Once Marguerite was sure her nephew was gone, she asked Lizzy how everything went on their wedding night.
“Fine,” Lizzy answered and said no more, but Marguerite continued to look at her as if waiting for some horrific confession. “Truly, everything was fine.”
“I am glad to hear it,” she said, putting her hands over Lizzy’s, “because my husband nearly put me through the headboard, but we worked it out. When we first got married, he was actually very considerate, and I have often wondered what would have happened in our marriage if I had been a little kinder. Maybe he would have held off sleeping with other women longer than he did. But I wasn’t, and he didn’t, and he’s dead.
“Now, you don’t have to worry that I am going to keep you away from William. After we finish our talk, I shall go to Jeanne’s room, where I shall stay until after you leave tomorrow morning. Hopefully, in the spring, you will come back for a visit, but there are a few things I want you to know about William as a man and as a wolf.” She plunged right in.
“First, it is important that you differentiate between the two natures. If it is the middle of the lunar month and William is in a bad mood, it has nothing to do with his being a wolf, so don’t start making excuses for him. You should treat him no differently than any other annoying man.
“The other thing I want you to think about is William’s ability to know what everyone is feeling. It tends to make him overprotective, especially where Georgiana is concerned, and you can help her by not letting him hover constantly, especially since she will soon be coming out. For yourself, this ability to know everything about you might prove to be disconcerting. Women are not used to men being attentive to our needs, but there is a way to get around it.”
“Really?” Now Lizzy was very interested. Most of the time, she did not mind Mr. Darcy knowing what she was thinking or feeling, but every minute of every day was a bit much.
“The strongest sense for a wolf is his smell, so you have to introduce other scents to confuse him. If you use lavender water everywhere you sweat, it makes it a lot harder for him to figure out what you are thinking or feeling from your own scent.
“Second, wolves have superior vision, which is important in hunting, and you also need to keep in mind that he can see in the dark. So if you are thinking about getting out of bed during the night to hide his birthday gift, he will see where you put it.
“Now, this is the important part, so pay attention. It is the combination of smell and sight that allows him to know what you are feeling, so if you do not want him to know something, use the lavender water and do not look at him. I would suggest you keep your needlepoint basket handy. In that way, you will be looking at your hands, and he will not get suspicious. Putting a sachet of potpourri in the basket would not hurt either.”
“How do you know all this?” Lizzy asked. Yes, it was true that Aunt Marguerite had known that her nephew was a werewolf from the beginning, but she doubted that they had spent enough time together for her to draw such detailed conclusions.
“Do you know about Wilkolak, the doctor who lives in Edinburgh?”
“I have heard his name mentioned. I believe he does research on the werewolf population.”
“Yes, that is true, but he also meets with the Council to update them on his findings. About five years ago, Darcy asked if I would host a Council meeting here. The doctor is now in his fifties, and it would be helpful if he did not have to travel as far as London. After he had reported to the Council, we had a nice long talk while the others turned their attention to business matters.”
“Business matters?”
“Yes, it takes a lot of money to keep up these Council houses and to feed and house those werewolves fleeing the Continent. For those who cannot afford it, they also pay for passage to North America, and the three Council members have all their travel expenses paid because they are constantly on the go. William is a big contributor, and I give them two hundred pounds a year myself. But to get back to Dr. Wilkolak. Before he returned to Edinburgh, I told him that the next time he had to meet with the Council, he should bring his wife. She is a she wolf, and she was already one when he married her. In fact, she saved his life. Everything I know about werewolves, I learned from the Wilkolaks.”
“Mrs. Wilkolak saved the doctor’s life? How did she do that?”
“Thirty years ago, he was traveling the Great North Road on his way to Edinburgh when he was attacked by highwaymen. They beat him up and left him for dead on the side of the road. It was a full moon, and Jenny Giffords, who lived on a nearby farm, found him and lay down beside him to keep him warm. At daybreak, she went back to the farm and returned with her father and a wagon. While he was recovering, they fell in love. He went to Edinburgh and continued on with his medical studies, but then he turned his attention to finding a cure for his wife. In his search, he has studied hundreds of wolves, and he knows everything there is to know about them, including that one werewolf immediately recognizes another.
“One day, the Wilkolaks passed the Earl of Nordland, who was getting out of his carriage, and Jenny Wilkolak and His Lordship looked at each other, and that is all it took for them to recognize what the other one was. He arranged to meet with the pair of them, and Jenny said that once he uttered the words, ‘I am a werewolf,’ he began to cry. The poor man had been a wolf for five years and thought he was the only one in Scotland. After hearing what Dr. Wilkolak was doing, he agreed to fund all of his research, and it is on his estate where the wolves have their gathering in July. He is gone now, but his son continues to provide money for the program and to preserve the property for the wolves.”
“And that is how the Council got started?” Lizzy asked.
“Yes and no. There was already a patchwork of smaller councils in place, but once they got Nordland’s support, they were able to actually go out and find other werewolves and bring them into the community. But let us get back to your situation because I know William is pacing the floor waiting for you. Dr. Wilkolak said that as much as he loved his wife, he found it unsettling to have her know everything about him, so he started experimenting. For example, when he wants to concentrate on something that he does not want his wife to know about, he cooks the evening meal because it throws Jenny off the scent. He always wears scented powder to confuse her sense of smell, and when you meet him, you will see he still wears a powdered wig. He added that the way he gets around her visual acuity is to look out the window while they are talking, so that she cannot see his eyes, or to be writing something while she is talking to him.
“Getting all of this to work will take time and practice, but the longer William and you are together, the easier it will become because you will know him better. Now, I have a present for you.” She went to a chest and took out a bottle. It was lavender water. “You will have to be clever about this because you do not want him to figure out what you are doing, but no man should know all there is to know about a woman.”
“Yes, I agree. A woman’s nature should be a mystery to a man.” Lizzy pulled the top off the bottle and put some lavender water behind her ears, and with a smile on her face, she said, “We shall see if this works. I certainly hope so.”
***
“You smell pretty,” Darcy said as Lizzy came into the room.
“Your aunt wanted to give me this.” She held out the bottle of lavender water for him to see.
“That is all she wanted?” Darcy asked, doubting it very much. You do not chase a groom away from his bride of two days so that you can give her lavender water.
“No, she wanted to tell me that if you are a grouch, it has nothing to do with your being a wolf. It has everything to do with your being a grumpy Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
“That’s it?”
Lizzy went to the window and pulled back the curtain. “Will, come here. You can see the man in the moon.”
“Yes, the two of us will
soon be together,” he answered while slipping his hands around her waist.
“It will be Nell, you, and the man in the moon,” Lizzy said, correcting him. Oddly enough, Nell’s presence was a comfort to her. She did not like to think of him as a lone wolf.
“Oh, yes, I forgot about Nell.” The idea of being with Nell instead of his wife was a decidedly unattractive prospect, but he needed to talk to her about Monsieur Reynard.
Lizzy turned around and started to untie his neckcloth, and he responded by unbuttoning her dress. After slipping it off of her shoulders, he traced the outline of her neck with his tongue. She immediately responded to him, and he took her by the hands and walked backwards with her toward the bed.
After they had made love and Mr. Darcy had fallen asleep, Lizzy lay awake smiling. She was thinking how fortunate she was to have such a thoughtful and giving man as her husband, and his desire to please her was evident while they were making love. For her, the intimacies of the marriage bed had proved to be a pleasant surprise. All the old wives’ tales she had heard, and even Jane’s rendition of her wedding night, had proved to be untrue—at least for her. But there was a second reason she was smiling. Her very first effort at creating a distraction to overcome Mr. Darcy’s superior senses had been successful. When she had walked to the window, he had been unable to look into her eyes, and so he had failed to notice that she had avoided answering his question about his aunt. So the werewolf in Fitzwilliam Darcy could be got ’round, and that was a good thing to know. On the other hand, when she did want him to know something, that was easily done as well. Lizzy was beginning to think that she might have the best of both worlds.
***
When Lizzy awoke, she found her husband gone from their bed. This was becoming a habit, one she hoped to break once they got to Pemberley. Since Mr. Darcy said that he wanted to leave the first thing in the morning, she wondered why he had not awakened her, and when she looked at the mantel clock and saw that it was ten thirty, she nearly panicked. Because of the late hour, it was unlikely that they would be able to reach Pemberley by dark. But when she went to the window and opened the drapes, she understood why he had allowed her to sleep so late. Snow was falling, and no one was going anywhere. It looked as if Mr. Darcy would experience nightfall at Ashton Hall.
After performing her morning ablutions, Lizzy was about to ring for a maid when her husband walked in, and right behind him was a serving girl carrying a tray. After the girl left, he came to Lizzy and kissed her.
“I had hoped to serve you breakfast in bed,” Darcy said to his bride. “I assume you have looked outside.”
“Yes, I see that it is snowing.”
“We will have to remain here until it stops, and then Mercer will decide if we may leave tomorrow, which depends on whether the temperatures remain above freezing.”
Lizzy was unhappy with the idea of not getting to Pemberley in time for nightfall, but she did not want Mr. Darcy to know that. “Since we are delayed for at least one day, how shall we spend the day, dearest? A sleigh ride perhaps?”
“No, I do not think we should go outside at all. It is a soft slushy snow, and we will get soaked. Since Metcalf has not yet arrived with our luggage, we have nothing to change into.”
“That is true. Well, let us see what is here in the room. There is a volume of Walter Scott’s poems on the mantel. Would you like for me to read aloud to you?” Darcy shook his head. “Shall we invite your aunt, sister, and Mrs. Brotherton to play cards? All right, no cards. What if we go to the drawing room? Georgiana or I could play a tune on your aunt’s spinet.” Darcy continued to reject all her ideas.
“What about charades? Compose riddles? Sing carols?”
Darcy shook his head at every suggestion.
“If none of these appeal to you, what do you suggest we do?” Lizzy asked in an exasperated voice.
Darcy pointed to the bed.
“We cannot spend all day in bed!” Lizzy said, shocked. “What will your sister and aunt think if we remain closeted in our suite?”
Darcy picked his wife up, cradled her in his arms, and then carried her to the bed. After he lay down next to her, he whispered, “They will think we are newlyweds.”
Chapter 35
With a nearly full moon to light his way, Mercer checked on the conditions of the road that ran outside the gates of Ashton Hall. Because the temperatures had remained above freezing, the snow had turned to slush. As a former coach driver, he determined that there was a good chance that they could reach Pemberley with a few hours to spare if they were on the road by four o’clock in the morning. So at three o’clock, he knocked on his master’s door to let him know he thought that they should attempt it. Darcy agreed. If it was necessary for them to stop, there was a Council house between Ashton Hall and Pemberley where the others could spend the night, but it was Darcy’s preference to be home in time for nightfall.
When Darcy went back inside their room, he found Lizzy was already getting dressed, and she told him that she would go wake Georgiana and Mrs. Brotherton. She, too, wanted to be at Pemberley in time for Mr. Darcy to prepare for nightfall. With everyone moving apace, an hour later, they climbed into the carriage.
Because of their hasty departure, Lizzy would be unable to say good-bye to Mr. Darcy’s cantankerous aunt. In addition to being lively and unpredictable, it seemed as if Aunt Marguerite was the keeper of the family’s secrets, and she looked forward to returning to Ashton Hall in the spring. As Mercer drove down the tree-lined drive, Lizzy looked out the carriage window and saw a light in the turret window, and although she could not see Lady Ashton, she knew that she was wishing them Godspeed.
“How long do you think we will be on the road?” Lizzy asked her husband.
“The journey is usually between six and eight hours, but the conditions of the road will slow us down. There is also an incline that will require that we walk in order to lighten the load. So let us say ten hours and that will leave me plenty of time to prepare.”
Lizzy was not reassured. Who knew what the conditions of the road were farther north, and Darcy seeing her anxiety sought to put her mind at rest.
“It is not necessary for me to be at the manor house in order to transform. The Granyard property runs to the south of my estate, and the Rutland property runs south of that. Because Lord Granyard keeps a pack of hounds and is a good friend of the Duke of Rutland, he has asked that Rutland not allow traps or spring guns on his property. So there are no worries there. Additionally, as lords of the manor, we three are responsible for a twenty-mile stretch of road from the manor houses, so I can assure you that once we reach the Rutland property, you will see that the roads are in excellent repair.”
This information provided little comfort. Elizabeth had not given any thought to the awful devices that landowners and gamekeepers used to keep poachers and trespassers off their properties, and she said a silent prayer that they would reach Pemberley at Mr. Darcy’s estimated time.
Once they reached the incline, the four passengers got out and were greeted by the songs of several chickadees in the branches above them, and this gift brightened the mood of the travelers.
“The incline marks the southernmost boundary of the Granyard property,” Georgiana said, and she put her arm around Lizzy’s shoulders. “So now we have no worries. We will arrive at Pemberley with time to spare. Let us walk quickly so that we might get there all the sooner.”
After the passengers returned to the coach and as they made their way through the snow-covered Derbyshire countryside, Darcy said, “I hope you were not expecting a grand welcome. With Mr. Jackson and Mrs. Bradshaw still in Hertfordshire, Mrs. Reynolds is the only member of the senior house staff at Pemberley. I do not think I mentioned to you that it is a Darcy tradition to spend Yuletide in town, so most of the servants are put on half pay and they go home to their families. Even when we are in residence, we keep to t
he first floor, as the public rooms are very difficult to heat and are always cold.”
Lizzy could testify to the chilly public rooms. During her November stay, she was rarely without her shawl and frequently found herself standing in front of the fireplace.
“Since we are so close to nightfall, I would like to keep our arrival as subdued as possible,” Lizzy answered, and she squeezed Darcy’s hand.
“But we shall have a grand welcome once the servants return,” Georgiana piped in. “Everyone will want to meet the new mistress of Pemberley. Knowing how considerate you are, I am sure you will try to remember everyone’s name, but it will take time as there are so many of them.”
Since they were discussing the servants, Darcy decided it was a good time to tell Lizzy that Ellie could not serve as her lady’s maid. “I know you are disappointed,” he said, after seeing her expression, “but your attendant must be someone from the community.”
“I am very fond of Ellie,” Lizzy replied.
“It is important that you be able to speak openly when you are in your bedchamber. That would not be possible with Ellie. While I was in Herefordshire, I found two ladies, both in their late twenties, who I think would serve you well. They are French but speak passable English.”
“But Ellie will think she did something to displease me.”
“I know you like her very much, but Mrs. Reynolds made it clear to Ellie that her attendance on you was temporary and would last only as long as your visit. No promises of a permanent position were made, but knowing that you would be concerned on her behalf, I have asked Mrs. Bradshaw to begin training her as an undercook.”
“Ellie is to work for Mrs. Bradshaw? But Mrs. Bradshaw is so…”
“Yes, she is. But if Ellie chooses not to marry and to move up in service, this will be her way of achieving that end because if she can work for Mrs. Bradshaw, she can work for anyone. However, until you choose a lady’s maid, Mrs. Brotherton will assist you.”
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