopped onto Darcy’s leg and began to preen itself. Somehow it blurred around the edges, and suddenly became the familiar white cat. Pepper licked her paw and rubbed it across her face as if this were a perfectly normal occasion.
In a strangled voice, Darcy managed to say, “I grant you this is not an ordinary cat.”
“No, she is quite extraordinary,” said Elizabeth with some pride. “And vain of her beauty. She likes to be scratched under her ears.”
Darcy followed her instructions, though it took more courage than he cared to admit. “Does she turn into other animals?”
“Not that I know of, but she seems to understand what I say, at least when she chooses to. She often ignores me as well. She knows when I want her. It was not mere chance that she flew to this window. But most of the time she is like any other cat, except that she happens to turn into a bird.”
Pepper began to purr.
He tried to gather his scattered wits. “Is she a phouka, then? In the old stories, cat and raven are two of the shapes phoukas can take, but I thought all phoukas were dark.”
“I have no idea what she is, and she is not telling. I only know she is a very beautiful kitty, aren’t you, Pepper?” She leaned down to pat the cat’s head.
How was he to think clearly with her body right in front of his face, her scent of lavender tickling his nose? “I do not think other mages would suspect her. I cannot imagine anyone thinking to test your cat with iron.”
The cat narrowed her eyes at him, as if to suggest anyone who did so would regret it.
To his regret, Elizabeth straightened. “I hope not. ”
Think. He needed to think of something to say that was not related to the neckline of her dress. “I suppose this explains how she could come to Kent with you.”
“As far as I know, she flew. The basket she was supposed to be in held a loaf of bread.”
The cat stood and arched her back in a stretch. She reached one paw up to touch Darcy below his left ear. Without warning she dug in a claw and scratched him.
“Ouch! What was that for?” Darcy demanded, as if the cat might answer him. And he had liked the creature!
Elizabeth held up her hand. “Wait. Do not move.”
Now the dratted cat put both front paws on his shoulder. Did she expect him to let her scratch him again? But Elizabeth had told him not to move.
Instead of a sharp claw, a raspy tongue rubbed over the scratched spot. How very strange! As he held still, he felt a tiny prickle of power. “She is using magic!” he said accusingly. “What is she doing?”
“The fay call it marking. It tells other fay that she trusts you. Pepper marked me when she first came to live with me.” Elizabeth turned her head and pushed aside her ringlets to reveal a tiny scar beneath her left ear.
The sight of her exposed neck made him dizzy. “It makes no sense.”
“No, but do the fay ever make sense? They seem to delight in being illogical. I do not claim to understand Pepper. I do not even know why she chooses to live with me rather than in Faerie.”
Pepper seemed satisfied with her work and curled up again on Darcy’s lap, but he no longer found it relaxing. He did not like unpredictability and things he could not understand. At least the scratch no longer hurt. Darcy reached up to touch the spot where she had clawed him. The flesh was not even tender, and he could feel no more than a tiny ridge. “Could it be healed already?” he asked Elizabeth.
She peered at the spot beneath his ear, torturing him again with the sight of her chest. “It appears to be. I am sorry she hurt you. She does like you. It is rare for her to sit on anyone’s lap but my own.”
Richard strode into the room. “Here you are. That cat is going to leave fur all over you, Darcy.”
That was the least of Darcy’s worries about Pepper.
“Miss Bennet, the sun is finally out, and I wondered if you would care to go for a stroll in the gardens,” said Richard.
Darcy glared at him, but before Elizabeth could even respond, a familiar hearty voice came from the entrance hall. “Never mind. I’ll show myself in.”
ELIZABETH QUICKLY ROSE to her feet. What man would dare to march into Rosings uninvited? Neither Darcy nor the colonel appeared particularly surprised, though.
A stout older gentleman with long sideburns strode into the room, his gloves in one hand. “There you are, my boy. And Darcy, too, I see.”
Pepper jumped off Darcy’s lap and ran behind Elizabeth’s skirts.
Darcy bowed. “Welcome to Rosings, sir.”
The man tossed his dusty gloves on a side table, apparently oblivious to the fact that a servant would have to clean it as a result. “Catherine has got herself in a spot of trouble, I understand. How is she?”
“Improving slowly,” said the colonel. “She awakens briefly but speaks only nonsense. Sometimes she throws things.”
The older man guffawed. “Sounds like typical Catherine to me! I thought I had best check in on her myself. And is this the young lady who provided such signal assistance when my dear sister was taken ill? ”
Pepper hissed softly.
“Yes, it is,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Miss Bennet, might I have the honor of presenting my father, Lord Matlock?”
The Earl of Matlock, the Master of the Collegium of Mages. And someone had told him about her. Elizabeth caught her breath, her shoulders stiff. Somehow she managed to curtsy and murmur, “It is an honor, my lord.”
He advanced until he was standing directly in front of her. “Well, well, well. You have certainly managed to impress my son. He mentioned you in his letter. It seems we all owe you a great debt of gratitude.”
She could feel goosebumps rising on her arms. “Lady Catherine has been very gracious to me. I was happy to assist her in my own small way.”
Why was he looking at her so expectantly? Surely he did not expect her to offer him her hand. She would never take such a liberty with a peer of the realm! But he had raised his own hand, so she had no choice but to offer hers. What odd manners he had!
His hand closed around her fingers. The tingle of magic prickled her skin. The flavor of it was different from Darcy’s or the colonel’s, or even her father’s, but it was still familiar. It was like –
“You!” she cried involuntarily, pulling her hand away and wiping it fiercely on her skirt. She jumped behind a chair. It would not offer her any protection from a mage, but it was all she had. Her heart pounded with terror.
“Miss Bennet, I assure you that I intend you no harm,” said the earl. “I am looking forward to knowing you better.”
The colonel said, “It is true. He will not hurt you.”
Elizabeth stared at the colonel in disbelieving horror. “I trusted you. I trusted both of you. I could have let your aunt die instead of taking the risk of exposing myself. I believed you when you claimed not to support using binding spells on women, but that was not true, was it? Neither of you could perform a binding spell, so you sent for someone who could. And I trusted you!”
Darcy looked stricken, as well he might. Had he thought she would never learn the truth? And she had told him Pepper’s secret as well. What a fool she had been! And now she would pay the price.
Colonel Fitzwilliam came up beside her. “I did not deceive you. I assure you my father can be trusted. I only told him about you because I knew he would want to hear your story.”
Lord Matlock wore an air of saintly patience. “This is all a misunderstanding. I give you my word as a gentleman that I will not perform a binding spell on you. I never do them. I find them unnecessary. My own daughter has magic, and she is unbound.”
Elizabeth felt trapped. “But you put one on your niece! I recognize your touch. Tell me, was Miss de Bourgh once able to speak in complete sentences? Did she always become lost halfway through a thought? Did she know how to have an everyday conversation before you made her into half a person?”
The colonel was shaking his head. “Anne is not under a binding spell. That is the way she has always been.”
Darcy said slowly, “Miss Bennet was correct about Lady Catherine’s powers. If she says Anne is under a binding spell, I have to wonder if that may be true as well. I do not know who might have performed it –”
The earl held up a hand to silence him. “You are correct, Miss Bennet. I congratulate you on your perceptiveness. The binding spell on my niece is of my making, but it was because of an extraordinarily dangerous situation, quite unlike your own, and there was no other choice short of imprisonment. I did it with the utmost reluctance.”
“It is always with the utmost reluctance, is it not? I would rather die than be bound.” Desperate, Elizabeth glanced from side to side. Escape was impossible, but she had to try. She darted around them, but before she could reach the door, an invisible net halted her in her tracks. She struggled against it with all her strength, but it made no difference.
Darcy cried, “Let her go, I implore you! This is not the way –”
A blur of white fur flew across the room. Lord Matlock gave a roar of pain. “Get this thing off me!”
The invisible bindings holding her slipped away. Elizabeth fled.
“DARCY, HELP ME HERE !” Richard called as he tried to pry off the white cat wrapped around his father’s head. Lord Matlock’s hands flailed at Pepper, but with the cat’s body across his face, he could not see to use his magic – no doubt why Pepper had chosen to attack him there.
Darcy tore his eyes away from the sight of Elizabeth racing across the lawn away from Rosings. He made a perfunctory effort to grasp Pepper’s flying paws. After all, if a shape-changing fay cat was determined to attack his uncle, Darcy doubted anything could be done but to wait for her to stop of her own accord. Richard certainly seemed to be finding the cat’s strength unusual.
“Dammit, Richard!” his uncle swore.
“The more you fight to pull her off, the harder she will dig in her claws,” said Darcy. “Let her go and she will likely run off.” He surreptitiously opened the window behind him.
“Worth a try,” Richard grumbled, releasing Pepper’s fur.
“Ow!” cried Lord Matlock.
But Pepper had taken Darcy’s hint and leapt off. She ran straight for the window, as if aware of what he had done, and jumped out.
“I’ll have that cat shot!” snarled Lord Matlock, blood running down his face from multiple scratches.
“No need,” said Darcy. “She may not have survived that fall.” He leaned his head out the window to watch a white raven winging its way in the direction Elizabeth had fled.
Lord Matlock mopped at his scratches with his handkerchief. He growled at the bloody evidence on the white linen. “That animal should never have been allowed inside this house!”
“Pepper is usually quite friendly,” Darcy said. “She must have thought you were threatening Miss Bennet. She is very protective of her.”
“She is as mad as her mistress! Richard, you did not warn me the girl was a lunatic.”
Richard shrugged. “She has always been perfectly calm until now. She is terrified of binding spells, though.”
“Justifiably so,” said Darcy coldly. “It was a misunderstanding, but I can see why she would misinterpret your intentions. If you give her a little time, she will be able to discuss it rationally.” He had never spoken this way to Lord Matlock before. Now that Elizabeth was safe, he could give way to the simmering anger. How dare his uncle bind Anne and then have the gall to try to force Darcy to marry her?
Richard poured a glass of port from the decanter on the sideboard and handed it to his disgruntled father. “Did you truly put Cousin Anne under a binding spell?”
Matlock tossed back an amount of port that would have made Darcy choke and held out the glass for more. “Had to.”
“Why?” Darcy tried to keep his anger from showing.
“She is too strong. Unnaturally strong. Stronger than me. Stronger even than you, Darcy. Never saw anything like it. Even worse, her affinity was for unmaking, and she was a temperamental child. She unmade half of the east wing in a tantrum. Sir Lewis caned her for it and she unmade him. Yes, you heard me correctly. I can barely unmake an apple, and she unmade a man! She was only nine years old and completely untrained. We gave out that Sir Lewis was lost at sea, buried an empty coffin, and I put her in the tightest binding spell I could manage. No point in trying to imprison her; she would just unmake the walls. Terrifying child.”
“But surely now she is an adult and could understand the consequences –”
“If you had done as you were told, Darcy, and married her years ago, I could have loosened the bindings. You are the only one with the training and the ability to keep her in line if something went wrong. Catherine would have been helpless on her own.”
There was some logic to it, but his uncle would not have come up with the marriage plan out of charity for his niece. It must have been one of his experiments to breed stronger mages. Damn him!
Without a word Darcy strode out of the room.
Richard called after him. “Where are you going?”
“To look for Miss Bennet. Where else?”
THE PARSONAGE WAS THE obvious place to begin. The Collins’s maid admitted that Miss Bennet had been there, but only long enough to fetch something from her room. No, she had not taken her luggage. No, she had not seen which direction Miss Bennet had taken. Yes, she would send word to him when Miss Bennet returned.
It was hardly surprising Elizabeth had gone out again. She would not have wanted to be easily found. But where could she have gone? His first impulse was that she might have sought out the grove where he had often found her walking, but he could not imagine she would choose to be so close to Rosings Park.
Had she made other friends in Hunsford? She had cared for several ill parishioners, but he did not know whom or where. Did he truly know so little of her daily life? He checked the church, although it seemed an unlikely refuge for her. Finding it empty, he set out for Rosings again .
He skirted the study where Richard and Lord Matlock were deep in conversation, instead seeking out Mrs. Collins in Lady Catherine’s rooms.
Mrs. Collins put her finger to her lips when he entered the sitting room. “She is finally asleep,” she whispered.
He had practically forgotten Lady Catherine’s injury in this last chaotic hour. Darcy gestured at the open door. Mrs. Collins followed his direction and he joined her at the top of the stairwell.
“Her ladyship is sleeping peacefully,” she said. “I have had all the fragile items removed from her rooms and replaced them with the old mismatched china used by the servants. That way she can still break things if she wishes, but nothing valuable will be lost.” She obviously assumed he had come to check on his aunt’s condition.
“I thank you for your forethought. My uncle, Lord Matlock, has recently arrived and will no doubt wish to see Lady Catherine at some point.” Darcy hesitated. “He managed to inadvertently frighten Miss Bennet, causing her to flee the house.”
“Oh, dear. That is most unlike Lizzy.”
“It is, but he is the Master of the Collegium of Mages. It is perhaps understandable that he would seem intimidating. I do not believe he meant her any harm, but I can see how she might jump to that conclusion.”
Mrs. Collins said, “Perhaps if you try speaking to her alone, without your intimidating uncle, she might be more willing to listen.”
“That had been my thought. I went to the parsonage, but she had already been there and left, so I will have to wait until she returns. When you see her, would you be so kind as to tell her I spoke to you?”
“Certainly. Perhaps Lizzy should stay at the parsonage now. Lady Catherine is well enough that I do not think Lizzy’s presence here is needed at night.”
“I suppose not.” It would be easier if she had fewer dealings with his uncle, but it would reduce his chances of seeing her. It was the first step to going on to a life without her. An empty, hollow life without her.
And Elizabeth thought he had betrayed her. His stomach clenched into a knot, his throat so tight he doubted he could force out even a word more. He bowed to Mrs. Collins and left. Alone.
“DARCY, DO COME JOIN us,” Richard said genially. “I was just showing my father the spell for curdling milk Miss Bennet taught me. He is going to try it as soon as the girl brings us more fresh milk. Not that being able to curdle milk is particularly useful, but it proves we can perform fay spells.”
“If Richard can do it, that proves almost anyone can perform them,” Lord Matlock said repressively. The scratches on his face were less vivid now. He must have done a healing spell.
“The next time you need a power source, you will not be complaining about my limited ability with spells,” retorted Richard.
Darcy added, “Your talents were very useful when Miss Bennet insisted Lady Catherine had magic, and I said that was ridiculous.”
Lord Matlock harrumphed. “It only goes to reason that she has some magic. Everyone else in the family does, after all.”
“No one else always denied it vehemently,” said Darcy.
“How is Miss Bennet? Any calmer?” asked Richard.
“I could not find her. Most likely she has gone for a walk to compose herself. The servants will send a message when she returns.”
“Good,” growled Lord Matlock. “I need to talk to that girl. Have you found out more about what she knows?”
Richard shook his head. “Very little. She spoke freely about it the day Lady Catherine was injured, but afterwards she became more reticent. Perhaps she is embarrassed by it. ”
“Or perhaps she realized her knowledge had value and should not be given away for free,” Darcy said. Apparently she had taken his suggestion.