Chapter 30 The Events of the Night of 21 May, 18-- #2
I saw Pike take a step toward me. Oh well , I thought. At least if he kills me I won’t have to be anyone’s poor relation. And then I knew no more.
Somewhere beyond the red-black darkness that swirled up to consume me, I felt myself being caught and moved. My stomach tried to lurch, but my body was too weak. I fell deeper under the black, pulsing waves.
I awoke to the scent of dust and hay and animals. I opened my eyes. I lay in our hayloft. Something was tied tightly around my leg.
“Apologize to your mother from me for the loss of her drawers,” said Pike. “Actually, don’t. Rather difficult to explain.” He was lounging about five feet away, leaning against a haystack. “You will live, I trust?”
I winced and sat up. “I-I believe so. Assuming you carry no communicable diseases.”
Pike looked grim. “So that was me, then?” he said, gesturing to my leg. I nodded. He held up the knife, and I flinched. “And this was for me?”
“If it came to that,” I croaked.
He put the knife down, shaking his head. “Oh, Miss Bennet,” he said. “What a mess we’ve made.”
“I-I tried to—”
“You killed me.” He surged forward, his hands caging me in. “And then you tried to do it again. Do not try a third time, if you please.”
I swallowed. It was very loud in the silence.
He sat back. “Don’t look like that, please. You know I do not wish to hurt you.”
“You d-d-don’t?”
“Of course not.” He looked rueful. “Oh, I have been an ass, haven’t I. Pray accept my apologies.”
These changes in mood were too much for me to follow. My blood-starved head pounded. “Pike—what do you want of me?”
“What do I want? If you do not know that, I am even more of an ass than I realized.” He picked up my hand. I flinched, but he held on and raised it to his lips.
“Wh-when I told you to marry me—”
“You were only speaking the desire of my own heart. Ever since you gave it voice, it rings like a perfect chord through me. I want what I have always wanted, Miss Mary. You, body and soul.” Another kiss, this time to the inner part of my wrist. His lips were cold. I jerked my hand away.
“Always?”
He grimaced. “As I said, an ass. You wounded my pride. I convinced myself that what I felt for you was hate. I can see now how foolish I was.” He peered into my face, then sat back, hands raised. “I humbly beg your pardon. I could not have chosen a worse moment to speak. Leave it.”
“Pike—”
“Leave it,” he said, a little louder. “Let us speak only of the problem at hand.”
My head was clearing a little. “The serum worked.”
He tilted his head. “Eventually.”
“It was—more than I gave you before. A great deal more. Much more concentrated.”
“Diluted with chicken, though.” He sighed. “Or perhaps that was not the problem.”
“Habituation.”
From hanging about the apothecary’s shop so often, I had grown to know a little of their art.
Often had I heard Miss Figg complain of the price of treating a longtime invalid—“For,” she said, “the dose that would have eased their pain four times over at the beginning now leaves them still whining for more, saying their pain is not one drop less. Uncle’s books call it ha-bit-yoo-ay-shun. I call it a waste of good poppy juice.”
Pike, it seemed, was already growing habituated to the effects of the serum. “It will take more and more to keep you safe and sane—unless I can devise some other treatment.”
He gave me a remarkably sweet smile. It looked strange on his bloodstained face. “The different serums have different effects, is that right? I suppose that perhaps some combination of them might stretch its effects for longer.”
“I hope so,” I said. “In the meantime—”
“Yes, in the meantime I will be quite at your mercy, I am afraid.” He spread his arms. “Cheer up, Miss Bennet. I have the utmost faith in your ability to solve the problem. I will await word on where and when to obtain my next dose. Don’t look so frightened, dearest. If I must be locked in such a conundrum with anyone, I’m glad it’s you, and I shall do my utmost to help you to feel the same.
” He started down the ladder. “Er, if a simpleton like me may utter one word of advice on the subject—the serum in the chicken was blue, wasn’t it? ”
I nodded.
“Yes, I thought you were partial to that one. Well, do as you think best, but I feel in my bones that we’ll find the red and the black have the most staying power. The black is my own self, is it not? And the red—well, I will not embarrass you with theories about why it nourishes me so well.”
The red was me. I’d have blushed, had I blood enough.
He began to descend again, then paused. He wasn’t looking at me.
“I will see to it that you get the life you deserve, Miss Bennet,” he said softly.
“Pardon my speaking when I promised silence on the subject, but I must say a few words. I see how they all ignore you, talk over you, take you for granted. I need you to know that I see you for the magnificent creature that you are.” His eyes flashed to mine, then away again.
“I always will. No flavor of serum will change that.” He smiled.
“Even death itself could not stop my loving you. No, do not say anything yet. Take your time. Just know that I am here. Longing for you. I always will be. This dance of ours will continue until we give in to it.”
He vanished down the ladder, and I heard him slip out into the night. I leaned my trembling head on my knees.
He was right. In the end, this night had been a success. A famous one. Not only had he proven that his condition was treatable, but he would let me give him the formula I thought best. I could do it. I could.
And then… and then…
And then he would ask me to marry him. And I would say yes.
If the worst happened, I would be nearby, and my dreadful mistake and I could destroy one another.
But I was filled suddenly with a wild hope that it would not be so.
It was as he said. I could find a solution. I could make him good. Make him right .
Make him into the one thing I never thought I’d find—the thing I desperately needed: a man I could bear to marry.
I told my parents I’d gone for an early morning walk and stumbled on a sick fox that had attacked me, and then I’d fallen in the ravine.
It is the sort of unglamorous thing that does happen to me, so no one thought much of it, except to worry when I was almost out of hearing that the wounds would scar and leave me uglier than ever.
And if the wound on my leg looked nothing like a fox’s bite—well, only the apothecary’s nurse looked very closely at that , and she knew better than to tell my secrets.
I was tired, and everything hurt, and I had to pretend otherwise. The worst of the attacks ceased, and Meryton soon forgot them—the wolf, in the telling, became a fox, then a weasel, then ceased to be mentioned at all.
And Pike? He was… good. Mostly.
Quiet, and gentlemanly. There was no overt attachment between us, and he was busy much of the time, making arrangements for his factory. When he was there, I could feel his eyes on me.
The situation remained precarious, however.
He consumed serum as fast as I could produce it; I had to dip into my small savings to get the right blood from Miss Figg.
Her sharp little eyes pierced me like needles whenever I asked for more blood from a particular cook or doctor, but she asked no questions.
Conveniently, the serum of Miss Figg’s blood was as raven black as Pike’s own.
As he had predicted, the red and the black had the most staying power, and it was those and the blue that I relied upon the most. The blue was a constant worry to me, for I did not have an easy source of it at hand.
Still, I insisted on feeding him blue always, despite his claim that it did him less good.
My leg took a long time to heal. I learned to ignore the pain and walk without a limp. Pike acquired Brown’s mill; construction on his factory began.
We found a treatment regime that kept him stable. Still, I realized that regulating Pike’s treatment was likely to be a lifelong endeavor. He would always need me. I would always owe him. There is a word for that arrangement: marriage .
It was then that Miss Darcy came.
This… this is what I could not tell her. The events of that dreadful night—well, I never wanted anyone to picture me that way, least of all her. That night—and my intention that, once he was finally stabilized, I would marry him.
How could I? How could I possibly explain?
If Pike is a monster, I made him that way.
If he can be made a good man, that too must be my doing.
It is not love. It is something deeper and stranger that binds us.
He is a dark, broken creature, and so am I.
We deserve one another. We may even be happy.
That is not the most important thing, however.
What is important is that we will prevent each other from causing any more damage.
And really, why shouldn’t we be as happy as any other marriage?
He is rich; I am clever. I will give him new dyes to sell, and we will get richer.
My foolish little foray into business showed me that no lady can earn her own fortune.
My brains do not matter on their own; if I do not intend to sink into poverty and dependence, I will need some man, and it may as well be Pike.
Perhaps someday the Pike family will be spoken of with the same awe as the Darcys.
No, I do not love him. I will not love any man, though, so in that respect one is as good as another.
It is for the best, I think, that Georgiana has gone.
She made me too soft. Parts of me melt like butter around her, parts that need to be hard as steel.
The world is not the laughing, warm place it has seemed since she came.
Not for me. Georgiana makes me enjoy my own company, but Pike makes me see myself for what I truly am.
I will keep my distance from her in future.
Better for us both.
But oh, I can still feel her kiss on my lips. Quindley, Pike, Lord in heaven— someone please teach me to forget.