Luke Venning, for a short time her Consort, was the man she had abandoned for mortality and Cassandra. She had not seen him since their last painful exchange, although even now she would see a gentleman who would remind her of Luke and her heart would give a painful lurch. Just as some features of the Damned remained with her—her lean build and her long stride—so a part of her heart remained Luke’s.
He was deep in conversation with William, but his companion, a beautiful redheaded woman, met Jane’s gaze across the room. Her expression registered surprise and then contempt. With a slow smile she tucked one hand into the crook of Luke’s arm. So Margaret was once again Luke’s Consort.
William and Luke seemed to come to some sort of an agreement; a brief handshake followed.
The dance came to an end with a jubilant final chord, and Anna came to Jane’s side. “Aunt Jane, Mr. Fuller asked if he could dance again with me; and I said he must ask you.”
“Very proper,” Jane said to Anna and Tom. “I believe your reputation will not suffer.”
She certainly didn’t want Anna to have any contact with the Damned who accompanied Luke—they looked almost a different breed, arrogant and dangerous. She watched Anna and Tom return to the center of the room and spoke quietly to Cassandra. “My dear, pray do not encourage any of the gentlemen who have just arrived to partner Anna, even if Mrs. Kettering introduces them.”
“But they are very handsome,” Cassandra said.
“Trust me. I shall explain later.”
“Very well.” Cassandra fanned herself. “I wonder where Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Venning have gone?”
“They have left?”
“Yes, they went through the doorway we came through—Jane, where are you going?”
Bearleader and Creator together. She could not help herself. For a moment the room swam, the sound of the musicians discordant, and then she gathered her senses and strode toward the doorway that led out of the Great Gallery. A footman opened it and she passed through, guided by fierce longing.
A man stood outside the door of the Withdrawing Room where earlier the ladies had gathered for tea. Not a servant, but one of the Damned, and she suspected he was but newly created from his tentative glance at her.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am. You cannot go in there.”
She bared her teeth. Even though she was not en sanglant, it was still a threatening gesture.
He stepped back. “I—they’ll be angry. With you as well as me.”
“Let me pass.”
As he hesitated, she pushed him aside. Whether it was the return of her strength or a natural reticence to oppose a lady’s wishes that made the man hesitate, she did not care. She flung the door open.
William and Luke stood close together in the small extension at the far end of the room, a cozy space with windows on three sides, created for a particular sort of intimacy on view to anyone else in the room. Earlier a harp had stood in the space. The instrument had been moved to one side, and the fire had burned almost out, leaving the room in darkness except for the pools of light created by candles. In the golden light Luke appeared as handsome as ever, his high cheekbones cast into relief.
“And what of her?” William was saying as Jane entered.
Luke shrugged. “She is so altered that I would not have known her again.”
“She—” William looked up to meet Jane’s gaze.
“I do not need the powers of the Damned to know you speak of me,” Jane said.
Luke said nothing but made a stiff bow.
“Jane—”
But she did not answer William’s entreaty, turning and blundering from the room, half blinded with tears, pushing past the doorkeeper.
“Jane,” William said from behind her.
She swiped at her eyes, not wanting him to see she wept.
“I fear you injured him greatly,” William said.
“How very foolish of me. Of course he has all of eternity to nurse his broken heart. Why, near thirteen years must feel like mere seconds to him, yet he proves his inconstancy by becoming Margaret’s lover once again.”
“They are not lovers,” William said with a touch of impatience. “They are in the same household.”
“Why? Why should he leave you to go where she is?”
“I regret I cannot tell you at present.”
“Did you know he would come tonight?”
“I thought it more than likely, yes.”
She turned away, angry with him, and pretended a great interest in the tapestry hanging on the wall next to them. He should have warned her.
“You are right,” he said.
“Pray do not read my mind. It is ungentlemanly.”
He bowed and offered his arm. “Do you wish to return to your charming niece?”
She curtsied in reply, and he escorted her back to the room where the dancing continued. Having provided her with a glass of wine, William left her with Cassandra, Mrs. Austen, and Martha.
“Dear Anna is quite the success!” Mrs. Austen commented. “I hope she will not tire herself with dancing for too long.”
“Oh, we Austens are made of sterner stuff than that,” Jane replied. “Cassandra and I would dance for hours, do you not remember, ma’am?”
“She is such a pretty girl,” Martha said. “And Mr. Fuller seems very taken with her. I wonder if he will ask for a third dance?”
For at that moment the final chord sounded, and the dancers bowed and curtsied. Tom led Anna back toward the Austens, she smiling and pink in the face.
“I daresay you do not remember me, Mrs. Austen.” The lady who emerged from the shadows beyond the fireplace was handsome and beautifully dressed.
“Why—can it be—Miss Venning!” Mrs. Austen shook her hand. “Why, my dear, your hand is so cold. You must sit with us by the fire and warm yourself. These old houses can be so drafty. Jane, it is Miss Venning—you and she were almost inseparable that winter in Bath . . .” Mrs. Austen’s voice trailed into silence, but then she resumed with great good cheer. “And Miss Venning, you remember Cassandra, of course, and this is our friend Miss Martha Lloyd.”
Clarissa Venning gave Jane a cool nod. Whether she and Luke were actually siblings was highly unlikely; Jane had long suspected that the term was used to account for them sharing the same house, just as Dorcas Kettering claimed to be William’s sister-in-law.
Jane returned her nod with equal coolness.
“You left me as well as Luke,” Clarissa said to her quietly. “It was badly done, Jane. And now you return. Will you break Luke’s heart anew? Deprive William of his fledgling once again? Why, Tom!”—with a sudden coquettishness—“Your young partner is charming, but you promised to dance with me, remember. Mrs. Austen, allow me to present Mr. Duval Richards.”
Of course Clarissa would be accompanied by a young man of outstanding beauty, but even for one of the Damned he was extraordinary, with dark liquid eyes beneath a handsome head of wavy hair. An air of romance and danger hung around him, as though, Jane thought with a curl of her lip, he were an engraving of a hero in a gothic romance; he was certainly someone who should not be allowed to dance with an innocent young girl.
Clarissa’s gaze pinned Jane like a specimen on a collection board. Jane could not speak or utter any sort of warning to her family, who fluttered and smiled upon Duval, and gave him permission to dance with Anna. Anna stared at him, apparently entranced, with the pride of a woman who has been singled out by the most handsome man in the room.
“Why, Jane, you frown so!” Cassandra patted her hand. “What a handsome young man. I could not quite discern with which family he is connected, but Miss Venning knows him, so he must be genteel. You know, she puts us dowdy country spinsters to shame, for she hardly looks a day older than when we met her first.”
“No. He’s not genteel,” Jane croaked, but her voice was barely a whisper. Furious at her weakness, and at Clarissa, who was almost certainly the cause of it, she drained her glass and looked aroun
d for a footman to refill it. But William, his hand held out, had returned.
“Come, Jane, you promised me a dance and I have come to claim it.”
Her mother and sister exchanged a glance at Jane being addressed with such familiarity.
Her voice returned. “I beg your pardon, sir. I shall not dance. It is unbecoming to a woman of my age and station.”
Don’t be a ninny. William replied aloud, “I must insist, ma’am.”
“Oh, very well.” She stood and strode past him to where the dancers formed sets. “And I’m not a ninny,” she said over her shoulder.
She had never danced with William before and was surprised at how well matched they were, at the effortless touch of their hands and telling glances. Onlookers, her family included, might well think they were at the very least flirting, if not planning a liaison.
An elderly gentleman tugged them out of the dance, to compliment them on the elegance of their dancing, breathing claret fumes over them, so that when they could escape him they had lost their places entirely. Some inelegant scrambling back into the set righted matters.
As she and William progressed through the dance, they met Anna and the fascinatingly beautiful member of the Damned. Jane did her best to communicate mind to mind how strongly she disapproved of the way his hands lingered over Anna’s and that his ardent attentions to her niece smacked of impropriety. He gave a smirk in her direction and directed his smoldering gaze at Anna’s pretty white neck.
“That young man is most improper,” she said to William.
“He is not young, Jane.”
“Precisely. Do I have reason to fear for my niece?”
“I should think not, in my house, and among friends and neighbors.”
“It is not your house. It is my brother Edward’s.” She watched in annoyance as Duval’s hand lingered on Anna’s waist. “And are you sure he is a friend? I saw how you greeted his party, whom it was obvious you did not expect, or esteem them highly enough to invite them to dine—to dinner, that is.”
“Pay attention, my dear Jane, or else we shall receive no more compliments on the elegance of our dancing.” William pushed her back into place.
“Any savage can dance,” Jane said. “Whereas it takes a being of great subtlety to change the subject so adroitly. But I shall make you talk of it whether you wish to or not.”
He was not someone who smiled easily or often, and she had noticed before how she reacted with a mix of pain and pleasure; that the fleeting moment as he smiled upon her was a tiny speck even in mortal time, the swift passage of a bird flying through darkness back into the light.
“You grow philosophical,” he commented.
“I cannot help it. I have gazed upon the torments of hell and escaped—or so I thought.” She changed the subject. “Do you see how my sister and mother and Martha have their heads together? Doubtless they speculate upon your intentions. They are already most excited that you address me by my Christian name.”
“I wonder that you never married,” William said.
“It is no wonder at all. I am too sharp of tongue and have no money.” She laughed. “I shall have to put up with veiled hints and knowing smiles at home for days about how I danced and flirted with that handsome Mr. Fitzpatrick. Doubtless they discuss how at my age the candlelight is flattering and I have always been at my best when dancing.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Anna and Duval, who continued to flirt openly with each other, and for a moment envied Anna her youthful energy and boldness—or, it might not be boldness, but imprudence.
“Tell me more of Duval,” she said. “If he is to pay my niece such attention, I must be sure he means only a flirtation and nothing more serious.”
“He is my guest and will abide by my standards of propriety.”
His answer hardly satisfied her, but after all they were in public, with plenty of neighbors present, and William had told her the Damned sought to be inconspicuous. She took another glance at her family. Mrs. Austen was deep in conversation with Dorcas Kettering, and Mr. Papillon and his sister, Elizabeth, had joined Cassandra and Martha, doubtless in a discussion of needy villagers.
“Is Fitzpatrick truly your surname? William Fitzwilliam: what a dreadful name. I am not surprised you chose to change it.”
“I have long since ceased to use my real name,” he replied, “but it is not Fitzwilliam, or Fitzpatrick, or even William. We become used to changing our names.”
“And you will not tell me what your real name is.”
He shook his head with a faint smile, and she knew she must be satisfied with that answer.
The dance came to an end, with bows and curtsies and laughter, and women fanning themselves. The musicians laid their instruments down and left the room with a footman, doubtless to quench their thirst with beer. William bowed, telling Jane he must act as host and see that his guests were supplied with refreshments, and she pushed her disordered curls to rights beneath her cap, thinking more wine would be most welcome. Anna must have had the same idea, for she was nowhere in sight.
Jane threaded her way through the crowd to where the Austen ladies sat, but Anna was not there, and a faint uneasiness stirred in her mind.
She accepted a glass of wine and strolled around the room. One of the musicians had not gone with the others but sat replacing a string on his violin. Jane asked him if he had seen a pretty, very young lady and a handsome gentleman leave the room through the nearby door.
“Why, yes, ma’am, I surely did.” He tucked the instrument beneath his chin and plucked the new string, grimacing. “I wouldn’t let any girl I know go anywhere with the likes of him.”
Jane stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind her. There were no footmen present; and the gentlemanly guard who had unsuccessfully prevented her from interrupting William and Luke’s conversation was gone also. She stood listening to the sounds of a house creaking and settling as the night air chilled. A candelabra with guttering candles gave off only a dim light. The door to the parlor was ajar, a little grayish-blue moonlight spilling onto the floor, for by now the fire and candles had burned down. All was quiet.
“Anna?” she called.
There was no answer. She moved forward into the shadows, her step becoming soft and quiet, a huntress following her prey, and turned into the soft welcoming darkness of the hall.
She froze. A quiet sound, a breath, a sigh, came from beyond a closed doorway to her left. The room held no light; only the grayish glimmer of moonlight showed beneath the door.
She closed her hand around the handle and turned it, calf muscles tensing in preparation for the leap forward she might need. No, would need, for the scent of blood, mixed with Anna’s scent of apple blossom, sharp and fresh and young, was strong in the air.
She flung the door open to see Duval on the bed with Anna motionless in his arms, his mouth dark with blood. He raised his head and snarled.
“Let her go, damn you!”
He pushed Anna aside and met Jane’s attack. She went for his throat, but he gripped her wrists and they slid from the bed to the floor, Jane attempting to knee him in the groin. Long ago she’d been taught to fight in an ungentlemanly style, and her training served her well, but she was at a disadvantage against the strength of one fully Damned; moreover, one interrupted while dining, which was much like interrupting a dog at a bone. She broke a hand free and attempted to claw his eyes, but he cursed and thrust her away.
She landed in a tangle of skirts and petticoats, made worse by the heavy satin bedcover, which had been dragged from the bed by their struggle, depositing Anna, still in a swoon, onto the floor. Duval leaped to his feet, reaching inside his waistcoat; he must have a weapon there. A weapon? The Damned needed no such thing—
His arm flashed down and Jane rolled to her side and bit his ankle, ripping his silk stockings. She heard a howl of pain as her teeth slid over bone and skin.
A dull coldness radiated from her collarbone. She was hurt
in a way she couldn’t quite define, injured, weakened. No, more than injured: she was fading in a chill grayness like fog where sight and sound slid away.
Pray for me, Cassandra, I beg of you. Pray for me.
Chapter 5
“Jane! Wake and speak to me!”
She was too tired to respond to that beloved voice, and the vigorous shaking to which she was subjected merely annoyed her. The frozen grayness into which she had sunk was not welcoming, but any response would take too much effort.
“Damn you! Wake!”
“Pray moderate your language, sir,” she managed. “And have I not already been damned once?”
“That’s better. Come, drink.”
The rim of a glass nudged at her mouth, and she opened for wine flavored with the blood that once had been dearest in the world to her, a flood of desire and strength spinning through her body.
She opened her eyes before she said something foolish of love or of her injured feelings and gazed into Luke’s face. To her mortification she lay in his arms, both of them sprawled on the floor among the bloodstained folds of the satin coverlet. As her strength returned she pushed herself away.
He held his wrist out to her and a bolt of excitement ran through her, but he merely wished her to button his cuff again. She did so.
“Anna! Where is she?”
“William has escorted her back to your family. She is perfectly well. Duval had very little chance to dine from her.” His voice was cool.
“And what of him?”
“Oh, he’s perfectly well, although somewhat irritated at your most rude interruption, and he has a torn stocking.”
“Forgive me if I seem unsympathetic to his plight. He must look elsewhere for his dinner.” She disentangled herself from him and straightened her gown and cap.
Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion Page 4