“Truly?” she said with unseemly delight. “At my age?”
“Your false modesty does not become you, Miss Austen.”
Inside the house, a bobbing light indicated that one of the maids, waiting up for their return, had come to open the door.
Jane took Raphael’s hand, and the light fabric of her gown brushed lightly against him as she stepped down. “God be with you, Raphael.”
She went inside the house quickly so he would not see her weep.
“I have a headache,” she told Eliza. “Pray unlace me and let me sleep.”
“Oh, what a shame. Were there many grand people there, miss? And did you dance? Miss Cassandra said she thought you might, but—”
“We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.” And she was burdened more by the knowledge that she would never be able to tell anyone about this bittersweet night of farewells.
Chapter 17
Jane woke to the patter of rain on the eaves and the loud monotonous braying of one of the donkeys in the yard. She pulled the sheets over her head and feigned sleep as Cassandra stirred and stretched, the bed creaking.
“Oh,” Cassandra said, a long sigh of sleepy reluctance. “Are you awake, Jane?”
She made a slight noise into the pillow.
“That donkey is such a noisy fellow.” More rustling and creaking, and Jane knew Cassandra sat on the edge of her bed. “Are you feeling well this morning?”
“Quite well.” Jane gave up the subterfuge of sleep. She turned to see Cassandra at the washstand, splashing water onto her face. “Did you stay long last night?”
“Not much longer than you, after we heard Anna had left with you. I must see how she does; poor thing, to become unwell at her first ball. I tapped on her door when we came home, but there was no answer and the room was quite dark, so I did not like to disturb her.”
“I don’t understand. Anna didn’t come home with me.”
There was a splash and a thud as Cassandra dropped the soap into the bowl and turned to her. “Why—one of the party—Mrs. Cole, I believe—told us she had left with you!”
Jane threw back the bedclothes, ran to the other end of the house, and flung open the door to Anna’s bedchamber, revealing an empty room, the bed still neatly made. She turned and banged on Martha’s bedchamber door, pushing it open to reveal Martha in a frilled bedcap blinking at her from the bed.
“Where’s Anna?” Jane demanded.
“Why, she’s in bed, poor girl. We agreed not to wake her. I am so glad you were able to bring her home—”
Jane turned and ran back to her room. Cassandra, in the act of flinging on a dressing gown, looked at her with alarm. “She did not—she is not there?”
“I thought maybe you had been misinformed, that the Papillons or some others we know brought her here. But her bed has not been slept in. I fear the worst.”
Cassandra sank onto her bed. “What shall we do? I shall send for James—wait, Jane, what is it you do?”
For Jane had dropped to her knees to retrieve her weapons and men’s clothes from beneath the bed. “Don’t send for James,” she said. She flung a pistol onto the bed and heard Cassandra’s squeak of fear.
“But—” Cassandra turned her face aside, blushing, as Jane stripped off her nightgown. Her fingers splayed over her face, she gasped, “What—what are you doing, Jane? Surely those are not—Jane, that is wicked, it says in the Bible—”
“A pin, if you please.” Jane, wearing drawers and in the act of binding her breasts, held out a hand.
“But—but why?” Cassandra handed her a pin, warm and moist with sweat. “Oh, I cannot—is that—where did you—”
“I’ll explain later.” Jane dropped the shirt over her head and sat to pull on her woolen stockings. Despite her fear, she wondered how Cassandra would react if Jane had the time or care to add that third, masculine stocking. Cassandra meanwhile shrank into the corner of her bed, hugging her knees, staring at Jane with horror and fear.
Neckcloth hastily knotted, coat on, feet thrust into boots, Jane loaded the pistols.
“How—how did you—” Cassandra whimpered.
“I shall be out for a while,” Jane said. “Pray tell our mother and Martha that they must stay home. I hope I shall return with Anna and no harm done.” She placed the pistols inside her coat and tied her hair back, before dropping the hat onto her head and running downstairs.
As luck would have it she met Jenny with a tray, bringing some clean plates back to the dining room. At the sight of her, the maid shrieked, and plates shattered on the floor. All would be explained later—there was no time to comfort the girl, who cowered among her broken crockery, screaming of robbers and rapists.
Jane ran outside and into one of Edward’s tenants who helped with the outside work. He looked at her with alarm and grabbed for a pitchfork. “What are you about, sir? Sir, stop!”
Jane dodged away from him, amazed that for some reason he would address a robber or rapist as “sir”—it must be the clothes, she concluded—and reached for a bucket that she bowled at his legs, sending him tumbling to the ground. Sharp pain jolted through her canines as though her body, Damned and human, held memories of other fights, other dangerous situations. At the bottom of the garden she surprised herself by vaulting over the stile and laughed aloud at the sheer joy of it. And then the walk across the meadow, the grass wet and darkening her boots, the familiar, homely huddle of Prowtings ahead, smoke trickling from the windows. Off in the distance a few birds twittered, cowed by the rain, and a dog barked. It was a normal early morning in the village, a morning like hundreds of others, except today a peace had been destroyed, and Anna, her beloved niece, was a victim of that betrayal.
Honor demanded she approach Duval first—she had no doubt it was he—even though she might put herself in deadly danger. Your honor as one of the Damned, you mean. For certainly one of the respectable Austen ladies would not stride through the fields, dressed as a man, two loaded pistols inside her coat, thinking of honor and retribution. Pray God Anna was safe still, not violated or injured, or created against her will.
She approached the stone wall, now sleek and dark with rain, the plants clinging to the crevices as rich as green velvet and studded with raindrops. No one lurked behind it; she half expected to see one of les Sales lunge at her. Instead, a rabbit disturbed by her approach sat frozen, a dandelion dangling from its mouth, before dashing off into the shelter of longer grass.
The soles of her boots sounded quietly on the flagstones of the path. She had no doubt she was observed, although, because of the early hour, the house was shuttered and silent. She lifted and let fall the heavy iron knocker of the door, her other hand resting on one of the pistols.
Inside, someone stirred and the door opened. The footman who answered the door must be one of les Sales, for an air of misery and defeat hung around him. At the sight of her, he became en sanglant, as if to try and assert some sort of strength.
“I’ll see your master, if you please,” Jane said.
He nodded and stood aside to let her enter. She strode past him, not bothering to hide her weapons and pushing her hat into his hands.
“I apologize for the lack of grace among our staff.” Duval’s voice came from the staircase. “And you’ll forgive me, I’m sure, for my state of undress. It is rather early, Miss Austen.”
He descended the stairs slowly, the silk dressing gown he wore over his breeches and shirt billowing behind him like a gorgeous dark red cloud.
She waited, although every instinct she had urged her to attack. She was sure he knew it, for what else could cause him such amusement?
“I regret I’m disturbing you,” Jane said.
“It is always a pleasure to see you. But let us go into the parlor. There should be a fire there.”
The sullen footman opened a door, and Duval bowed, ushering Jane inside the parlor where so often she had spent happy hours in her calls to Prowtings.
“Dear me,” Duv
al said, looking at the dirty, cold hearth. “Will you take some coffee, ma’am? I suppose it is too early in the morning for wine, or anything else stronger.” A flash of canine as he spoke; a warning.
“No, sir. If you’ll be good enough to send for my niece, I’ll be on my way.” She hooked her thumbs into the fall of her breeches, allowing her unbuttoned coat to swing clear and reveal the pistols.
“Your niece. And what makes you think she is here.”
“Pray do not evade me, Duval.”
“My, for a lady so determined to resist Damnation, you are certainly fierce.” He took a step toward her.
“My niece, sir.” She stood her ground. Even though she was armed, he had the strength and speed and ruthlessness of the Damned.
“Very well, she is here. But have you considered that she might be here of her own free will?”
“I have little interest in your methods of seduction, sir. She must come home with me.” Oh, pray God Anna was not created. If this was merely a matter of Duval’s casual lust, she and Cassandra and Martha could and would cover up any scandal and deny rumors. To all appearances, Anna’s honor would remain unstained, with no child or disease to result from a liaison with the Damned.
“Have you considered she may not want to see you?”
Jane shrugged. “It is natural she should feel some shame, even if you cannot, sir.”
“My dear Jane, I wonder how long it will be before your hand drops to that pistol—yes, you are barely aware of what you do—and you send me to hell.”
“I wonder, too, and I do not believe I gave you permission to use my Christian name.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am.” He bowed and left the room.
The familiar, ordinary sounds of a house coming to life in the morning broke the stillness: voices downstairs, the clatter and clangs of a kitchen stirring into wakefulness, footsteps in the hall and on the stairs. Someone was frying bacon, and outside, a man whistled.
She strolled to the window and unlatched the shutter, letting a shaft of early morning light into the room. The whistling man, carrying a scythe, passed by, leaving in the air a thin blue trace of smoke from his pipe.
The door to the room opened and Jane turned to see Anna, pale and dazed, clinging to Duval’s arm. She wore a day gown that was slightly too large for her, doubtless borrowed from one of the inhabitants of the house. He escorted her to a chair, bowed, and left the room.
“Aunt Jane?” Anna blinked.
“Yes, it is I. How do you do, my dear?”
“Oh, well. Very well.” A small, secret smile hovered around Anna’s lips.
Jane took the chair next to hers. “We were somewhat concerned that you left with your friends.”
“I beg your pardon,” Anna said. “I thought they had sent word. Maybe they forgot. What time is it? I feel half asleep, and quite weak and foolish.”
“You know why that is, do you not?” Jane said.
“Oh, too much dancing and excitement and staying up too late, and . . .” Anna blinked. “Mrs. Cole has been so very kind.”
“And what of Duval?”
“He has been most gentlemanly. He . . .” Again Anna’s thoughts drifted away.
Jane placed her hand on Anna’s wrist. She stank of Duval, of blood—Jane tried to ignore her sudden pang of hunger—and her face held the sated, foolish look of pleasure of one who had been thoroughly dined upon. She removed her hand as she received Anna’s half-forgotten memories, pleasure and wonder and confusion; this was all too intrusive.
Arousing, too. But she forced that unworthy thought from her mind and considered practical matters. If Jane were to persuade her to come home, Anna must be revived. But Duval might not oblige, and in that case Jane must and would carry her across the fields.
“Why are you wearing men’s clothes, Aunt Jane? I know it is wicked and against all that the Bible says, but you look very handsome.”
“Thank you, my dear. I try and look upon it as the sartorial equivalent of eating roast pork.”
Anna gave a faint smile. “Would you like some tea, Aunt Jane?”
“I think not. You and I should get back to our cottage in time for breakfast, I think. We’ll be there in a few minutes and drink our own tea. You may help me make toast.”
Anna’s expression of gentle amusement did not change. “I don’t believe so, ma’am.”
“But I thought making toast was an occupation to which you were most partial,” Jane said. “And there is Martha’s jam, remember.”
“No.”
Jane gazed at Anna, wondering how to reach her. She had no doubt Duval mastered her; her instinct was to grasp the young woman’s shoulders and shake sense into her, though she doubted it would do any good. But she needed something to shock sense into her niece, to make her aware of the danger and impropriety of her situation.
“This is a very comfortable house,” Jane said, keeping her voice gentle. “I am glad they have been kind to you. You remember its usual occupants, Mr. Prowting and Miss Lizzie Prowting, of course; they always ask after you. Now, that china shepherdess on the mantelpiece is one of Lizzie’s favorites.”
“It is pretty,” Anna agreed.
Jane, with a silent apology to Lizzie Prowting, drew a pistol, cocked it, and aimed. The shot was tremendously loud in the room, echoing from the high ceiling.
Anna screamed and leaped out of the chair, fragments of china tumbling from her gown.
Jane, the pistol tucked into her coat again, grasped Anna’s shoulders, and saw, with a guilty shock, that a splinter of porcelain as sharp as glass had pierced her niece’s cheek. She made her voice firm and kind. “I am sorry to injure you, my dear. I did not intend that to happen. You must come home with me now!”
“You hurt me!” Anna whimpered, but her eyes were clearer. Some of that dazed, pleasured expression had faded.
“Come.” Jane tugged at her arm but was far too aware of the trickle of blood on her niece’s pale cheek, its slow bloom and slide toward her neck.
“Delicious, isn’t she?” Duval said. He stood at the doorway, en sanglant. He too stared at Anna’s blood.
“Don’t touch her!” Jane moved to block his path.
His action was so fast she barely registered his blow until she landed with an ungainly thump a few yards away, the side of her face stinging and tender and one eye already swelling closed. She stood in time to see Anna in Duval’s arms, his slow lick to cleanse the blood, his breath to close the wound.
“Well?” Duval said. “You are not needed here, Miss Austen.”
Her teeth stung, and hunger stirred within her. “Anna,” she said. “Oh, Anna, my dear, come home with me.”
But Anna stood within Duval’s arms, her head resting on his shoulder, a look of immense satisfaction and peace on her face, her eyes fluttering closed.
“Go,” Duval said. “Go, or I shall create her as you watch.”
“You would not dare,” Jane said. “Besides, as Creator, you could not be her lover.”
“Times are changing, my dear Miss Austen.”
“Indeed. Once the word of the Damned was sacrosanct—you have changed that.”
“But I have you to thank for that, ma’am. You see, your suggestion that I bring les Sales into my household was quite clever, but you forget that once our servants were our armies. It amused me to be the benevolent peacemaker for a while—a very short while, I admit.” He looked at Anna in his arms. “I really don’t know whether I should create her or keep her for entertainment. What do you think?”
Jane drew her other pistol. “Release her.”
“You won’t fire. You know I can move faster than you, and you wouldn’t want to shoot your beloved niece. Your carelessness with your first shot would have scarred her beauty had I not healed her. You may thank me for that. Leave, Miss Austen.”
“You are unmannerly, sir.” She hoped her comment would wound him—after all, the Damned revered good manners—but Duval merely laughed.
&nb
sp; “It’s unmannerly to point a loaded pistol at your host, Miss Austen.” He released Anna back into her chair and lunged at Jane. She saw him coming and fired, but her shot went wide. He pinned her to the floor, his face close to hers, and sent the pistol spinning away, smoke still rising from the barrel.
“You fear metamorphosis,” he whispered. “You’d sacrifice your own niece to save your precious soul. Or maybe not. What say I hasten the process?”
She tried to twist away from him, but his strength and weight overwhelmed her; how soon before his scent and beauty seduced her and she succumbed to his power?
“Do we have a bargain? You or her, Jane?”
Chapter 18
Duval’s breath was hot and compelling on her skin. “It won’t hurt, Jane. You remember what it feels like. You may pretend you’re a dried-up spinster, but I know your true nature. I want to help you, Jane. Cease your struggles. Become the creature you truly are.”
How easy it would be to sink into his embrace; she tried to pray, but his laughter mocked and echoed in her mind. If she could not call to God, she could call to her Creator, but Duval thwarted her cry for help.
William’s washed his hands of you, Jane. He can’t hear you. He was never truly your Creator for he abandoned you once and does so again.
He laughed and scraped his canines down the length of her neck, touching his tongue to her hectic pulse, and she softened and stretched beneath him, ready to surrender. She trailed a languid hand down his body, reaching between them—
“Christ!” Duval choked out the blasphemy and rolled away from her, hands at his groin.
Jane leaped to her feet and retrieved her pistol. She probably wouldn’t have time to reload, but she could use it as a weapon or a missile. “You forget I was taught to fight in an ungentlemanly way, Duval. Immortality is no protection against twisted cods.” She reached out a hand to Anna. “Come with me, my dear.”
“No, Aunt,” Anna said. “Oh, poor Duval, what did you do to him?”
A half-dozen livery-clad men and a couple of women in print dresses and caps, one holding a broom and the other a ladle, rushed into the room and surrounded Jane, menacingly en sanglant. Despite the severity of the situation, the absurdity of the broom and ladle made Jane smile.
Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion Page 18