by Sarah Hoyt
Elizabeth managed to find her voice. "And you think Mr. Bingley wouldn't object to this arrangement?"
Mr. Darcy paused in his pacing and stared at her. "What has Bingley to do with it?"
"Well, while I realize it is not a formal connection, as your lover, he might think himself entitled to having a say in your nearest concerns."
"As my..." Mr. Darcy frowned. His hand went back to hold onto the table. "Miss Bennet... did I hear you quite well? Did you say that Charles is my... lover?"
"Oh, Mr. Darcy. It is hardly worth your dissembling. While I was staying at Netherfield, I saw you holding him, in the most affectionate of embraces, in the library and telling him -- very commendably -- to control his urges. However, your fortitude must have eluded you, as I found you both naked in the rhubarb on the night of the ball."
"Naked. Rhubarb," he said. And his lips were twitching most alarmingly, in such a fashion that she thought at any minute the man might start crying. He blinked at her. "You thought..." He cleared his throat, and his voice had a strained quality. "Pardon my asking, Miss Bennet, but how did a delicately brought up young lady come to know of the possibility of such connections?"
She felt a blush climb to her cheeks but she answered, nonetheless, "My father has an excellent library and has never limited my reading. I have read the works of Greek philosophers and the history of Rome."
"I see," Mr. Darcy said. He moved his hand backward, as if to seek better support upon the table. "Greek philosophers. And did you perhaps wonder, Miss Bennet, why in a house with several good beds, even the most desperate and lost of men would resort to a bed of... rhubarb?"
"I... I thought not on it," Elizabeth said, blushing. "But if I did I'd have presumed you'd have thought the risk of discovery smaller upon... the rhubarb."
He straightened himself. His lips were now twisting in a mad rictus that she couldn't quite read. "I see. You are indeed right, we did think that, fools that we were."
Elizabeth's look of shock increased. Why, he was laughing at her! "First you make me an offer designed to offend and insult me, and then you laugh in my face whilst supporting your base behavior! And if this was not enough, if you had not insulted myself and my family in the worst way possible, there is still your treatment of Mr. Wickham to answer for!"
"You take an eager interest in that gentleman," said Darcy, trembling, as his hand gripped the table ever harder.
"Anyone who knows his history would. Mr. Wickham has been forced into a career that he has no liking for, and all because of you. Can you refute that you not only denied him the set of colors that had been bequeathed to him in your father's will, but you also made it so no regiment in the King's army would have him? He was even witness to your shocking behavior while at Cambridge. And still, you have the audacity to ask me to marry you, though you are such a man! Your arrogance and depravity have forged the groundwork of so deep and immovable a dislike for your person that I can honestly say you are the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry."
"And this is what you think of me," Mr. Darcy said. "And I... fool that I am..." He bowed to her. "I beg your pardon for having taken up your time. You've made your feelings quite clear to me, madam. Now I have only to be ashamed of what mine have been." A final flourish with his hand, backward, sent the Chinese vase crashing and failed to so much as make him flinch. "I beg your pardon. Please accept my wishes for your health and happiness."
He stepped out of the room, banging the door behind him with such force that the house shook to its foundations. From upstairs, Elizabeth heard startled screams, and stunned, she scrambled blindly up from her seat, grabbed her bonnet and was out the door, running.
* * * *
Darcy walked away quickly without giving any thought to his direction. He went through the parsonage gate to the park and was soon deep in Rosings' home woods. His initial laugher at the ludicrous accusation that he and Bingley were lovers had died a death so terrible that he was finding it difficult to breathe. The reality of the situation now weighed heavy upon him. She believed him debased, depraved, debauched -- disgusting. And he had thought . . . how could he have been so wrong!
There were times when Darcy truly loved his were capabilities -- loved soaring through the sky upon his dragon wings and playing on air currents in the beautiful silver light of the full moon -- but at all other times he believed himself cursed. Now, after suffering such a scathing rejection, he knew he was thrice cursed. He would never live a day without some fear for his life in the back of his mind, he would never have the love of the one woman in the world he had lost his heart to, and he would never live a normal life -- father a child -- have grandchildren. Would that he had died at birth! It would have been more humane than to be forced to live a life without hope.
She did not love him. Could never love him. She had not, as he had believed, kept the secret of his lycanthrope existence. She had not protected him. Instead she had hidden what she considered a secret too vile to name. His face burned in remembrance of that night and the thought that she could have entertained such . . . outrageous an idea about himself and Bingley.
His heart burned. He was foolish indeed to have fallen in love with her. Her upbringing must have been sadly lacking. How could her father have introduced books with such perverse ideas to his own daughter? That she should see him and Bingley together, admittedly naked, and jump to such a conclusion, when the natural conclusion would be . . . Darcy shook his head. What would the natural conclusion be? Even for a delicately nurtured female. Why, dogs in the street . . . but still, he was a gentleman, not an animal. And so too was Bingley. Surely the thought of weres would come first?
Darcy sat at the base of a great oak and leaned back against the trunk, barely resisting the urge to bang his head against it. He sighed. There was more to his hurt and anger than Elizabeth's rejection of him. He had to admit that it pained him deeply she would think such a thing about him. That he was attracted to men, and not women. It was a cruel blow to his pride, and his manhood. Oh, he knew that in some circles such activities were not frowned upon at all, and he had acquaintances in the peerage who took lovers of their own sex. But he had never had such inclinations, and had never before been taken for a person who would.
But his despair went much deeper than that. He surmised that Elizabeth had believed the worst she could of him -- did this mean that the idea of shape shifting was so incredibly distasteful to her that she had not even considered him quite that degenerate? He had previously thought her sympathetic to his plight as a were, but that, obviously, was an illusion. He threw his head in his hands and ravaged his hair as waves of self-pity washed over him.
And then he realized how pointless all his wallowing was.
She had rejected him, yes. She hated him, yes. But did it have to end there? Was there not a way he could at least reclaim himself in her eyes, so that she did not think poorly of him? Could he not find some means to assure her that he and Bingley were simply friends and that there was a logical explanation for their unorthodox attire that evening. If rhubarb leaves could be called attire. Could he not appeal to her sense of justice that she trust his word in this?
And could he not tell her some small part of his history with Wickham so that she would not be taken in by any more of his lies? She was too poor for Wickham to be interested in marriage, but he knew Wickham usually had something other than marriage in mind and had no compunction when it came to compromising young ladies of virtue. He had to put aside his pride, his dreams and desires and protect Elizabeth from such an outcome.
Darcy took a healing breath and stood up, looking around to get his bearings. He knew not how he had come to be so deep in the woods, but at least he was familiar enough with his aunt's estate to have no problem finding his way back to the house. The pain of unrequited love still burned through his veins but at least now he once again had purpose and direction. He ran his hand through his hair to tidy it, set his shoulders, and strode bac
k in the direction from which he had come.
* * * *
Elizabeth had walked quite a while, not sure how or in what direction until, in a grove, she came across Colonel Quentin Fitzwilliam. Elizabeth curtseyed hastily and was about to turn around, when he advanced towards her.
"Please, Miss Bennet. I have been walking the grove for some time in the hope of meeting you."
Her heart sank on the words. First, she was proposed to by an orangutan. Then by a man drawn to rhubarb beds and the company of his university friends. And now, what was about to befall her? Would she be solicited by the lover of Anne de Bourgh? Could she not elicit any normal love from normal men?
"Do not be afraid, ma'am," the Colonel said. "I merely wish to speak to you."
Elizabeth hesitated. After all, Mr. Darcy had only wanted to speak.
"It is about my cousin, Darcy," the Colonel said. "And... and what you might have heard in the Rosings shrubbery last night."
"What I heard..." Elizabeth shook her head. "What I heard is none of my concern, Colonel. I beg you to believe that I have better judgment than to concern myself with--"
"But, Miss Bennet, you must see that I wish to talk. Anne and I realized... we heard a noise and looked out and we think you might be the solution to our problems."
"Colonel, I hardly think--"
"Please, let me talk. Please, walk with me a while and let me talk."
She really could not respond against such a vehement plea, except perhaps by running off in a most insane way, which she was not willing to do. Not yet. Though the time might come.
Dear mama, she composed in her mind, as she walked beside the colonel. Having rejected the proposal of our beloved cousin, were-orangutan the reverend Mr. Collins and withstood the need to accept a proposal from the scandalous Mr. Darcy, I was bound to succumb eventually. You will be glad to know I am ready to close with Colonel Quentin Fitzwilliam's offer. Myself, the Colonel and his paramour, Anne de Bourgh, shall move into a county estate on --
"You must see, Miss Bennet, that the only hope remaining to me and Miss de Bourgh is that Mr. Darcy will marry. And from what I've seen, you've quite captured his heart."
"Colonel, I--"
"Please, listen. I understand you might be a little hesitant, but I am bound to believe you have some tender feelings for him. After all, having seen him change back from a dragon, you did not then and there denounce him to the Royal Were-Hunters."
"Colonel, I didn't -- change back from a dragon?" Elizabeth's mind caught up with her mouth on a slow arc. The dragon, flying outside her window at Longbourn came to her mind. The dragon. Those eyes. Those amazing green eyes. Mr. Darcy.
"Oh, you don't have to dissemble with me, Miss Bennet. I was there the first time Darcy changed, and my uncle, George Darcy, swore me to secrecy and also to protect my cousin. I will have you know I am very devoted to Darcy. And as such I thought it incumbent upon me to tell you... I know you might have hesitated otherwise, but I should let you know -- Darcy is as gentle and... well, honorable, in his dragon form as in his human form. I have spent time around both, and let me assure you that..."
In Elizabeth's mind the picture assembled of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. Naked in the rhubarb. Jane, naked under her window at Longbourn. The moon in the sky the night of the Netherfield ball. Mr. Bingley's urges. Oh, I've been fantastical. I've been blind. I determined to dislike Mr. Darcy from the beginning and I put the worst of all constructions on his actions.
"Mr. Bingley is a were..." Elizabeth prompted in what seemed to be a lull in the Colonel's speech.
"Oh, you didn't catch him in his other shape? He's a were-dog. In the dark, in certain lights, people might think him a wolf, but he's a were-dog, really. A beautiful hunting dog."
There's another like me I've been running with at night, Jane's voice sounded in Elizabeth's mind. He watched over me when I was recovering.
"Oh, Jane, Jane."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Nothing, Colonel, nothing. Only... my sister likes hunting dogs." She caught the strange look the Colonel gave her and sighed. "I'm sorry. This is all too much to take in. Was it why, then, Mr. Darcy was so broken up over Lord Sevrin?"
"Well, that and they met at university. Bound to. Weres find each other, you know. Icarus Sevrin was... One of the best men I have ever met. It's still hard to believe him dead. It took Georgiana most horribly, you know? She was very attached to him. Partly, I think, hero worship. But Darcy had said if feelings subsisted and if Sevrin still found her the paragon of all virtues when Georgiana turned twenty, they could marry and have his blessing. And Sevrin and Georgiana suited. They are-- were both very shy. We still think Wickham turned him in. For the reward money."
"Mr. Darcy was willing to let his sister marry a were?"
"Why not? The trait is not inherited that simply. We don't know where it comes from in the Darcy family, but it must be an ancestor lost in the mists of time."
My parents were normal. . . .
I beg you to believe I have some reason to be aware of the phases of the moon.
"Are you well, Miss Bennet? You've gone most awfully pale."
"I am well. Just a sudden headache. Perhaps I've walked too far today."
"Then allow me to walk you back to the parsonage."
I've wounded a kind man already suffering under a severe blow of fate. I've wounded someone who hoped only for acceptance from me. I've treated his hopes for the future with scorn.
In her mind, Elizabeth saw the dragon flying free. And those huge, sad eyes. Was she in love with him? She didn't think so.
And yet...
I can't stand the idea of his flying in the world and thinking ill of me.
Chapter Nine
The day went by in a blur. If anyone had asked Elizabeth where she was or what she'd been doing, she could not have answered. It was with some sense of relief that she found they were not expected at Rosings for dinner or even for after dinner entertainment. After dinner at the parsonage, she could go upstairs to the bed and sink into it with a sense of well merited repose.
And yet, sleep did not come. She lay in her bed, looking at the closet door but not thinking at all of the convenient shelves within. Instead, all the images in her mind were of Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy, his face open and sincere, kneeling at her feet asking her to be his wife. Mr. Darcy struggling to discuss his affliction with oblique references. Mr. Darcy laughing at her assumption that he and Bingley were lovers. Mr. Darcy, his face frozen at the sound of Wickham's name. The pain in his eyes at her rejection. His bitter goodbye.
Vivid images ran through her mind of his lean, naked body gilded by the moon, in that rhubarb patch the night of the Netherfield ball. Then there were memories of the dragon -- powerful, sensuous, brilliant in the dark sky - his eyes filled with longing and loss.
Most of all, through the night, Elizabeth's mind gave her a dispiriting picture of her own shortcomings. How could she have misjudged Mr. Darcy so? How could she, with all her experience sheltering dear Jane, have not connected all the clues she had been given to the obvious conclusion- that Darcy and Bingley were weres? Instead she had jumped to instant dislike of him because she had chosen to take offense at his comments at the assembly - comments of a private nature that she'd had no right to listen to at all. It was too easy to misconstrue clandestine information, especially if one's vanity was hurt by it. She admonished herself again and again for being so insupportably shallow.
Still, she realized through the long night, that she had no idea what her true feelings for Mr. Darcy were, or his for her. Oh, she had no doubt he hated the sight of her now, but why had he even wished to marry her? He had said that his feelings for her were violent, enough to disrupt his control over shifting. The only other time he had mentioned his feelings was to say that he need only be ashamed of what they had been. But, in truth, what had they been? His cousin the colonel had said that she had captured Darcy's heart, but Mr. Darcy had made no mention of that. The word lov
e had not passed his lips.
So, why had he wished to marry her, despite the fact that with his affliction marriage could, potentially, put his life in danger? She thought back upon all that he had said. Things that made no sense at the time now struck her strongly. ". . . you penetrated my secret and did not in any way . . . And did not denounce me . . . I can rely upon your kindness and goodness . . . a wife who understands me and who is willing to overlook my... eccentricity."
Somehow, he had come to believe that she could be trusted to be a supporting wife, honoring his secret and protecting him from discovery. This due, no doubt, to the fact that she had not reported him and Bingley immediately upon finding them naked in the rhubarb - something that he had believed could only be interpreted in one way. And also the compassion she had shown in all the discussions of Lord Sevrin's sad fate.
Was that all? Was Mr. Darcy's life so bereft of understanding and compassion that these inspired him to propose marriage?
No - he had spoken of violent feelings which disrupted his equilibrium. Had he meant love, then? Elizabeth chided herself for being naive to even suppose so. Her readings had taught her that there were other powerful feelings raised by women in a man's breast that little involved love. And, thinking back upon the scene in the rhubarb, she was afraid she understood them all too well.
Were mutual respect and physical attraction enough reason to propose marriage? It appeared Mr. Dacy thought so. She did not think the worse for him because of that. From what he had said it was very apparent that he desired an heir. It was most natural for him to strive for normalcy when he was condemned to live such an unnatural life.
But now, of course, all that was finished. She did not need to worry about him renewing his offers, which, though her feelings towards him had done a complete about face, were still unwanted. Only the deepest love would tempt her into matrimony.