Touch Of Night - Chapter One

Sarah Hoyt & Sofie

Blurb: "A world in which neither Bennets nor Darcys are QUITE what they seem to be. Secrets long hidden cast long shadows."

(dna)This collaboration is Sarah's brainchild. Sofie is just along for the ride on her coattails. This is a P&P tale with a difference. Hope you all enjoy it. Blame us both.
Sarah says any typos are her fault, and Sofie insists they are hers. Details at 11 (ra)

Elizabeth Bennet climbed the stairs, the sounds of rejoicing from her mother and younger sisters ringing in her ears. She was filled with trepidation. How would she tell Jane the news? How could she? Oh, it was all very distressing and Jane, the kindest, sweetest sister in the whole world was so far from deserving the dreadful curse she suffered.
She opened the door to Jane's room and found her sister sitting by the window, a notebook in her lap, a pen in her hand. Jane was the most beautiful of the five daughters: curls like spun gold, classical features, porcelain complexion and an elegant figure. Sitting by the window in the small, dark room, she looked like an angel and very far above her setting - the simple country house of impoverished gentry. Jane deserved to be enshrined in a stately mansion and showered with all the riches of the world - but that was never to be - and all because of the terrible accident of her birth.
Jane looked up from her notebook and at Lizzy. Her sweet face held an expression of fear that made Lizzy's heart shrink in her chest.
"What is it, Lizzy?" she said, putting her pen back into the inkwell she'd rested on the windowsill. "Why is mama so happy?"
"Netherfield," Lizzy said, and had to swallow to build up the courage to continue. She knew what a blow her next words would be to her beloved sister. "Is let at last."
Jane gave a small shriek and her beautiful, pale hand went up to cover her mouth. "Oh, no." She moaned. She hunched against the window embrasure, trembling, filtering moonlight casting ghostly shadows upon her stricken face.
Elizabeth hurried to relay the rest of the news. "Kitty and Lydia say that it was rented to a rich gentleman from the North. His name is Bingley. He's said to be very handsome and they find it most impressive that he has a blue jacket. He's due to arrive soon, with a large party. Seven ladies and five gentlemen." She paused and then continued ruefully, “Too many ladies and gentlemen.”
"A large party," Jane said, nodding forlornly, as though unable to command thought for more than repeating Lizzy's words. She looked at the notebook, which lay open on her lap, and then up towards the moon, which was waxing towards its greatest fullness. "Oh, Lizzy, what shall I do? I've been used to having the liberty of Netherfield's preserves and parks. Now I shall be forced to go towards Merryton." She paled at such a terrible idea.
Lizzy could do no more than nod. She watched Jane visibly pull herself together. "And yet," Jane said, smiling wanly, "Mama is so happy."
Lizzy sighed. "With five daughters to marry, any gentleman taking a house in the neighborhood must seem a godsend. For you know that any gentleman in possession of a large fortune must be in need of a wife."
"Oh," Jane said. She jerked out of her hunched position to sit tall and defiant. "I hope she doesn't plan on his marrying me."
"I'm sure she does," Lizzy said. "Since she has five dowerless daughters, and you are easily five times as pretty as the rest of us. I know exactly how her mind works - she plans on you marrying Mr. Bingley, thereby throwing the rest of us girls into the path of other rich men."
"But... Lizzy," Jane said in some agitation. "You know it can never be."
"Yes," Lizzy said, nodding slightly. "But Mama doesn't."
"Oh," Jane said, putting her head down in her hands. "Mama shall push me at him, shamelessly."
"Indeed."
"Oh, Lizzy." Jane's lovely eyes were moist with tears. "What shall I do?"
"When Mama is set upon a course of action, there is not much anyone can do, however I shall do my utmost to protect you," she said.
"As you always have," Jane said, gratefully.
"What else could I do?" Lizzy asked. "Your affliction is not of your making. How it pains me that you have to suffer and hide away in obscurity as you do. You have the heart of an angel, Jane. No one could wish for a better sister. You do not deserve this."
"Oh, Lizzy. It is you who are the angel, always kind and willing to protect me as no one else would do."
"What else would you have me do?" Lizzy asked. "Turn you in to the authorities?" She patted her sister on the shoulder. "Now don't worry too much about Netherfield. We will survive this, as we've survived other adversity in the past. I will do everything in my power to ensure that nothing will happen to you."
"I am very lucky to have you as a sister," Jane said, tears again moistening her lovely dark brown eyes.
The sisters embraced and then Elizabeth departed from the room. She knew that Jane wished to be alone. Jane hated for anyone to see her distress. Lizzy, not feeling equal to sharing the nonsensical jubilation downstairs, repaired to her own bedchamber. Even from the privacy of her room, she could hear her mother shrieking with glee, "And Lydia, you shall dance with Mister Bingley."
Lizzy sat upon her bed, unable to shake the melancholy that was overpowering her. She removed her day clothes and put on her nightgown. True, she could have called on the maid to do this, but she preferred her solitude and had long ago learned to take care of herself - and Jane - in these small ways.
After undressing and putting her clothes away, she slipped into her nightgown and dressing gown, got her silver brush from the dresser and started brushing her hair. While doing so, she walked to the window, threw it open, and gazed out at the devious moon.
It was very close to being full now. People with less internal fortitude than Jane would already be feeling its relentless pull. She looked at the brilliant satellite in the dark sky with near hatred. What problems the moon caused! She wished there were no moon.
At that moment something dark and looming interposed between herself and the moon. Lizzy blinked to refocus, and realized it was a dragon, huge and a luminous green. She blinked again, and the beast had flown closer.
It glided through the heavens with unerring grace, its flight like a ballet performed upon the rising currents. Its body was powerful, sinuous, less reptilian than fluid, as though someone had decanted fire into an animal shape and set it free upon the sky. The metaphor was more apt than not, because as the beast flew closer she could see that its green skin glowed with the captive fire of a million gold scales, flickering and shimmering. And its wings were iridescent, semi-transparent, seemingly made of golden flame, glittering and softly billowing with each movement.
Lizzy became aware that she was holding her breath. She knew there existed were-dragons, just as werewolves and were-tigers roamed the secret shadows of moonlit nights. All of them had, of course, to be killed as soon as they were found. It was ancient law of Britain, dating back to pre-Roman times. Because shape shifters were often dangerous while in their were form, the law demanded they be destroyed. Lycanthropy was the only reason for which British law imposed death without trial. And yet, lycanthropes persisted.
But were-dragons were very rare. Lizzy had never even heard of one outside legend. And she never imagined they would be so beautiful or so graceful. As she watched, transfixed, the dragon flew closer, as though as fascinated by her as she was by him.
It was staring at her with the clearest pair of dark green eyes she had ever seen. She felt as if they were boring into her very being - reading all her innermost thoughts. She pulled the window closed and backed away into her room. When she looked out the window again, it was gone.

Capter 2

After her unnerving experience with the dragon, Lizzie found it hard to go to sleep. It had been such a shock to see a dragon in the neighborhood, but the fact that it had come so close to her window, as if drawn to her, had left her both intrigued and frightened. If it was a were-beast, who could he be? She knew deep within that the beast could be nothing other than were. But why had he suddenly shown himself with such a lack of discretion? And what could he mean by flying here, like that, where anyone looking up could spy him? Surely he knew the law - certain death upon capture. The idea of such a magnificent creature being killed out of prejudice and fear chilled her heart.

It never occurred to her the dragon might be a she. There had been something very masculine to the intent glance of the jade-green eyes in the reptilian head. And her response to them had been the response of a woman to an attractive member of the opposite sex.

Perhaps he was a wild were, she thought. So lost to everything human and to all danger that he was not aware of his trespass. But if he was a wild were...

Lizzy tossed and turned in her bed, half expecting that at any time now she would find her window broken down by a reptilian head, and herself under attack by a powerful, fanged animal. Just because he looked beautiful in flight did not mean he could not bite her in half without effort. She had to remember that he was as dangerous as he was alluring. And he had no way of knowing the sympathies she held for his kind. She rolled over in her bed again, tangling her sweat soaked coverings even further. It must have been quite late when she finally fell asleep because she almost didn't hear the pebbles pelting gently against the window.

Cursing herself for a terrible person, she got up, and opened the window. Jane stood on the path that ran below, looking quite concerned. Also, very cold, as she was completely naked in the autumn pre-dawn. Lizzy looked up at the sky. Only the lightest glimmer of pink touched the horizon. They had a good hour before the servants arose to prepare breakfast. Which was good. This would enable Jane to get at least a little sleep before breakfast. Between that and a furtive nap in the afternoon, she would be almost as good as new.

While she thought this, Lizzy quietly withdrew the rope ladder made from old sheets that she kept hidden beneath her mattress. Fortunately the house couldn't really afford that many servants, so the girls usually made their own beds and turned the mattress in the spring. She could only imagine what a servant would think upon finding the ladder hidden. Doubtless that Lizzy intended to elope.

Smiling at the idea, she secured the ladder to the large wardrobe near the window, then threw it down. Jane scrambled up, very fast, with the practice of years. Once inside Lizzy's room, she took the nightgown and dressing gown Lizzy extended to her. They were doubles of the ones she wore to bed, and they would return to Lizzy's room sometime during the day. This minimized the coming and going between the rooms at night and the chances someone would catch one of them where she wasn't supposed to be.

While Jane dressed herself, Lizzy pulled the ladder up and returned it to its hiding place, then closed the window.

“You were such a long time, Lizzy,” Jane said. “I almost despaired and thought I would have to break into the house and make my way up alone.”

“I'm sorry Jane,” Lizzy said. “Only I had trouble going to sleep.” She wasn't sure she should tell Jane, but then she thought Jane was out there, all night at least a week a month. If the dragon were a wild one, he might very well attack Jane. “Did you see the dragon?”

“No. A dragon? When? Where?”

“Just after I left you, last night. There was a dragon in the sky. He was... Large and... He flew right close to the window.” The thought of it caused a tingle of excitement to run down her spine. Or was it apprehension?

Jane looked appalled. “He must be either very daring or very lost,” she said.

“Or else a feral were-beast, gone insane,” Lizzy said. “I fear for you out there when an unknown being is on the loose. A dragon may very well have vicious propensities.”

“Oh, Lizzy. You know I can't stay indoors these next few days.”

“Nor should you need to. Only beware of shadows in the sky.”

Jane sighed. She was combing her hair and braiding it. “Lizzy, there is another one, out there.”

“Another dragon?” Lizzy asked alarmed. Perhaps what she'd seen was a mating dance, then?

“No, Lizzy, another... another one like me.” Jane looked serious, and blushed a little, as she always did when describing things that happened in her other form. “You know how... Well, village dogs and wild wolves often give chase, but I have ... I'm smarter than they are and I manage to evade them.”

And a good thing, Lizzy thought. She tried never pry too deeply about the peculiar dangers of Jane's condition. She didn't want to ask Jane if she might become pregnant by a creature other than human, but since weres mated with humans - and that's how the line was propagated - it stood to reason they might also mate with their other form. Lizzy shuddered. The idea was completely unthinkable - she cast it from her mind. It was another humiliating danger arising from the unnatural birth defect. Sweet Jane had done nothing to deserve any of the torment that haunted her young life.

She looked on with heightened sympathy as Jane continued, “But Lizzy, yesterday another one pursued me... and I couldn't lose him. It was only with the utmost effort that I managed to return home undiscovered.”

“A werewolf?” Lizzy asked.

Jane shook her head and sighed. “I don't think so. The glimpses I caught were of a regal, spotted hunting dog.”

“And are you sure it wasn't a hunting dog?” Lizzy asked. In her other form, Jane looked like a sleek, golden and elegant wolfhound.

“I am sure, Lizzy. He ... He was too smart to be a dog. I'm very much afraid, Lizzy, that I won't be able to evade him another time. Not that I think he would hurt me. Not as such. But I don't know what his moral fiber is, nor how well he can control himself.”

Lizzy bit her lower lip. “I don't know what to tell you, Jane. I can't lock you in the basement. There are no facilities for it, and a servant might find you.”

“I know,” Jane said. “I wasn't asking you to. I'll just hope that the other one is a gentleman and thoroughly under self-control, in both forms.”

Lizzy sighed. “We'll have to hope that.” But she didn't like trusting so much in the goodness and self-control of others.

#

Breakfast brought yet another threat to the sisters' calm. The family was hardly assembled at the table when Lydia announced, “La, such fun last night. Did you see the dragon in the sky?”

Several spoons clattered to plates. Mr. Bennet looked from behind his newspaper, “Have you been sneaking the claret again, Lydia?”

Lydia laughed. “Oh, Papa, that's so droll. No. I haven't. But there was a dragon dancing in the sky. Do you think they'll send the were-hunters after him? I hear his majesty's were-hunters have golden uniforms with silver braid. I think that would be very splendid. Even better than red coats.”

“Don't speak nonsense, Lydia,” Lizzy said, fervently hoping that only Lydia had seen the dragon - other than Lizzy herself. No one would send for the were hunters on the word of a very silly fifteen year old. And Lizzy knew they couldn't afford to have the were hunters loose in the region. The were hunters always made their investigations during the full moon, and if they came now, they would find a great deal more than a dragon. Jane would be in dire peril. “There are almost no were-dragons. They were pretty much killed right after the were laws came into effect.”

“Lizzy is right,” Mary said. “Let us not forget that these laws were implemented by John Lackland when his brother Richard assumed the form of a lion at court and devoured half the courtiers. King John had him executed and forthwith, parliament passed the wise law that every were, harmful or not will be executed as soon as discovered, for they are not fully human and might at any moment lose control of themselves and fall upon humans, devouring human flesh. In fact, Fordyce himself writes that-”

“Jane, you must eat eggs,” Mrs. Bennet said. “For you are too pale. Tell me you're not coming down with anything for we must have you healthy. There is an assembly tonight, where Mr. Bingley will come and dance, and you must know I mean for you to marry him.”

“He's coming with a large party, I hear,” Lydia said.

“Three gentlemen and five ladies,” Kitty said.

“Too many ladies,” Lizzy said. Her sisters laughed and all talk of weres was forgotten, though Mary looked very upset at being so ignored.

It was one of the rare times in her life when Lizzy felt grateful to her mother and her mother's matchmaking obsession. For the rest of breakfast, they discussed the assembly and the subject of were-hunters and dragons was quite forgotten. Towards the end of breakfast, through combined efforts of herself and Mrs. Bennet, they managed to make Jane eat a boiled egg and drink some warm tea.

#

Despite the insufficient breakfast, Jane was looking lovelier than ever when they left for the assembly. The assembly taking place in the evening and early hours of the night, Jane had always been able to hold off her transformation until it was over. Something for which Lizzy felt they should be very grateful.

The assembly was as it always was every month, except for the ripple of excitement that ran through the crowd. They were all eager to finally see the new resident of Netherfield Park, and the large party he was rumored to have assembled.

When they entered there was a hush, only broken by Lydia saying, “Thank the Lord there are not five ladies after all!” and then giggling loudly.

Charlotte, who was next to Lizzy, leaned towards her and said in a low voice, “The fair-haired gentleman with the agreeable smile is Mr Bingley, and the two ladies his sisters. One of the other gentlemen is married to his older sister, and the other is Mr Darcy. My father tells me that he is very rich - ten thousand a year - and that he has a grand estate in Derbyshire.”

“His sisters think themselves very fine, do they not?” said Lizzy, They were dressed in the height of fashion and cast bored, superior glances across the room. “Which gentleman is the rich friend? Not the portly one, I hope - it would be too sad for all the hopeful ladies in this room to be denied a chance with the tall, dark haired one, though his expression is so very stern.”

“He is a fine figure of a man,” said Charlotte with a sigh. “It indeed would be cruel if he were married.”

“Not that he would look at the likes of us,” said Lizzy lightly.

“You are looking remarkably pretty tonight,” said Charlotte, “so I see no reason for you to suppose that.”

“He has the look of not being well pleased with his company,” said Lizzy. “He must think us all very countrified and provincial.”

It was not long after his arrival that Mr Bingley sought out an introduction to Jane and asked her to dance. Lizzy did not blame him for her sister was by far the prettiest girl in the room, but she was concerned for Jane. She had such a kind heart and gentle nature. If she fell in love it would be dangerous - and Mr Bingley's affable countenance was tailor made to attract her.

As was often the case at local assemblies, gentlemen were scarce. Lizzy had danced a few dances but was now sitting on the sidelines beside Mary, wondering whether she should be happy that Jane was enjoying herself or worried because Jane seemed to show the same preference towards Mr Bingley that he showed towards her. It was unfortunate that Mr Bingley was not more like his friend, who had at first impressed the people of Meryton with his stately bearing and fine fortune, until they had become disgusted by his evident pride and arrogance. He was decidedly above his company, dancing only with the ladies in his party and standing by the wall the rest of the time, conversing with nobody. At that moment he was standing not far from where Lizzy was seated, only to be joined by his friend who came from the dance for a few minutes to talk to him. She perked up at hearing Bingley address his friend.

“Come, Darcy, you have to dance,” Bingley said. “I must have you dance.”

Darcy sighed. “Bingley, I'll never understand your interest in getting so involved in society. For those like us, the more people we know, the greater the chance we'll get caught.”

Caught? Lizzy thought this an odd thing to say and wondered if the two of them were some sort of criminals, or if Mr Darcy alluded in this indelicate way to the possibility of their getting caught into marriage by women he considered their inferiors. Considering Mr. Darcy's obviously insolent pride and self-importance, that was all too likely.

Half amused and half horrified, she listened on, prepared to laugh at Mr. Darcy's obvious pride, but was shocked as the conversation turned to her.

“Don't be silly, Darcy,” Bingley said. “There is no one hunting for us. Lay aside your worries for one night and enjoy yourself! This assembly is exceptionally delightful. In fact I've never seen a pleasanter society or more handsome girls. Some of them are uncommonly pretty.”

“Your partner is the only handsome girl in the room,” responded Darcy, glancing over to where Jane stood waiting.

“She is divine! But there are other beautiful girls as well - why she has a sister sitting behind you who is also pretty and looks most agreeable. Miss Bennet can introduce you to her.”

“Which do you mean?” Darcy asked, and looked at Lizzy. The minute he looked at her, his eyes widened, as if she were... Something dangerous, or perhaps poisonous.

He had uncommonly beautiful eyes, when he looked at her directly. Dark green and expressive, they widened and filled with horror at the sight of her. His cheeks tinged with a red flush. But before she could think very hard about what that might mean, Darcy looked away and said to Bingley. “She's tolerable, I suppose. But not handsome enough to tempt me. I am in no mood to give consequence to females who are slighted by other men - it is bad enough to have to stand here and endure the rest of the evening without you wishing an uncomfortable situation upon me. Return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, you are wasting your time upon me.”

Lizzy's feelings towards Mr Darcy, which had already been less than cordial, were now completely turned against him. She had done nothing to deserve such contempt from him. And the look he had cast her was filled with abhorrence. As if he had sensed some evil within her, or some danger. But she could not understand what it was about her countenance that had disgusted him so. She had always been held to be one of the prettiest girls in the community. He was clearly a strange gentleman, and she was heartily glad not to have been forced into dancing with him. She knew it would not have been a pleasurable experience at all.

She got up and walked across the room to join her friend Charlotte. As she walked she pondered the other comment she had overheard. His concern about mingling in society giving them a greater chance of being caught. Were they, then, not the gentlemen that they seemed? She had heard tell of scoundrels and thieves, men of gentility who had lost their fortunes through gambling and dissipation who came into the country and posed as upstanding citizens only to pull off some nefarious swindle in the community. Were Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy involved in just such a plot? Or were they in hiding because of political intrigue or espionage? Were they indeed traitors to the crown? Lizzy was still mulling these thoughts over when she reached Charlotte's side.

“What is the matter, Lizzy?” asked Charlotte. “Your expression is so very grim.”

Lizzy shook herself and laughed. It would not do to express her suppositions without any proof. “I have just been slighted, Charlotte, and it has cut me to the quick.”

“By whom?”

“Mr Darcy, of all people does not think me tolerable enough to dance with!” she said, her eyes now alight with mirth for above all else Lizzy dearly enjoyed a joke. “He is so proud and fastidious one must be as elegant and showy as those vain peahens he is used to consort with. I am not handsome enough to tempt him! He would not be seen dead dancing with a lady slighted by other men. As if I had the least desire to dance with him myself!”

“Careful Lizzy,” said Charlotte. “Behind your laughter I detect some bitterness of spirit.”

“Do not be foolish, Charlotte. I am merely disgusted with the gentleman's consummate arrogance. I can assure you that he is the last man in the world that I would ever wish to dance with.”

The two friends continued to laugh as Lizzy found many other amusing ways to disparage the haughty Mr Darcy. All the while Lizzy kept Jane within her sights, as her sister danced with every gentleman who asked her. Lizzy's protective instinct was so strong that she could never relax her vigil of keeping Jane safe from detection and the deadly consequences that entailed.

A Touch of Night Chap 3

There was much excitement at Longbourn the next morning. While Mrs. Bennet tried to relate the wonders of the assembly in minutest detail to her husband and Mr. Bennet made totally out-of-context comments from behind his edition of the Times of London, a letter arrived for Jane.

That the letter came from Netherfield threw Mrs. Bennet into raptures, which threatened to be overwhelming. However upon discovering that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley should be dining with the officers and, therefore, Jane would only have the honour of dining with Caroline and Louisa, Mrs Bennet's glee became tempered by distress.

In an attempt to turn this ill luck to her favour, Mrs. Bennet decided her eldest daughter should ride on horseback to Netherfield because it looked like rain and therefore she would have to stay the night.

Jane's look at Lizzy wasn't as anguished as it might have been. The moon had started to wane and therefore her urge to change was lessened and more easily controllable. It was just the hopeless look the sisters were used to trading when their mother thought of matching Jane to someone. All Mrs Bennet's machinations were for naught, due to Jane's condition, and both girls did their utmost to avoid any uncomfortable situations she contrived to place Jane in.

While helping her sister get ready to go to Netherfield, Lizzy reminded her of the dangers of any gentleman forming an attachment for her.

"You have no reason to imagine I would have forgotten," said Jane, who looked very beautiful, with her hair arranged in an upward sweep and flowers woven through her curls. "Surely you don't think me so inconsiderate that I would risk cursing an innocent family with my blood."

"An innocent family indeed," Lizzy said. "Any family should be lucky to have you amid them, no matter what your blood." They had discussed this many a time. They knew, from books and police accounts written in the papers that the curse didn't hit every generation. In fact, just a few weeks ago, a Lord had been arrested in London whose family had never - to the knowledge of anyone living - had a were amongst its members. But the man - Lizzy couldn't help thinking of him as a poor man - had been found in lion form in the middle of Town one night, and had been arrested, tried and beheaded within the week. She shivered at the thought. She would do whatever she had to do to prevent such a fate befalling her sweet Jane. "And there is no guarantee it would show in the children. I'm just afraid of a husband who would not understand your need."

Jane made an impish face, worthy of Lizzy. "Oh, as to that, there is no problem, then. I shall marry Bingley and you shall come and live with us. That way you can be at hand to hide my changes."

"And to teach your ten children to embroider cushions and play their instruments very ill indeed," Lizzy said, and grinned. "Go, and I hope you enjoy your evening with the superior sisters."

"Lizzy, they're not so very bad."

Lizzy stuck her tongue out at Jane, so it reflected in the mirror Jane was looking into. "No, they are far worse. But you'll always think the best of people. So go, because it looks like rain, and though this might mean you get to see your Mr. Bingley, I don't want you soaked to the skin on the way there."

However, as fate would have it, it rained while Jane was on the way to Netherfield, and in the way of such things, Jane, who, in her other form, was fairly impervious to rain, immediately fell ill and had to stay at Netherfield.

Lizzy could imagine her sister's torment and refused to sit idly at Longbourn while her sister was bereft of a friendly shoulder to cry on. Instead, she insisted on walking to Netherfield to visit the very next morning.

She arrived early in the morning and much to her astonishment saw Mr. Darcy in the gardens. He looked tired and disoriented and his cravat was askew, something she found surprising for he had given every appearance of being a fastidious man. This led Lizzy to again consider the conversation she had overheard between Mr Darcy and his friend at the assembly. It seemed almost as if he was just now returning from a night of debauchery.

She hoped to avoid his notice, but the very next moment he looked up. His eyes widened upon seeing her and, she was sure, he stared at her petticoats, which were three inches deep in mud. And though his green eyes remained attractive, even while widened to their extreme extent, she was sure they were filled with disapproval and something more. Possibly contempt. How could he judge her after whatever indiscretions he had come from? Lizzy tossed her head and turned away from him. She walked quickly up the carriageway towards the front steps as Mr Darcy stood, silent and brooding, beneath the overspreading bough of a great oak.

The butler showed Lizzy into the breakfast room, where Mr Bingley and his sisters were still partaking of their first meal of the day. After the initial greetings had been exchanged, Lizzy asked to be taken to her sister, and a maid was summoned to perform this service. Just as she exited through the doorway, Darcy entered from an adjoining salon.

“Mr Darcy!' cried Caroline. “You will never guess who just traipsed in and disturbed our meal!”

“I imagine it was Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” said he, imperturbably.

“How uncouth she is!” continued Caroline, as she wondered at Darcy's accurate guess. “Running all over the countryside and barging in uninvited just because her sister has a trifling cold.”

“It shows sisterly compassion which I find very pleasing!” countered Bingley.

“Yes,” said Darcy, “but does so slight an illness necessitate such lively concern?”

“Not at all,” cried Caroline. “And what a figure she presented! Her petticoats all covered in mud and her hair positively windblown! You would not want your sister to make such a display, would you Mr Darcy?”

He shook his head, and then excused himself and went up to his room. He could not erase from his mind the look he had seen upon Miss Bennet's face when she had spied him in the garden. It was one of disgust. His appearance had indeed been dishevelled, but nothing to what she would have seen if she had happened upon him not fifteen minutes earlier. Then he had been completely naked. He would have to secrete his cache of clothing deeper in the bushes. This morning had been much too close a call.

~

Lizzy sat by Jane's bedside and waited for her to awaken. Her hair was sweaty and brushed back from her face. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyelids fluttered and then opened.

“Lizzy,” she sighed, her voice weak and hoarse.

“Do not speak dearest, just rest. I am with you now and all will be well.”

“He was here, last night,” whispered Jane, her eyes sparkling and feverish. “In my room.”

“Who was in your room?”

“The were that ran with me.”

Lizzy smiled and took her hand. “Oh Jane! He could not come inside this house, let alone find your room. You must have been dreaming.”

“But it was so real. So real. He was beside my bed, watching over me.”

“Your description is more that of an angel than a were,” said Lizzy.

“Lizzy! You, of all people must know that weres are not inherently evil. I believe that even in their animal form they have compassion, just as humans do.”

“Dearest Jane! You have more tender feelings than most normal humans do, but all weres are not like you. Certainly in their human form they are civilised and know right from wrong, but are they always cognisant of their true feelings when under the influence of the moon? And would a the were you ran with recognise you as you are now?”

Jane hung her head. It had been such a compelling idea that she had wanted to believe it, but Lizzy must be right. How would the were have come to her and known her. It was a dream. No more than a foolish romantic dream. And yet . . .

“Do not worry about it,” said Lizzy, stroking Jane's cheek. “You sleep, dearest, and get well. I will be here by your side.”

~

The doctor was called to see Jane and his advice was that she not be moved, though both Lizzy and Jane were anxious to return to Longbourn. Caroline, seeing that she had no choice but offer her hospitality to Jane until she was well enough to return home, invited Lizzy to stay and nurse her, thus relieving herself of the burden she had no wish to take part in. Miss Jane Bennet was a dear, sweet girl, but she and Louisa had better things to do than cater to the wishes of a country nobody.

Lizzy spent the rest of the day with Jane and only went below stairs to partake of the evening meal with the family. Mr Bingley asked after her sister in a most solicitous manner, offering anything that was in his power to provide for her comfort, and even Mr Darcy politely said that he hoped Miss Bennet was feeling better. Caroline and Louisa declared how desperately sorry they were for their friend and then began to speak of the latest London fashions, and Mr Hurst had no time for anything but his food. Lizzy could not return to Jane fast enough. She was so fast, in fact, that she had omitted to bring some new reading material, and the volume Miss Bingley had provided on Jane's night table, Of Witches, Weres, and Warlocks, did not appeal to her in the least.

It was quite late and Jane was at last sleeping peacefully, when Lizzy made the decision to find her way through the slumbering household to the library. She pulled her robe close about her and held her candlestick up high. Silently she followed the corridors to the main staircase and then descended. If she was not mistaken, the Netherfield library was next door to the drawing room. There was a chill draught running through the lower hallways, and as she passed an open door, her candle blew out. She almost stumbled as darkness enclosed her, but after taking a deep breath and letting her eyes become accustomed to the looming shadows, she started forward again. Then she heard a noise - a slight scuffling and an earnest whisper. Light glowed dimly from the open doorway. She stopped, unsure whether to retrace her steps or continue on to the library. The whispers became more distinct.

“Listen to me. You are with me now - let me hold you till the urge passes.”

“I can't help myself. It is strong. So strong.”

“You can overcome it.”

“Darcy - you don't understand. There is a desire that fills me more than ever before.”

“I understand your desire. Do you think I do not have it? But now is not the time. Think of your sisters and your guests - they must never even guess at this thing we share.”

Through the doorframe, silhouetted against the banked fire, Lizzy could see two men in what could only be construed as an ardent embrace. Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley! The impassioned words that had gone between them spoke of something far deeper than mere friendship. Lizzy blushed furiously at the thought of what that must mean and then turned tail and ran upstairs to the safety of her sister's bedside.

~

In the morning, with the bright winter sun shining in through the bedchamber window, Lizzy could hardly credit what she had seen the night before. Could that walk through the darkened house have been all in her imagination? A dream? It was too gothic to be real - the snuffed candle, the mysterious voices, the image of two men in close embrace. She looked at the discarded book upon the nightstand. She had not read much of it, but what she had read, and her previous suspicions of Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley being engaged in some kind of nefarious activities, might possibly have brought on confused dreams. It was easier to believe she had dreamed it than to believe that they were lovers.

At breakfast she observed both of them and found Mr Bingley just as charming as ever. And just as concerned for Jane's welfare. And Mr Darcy was just as silent and withdrawn as always. His eyes did not rest upon Mr Bingley with any more warmth than when they rested upon her - which they did all too often. But the look in them was indecipherable.

Lizzy decided that she must indeed have been dreaming, and made sure to ask Mr Bingley if she could borrow some books from his library. He immediately apologized profusely for not thinking of it before, and she went up to her room with a half dozen volumes of poetry and plays - all light, bright and sparkling - to ensure that her night time horrors were not repeated. The next two days went by without incident.

It was on the third night, in the drawing room, while Mr. Hurst and Mrs. Hurst were engaged in a game of cards, Lizzy sat reading a book, Mr. Bingley paced desultorily back and forth and Mr. Darcy wrote a letter to his sister - while Caroline admired everything he did, from the way he wrote his letters to the speed of his writing - that a conversation took place which Lizzy would have given something to avoid.

It really could not surprise her that the conversation should come across through the good offices of Caroline, whom Lizzy had already determined to be smitten with Mr. Darcy. Being smitten with Mr. Darcy was, of course, the height of bad taste but atop of it all Caroline seemed to be insane or deluded and so far gone as to consider Elizabeth a rival. In her effort to mark her territory and exclude Lizzy, she was practically bending over the table upon which Mr. Darcy wrote, and making comments about Mr. Darcy's sister, Georgiana. How intelligent, accomplished and amazing Georgiana was. And how, as soon as she came out, she would be a famed beauty, and how...

Amid the flow of inane talk, she said, "Oh, and pray ask Georgiana if she saw the execution of the were lion in London, for I heard it was most amusing."

Lizzy glanced up, struck, staring at a woman who could refer to the death of a human being as amusing. At the same time she realized that Mr. Darcy, who was looking up, had gone deathly pale. For just a moment she met his eyes, and she thought she could read compassion and understanding in his gaze. The realization so stunned her that she didn't say anything. Mr. Darcy didn't speak, also, and Caroline was suffered to go on, in her light way, giggling, "Imagine a terrible were in one of the best families of the ton, and having kept it secret until he was twenty eight, too. He must have started changing shapes a good fourteen years ago, if not sooner. Imagine hiding it from everyone. I'm so glad they caught him. He might have changed in the middle of a party and... eaten me."

Mr. Darcy, still pale, let his mouth drop open, as though in astonishment.

Chastisement came from a strange quarter. Mr. Bingley, usually so easy going, had turned around, "Caroline! You must know that Lord Sevrin was at Cambridge with Darcy and I, and he was all that could be proper and civilized, poor soul. I can't believe you, of all people, would gloat over his execution."

At that moment Mr. Darcy found his voice, and boomed, in a tone that left little chance his paleness was due to compassion, "Miss Bingley! Surely you don't think the spectacle of a were execution is appropriate for the eyes of a young lady of my sister's delicacy and upbringing?"

And Miss Bingley was left speechless, in the crossfire from two so disparate directions. Were the subject not so distasteful, Elizabeth would have laughed.

Instead, she remained quiet as Caroline tried to defend herself, "Well, everyone knows how dangerous weres are. And this is why the were laws say they must be killed as soon as possible. Surely the law has our best interests at heart and..."

"I've always wondered about that," Bingley said, and there was a hint of an odd tremor to his voice. "I've always wondered if truly weres are all dangerous, or only some of them, and whether the others suffer needlessly for the misdeeds of a few."

Lizzy blinked, disbelieving. If the man was telling the truth, and this was truly how he felt, perhaps there was no great harm in Jane's feeling tenderly towards him. Perhaps he was the one man in a million to whom she would dare entrust her sister's happiness and her very life. If indeed that strange nighttime scene between him and Mr Darcy was only a dream, or her heightened imagination. From her observation of Mr Bingley, his heart was more likely to belong to her sister than to his friend. And though she had sworn she would do her utmost to ensure that the Jane and Mr Bingley did not fall in love with each other, the idea of someone who cared about Jane enough to overlook her disability was a very heady thing. She was jerked out of these happy thoughts by Mr Darcy's response to Bingley.

"Oh, Charles, do not presume to expound on things to which you've given little thought." He was still pale and, weirdly, his eyes looked scared.

Lizzy wondered why he looked scared. Perhaps he was coming down with some illness?

"Of course your sister is right, and the were laws are meant to protect us. Still, poor Sevrin, he always seemed like a decent chap. But you know, he must have done some depredations in a secret life we knew nothing about."

Mr. Bingley looked as if he might argue, but the two men exchanged a look that Lizzy couldn't begin to understand, and he shrugged. "Perhaps you are right. You are always a deeper thinker than I."

"Well, you tend to think with your heart, Bingley, which doesn't entirely speak ill of you."

But Lizzy was disgusted with how easily Mr. Bingley would give in to his disagreeable friend.

"Oh, Jane," she told her sister that night, after relating the conversation. "The man is odious. How he could speak of a gentleman he knew to be a decent chap and yet rejoice in his death. I cannot wait till we can return to Longbourn and are out of Netherfield for good."

A Touch Of Night -4

The day after Lizzy and Jane returned from Netherfield, Lydia and Kitty came from Meryton all excited at some news.

Giggling, they tripped into the drawing room, and Lydia said, “Guess what is happening?” And then immediately after. “Oh, you'll never guess, so I'll tell you. We're getting a regiment of the Royal Were Hunters. They're camping at Meryton, in response to people's complaints that they've seen a dragon flying around at night. Because some farmers also say that their hen houses have been broken into by wolves that are too cunning to be natural, we've been declared an infested shire. This means we get the were hunters all to ourselves for months.” She fanned herself, as she fell into a chair. “Oooh. Gold coats. I can hardly wait.”

While Lizzy and Jane traded a horrified look across the room, Mrs. Bennet gazed fondly at her youngest daughter. “I liked a gold coat well enough in my day,” she said. “When I was being courted by your father,” she sighed, “there was a colonel Cummings of whom I thought exceedingly well.” She frowned. “But then he was found tied to the hitching post outside the church, stark naked, with some very rude words painted on his bottom. He swore the werewolf had found him, overpowered him with were strength and done this to him. But no one could believe that a were would have such a sense of humor and so the colonel left the region in some disgrace.” She sighed again. “And I married your father.” She rallied. “However, you must know that were hunters get a bounty of ten thousand for each were denounced and twenty thousand for each were killed. So, as long as they're good marksmen, all of you could find good husbands.”

Mr. Bennet came into the drawing room at that moment, a letter in his hand, and frowned at his wife. “How are you disposing of our daughters' hands now, Mrs. Bennet?”

“Oh. I said that with the were hunter regiment coming to town, they can all get themselves good husbands.”

Mr. Bennet frowned at his wife. “Good marksmen, certainly, although I hear that those regiments accept all manner of men who would be turned down elsewhere.”

“I think,” Lizzy said, to distract attention from Jane who had gone suddenly pale, “that it must take a very heartless kind of person to shoot down, in cold blood, a human being who, to their knowledge, has never done anything to deserve it.”

“Human being?” Mrs. Bennet said. “Oh, don't be tedious Lizzy. These are weres. They are NOT human. That is the whole point.”

Mr. Bennet nodded. “If it comes to that, my dear, there are many people who are not fully human.” He waved a paper. “However, while you're giving your daughters' hands away, you must save one of them for my cousin, Mr. Collins.”

“Your cousin?” Mrs. Bennet asked alarmed. “Oh, not the wretch who is to inherit Longbourn once you're gone.”

“I'm afraid that very same wretch, my dear. But he says he wishes to make amends by marrying one of his fair cousins.” He beamed around the room with an absent minded kind of smile. “His term, not mine. I wonder what he will think when he finds we're the parents of a couple - or might I say three - of the silliest girls in all of England?”

“I cannot understand why you disparage your own daughters so,” Mrs. Bennet said. “When is this Collins to arrive?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh, I must see if there's some fish to be got. Kitty, ring the bell for Hill.”

#

“I'm not scared,” Jane said. She sat in front of the mirror, combing out her long locks. “Truly, Lizzy you must not worry about me.”

“Not worry about you?” Lizzy asked. She sat on Jane's bed, cross-legged. The thought of not worrying about Jane was alien. Ever since she was twelve and Jane thirteen, when Jane had first changed shape, she had done nothing but worry about Jane. “You've perhaps not heard that there is a regiment of were hunters headed for fair Meryton. And that our sisters,” she slapped the bed next to her to show the indignation she didn't dare display by raising her voice. “Our own sisters, are setting their sights on those murderers.”

Jane looked over her shoulder at her sister. “Lizzy, they don't know they're murderers,” she said. “They think they're only defending civilization from bestial creatures.”

“They're the bestial creatures,” Lizzy snarled.

“Lizzy, truly, if you didn't know me and my secret, what would you think of weres? What do the books tell us?”

Lizzy shook her head. “Our father doesn't believe weres are bad.”

“He didn't say that. He merely said that he doesn't like were hunters. But, Lizzy, it must be allowed our father doesn't like most people. Some amuse him and some he simply can't stand.”

Lizzy sighed. “You must go to London,” she said. “Aunt Gardiner will keep you safe.”

The Gardiners were the only other members of the family who knew of Jane's problem. It had happened quite by chance that they'd witnessed her change one night and, unwilling to believe Jane anything less than the sweetest, kindest girl in the world, had agreed to hide her defect from everyone. Shortly after that, the sisters had hit upon the arrangement of sending Jane to London when Lizzy was unable to care for her. The Gardiner's house was one of the older homes and had passages and rooms that everyone, even the help, had forgotten. There was a convenient secret room adjacent to the bedroom Jane occupied. It could only be accessed via a certain manipulation of bricks upon the wall. And it could not be opened from the inside. Mrs. Gardiner had set it up very comfortably and Jane slept there on full moon nights, unable to get out and hurt herself or others.

Jane toyed with the tip of her golden hair and sighed. “Yes, I know I must. But Lizzy, can we not wait until the twenty-ninth? For you know that Mr. Bingley has promised to give a ball and, Lizzy, I would very much like to attend.”

Lizzy looked suspiciously at her sister. She was sure the gothic dream at Netherfield had been just that, a dream, and that Mr Bingley's predilections ran towards ladies, Jane in particular, and not Mr Darcy. And yet, she could not in any way condone Jane's getting closer to a man whose friend hated weres so much. She could imagine Mr. Darcy convincing Bingley to turn his wife in to the authorities. “Do you love Mr. Bingley?”

Jane shook her head, then shrugged. “I don't think so, Lizzy. I do enjoy his company very much. But, being as I am, I've always known that I could never... you know, live a normal life. So I don't think I could fall in love. But I would very much enjoy a ball. And I'll always think him the most amiable man of my acquaintance. Please, Lizzy. It's not very long till the ball, and the full moon isn't till after. And you know I can control myself except for the three days at the peak of the moon.”

Lizzy nodded. “If you're sure. I shall write aunt Gardiner then.”

“Yes.” Jane looked worried. “What concerns me, Lizzy, is the dragon. If the stories are true, gentlemen weres always have less control than lady weres. And this one... He's out there, flying almost every night as if looking for something. He's going to get caught and killed Lizzy, and I don't know if I can endure that...”

Lizzy found it amusing that her sister often referred to weres as ladies and gentlemen, but given Jane's sweet character it did not surprise her. This time, however, her amusement was short lived. The idea of the were-dragon being executed chilled her heart, not only because of what such a spectacle as a public execution in Meryton would mean, but because she hated to think of such a magnificent creature being beheaded. After that first night she had searched the skies for it, but though she caught fleeting glimpses of its shimmering scales as it slid away through the night sky, she had not again seen up close the deep, clear green of those huge reptilian eyes. But the intensity of that gaze lingered within and returned to her mind's eye again and again. “If only we knew who he was to send a message,” she said.

That night she stood by her window, hoping the dragon would come, hoping she could give him a warning. But he never came.

#

The next day Mr. Collins arrived. Lizzy wasn't sure what she expected, but what they got was a powerfully built, ginger haired man, incongruously attired as a man of the cloth. He was not very well informed or, truth be owned, very intelligent. His conversation seemed to gravitate solely around his patroness, whom he referred to as the noble Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Upon hearing that the lady was Mr. Darcy's aunt, Lizzy was immediately convinced that the woman must be as proud as her nephew and all the condescension of which her cousin spoke must be a fabrication of her cousin's imagination.

He first fixed his attentions on Jane and it took some doing, on Lizzy's part, to get them transferred to herself. Oh, she wanted neither part nor parcel of the fool, but she was very determined he should never guess Jane's secret. In this she was aided by her mother's certainty that Jane would very soon be engaged to Bingley.

In the evenings, Mr Bennet sat with Mr Collins and conversed over a glass of sherry. Lizzy often did some needlework in a corner by the fire, and her father invariably glanced her way, a sardonic grin upon his face. He loved to make sport of oddities in human nature, and Mr Collins took the term oddity to new heights. Lizzy did notice, though, that as the evenings progressed, his usual volubility became monosyllabic. Mr Collins also had a tendency to pick little things out of his scalp and then study them before absently popping them into his mouth. Lizzy's stomach turned, but her father only grinned all the more.

One morning Mr Collins walked into Meryton with Elizabeth and her sisters. He expounded the entire way about the staircases, chimneypieces, and myriad windows to be found in the home of his patroness. She had to admit that his late night grunts were by far preferable. She felt sorry for the woman upon whom his name would eventually be bestowed, but vowed it would never be her.

In the main street of the village they chanced to see one of the officers of the Royal Were Hunters, accompanied by another gentleman.

“It is captain Denny!” cried Lydia, waving across the road and calling out his name in a manner her mother thought cheerful and friendly but to Lizzy's mind was nothing short of forward. Lizzy glanced quickly at Jane, but her expression was serene, with no hint of the panic she surely must feel coming face to face with an officer trained to discover weres.

“This is Mr. Whickam,” Captain Denny said. “He had just joined our regiment and I dare say that once he is dressed up in his gold uniform he will out swagger us all.”

Kitty and Lydia looked at him and giggled. Lizzy introduced Mr Collins and hoped that he, with his long-winded conversation, would keep the attention away from herself and Jane.

Lydia was not to be outdone, however, and instantly invited both Denny and Wickham to their Aunt Phillips' card party that evening, “For you know she dearly loves a gold coat, and two will be even better,” she said with a titter.

Just as the officers were accepting, Lizzy noticed Mr Bingley and his solemn friend approaching them. The former was all smiles as he addressed Jane, and Lizzy thought again how silly she had been ever to entertain the outrageous idea that he and Mr Darcy were . . . involved. In fact, Mr Darcy appeared to be about to greet her when his eyes alighted upon Mr Wickham, and his face drained of color. Mr Wickham, for his part, became beet-red and then tipped his hat in Darcy's direction. Lizzy was surprised to see that gentleman turn away without so much as a nod. She had known him to be proud and disagreeable but had not thought him quite so uncivil. The rich, she supposed, could give offense wherever they went.

#

At Aunt Phillips card party that night, Mr Wickham appeared in his regimentals. He looked, truth be told, like one of the few men who could appear to advantage in a gold jacket, embroidered in gold and with gold braid on the shoulders. His hair was the exact color of the gold jacket, his skin a shade lighter and his eyes a tawny gold.

If observed from a distance and with one's eyes half closed, Elizabeth thought, he could almost be taken for a golden statue. Though this reflection did not mean that she was smitten with him as her two youngest sisters were. She was determined not to like the man, for he was a were hunter and represented everything she most feared and despised. She almost carried her purpose to the end of the evening. Almost that is, until, through the casual mingling that happens at such informal gatherings, she found herself sitting beside him on a sofa. Having made some politely casual remark about his new career as a were hunter, she was surprised to hear him sigh.

“I was not cut out for this line of work,” he said. “I've never killed anyone and I'm not sure I could point my gun at a human being and kill him in cold blood.”

“You consider weres human beings, then?” Elizabeth asked, surprised.

“Surely. Do you not? Like us they're endowed with God given reason and understanding. They merely have a flaw in their makeup. And, truth be told, most of them never do anything wrong. I think the laws should be altered, and death sentences should only be imposed upon those weres capable of causing significant harm.”

With such an auspicious beginning, Lizzy couldn't help but liking the fellow. “Why is it then,” she asked, “that you joined the Royal Were Hunters? With such feelings as you have just expressed, I would not have expected it of you.”

“I had other hopes for my future, but alas, they were dashed, through no fault of my own.”

The sincere look of disappointment that he cast her was enough to melt the hardest of hearts, and upon one already disposed to liking him, it instilled an eagerness to discover the cause of all his woes. “Someone has served you ill?” she asked.

Wickham glanced about him and then responded in a lowered voice. “I do not like to speak ill of anyone, you understand, especially someone who is already residing here and most probably well respected in the neighborhood.”

Lizzy instantly recalled the unusual meeting between him and Mr Darcy in the street. “I think I can venture to guess - it is Mr Darcy you refer to.”

“Indeed.”

“But he is not at all well liked here.”

“Is he not? In most circles, his fortune guarantees his popularity. I am happy to know that I may confide in you. At one time Mr Darcy and I were very close - we grew up almost like brothers, but he changed his ways when we were in Cambridge together. His father was my godfather, and cared for me deeply. I think Darcy always resented the love his father had for me. In his will there was a bequest that I receive a set of colors, but Darcy ignored his father's wishes. Instead he made it so no regiment in the King's army would have me. My only dream was to serve my country with pride and honor, but the only avenue left to me was the Were Hunters.”

“But that is terrible! Not to respect his father's dying wishes? I had suspected Mr Darcy of some sort of depravity, but I had not thought him devoid of all common decency.”

Wickham was quick to jump on the one word he felt he could use to even greater advantage. He enjoyed the quick sympathy he could get from a pretty girl whenever he told his tale of woe, but besmirching Darcy's name pleased him even more. “Depravity?”

Lizzy blushed. “Well, when I first met Mr Darcy I suspected something not quite . . . gentlemanly about his friendship with Mr Bingley. I thought perhaps there was something . . . dark. Oh, I'm convinced I've dreamed it all.”

Mr. Whickam became very intent. “Dark? I don't have the pleasure of understanding your meaning. Did you suspect, perhaps, some secret between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley?”

To Lizzy it was like that moment in the night all over again. Her candle had blown out, and there was . . . She felt her cheeks heat. Could it be that it had really happened? “His friendship with Mr Bingley . . .” She blurted. “Oh. I thought they might be involved in something nefarious, but, when I spent the night at Netherfield I . . . I thought I must have been dreaming . . . but why would I dream of something so very perverse in nature?”

As Elizabeth spoke, Mr Wickham's expression changed from apprehensive to smug to apprehensive again. “Exactly what are you inferring, Miss Bennet?” he asked, his color heightened.

Lizzy gasped. “Mr Wickham,” she said, “there are some things a lady cannot be explicit about. I have already said too much.”

Strangely, Mr Wickham's assurance returned with this remark. “I do apologize most sincerely - I misunderstood you completely. But now - I have to admit that while in Cambridge I observed evidence of what you so delicately cannot speak. It shocked me to the marrow, and was part of the reason for our falling out. After all - I had been very close to him growing up - and looking back upon those years, I can only wonder whether it was brotherhood that was foremost in his thoughts.”

After this disclosure Lydia flounced up and plunked herself down upon the settee between them, effectively ending the conversation. Lizzy was quite relieved - what had passed between her and Mr Wickham was of such a sordid nature she could not understand how she had actually come to disclose such indelicate concerns, or that he, if she understood him correctly, had actually indicated that she might not be far wrong in her assumptions. It was totally deplorable and gave her much to think on. It is hardly surprising that when she finally sought the relief of sleep, it forsook her. Head pounding, she sat at her open window and scanned the sky, hoping to see a sinuous, iridescent-green body, and a noble head with jewel like eyes.

TON - chap 5

Netherfield Hall was all lit up and footmen lined the stairs as guests alighted from their carriages and made their way up into the ballroom of the stately mansion. Darcy was uncomfortable with the crowds.

He left the receiving line and made his way to the landing where a window looked out upon the sweep and new arrivals.

What had Bingley been thinking, planning this ball so close to the full moon? True, it was a convention to hold balls at the time when the moon was at its fullest to have a bright night for travel, especially in the country, but for himself and Bingley it increased the danger of discovery one hundredfold.

Miss Bingley had been adamant that her choice of date remain unchanged, and Charles always conceded to his sister's demands. Darcy could well understand this. She was a vixen when crossed - well not in the sense that he was a dragon, or Bingley a hunting dog, if that were the case they would have less to worry about. No - she became enraged and spiteful. He was afraid that if Caroline ever discovered the truth about her brother she would not hesitate to turn him in to the authorities. As for himself . . . he held back a smirk at the thought of Caroline's reaction if she found out his closely guarded secret. In Miss Bingley's eyes weres were the worst abomination, and yet she seemed to have dedicated her life to entrapping Darcy.

Darcy had more to worry about than the ill-timing of the ball. He knew that there was now an encampment of Royal Were Hunters in Meryton. In fact, Bingley had been bound to invite all of the officers to the ball. Not that he usually had a great fear of the RWH - he knew them to be undisciplined and poorly trained. It was usually only the most foolhardy of weres that were captured by the royal brigade. Unless they had been turned in, as he did not doubt had happened to his dear friend Sevrin. Darcy clenched his fists. He would make it his business to know. Surely, Fitzwilliam knew someone in the Were Control Ministry. Fitzwilliam knew half of London. And Darcy would know who had as good as murdered Sevrin.

This brought his thoughts back to Wickham. What was he doing in the regiment and why had he turned up now, in Meryton? After what had taken place in Ramsgate he would not be surprised if that reprobate was planning to do him a mischief. While Wickham would not dare to denounce Darcy - who would denounce Wickham in return - Wickham was now a Were Hunter. He would be harmed with silver bullets. If he shot Darcy before Darcy could speak . . . Darcy closed his eyes. He would have to hope that Wickham's lousy marksmanship had not improved. However he would bet that was what Wickham was hoping to do.

But even that was not the greatest of his worries. It was control. Bingley, spontaneous and easily swayed in his human form, had always had control issues. Luckily he had a loving father who had protected him well. Since the elder Bingley's passing, Darcy had taken that role upon himself. The idea of someone as amiable as Bingley ruthlessly slain was unthinkable. In his were form, Bingley was more harmless than a fly. A happy dog, ready to love the world. But the world was prejudiced against weres of any sort, and demonetized them all.

What worried Darcy the most, however, was his own control. He had always prided himself with his ability to master the urge to transform, and only indulge when he was assured of the most complete safety, but since coming to Hertfordshire his resistance to those very primal urges was slipping.

A group of new arrivals caught his attention as he gazed abstractedly from the window. The boisterous giggling of a parcel of silly young girls. But . . . it was really only two of the girls and their mama who were calling all that attention to themselves in a manner he would never wish his sister exposed to. Of the other three, one was so commonplace as to be completely unremarkable, another was the beauty who had dazzled his friend Bingley, and the third . . . his heart began to beat a little faster.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet completely unsettled him. From that first night when he had flown past her window, and been drawn closer and closer until he had looked directly into the finest pair of eyes he had ever beheld. At the assembly, when they had first been introduced, he had feared that his eyes would give him away - but thankfully she had not recognized him. He vowed not to put himself in such a position of danger again. He could not allow her to see him in dragon form, but neither could he stop himself from searching her out. Her window became his nightly haunt, though he was always careful to slip away quickly without being seen. He had managed to gaze more than once upon her sleeping face - so sweet and innocent in slumber. But he had to cure himself of this fascination. Not only was she totally unsuitable and beneath him in every way, but he could not set his sights upon any lady who would discover his secret only to denounce him. He calmed his wildly pumping blood and looked away. He would not allow her to be his undoing. He could not!

Tonight he would need to keep his wits about him. Bingley's and his own safety depended upon it.

#

Elizabeth looked around the ballroom, hoping to see Mr Wickham, but though there were numerous coats of gold, not one of the officers of the RWH shone like a golden statue under the mass of twinkling candelabras. She supposed that he had not been invited. It could only be Mr Darcy's doing. She felt her anger at him rise. There he was, standing against a far wall, looking all too handsome in his arrogance. His disturbing deep-green eyes rested upon her and she turned away. Why did he look at her? His expression was formidable. Did he hate all women or was there something about her he found particularly abhorrent? She did not care in the least for she believed whatever his feelings, they could not match the disgust she felt for him.

“Lizzy!”

Elizabeth turned to see her friend Charlotte approaching.

“Will I finally have the pleasure to meet your illustrious cousin?” Charlotte asked.

“Trust me - there is little pleasure to be got in his company.”

“He looks quite tall and handsome.”

“If you like red-headed buffoons,” said Lizzy. “I have to dance the first two with him and I am dreading the experience.”

“Poor Lizzy. Maybe I can relieve you of his company after that.”

“Why subject yourself to such torture?”

“Lizzy - I am eight and twenty. I cannot have such romantic notions as you do. If I can find a man to take me I will be well pleased, even should he turn out to be ignorant as an ape.”

“Charlotte, you cannot mean that.”

“Why yes. I have not your charms Lizzy. I do not attract the richest, most handsome gentleman in the room as you do.”

“I?” asked Lizzy. “If you mean Mr Darcy, I assure you that you are way off the mark.”

Charlotte just smirked and, as Mr Collins had approached, Lizzy performed the introduction that her friend desired.

The dance with Mr Collins was as excruciating as Lizzy had expected. Not only did he tread on her toes and move in the wrong direction a few times, but he actually managed to scrape his knuckles across the floor while performing the figures of the dance. To add to Lizzy's discomfort, the rest of her family, with the exception of her father and Jane, seemed to have sworn a pact to make an embarrassing display of themselves. Lydia and Kitty were flirting flagrantly with the gold coated officers, Mary was reading in a very prominent and well lit spot, and Mrs Bennet was tippling too much and waxing eloquent about all the jewels and pin money that Jane would have once she married Mr Bingley.

Jane, bless her heart, was completely oblivious to all this. She danced with Mr Bingley and went down to dinner with him. They both seemed lost in their conversation and in each other's eyes.

During dinner Lizzy saw Mr Collins approach Darcy and she wished she could sink into the very earth.

“I have just been informed,” intoned Collins, “that you are the nephew of my esteemed patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

Darcy did little more than nod stiffly at this and turned back to his white soup.

“You will be pleased to know that she was quite well when I last saw her, shortly more than a week ago.”

Darcy did not appear to be any more pleased than previously.

At this point, Mr Collins' faculties for speech seemed to have left him, but he persevered with the one sided conversation nevertheless. From where Lizzy sat, it sounded as if he said no more than the occasional, “Ook”. Darcy turned his chair slightly to the left to avoid all eye contact. Across the table, Mr Bennet looked to be vastly amused. He winked at Lizzy and raised his glass to her. She forced a smile, but could not join him in his mirth.

After they dined, Lizzy was again conversing with Charlotte when Mr Darcy unexpectedly addressed her.

“Would you do me the honour of dancing the next?” he asked stiffly.

In her surprise she accepted, she was so completely flustered. Charlotte smirked and walked away, leaving her alone with Mr Darcy. Luckily the music started up almost immediately. He took her hand and led her to the floor. She noticed little else but that his grip was very firm, she was so busy chastising herself for not having thought of an excuse for not dancing.

After a few turns upon the floor, Lizzy decided that she must at least say something, any conversation being preferable to the deep silence that hung over them.

“The room is very large,” she said.

“Not overly,” was his response.

“Yes, but with so many couples the size is indeed fortunate.”

He nodded.

“It is now your turn to say something.”

Darcy looked at her in his inscrutable way. “Is this the local etiquette of dance conversation?”

“Do you not converse while dancing in London?” asked Lizzy. She had meant the comment to be sarcastic, but it sounded pert instead.

“I rarely dance in London.”

“Well, here in the country we both dance and talk.”

“Talk then. I will not prevent what brings you pleasure.”

Lizzy was very irked by this response and chose a topic she was quite sure Mr Darcy would not like. “I made a new acquaintance the other day - an old friend of yours - Mr Wickham, though I understand the two of you are not as close as you once were.”

“You will find that gentleman has great facility making friends but difficulty keeping them.”

“So, you lay the problem at his door? I had heard it was quite the reverse.”

Mr Darcy's countenance became more distant yet. “I have no wish to discuss my dealings with that fellow.”

Lizzy could understand this sentiment fully, and she smiled inwardly. She made no more attempts at conversation and the dance soon came to an end. Mr Darcy bowed low over her hand and walked off, his back ramrod straight. She was pleased that she had managed to put him out of sorts.

#

Darcy looked about the ballroom in a panic. Bingley was nowhere to be seen. If only he had not given in to his desire to dance with Miss Elizabeth Bennet. He had thought one dance could not hurt, especially if he kept his feelings in check, and he had managed quite admirably, even when she had begun to flirt so charmingly. But what she had said about Wickham had left him seething. He did not blame her - she obviously had been importuned with a pack of lies. Wickham was the one at fault. But it had been enough to make him lose his concentration, and now Bingley was missing - it could only mean one thing.

Darcy rushed out onto the terrace. He could feel the pull of the waxing moon, stronger and stronger as he jumped over the balustrade and strode into the shelter of the trees. There was nothing for it but to give in to his innate urges and let his animal instincts take over. He would find Bingley more quickly in dragon form than human. He pulled at his cravat frantically. His body was being overtaken more quickly than usual. His hands roughened, claws appeared, and as he ripped at his clothing his skin emerged, glistening gold and green, toughening to scales. He stretched his arms and wings furled open. His body arose in one sinuous motion and he spiralled up out of the trees into the cold night air. Dragon on the prowl.

#

Lizzy watched Mr Darcy leave the ballroom through the curtains that led to the terrace, then she went in search of Jane. Her sister was sitting by a potted palm, a tremulous smile upon her face.

“Alone?” teased Lizzy. “I thought I would find you with your Mr Bingley.”

“He is not my Mr Bingley,” said Jane.

Lizzy could feel tension in her sister's voice. “What is it, my love? I ought not have left you alone tonight. Is the urge so very strong?” She inwardly cursed Mr Darcy for asking her to dance and causing her to neglect her sister.

“Yes - the tug of the moon is constant tonight, but do not worry, I will not succumb.” A tear slipped slowly down her cheek. She reached up to wipe it away and sighed. “That is not what troubles me.”

Lizzy took her hands and gazed into her eyes. “Tell me.”

“I have been foolish,” said Jane. “I thought that I could apply the same strength I apply to my were urges to my heart. I thought I could shield it just as well, but I was wrong.”

“You have fallen in love with Mr Bingley?”

Jane nodded. “But it cannot be,” she whispered. “He is too open hearted a gentleman to lead astray. I cannot give him my heart or my hand. This must end.”

“But Jane,” said Lizzy. Her thoughts were running wild. No matter what Wickham had inferred about Mr Darcy and his . . . unnatural preferences for his own sex, she had absolved Bingley of like predilections in her own mind. He exhibited an obvious interest in Jane that countered such indecent ideas. That Darcy was intent upon taking advantage of their friendship there could be no doubt. She was hopeful that he had not yet gone beyond the bounds of propriety. Because if there ever was a gentleman that Lizzy believed could love and protect Jane as she deserved, Mr Bingley was it. “Jane - do not you think the decision is also his to make?”

“I could not wish this upon him!” Jane motioned with her hands towards her bosom, but Lizzy knew what she was referring to. That thing inside her breast that distinguished her from the rest of her family and most of the world. That animal that lurked within. A sweet and gentle dog, as loving as Jane herself in her human form. Not another entity, but an extension of Jane. Something to be nourished and nurtured, not despised and hunted.

“If he loves you, he will love all of you,” said Lizzy, hoping that what she believed was indeed true.

“If he indeed loves me, then all the more reason to spare him. I have made up my mind.”

And as Lizzy sat there she could only marvel at her sister's strength, presence of mind, and good sense. It was up to Mr Bingley to break through those barriers, and only time would prove whether he was the man to do it. She had to acknowledge that she wanted to believe in their love because she wanted Jane to live a normal, happy, fulfilled life, not one of sacrifice and sorrow.

“Lizzy,” said Jane. “You do not look well yourself.”

“I have a headache,” Lizzy admitted. And upon saying so she realised that it was true. She'd had too much to think on and her head was pounding most furiously.

“And I have been selfishly piling my troubles upon you as usual.”

“No Jane. Selfishness is not in your nature.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, Lizzy dearest?”

All Lizzy could think was that she needed to be out of doors, under the stars, with fresh air caressing her face. “Will you sit with Charlotte while I take some air?”

“Would you like me to accompany you outside?”

Lizzy smiled wanly. “I think I need solitude more than anything else.”

#

Lizzy walked out onto the terrace. The moon was an oval, nearing fullness, casting silver light upon the manicured lawns of the garden. Beyond the flowerbeds and topiary was a stand of trees, barren branches raised up to the stars. Even further she could dimly make out the brick walls of the kitchen gardens and the conservatory where all the fresh fruits and vegetables were grown in the middle of winter. The glow of the braziers that warmed these glasshouses tempted Lizzy to walk out to them. She had always wanted to explore such places but while she had been at Netherfield she had never the opportunity. Now was the time.

The smell of charcoal, moist earth, and growing things assailed Lizzy's nostrils as she entered the first house of the conservatory. She could dimly make out a tangle of vegetable plants, peas and haricots she realised upon closer scrutiny. The next house was devoted to fruit trees - peaches and apricots sweetened the night air.

Lizzy's head was feeling much better now. There was nothing to bring one down to earth and away from the fantastical like beetroots and turnips, strawberries and raspberry canes. She entered the last house and stopped still just inside the doorway, a scream frozen in her throat.

Two strange shapes rose up from unearthly clumps of rhubarb. It took a moment before Lizzy registered that what she was seeing for the first time in her life was the unclothed male body. Actually two unclothed male bodies, but the closer held her attention more so than the other. It was tall and lithe, muscles firm and accentuated, with none of the softness of the female body. A trick of the light cast by the brazier through the rhubarb leaves tinted the skin green and gold. Mercifully the rhubarb grew lush and tall and hid both bodies from the hips down. Her eyes traversed up the abdomen and chest, to the face.

“Mr Darcy!” she cried in shock. And then the other body came into focus, as it crouched amid the leaves. “Mr Bingley!”

Both men appeared dazed. “Miss Bennet,” said Darcy, not moving a muscle. Mr Bingley attempted to hide himself completely in the rhubarb plant.

From all the diverse thoughts that jumbled in Lizzy's head she was able to grasp at only one thing. “It is just as Wickham said, you are . . . unnatural . . .”

Mr. Darcy paled. “Wickham told you? Miss Bennet, please, I pray, listen. This is not what . . . Please. We are no threat to anyone. What can you gain from making this known? I'm begging you to keep our secret.”

Lizzy did not wait to hear more. She turned and ran through the conservatory, snagging her gown upon netting and poles, gasping for breath, and hoping that she would not lose the contents of her stomach till she was far away from the two men.

#

The ball ended and all the guests went home, but Lizzy, Mr Darcy, and Mr Bingley were too much concerned with what had passed in the conservatory to give it any notice. How she got home, Lizzy never knew, but she sat in her window, staring out at the treacherous night, tears streaming down her face at the shattering of all her hopes and dreams for Jane and Mr Bingley. She saw the dragon fly by, a lonely, haunting voyage through the sky as it danced sorrowfully among the stars and then did one swooping pass alongside her house, close to her window. The sadness in the dragon's eye was more than she could bear.

In the morning Bingley ordered that all their belongings be packed and the house closed as soon as they quitted it. Caroline was surprised at her brother's insistence, but glad to be leaving Hertfordshire just the same. She had worried that Charles would be entrapped by that upstart Miss Jane Bennet and her deceptively sweet smile. Besides, Caroline had her sights set on an estate in Derbyshire - preferably Mr Darcy's own.

As they rode alongside the carriage, Darcy turned to Bingley and said again, as if to reaffirm his decision. “We have no choice but to leave. She will be sure to report us to the Royal Were Hunters.”

Bingley was not as sure as his friend, but there was no sense in taking any chances. He knew that he could never again look Miss Elizabeth Bennet in the eyes anyway, not after she had seen him naked. And he knew that he had to leave Jane Bennet even though she was the sweetest, most angelic lady he had ever met. He had been foolish to entertain thoughts of love and marriage. Happiness was not for his kind.

Darcy sat upright upon his horse as they cantered towards London. There was only one thing about the entire episode that still confused him. Why had Mr Wickham so forgotten himself as to denounce Darcy to a provincial girl? Was he seeking to get her to condemn Darcy for him? Sometimes Darcy thought it was he or Wickham. One of them would be the death of the other.

A Touch of Night - Chapter Six

“Oh, I cannot believe that Mr. Bingley would leave,” Mrs. Bennet said over breakfast. “And yet, my sister Phillips says that the house has been locked up and there's no thought of coming back again. I'll always say he used my daughter very ill. Very ill indeed.”

“It is true Lizzy,” Jane said, looking up at her sister, her eyes filled with tears. “Caroline herself wrote to tell me that they've gone to London, to meet with Mr. Darcy's sister. She...” Jane's voice faltered. “She has great hopes that Mr. Bingley means to marry Miss Darcy.”

Lizzy took a deep breath. She would rather cut out her own tongue with a butter knife than tell Jane what she'd seen in the rhubarb. Through the night she'd lain awake, tossing, tormented by the idea of what Mr. Darcy had corrupted Mr. Bingley into. She was quite sure it wasn't Mr. Bingley's true nature. She'd seen the way he looked at Jane.

But she'd read the Plato and the historians of the Roman Empire. She didn't understand the attraction of the vice, but there must be some, since so many powerful people had indulged in it. And however it was, Mr. Bingley wasn't for Jane.

Helping herself to eggs and a slice of ham, she said, “I'm sorry to say it, Jane, but I think it's a good thing that Mr. Bingley should be removed from us, and that we should be removed from Mr. Bingley.”

She saw Jane's eyes widen at her contradicting what she told Jane just the day before. But Jane was too kind to call her to task about it.

“Bite your tongue, girl,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Well... The good thing is that Jane is going to London to stay with my brother, Gardiner. I'm sure that she'll contrive a way to run into Bingley. She is such a clever girl.”

“Mama...” Lizzy said.

“It does credit to your modesty, cousin Elizabeth,” Mr. Collins said, from across the table, where he was stuffing his face with fried kidneys. “To mention that it is not right for the lady to run after the man. For a woman's reputation is as lovely as it is frail. And once gone, it is gone forever.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Guess what?” she said. “Oh, never mind. They caught an old wolf out Cunningham farm's way. The Were Hunters think he might have been the one that was getting into henhouses. I hope not, for if they do not catch at least one were soon, we'll be declared non infested, and the RWH will be moved elsewhere. Oh, I hope not.”

“Well,” Mrs. Bennet said. “You girls must make the most of it while you can. You should walk to Meryton and see the officers.”

Mr. Bennet turned the page of the paper and made a sound. “Well,” he said. “Brighton has just been declared a most infested locale. They have three dragons, a were cheetah, and-” He looked over the paper at them, his eyes sparkling. “A were gorilla who appears at the pump nightly. Now - that would be diverting. Why can we never get unusual weres. The least they can do is make sport for us.”

“Papa,” Lizzy said. She loved her father dearly, but sometimes he said things that she worried would be hurtful to Jane, or put her in a position of danger.

“Er...” Mr. Bennet looked at his daughter uncomprehending. “Oh come, Lizzy,” he said. “If I were a Were I'd want to give as much trouble as humanly possibly.” He flashed a grin, before going back to his reading. “Perhaps I'd lock myself up in my library and thus avoid the moon altogether. And at night I'd let out terrifying howls to scare the servants.” He made a sound that might be a growl or a choked off bout of laughter. “Oh, that would do very well indeed.”

“Mamma,” Lizzy said, her concern rising at all the talk of weres. And if that was not bad enough, she greatly doubted her ability to be alone with Jane without blurting the whole miserable business of the rhubarb. “I think I'll go for a walk to clear my head. Oakham Mount perhaps.”

“But, Miss Elizabeth,” Mr. Collins said. “I wish to speak with you during the course of the morning.”

Elizabeth had a feeling she knew what that talk would be about. She shook her head. “Mr. Collins. I'm sure that there is nothing you want to speak to me about. At least nothing that could possibly be important.”

“Miss Lizzy,” Mrs. Bennet said. “I order you to listen to Mr. Collins.”

#

And so it was that immediately after breakfast, Lizzy found herself in the small parlor in the company of a very nervous Mr. Collins. She knew he was nervous because he was walking around the room in circles. And, as he walked, his demeanor changed, and he started stooping forward, his knuckles dragging on the ground.

Turning around, he fixed her with soulful brown eyes. “Ook,” he said. “Oook, oook, ook, ook.” He gestured with his hands, then gestured with his foot. The shoe slipped, and another hand emerged from his shoe.

Mr. Collins sat on his behind, and started picking his fur, pensively.

His fur. Lizzy blinked. She backed against the table. Mr. Collins was an orangutan. A were. He had that reaction she'd often read about in books, though never observed in Jane, of turning to his were form when scared. And he was blinking at her out of small, simian eyes and saying, “Ook, ook, oook” with the intensity of feeling that betrayed that he thought he was speaking English. And with a sense of dread and astonishment, Lizzy realized that Mr. Collins had no idea whatsoever that he shifted forms. And probably neither did most people - considering that his ape form was so similar to his human form.

The realization shook Lizzy so that she fell backward onto an armchair, staring wide eyed at him. She'd been so concentrated on Jane, on keeping Jane safe, that she'd never considered there might be other weres nearby.

Oh, she knew there was a dragon and perhaps another wolf somewhere - at least she hoped that the wolf that Jane was so taken with was not the old wolf they'd caught raiding henhouses. But she assumed they were people they never knew in the whole course of their lives. Apprentices to some craftsman, clerks to some firm. The affliction of weredom was not confined to the upper classes. On the contrary, appearing as rarely as it did in each family, it could not often appear in nobility. Because noblemen and wealthy people, living as they did surrounded by servants and retainers, were caught out more often than not.

It was only through the utmost care that Lizzy had kept Jane from being discovered. She'd never expected to meet another were in her circle of friends, let alone her family.

She started to shake, and then realized it was laughter, bubbling up from deep within her, from some place she didn't even know existed. It erupted in a burbling stream from her lips, and grew into chuckles, then guffaws.

“Oook?” Mr. Collins said. He looked worried. “Ook, ook, ook?” He stretched a long, brown arm, and picked what Lizzy hoped was an imaginary louse off her head. “Ook?” he said, taking his fingers to his mouth.

Lizzy swallowed, trying to get control of her laughter, and managed only to bubble with the occasional giggle as she said, “Mr. Collins, I am afraid I must refuse your kind offer. I'm the last woman who could ever make you happy, and I know you could never make me so.”

“Ooook?” Mr. Collins asked, incredulous.

“Oh, no, Mr. Collins. You do me a great honor with your proposal, but truly, I could never aspire to being your wife. I am not worthy.”

“Oooo?” he asked. Then, puffing out his chest. “Ook.”

“Indeed,” Lizzy said.

And at this, she leaned back in her chair and laughed, wholeheartedly. She laughed till her sides ached. She laughed till she thought she'd cry.

When she was done, Mr. Collins was a sad little shape, knuckling across the garden, towards the road. She wondered how far he was going. And she was sure he was quite safe. How odd that one could be a were and yet be perfectly disguised.

#

Collins ambled across the fields, not knowing where he was going, only aware that his hopes in marrying his cousin Elizabeth were all dashed. What is more, she had laughed at him. He was certain of this. Well, blast all Bennets. He had intended to do his Christian duty because of the unfortunate entail, but that was now over. No other female in the household could tempt him. Mary too prissy and prosaic, Kitty and Lydia too flighty and flirty.

#

Though it was the last day of November, it was balmy, almost spring-like day. Charlotte Lucas had gone down to the herb garden to cut some fresh chives for the omelet she planned to prepare for her father's nuncheon. Though he was a knight, they kept no cook, something that Mrs Bennet enjoyed to make note of when extolling the virtues of her daughters over those of the Lucases. But Charlotte believed that her cooking abilities would hold her in good stead one day.

She had just placed the bunch of chives into her basket when she heard a rustling in the bushes and looked up to see Mr Collins loping awkwardly towards her. He looked rather unkempt. His uneven gait she soon put down to the fact that one of his shoes hung from his ear rather than covering his foot.

“Mr Collins,” she cried. “Whatever has happened?”

He looked at her. “Ook!” he said most pathetically.

She thought she had never seen him look more dejected. Or hairy. And then and there she decided that she would marry him. Someone had to see to it that the man received a regular shave.

“Mr Collins, you must tell me all about it,” she said, putting her arms out to him.

Luckily she had found a bench to sit upon, because he hopped up into her lap and began rocking back and forth, crooning.

She had never experienced lovemaking before, though she was full seven and twenty, but she was quite sure that his behavior had gone beyond the bounds of propriety, and she was glad of it. Soon one of her family was bound to come by and see. She would be completely compromised and they would be forced to marry. She closed her eyes and allowed him to stroke her hair, even though his hands were rough and his fingernails rather long. When they were married she would ensure he was always properly manicured, too. The poor man definitely needed a woman to look after him.

“Charlotte, what are you doing on a bench all tangled in a gentleman's arms?” cried her little brother Harry, who had just come up from fishing in the stream.

“Hush!” cried Charlotte. “Mr Collins and I are engaged. He is going to speak to Papa at once.”

“Engaged?” he chortled. “I never thought I should see the day!”

Mr Collins suddenly bounced off her lap. “Oook!” he expostulated. Then after a look of severe concentration, “Engaged?”

“Why certainly, Mr Collins,” said Charlotte. “I am a lady of virtue. You do not think that I would allow such . . . privileges without us having pledged our troth to each other.”

“Oook, troth?”

“You were most persuasive, when you so eloquently told me of your love.” She sighed. “And when you told me what a perfect parson's wife I should be. How I should know what to put upon all those shelves in your numerous closets.”

Collins' furrowed brow smoothed a little. “Closets.”

“Indeed. And how I would humble myself appropriately before your most illustrious patroness. Elizabeth Bennet would never do that.”

Mr Collins could but nod in agreement.

“And of course nothing matches my esteem for you,” she added. “It is near as great, but not quite so much, as the esteem in which you hold Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

Collins could not help but be impressed. “Oook,” he sighed.

“Now please,” she said in the manner of speaking to a deficient child, “take that shoelace out of your mouth and put the shoe upon your foot. You need to go and speak to Papa right away.”

And as Charlotte glanced at his foot his need of a wife was impressed upon her all the more. The man had not thought even to wear stockings upon his feet! She smiled indulgently. She realized she was to have her work cut out for her, but she was certain that she would be the making of the man! Not a marriage of the deepest love like Lizzy was forever harping about, but certainly preferable to living the shadow of a life in the home of one of her brothers or propping up her aging parents in the sunset of their days.

#

Sir William was pleased to finally be petitioned for the hand of his eldest daughter. His face wreathed in smiles he indicated a chair for Collins to sit upon, while he poured them each a large glass of brandy from a cut glass decanter.

“So, you want to marry our Charlotte?” he asked.

Collins snuggled into the chair, sipped his drink, and stared blankly back at Sir William. “Oook,” he said.

“Capital, capital!” cried Sir William jovially. “I had thought you meant to have one of your cousins, but I am pleased as punch you chose our own sweet Charlotte instead. Lomgbourn will be yours one day. It will be nice to have our girl situated so close to home. Very nice indeed.”

“Oook,” said Collins smugly.

“I can see that we are of one mind,” said Sir William, nodding sagely. “Welcome to the family, my boy. Capital, capital.”

#

The next morning, Lizzy was pleased to see that though her mother plagued Mr Collins to renew his addresses to her second child, he adamantly refused. He then proceeded to make himself scarce for the rest of the day. Lizzy was glad. She did not want her last few hours with Jane spoiled by another scene with Mr Collins.

She sat in the parlor holding Jane's hand until their uncle's man arrived with the carriage to take Jane to London.

“Lizzy...” Jane said. “Don't worry about me. I'll live quietly in London. I will be safe with our aunt and uncle.”

“I know you will dear,” Lizzy said, reaching for the valise and handing it to Jane. “I know you will. And it will ease my mind to know you safe and sound.”

“Yes,” Jane said, but her voice sounded distant.

“What is it dear,” Lizzy said, studiously avoiding asking if it was Mr. Bingley.

“Oh, Lizzy, I must say I'll always... It's just that I... I prefer him to every other man I've ever known.”

“Oh, Jane,” Lizzy said, and hugged her tightly. “It will all turn out for the best, you'll see.”

Lizzy stood upon the gravel sweep long after the carriage had gone. What was she to do now that she no longer had Jane to protect? How would she keep her thoughts from returning to that terrible scene she had witnessed at the Netherfield ball? She was about to return to the house when Lydia and Kitty came running up the drive, giggling even more boisterously than usual.

“Oh Lizzy you will never guess what has happened!” cried Lydia.

“We have just now seen Maria Lucas,” said Kitty.

“Charlotte is to be married!” cried Lydia.

“I wanted to tell,” pouted Kitty, as she stomped her foot.

“To Mr Collins!” cried Lydia.

“Mr Collins? It cannot be!” said Lizzy.

“Did you think that because you did not want him no one else would?” asked Lydia. “Though, truth be told, I cannot understand what Charlotte sees in that ugly, mottled thing.”

“And his whiskers!” tittered Kitty. “Oh, sh! Here she comes now to tell you.”

Lizzy did her best to keep her composure while talking to her friend. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Charlotte's feelings and alienate her, but the thought of Charlotte married to a were-ape was almost too much to bear. Not only was Mr Collins boring and unattractive in his human form, his lack of control over his animal form was both disagreeable and dangerous.

But Charlotte claimed to be happy with her engagement, and she knew that her friend had different expectations from marriage than she had herself. She knew she ought to, but she could not bring herself to tell Charlotte what she had discovered about Mr Collins. It would ruin her happiness and make her a laughingstock in the neighborhood. Besides, with the were hunters in town, it could be dangerous for Mr. Collins. And she didn't want his life on her hands.

#

Far away in his London Townhouse, Mr. Darcy brooded by the sitting room window. Behind him, Georgiana played, softly. He'd been glad enough to see Georgiana again. Georgiana was still wounded from the events with Sevrin and more in need of his steadying arm and shoulder than Darcy had expected.

They were now alone, the Bingleys having left after dinner. But how quiet and hapless Bingley had looked at dinner. Darcy very much feared that his attachment to the Bennet girl had been real and one of those of which one hardly recovered, or never completely. With Bingley's gentle nature, he was likely to fall in melancholy. The fact that Miss Bingley had babbled on no stop with more vitriol than sense hadn't made dinner any easier.

He became aware the piano had stopped behind him, a second before Georgiana put her hand on his shoulder.

"You are very quiet, brother."

Darcy sighed. "I suppose," he said. "I'm still mourning for..." He wouldn't say Sevrin's name.

Georgiana sighed. "We all are. But I seem to detect something else, some fresh grief."

Darcy managed a quick, flashing smile. How perceptive Georgiana was, for her age. "Not grief, dear. Not exactly." With his larger hand, he patted her hand on his shoulder. "Not unless one can grieve for a future that could never be."

Georgiana looked attentively at him, her dark blue eyes serious. "It is a girl, then? Like... Mr. Bingley?"

Darcy looked over his shoulder at Georgiana. "What know you of Bingley's girl?"

"Nothing, except that Miss Bingley was very spiteful about some nobody who tried to attach him. Was it the same girl you cared for?"

Darcy laughed at the thought of his being interested in Jane Bennet. "Nothing so simple, no. It was... another girl. With eyes like the midnight sky. She..." He shook his head. "To be honest, I don't even know why she fascinates me."

He looked out at the sky, lit by reflections of lights from the great city of London. And realized in his mind he was calculating how long it would take the dragon to fly to Hertfordshire and fly outside Elizabeth Bennet's window, looking into her bedchamber. But his rational self knew this was lunacy. He would have to be content with his memory of her, sleeping, her face beautiful and hopeful in repose. Like a fairy princess waiting the kiss of a charmed knight.

Unfortunately, he was more cursed than charmed. And the kiss would never happen.

ATON - Chap 7

As the parsonage at Hunsford came into view, Lizzy heaved a sigh of relief. It was not that the journey had been too long and tiring, after all, what was fifty miles of good road? It was her company. Sir William was a kind neighbor, but he did ramble on. He had spent the previous evening with Colonel Forster of the Royal Were Hunters, and his head was full of anecdotes the colonel had related to him, which he felt bound to relay to his traveling companions.

Maria Lucas listened, spellbound, to her father, her eyes growing huger and huger as he told of the many vicious weres that the colonel claimed to have captured single-handedly. Every so often she would give a little squeal, half fear, half pleasure, and exclaim, “What a very brave man the colonel is!” or, “Such terrible beasts!”

Lizzy had to bite her tongue so as not to jump to the defense of werekind. She realized that showing too much partiality might make her suspect as well, but it was a great struggle. She did, however, say in a most restrained manner. “We must not forget that they are people too, and deserve our compassion.”

Maria just stared at her, a shocked look upon her face.

“To be sure, to be sure,” said Sir William. “'Tis very sad. Would that it was detectable at birth and then we could do away with them before they embarked upon such lives of misery. Like drowning unwanted kittens.”

“Oh no! Drown kittens!” cried Maria Lucas.

Her father patted her hand for she looked as though she would burst out in tears.

Lizzy stared out of the window, her lips pressed together so that she would not voice the thoughts that pounded at her head. The very idea of Jane, dearest sweetest Jane, being put into a sack as an infant and tossed into the river was too terrible to bear with equanimity.

It was then that the yellow stone walls of the parsonage came into view from behind a stand of elms, and Sir William's thoughts were diverted to his daughter Charlotte and her new husband.

“A fine looking home indeed!” he cried. “But of course it is, for Lady Catherine is a most generous landlord, I believe, and takes a prodigious interest in all things great and small, so my son Collins tells me.”

Lizzy could not get out of the carriage quickly enough, when it stopped at the parsonage gate. She threw herself into Charlotte's arms, realizing just how much she had missed her dear friend. Her cousin held his hand out to her and she allowed him to grasp hers in a brotherly manner, noting how well manicured his nails now were, and how the fine orange hairs upon the back of his hand had been closely trimmed.

They were all ushered into the parlor while Collins pointed out all the most interesting aspects of the house.

“These rosebushes were planted just here, at Lady Catherine's suggestion, there being just the right amount of sun in this corner. And here, you see, our doorknocker has been raised a full three inches, for Lady Catherine noticed that it was much too low. This carpeting in the hallway was chosen because, as Lady Catherine most kindly pointed out, brown and green will not need to be cleaned as often as lighter colors.”

He had much more to say even than that. Lady Catherine had advised them on everything from the distribution of the household furniture to the placing of shelves in the closets. Lizzy knew she would find such involvement officious, but Charlotte seemed to accept it with complaisance. She also appeared to be content in her marriage, something Lizzy would never have expected. But Lizzy could see that it was all due to Charlotte's good management. She even had her husband looking more presentable than he ever had, heretofore.

Lizzy pondered whether Charlotte had discovered that her husband shifted from human to orangutan at the drop of a hat. She could not imagine how such a phenomenon could slip her friend's notice, but she was afraid to ask.

The next day she had the dubious pleasure of meeting with Lady Catherine herself. They were invited to come to Rosings after dinner to spend the evening with the ladies. Lady Catherine was a little, bird-like woman, but she made up for her small stature with her overbearing presence.

Her daughter, Miss Anne de Burgh, was a sickly girl who sat wrapped in a shawl and spoke to no one but her attendant, Mrs Jenkinson.

“My daughter should have been presented at St James, were she not such a frail invalid,” said Lady Catherine.

Mr Collins spouted some fatuous nonsense, likening Miss Anne to the rarest of jewels, and Sir William mentioned, timidly, his having been knighted there.

“And you,” said Lady Catherine to Lizzy. “Have you had a London season?”

“No ma'am. With five daughters my father could not go to the expense.”

“You have four sisters? Are all of them out? And none married?”

“They are.”

“Singular. I do not know what your mother is thinking allowing the youngest to be out before the eldest have married.”

“I believe she is thinking to marry us all as quickly as she might.”

“And yet you are unmarried and you must be a full one and twenty!”

“I am not yet one and twenty,” said Lizzy.

“She seems to be very behind hand with the job.”

Lizzy only nodded, not seeing fit to respond to such incivility.

“I understand there is a problem in your neighborhood with a proliferation of lycanthropes. A terrible situation. I was telling Mrs Collins she is well away from there. Here in Kent you will find we have dealt severely with such blasphemous creatures. We see to it that our peasants breed true.”

“I thought that people in all walks of life suffer from the affliction. There are weres even in the peerage,” said Lizzy.

“Nonsense!” cried Lady Catherine. “It is all due to common blood! If any peers have been caught as weres, then they were born through some indiscretion between the lady of the house and a stable hand or gardener. Good breeding cannot be discounted. There is something very base about a person who changes into an animal.”

Lizzy watched as Mr Collins nodded in agreement, while scratching himself behind his ear, and emitting one or two affirmative `ooks'.

“You see, my parson agrees with me,” said Lady Catherine. “I have ensured that he is well versed at how these hereditary traits manifest themselves in the lower classes amongst his flock. With my training he has become forever vigilant in winnowing the wheat from the chaff.”

Elizabeth felt a chill go down her spine at the thought that some innocent peasant might be turned in to the RWH due to Lady Catherine's over-zealousness. “Are mistakes ever made?” she ventured to ask.

Lady Catherine looked down her nose at Lizzy as if to say, `I never make mistakes,' but she instead said, “You are very inquisitive for such a young person. You will find it easier to get along in society if you take your lead from your betters rather than attempting to form your own ill-informed opinions.”

Done with Lizzy, Lady Catherine turned to Charlotte and said, “My nephews will be coming to spend Easter at Rosings as usual. They are so attentive of me, and of Anne. Especially Mr Darcy. You know that he and Anne are intended for each other. A perfect match - two young people of the purest breeding and two grand estates.”

Lizzy's annoyance at being dismissed so insultingly by Lady Catherine was replaced by her shock in discovering that she would soon be in the company of Mr Darcy. She wondered how she could ever face him after having seen him naked in the conservatory of Netherfield, in a very compromising situation with Mr Bingley. She remembered his sleek body rising up from the rhubarb and blushed at the perverseness of her nature that such a vision should come to her when it was the last thing that she desired to remember.

~

Mr Collins ran into the back garden to collect Lizzy and Charlotte who had been strolling about in the warm spring sunshine, picking daffodils and sprays of forsythia to arrange in the parlor.

“Ook, they are come. Ook, ook! Hurry, hurry,” he cried.

“Who are come?” asked Charlotte, stroking his arm in a calming manner.

“Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

Charlotte looked over at Lizzy. “This is due to you. Mr Darcy would not visit so promptly just to see me.”

“No,” Lizzy choked out. “You are wrong Charlotte. I could not imagine that Mr Darcy has any more desire to see me than I have to see him. Can I not go up to my room instead?”

Mr Collins began hopping about in consternation, uttering a series of short shrieks.

“My husband insists you welcome our guests with me,” said Charlotte with determination.

Lizzy could see that if she followed her inclination and hid from Mr Darcy in her bedchamber there was a good chance that her cousin would reveal his affliction to the world. With Lady Catherine's tendency to go on witch-hunts against weres, Lizzy had no wish to put Mr Collins' life in jeopardy. There was nothing for it but to meet Mr Darcy.

~

Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, walked along the path through Rosings' park towards the lynch gate that led to the parsonage.

“The parson ran ahead awfully quickly,” noted the colonel.

“He wanted to prepare the ladies,” said Darcy, his mind in contemplation of one of the ladies in particular.

“He has a most interesting gait.”

“I am neither interested in the parson nor his gait,” said Darcy impatiently.

“I could not help but notice, ever since our aunt mentioned the visitors at the parsonage you have become very tense. Has this anything to do with a lady?”

Darcy sighed. He could keep no secrets from his cousin. Colonel Fitzwilliam was one of the few people who knew of Darcy's affliction. In fact, the colonel had sworn to Mr Darcy senior when he was on his deathbed that he would do his best to protect Darcy from the prejudiced world. That was why they traveled together to Rosings every Easter. Lady Catherine insisted on Darcy's visits, but she had such a vendetta going against all forms of lycanthropy that keeping his secret from her was paramount.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet knows about me.”

The colonel stared at him in shock. “You told a woman? Are you out of your mind, man? I thought you had foresworn love - don't you see the danger you have put yourself in?”

“I believe she can be trusted.”

“Even so - though I very much doubt any woman can be trusted - you have put her in danger as much as yourself! Are you besotted?”

“Quentin, you are jumping to conclusions. This has nothing to do with love.” Here Darcy colored. “It was a mistake. She came upon Bingley and I just as we changed forms.”

“She saw you become a dragon and she did not run away in fear to the nearest magistrate to report you?”

“Yes. No. I mean, she did not see me become a dragon. Quite the reverse. But, yes, she did not run away to report me, or even Bingley for that matter. And there is a regiment of the RWH stationed not far from her home. We quit Netherfield the very next day for fear we would have to go into hiding, but there have been no repercussions. I am assured she has told no one.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam eyed his cousin closely. “Are you sure this has nothing to do with love?”

Darcy thought it best to avoid that issue. Miss Elizabeth Bennet had caused him many a sleepless night and not solely because of his fear she would report him. Strangely, deep down he had known she would not. There had been something in her eyes that first night, when he had flown past her window. Something that told him she had sympathy for his kind. The fact that she hadn't reported him only confirmed it.

“It has everything to do with her goodness,” Darcy said at last, and the look upon his face when he said it confirmed his cousin's fears. Darcy was a lost man.

“I cannot wait to meet this paragon,” said the colonel as he opened the gate and they walked up the path to the parsonage door, and made their presence known. “Don't you think this knocker is a wee bit high?”

Darcy didn't even hear the remark. His thoughts were elsewhere. How would she look when she saw him? He could not forget the state of undress he was in when they had last met. Thank the Lord for rhubarb! But still she had seen more of him than any delicately brought up female ought. He was afraid that he would be put to the blush as much as she.

They were ushered down a hallway with a positively vile shade of carpeting to a sunny room made light and pleasing by the profusion of spring blossoms that filled a number of well-placed urns. Elizabeth was employed in arranging the last of the blooms in a crystal vase. The yellow flowers so close to her face cast a glow upon her cheeks that only served to enhance her attractions. He wished he could see her eyes, but they were downcast and remained so throughout their greetings and the introduction of the colonel.

Colonel Fitzwilliam looked from one to the other with increasing interest. It was difficult to tell whom was the most flustered.

“Miss Bennet, I have heard much about you,” he said jovially.

She cast a quick look up at him and then over to Darcy. Her face reddened discernibly and then she averted her eyes once again. “I hope you do not believe all that you hear, but judge people on their own merit,” she said, finally.

“You imagine that what I heard was not complimentary?” he quizzed. And then he smiled a full smile that crinkled up his eyes. “Quite the contrary, I assure you. You have been praised in the highest terms.”

Her eyes flew towards Mr Darcy again and he took the opportunity of speaking to her.

“Your family, Miss Bennet? They are all well?”

“Yes, thank you,” she replied. “And your friends?”

“Mr Bingley and his sisters were in good health when I last saw them.”

The colonel raised an eyebrow. Of all the insipid conversations! Could they not do better than that? He decided that maybe it was his presence that was hampering their conversational abilities, so he spent the next ten minutes entertaining his hostess and attempting to bring out her younger sister, while the parson looked on, adding an occasional grunt to the discourse. But his efforts were to no avail, so in the end he called upon Miss Bennet to support him in his contention that Mozart was the master that all other composers should seek to emulate, and spent the rest of the visit well pleased by her open manners and teasing wit.

Darcy stood between the wall and the window and contented himself with simply observing Miss Bennet, a small smile playing across his face every now and then.

~
“Don't distress yourself, my dear cousin,” Mr. Collins said. “For you see that Lady Catherine and her daughter are far from expecting in others that distinction of dress that they claim for themselves. As long as you wear your best and it's clean, they will demand no more. On the contrary. Lady Catherine likes to have a certain distinction of rank preserved.”

They were walking the broad Avenue towards Rosings, the many windows of the building shimmering in the evening sun. They'd been invited to dine at Rosings, a distinction that had Maria almost swooning with delight and had kept Lizzy up all night for quite different reasons.

Meeting Mr. Darcy had unsettled her, not the least because he didn't seem to exhibit the degree of shame she expected from someone who had been caught in such dreadful behavior. On the other hand, she wondered, perhaps she had been wrong? But how could she be wrong in what she'd seen with her very own eyes. Gentlemen didn't normally absent themselves from balls to go rolling around in the rhubarb plants with their friends. Unless something was very wrong with them indeed.

Lizzy realized that, absorbed in her unhappy thoughts, she'd gone all the way into Rosings and was even now in the process of bobbing a curtsey to Lady Catherine. The Lady received that mark of politeness with severely tightened lips. Anne de Bourgh leaned into Miss Jenkinson, who supported her. Behind, near the window, Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam were discussing something that involved expansive gestures like wings on the Colonel's part, and a sudden, hastily suppressed laugh on Mr. Darcy's. This shocked Lizzy terribly, as she didn't know Mr Darcy was capable of laughter. And as she approached to take a seat, she was further surprised to hear the Colonel say, “But you must agree, Darcy, that a bat would suit her to a T. Swoop down when you least expect her, tangle herself in you. Of course, bats are rarely orange.”

“Quentin,” Mr. Darcy said, laughter still in his voice. “I believe our guests have arrived and we're being rude.” In the next minute both men had paid their obeisance and after a little frivolous talk, dinner was announced. Lizzy had the pleasure of being escorted to dinner on the Colonel's arm, and of sitting next to him and across from Mr. Darcy at the table. The food was good, in a solid, unimaginative way. Lizzy noted that Miss de Bourgh ate very little and coughed a good deal. The colonel ate a great deal and talked non-stop, mostly at Lizzy herself, though he often directed his pleasantries to the rest of the table. And Mr. Darcy talked not at all, but looked at Lizzy a great deal.

Lizzy wondered what particular blemish he found in her, that he stared at her so much. Certainly the man had no interest in, or at least disapproved of, all women, so she must be particularly irksome.

After dinner, partly to escape Lady Catherine's non-stop talk and never-ending stream of advice, Lizzy retired to the piano, whence Colonel Fitzwilliam followed her. She played desultorily while snatches of conversation from the drawing room reached her.

Lady Catherine was getting unpleasant about something. Lizzy couldn't quite make out the gist of it, but she thought it was related to Georgiana. “I always disapproved of your father's not leaving me with any say in her care. And in the event, you proved quite irresponsible. If it weren't for the fast work of the royal were hunters, she would now be betrothed to a were.”

“Madam,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice maybe reverential and maybe annoyed. It was impossible to tell.

“And I don't care if he was a Lord. Common, debased blood!”

“Madam.”

“I daresay if I'd ever met him, I'd have known him straight away for the animal he was. I hear before they beheaded him he changed and roared fit to terrorize the town.”

“Madam. That is nonsense. Sevrin-”

“Oh, Darcy, do not be tiresome. You don't mean to tell me you were there? You've always said it was a vulgar spectacle.”

“Madam,” Mr. Darcy said. And this time the voice sounded strained. Moments later, Mr. Darcy stalked into the piano room. He looked pale and his hands were shaking slightly.

He stood, for a moment, near the piano, looking at Lizzy's hands, but Lizzy was sure he didn't see anything. His eyes seemed unfocused. For the first time in a long while, Lizzy felt a wave of sympathy towards him. However he might have pretended that he supported the were laws, it was clear that he suffered greatly over his friend's death.

“It must be very hard,” she said, softly. “When a were is caught and killed.” In her mind there was an image of poor Jane being caught and brought to bay by a regiment in Were Hunters uniforms. She spoke even as her hands played upon the piano, and looked up to see both men staring at her, the colonel with a slightly amused expression that seemed quite out of keeping. An expression of confused amusement, if that made any sense. Meanwhile, Mr. Darcy was looking at her, his gaze softened.

“I just thought,” Lizzy said, and blushed, “that when a were is killed, his friends and family are hardly given the time or the chance to mourn. Instead, no matter how good the person was, they are supposed to rejoice that a were has been caught.”

“Yes,” Mr. Darcy said, with some force. “Oh, yes.” His hand that had been resting on the piano went up to his forehead and rested there, as if trying to erase a headache.

“Did you ever...?” The colonel cleared his throat. He seemed very amused by the exchange between Lizzy and Mr. Darcy and Lizzy was quite at a loss to know why. “Have you ever met a were, Miss Bennet?”

Why did he ask that as if he were laughing at something? Lizzy looked at Mr. Darcy to see if they were having a joke on her, then she shook her head and blushed. “No. I have never had that ... It never happened. But I have always thought that they are people like other people and that the good ones are good and the evil ones are evil.”

“You are singular in that opinion,” Fitzwilliam said, his gaze sharpened.

“I believe that people can't be judged for what they can't help being,” Lizzy said and sighed. “All of us have... evil traits we must fight against. Sometimes I think those more severely afflicted are more worthy when they conquer.”

“Sevrin was the best of men,” Mr. Darcy said, his voice vibrating with such emotion that Lizzy did not know what to say. She looked up to see the gentleman looking at her with what, in another man, she would swear was an expression of pure adoration. She didn't know what to do, and was rescued by her embarrassment by Lady Catherine's sharp voice, “Of what are you speaking? I must have my share of the conversation. I must.”

“I was merely,” Mr. Darcy said, and cleared his throat. “Complimenting Miss Bennet on her piano playing. I have rarely heard something that gave me more pleasure.”

“She doesn't play badly,” Lady Catherine said. “But to be a true proficient, she must practice more. She should come and practice on the pianoforte in Miss Jenkinson's rooms. She'd be in no one's way in that part of the house.”

At this, Lizzy had to smile to herself, and while Lady Catherine went on expounding on her great love of music, Lizzy played more to herself than to the gentlemen. At any rate, after a while she looked up and noticed that Colonel Fitzwilliam had vanished and only Mr. Darcy remained, leaning against the doorframe and looking at her with an inscrutable expression.

As she met his eyes, he grinned. “You must know, Miss Bennet, that you have very decided opinions for one so young.”

His unconscious mimicry - or had he guessed those words, or some very similar, had already been used to her by his aunt? - discomfited her, and she rose quickly and curtseyed. She crossed the drawing room, avoiding Lady Catherine's attempt at conversation. Mr. Collins was ooking reverentially to some long speech of the Lady's. To Charlotte's enquiry, Lizzy said, “I believe I must go out for a breath of air. I feel a headache coming on.”

~

Out in the garden, she walked about for a while, keeping - for she had learned her lesson -
to the well lighted paths, the ones ornamented with fountains and statues. Which was why, as she rounded a massive fountain in classical style, she was shocked to hear voices from the shrubbery.

To be exact, she was surprised to hear Anne de Bourgh's seldom-raised voice saying with some feeling, “Oh, how I wish that Darcy were married!”

She was answered by the colonel's amused laughter.

“No, only listen to me. Until he's married, my mother will not give up the ridiculous idea that I should marry him.”

The colonel sighed. “She would change it fast enough if she knew what he was.”

“Yes,” Anne said. “But I don't hate Darcy. I merely do not wish to enter into what must be, perforce, a loveless match.” She was silent a while. “Only I wish he didn't spend quite so much time with Mr. Bingley.”

“No,” the Colonel said. “Bingley and Darcy shouldn't spend so much time together. It can't be good for either of them.”

They were silent a while longer and... was that the sound of kisses? Lizzy started retracing her steps to the house, her cheeks burning, but the voices recommenced.

“You procured the replacement for the tonic, right?” Anne asked.

“Of course, and the exact same color.”

“Thank you. If it weren't for you I'd still be taking the horrible stuff mama gives me. I don't know if it retarded my womanhood, but it made me sick enough.”

“What I don't understand,” the Colonel said, “is why she wished to retard your womanhood. And still does.”

Anne sighed. “Can you not? She's afraid I'll become a were. And it's no use telling her that at twenty-two I'd already have become one, if it were to happen. She thinks she's stopping it with her awful tonic.” Another pause. “She never forgave papa for being a bear, you know?”

Lizzy could not believe it. Had she heard it right? Had Mr. De Bourgh been a bear? She ran all the way to the house as silently as she could, vowing to never walk near shrubbery again.

Chapter 8

Lizzy didn't give any more thought to what she'd heard in the shrubbery. She'd decided that the whole Darcy family and connections were very odd and there was no point at all dwelling on it. And she felt only a slight needle of annoyance that Mr. Darcy could be so sympathetic in his grief for Lord Sevrin. And had he really meant to betroth his sister to Sevrin? Surely, at the time, he could not have known what the Lord was.

On this conviction she slept soundly and woke up rested the next morning, before any of the household was up. She dressed and went for a walk, and when she came back, she found that everyone in the household was still asleep, except for the servants. Lizzy repaired to the parlor, where she started a letter to Jane.

“Miss,” the parlor maid said, bobbing a curtsey. “Mr. Darcy, to see you.”

Lizzy thought the visit was odd at such a time, but what could she do but assent to it? “Pray tell him that Mr. and Mrs. Collins are not yet up.”

“I have, ma'am, but he wishes to see you.”

“Oh, very well, send him in,” Lizzy replied with ill grace.

Mr. Darcy came in, perfectly attired in his morning coat, holding hat and gloves in hand. He bowed to her. “I pray you forgive me, Miss Bennet,” he said, “for coming in so early in the morning. But surely you must understand that I... It is sometimes safer if I don't sleep... If I don't let my guard down during the night at Rosings. My aunt being as she is. And therefore, I thought... Well, it must be clear to you I've been doing a lot of thinking.”

Clear as the blackest mud, thought Lizzy, but she nodded, in any case.

Instead of responding, the very odd man then started pacing back and forth across the room. Since the room was not nearly wide enough for the length of his legs, this meant he took three steps one way, ducked around Charlotte's ridiculous little table with the ornate vase of dubious Chinese design upon it, then took another three steps, stopping just short of running into the mirror, and then did an about face and paced the other way again.

“Mr. Darcy...” Lizzy said, thinking to make some excuse about having to go upstairs or possibly being needed in the kitchen to help with breakfast.

But he turned to her, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips and his jade-green eyes filled with an unfathomable expression that - in anyone else - she would have said was sweetness.

“Please, forgive me, Miss Bennet,” he said. “This is not a question I ever thought I would be asking, nor believed I would ever have occasion to ask.” He resumed pacing and looked decidedly above her head as he spoke. “You see, I had long ago resigned myself to the idea that Georgiana's children would one day inherit Pemberley.”

Was the man truly about to tell her that he had no interest in women? “Mr Darcy,” she said, again, in a tone that she hoped was of warning.

“No, please listen to me. Please listen, for I have to speak. My cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, told me already that it is most risky for a... for one like me to confide in anyone, least of all a woman. But indeed, ever since the ball at Netherfield, when you penetrated my secret and did not in any way... And did not denounce me...” As he spoke, Darcy continued to pace about the room - three long steps - detour around the vase - three long steps. “I've known since then that you are the best of all women and that I can rely upon your kindness and goodness as in no other. As, indeed, I thought I could never rely on anyone, male or female, who was not similarly afflicted.” He paused and directed an uncertain look at her, before staring at a point above her head, straightening his shoulders and putting his hands - still holding gloves and hat - behind his back, as if he were on parade upon some martial ground. “Please, don't make me wait for an answer. Please, I beg you to relieve my suffering.”

Lizzy stared, trying to prevent her mouth from opening into an unbecoming look of bewilderment. She ran his words through her head, but she could not make head or tail of what he meant. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Darcy,” she said. “But I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”

He looked startled, and chuckled a little to himself. “It is possible I am not expressing myself very clearly,” he said. And to her everlasting horror, he knelt at her feet, and set his hat and gloves aside and struggled to capture her hand.

“Kindest, loveliest Elizabeth, will you do me the honor of being my wife and the mistress of Pemberley?”

She could not have been more shocked had Mr. Darcy actually changed shape into a lion - or perhaps a dog - right before her eyes. For many minutes she was unable to utter a word.

He looked up, in confusion, and finally stood and resumed his pacing. “Oh, I know what the world will say. The inequality of our connections. Your family's occasional total lack of propriety. Even perhaps the difference in our fortunes. But you must understand all that is as nothing to me. Nothing, compared to having a wife who understands me and who is willing to overlook my... eccentricity.”

At this she could contain herself no longer. “I would not call it an eccentricity, sir. In fact, I would call it something very much more to the point. Something in fact, which could mar any attempt at a married life.”

He blinked at her. “Hardly,” he said. “Really, I have great control over myself. Oh, I know it might not have looked like that in Hertfordshire. Something about your proximity, perhaps...” He shook his head. “For I have to admit that my feelings for you were of the most violent even then. But once...” He swallowed. “Once we are settled, I presume that it will resolve back into the pattern it has followed since my adolescence. In fact, it should bother me two or three nights a month, no more. The rest of the time, I should be a perfectly normal husband to you.”

“Normal?” Was he truly telling her that his disgraceful behavior with Mr. Bingley had been instigated by his feelings towards her? It was too much. Even in all her reading, Lizzy had never come across anything quite that strange.

He sighed. “Well, you must know it doesn't transmit to the children. Or not that way. Oh, our great-grandchild might show it, but it is highly unlikely our child would. Both my parents were perfectly normal. As were my grandparents and great grandparents. But if you truly would object to children, if you'd truly be afraid of their inheriting my defect, there are ways... I beg you to believe, Miss Bennet, that I, of all people, am perfectly aware of the phases of the moon.”

Lizzy 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,” Lizzy 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.”

Lizzy'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, Lizzy 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 back in the direction from which he had come.

~

Lizzy had walked quite a while, not sure how or in what direction until, in a grove, she came across Colonel Quentin Fitzwilliam. Lizzy 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.”

Lizzy 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...” Lizzy 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 rev. 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, when having seen him change back from a dragon you did not then denounce him to the Royal Were Hunters.”

“Colonel, I didn't - change back from a dragon?” Lizzy'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 Lizzy'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...” Lizzy 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 weredog. In the dark, in certain lights, people might think him a wolf, but he's a weredog, really. A beautiful hunting dog.”

There's another like me I've been running with at night Jane's voice sounded in Lizzy'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 both very shy. We still think Whickam 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, Lizzy 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 Lizzy 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, Lizzy's mind gave her a dispirinting 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 love 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 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? Lizzy 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.

But she did want to redeem herself in his eyes. She did want to show him that she did not hold him in distaste because he shifted form. That his secret was safe with her. And she desperately wanted him to know that her dislike of him had not been immoveable.

Finally, as dawn was breaking in the east, she fell into a light, restless sleep. Her dreams did her no more good that her nighttime deliberations had, and she awoke with a throbbing head and dark circles under her eyes. She dressed quickly, ate a light breakfast with Charlotte and Maria, and then excused herself to go for a walk in the park. The day was already becoming warm, but she knew where to find cool, shady groves that she hoped would soon help her clear her head.

~

Darcy had fared no better than Lizzy that night. He had barely kept himself in check, the urge to fly past her bedroom window had been so strong. But his hopes in her had been shattered by her adamant refusal. In all the times he had thought of her, conflicting emotions warring in his breast, he had never considered what her feelings for him might be. He had supposed she would be anticipating his proposal. What vanity!

After breakfast he had only two thoughts - to get out of the house and away from his aunt's penetrating eye, and to find Elizabeth and apprize her of Wickham's true character. Improving her opinion of his own character was a desired outcome as well, especially when it came to his amorous predilections, but this was not his admitted objective.

He walked towards the parsonage through the park, annoyed that his emotions were still in such turmoil. His determination to talk to Elizabeth was becoming undermined by his bitterness at her rejection of him and his despair in losing her. His love mingled with hurt and anger. And though it was not night and there was no moon to affect him, a familiar fire coursed through his body, singeing all his defenses and causing little plumes of smoke to furl every now and then from his flared nostrils.

He turned off the path into a stand of elms, intent on holding his feelings in check before having to face Elizabeth in the parsonage parlor again. He was brought to a standstill at the sight of Elizabeth standing in the half shadow of the feathered branches, leaves just beginning to unfurl on their tips. If she had not seen him he would have backed away immediately, but she was looking right at him, her eyes unreadable dark circles in a pale face.

"Excuse me, Miss Bennet. I had not supposed you to be . . . I do not mean to intrude. I shall leave directly."

"No, Mr Darcy. Indeed, it is I who am in your way. This is your aunt's park, after all."

"And you are welcome to walk in it wherever you choose."

"Thank you," said Elizabeth softly. And then she raised her eyes, which she had lowered in the first few flustered moments, to his. "I am sure the park is big enough that we can both walk together for a few minutes."

This generous offer gave Darcy a moment of hope. He had expected to be the last person she would be willing to spend time with, considering her dislike of him and the embarrassing circumstances of their prior meeting.

"In truth, I came out in the hopes of speaking to you," he said.

She blushed slightly and he inwardly cursed himself for being a fool.

"Do not be afraid that I wish to repeat any of those sentiments that were so disgusting to you yesterday."

She nodded her head and stood, waiting for him to continue but giving him no encouragement at all. There was nothing for it but to blunder on.

"I wanted to assure you of my friendship with Mr Bingley. That it is nothing more than just that. Friendship."

"I understand completely, Mr Darcy."

"There are other . . . legitimate reasons for our . . . state of undress, which . . ."

"That is quite all right."

"In Bingley's case it is not my . . . secret to tell. But believe me when I say that it was a perfectly natural and harmless incident."

"I do know what a trial such . . . things can be, and how situations of . . . nudity can happen . . . unawares. I am sorry that I intruded upon your privacy."

"There is no need to apologize, Miss Bennet. It is I who must apologize for the state of undress . . . it was a great shock to you and there is no forgiving it."

"I forgive you, Mr Darcy. I know it was beyond your control."

Darcy stared at Elizabeth. He had hardly expected more than forbearance on her part, but this . . . this was further proof of her kind and just nature. Her color heightened under his intense gaze and he was brought back to the present by the realization that he was discomposing her. Staring in such a manner right after referring to her seeing him naked. He could kick himself for behaving like such an insensitive buffoon! He decided it would be best not to refer to the incident again.

"Thank you. But this was not the topic I had wished to discuss with you. There is something of a much more imperative nature."

Was he wrong or did he notice tensing in her shoulders? A drawing back of warmth?

"It concerns Mr Wickham."

"Mr Wickham!"

"Yes. I know you take an . . . interest in the . . . gentleman. I have no wish to offend you, but -"

"I am not offended."

"He is not the man you think him to be."

"I think I now have a good idea of who he is."

He was surprised that her tone was apologetic rather than antagonistic. He had expected her to jump in defense of her favorite. Maybe he was not too late. Maybe Wickham had not yet captured her heart.

"The two of us have quite a past."

"I have been informed as such," she said, gently.

"Yes," he said, hoping that she would still listen with such complaisance once he got going, "but I have always thought it beneath my dignity to reveal to anyone just what sort of a man he is. I cannot have him deceive you any longer. I know I can never aspire to . . . but I will make no mention of my feelings in this case . . . Mr Wickham is not to be trusted."

"I have had information from someone other than him."
Darcy continued on, disregarding her words in his haste to finally get out what had been bottled inside him for so long. "He plays fast and loose with ladies' hearts. He is involved in all manner of vice. I saw all this while we were in Cambridge together and I . . . I could not bear to have you taken in by him. There is more that I cannot bring myself to reveal. Suffice to say that he treated those nearest and dearest to me with the vilest form of treachery."

"Treachery!"

Darcy was again afraid she would come to Wickham's defense, but if he mentioned the part he knew Wickham to have played in Sevrin's capture, he might be driven to reveal all about Wickham. No matter that Wickham was a coward and a traitor and that he would stab Darcy in the back the first chance he got, they had made a pact. And as a man pf honor he could not break the pact. Wickham's secret was safe with him.

"Indeed. I hope you will give my words some credence."

"Have you no faith in my judgement?"

"I know you to have been severely imposed upon."

"Mr Darcy, please. Since yesterday my thoughts . . . my thoughts -"

Darcy could well imagine what her thoughts had been. And here he was callously bringing up the previous day and reminding her of his most unacceptable offer and the ungracious way he had comported himself. He needed to show to her that he knew how to behave in a gentlemanlike manner. And the best way to do that now would be to depart and leave her alone to assimilate all that he had said. And hopefully then she would see his character in a better light, and Wickham's in the darkness it deserved.

"I am sorry to have imposed on you for so long. I will go now and give you the solitude you must be desiring." The look of confusion and regret evident upon her face touched him deeply, and in a soft adieu he said, "God bless you," then made his way out of the copse without a backward glance.

~

That evening they were to go to Rosings, and Lizzy struggled against an impulse to call it off, to say she had to rest, that her headache hadn't abated. But she could not. If she avoided him now, she thought, he would think she still thought badly of him.

So she found herself sitting at Rosings, while Lady Catherine expounded on weres and their perverse debasement, and Colonel Fitzwilliam and Anne De Bourgh disappeared - who knew where? Her cough echoed from the ends of the garden, Lizzy thought.

“I have a great desire for some music,” Mr. Darcy said, after a long time of looking out the window.

“Well, I'm sure Miss Bennet will be glad to oblige you,” Lady Catherine said. “Of course, she doesn't play as well as Anne would have, if she'd ever learned. But with a little practice she could be quite tolerable.”

Smiling at the thought that at least one member of this family thought she would tolerable - she supposed - Lizzy got up and went to the piano forte, where she played, desultorily, through an easy selection.

She half-hoped and half-dreaded Mr. Darcy's getting up and joining her, turning the pages for her as she played. But he did, shortly after she started.

He turned the pages for a while, and silence lengthened between them, till he spoke, “My sister Georgiana loves music. I think she would love to make your acquaintance.”

“I would be very pleased to make hers,” Lizzy said, trying only to sound pleasing and obliging after the horrible way she'd treated him.

“She needs taking care of. She's lately had a very great shock.”

“Yes... Yes... your friend... Lord...”

“Oh, not...” Darcy lowered his voice. “Not what he was, you understand Miss Bennet. Of that... she knew.” He looked at her, as though daring her to say that they'd been in contravention of the law. Lizzy had no intentions of saying any such thing. Instead, she nodded.

“But his death has left her... bereft.”

“And unable to acknowledge her grief publicly,” Lizzy said, thinking that then neither could her brother.

“Yes. Yes...”

Silence fell again for a while, but when Lizzy left to go to the parsonage, she had the impression that both had spoken whole speeches and understood each other much better.

And that night she woke, late in the deep dark, with a sense of being watched.

Turning in her bed she saw, outside her window... It was the dragon, sinuous and graceful and agile, his eyes filled with a sweet sorrow she only half understood. It was beating its wings just a little, to keep itself in place - the wings shimmering like a fluttering of captive fire.

She should have been outraged but she was not. Instead, she felt an outpouring of sweetness. The poor thing - she thought, quite forgetting the thing was a gentleman, and a proud and wealthy one at that - the poor thing had been horribly mistreated. Getting up, she put her dressing gown on, and rushed to the window.

She threw it open, and had time to see the dragon startle and flinch, as if afraid she would give the alarm. But when she made no sound, it extended its muzzle, timidly.

Lizzy couldn't help herself. She put her hand out and touched it to the green-gold skin, just beside the eyes. She expected cold, but it wasn't. It was warm as her own body, and velvet soft.

The huge eyes registered surprise - no, shock - followed by something she couldn't describe. The eyelids half closed and a sound emerged from the huge curved neck - something between a sigh and a purr.

She didn't know how long she stayed that way, nor how or when he'd left. She woke the next morning in her bed, though, and felt as though she'd slept long and well.

~

She'd touched him. Darcy woke with the certainty of it. Oh, he was very bad to have changed. And he was sure that his aunt would soon be talking of the positive infestation of dragons in the countryside. But Miss Bennet had touched him...

While his valet fussed over the selection of a morning coat, Mr. Darcy touched his hand to the place on his face where it seemed to him he still felt the warmth of her hand. She'd touched him. Oh, she'd touched him in dragon form. But that only made it more significant. She hadn't cried. She hadn't been scared. Was it possible she knew? Was that why she'd been so tender. But how could she know? And if she knew - what did her tenderness signify?

He was still lost in thought, pondering just what her touch might have meant, when he joined his cousins and aunt at the breakfast table.

“Darcy! Do not hover like that over the sideboard, choosing your dishes. Serve yourself some braised kidneys and come and sit down,” ordered his aunt.

Darcy chose two pieces of toast and a spoonful of strawberry preserve and took a seat beside the colonel.

“Late night?”

Darcy shook his head and then nodded.

“Not safe, you know. And the moon's not all that full.
What happened to your control - must I take to sleeping with you?”

“It was worth it,” whispered Darcy.

“Ahh - young love,” said Quentin, and sighed in an exaggerated manner. Anne giggled.

“It was nothing like that!” Darcy blushed.

“I am happy that you have finally found a lady who cares for you,” said Anne sweetly.

“What has Darcy found?” asked Lady Catherine. “Do not talk in such low voices - I must have my share of the conversation!”

“It is more what he has not found,” said Quentin, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. “Not a kidney to be seen upon his plate.”

“And I expressly recommended the kidneys! There are no better braised kidneys to be found in all of England than what come from my kitchens.”

“Anne,” said Darcy quietly, “Do not . . . I think you are . . . mistaken.”

“That she cares for you though she knows of your . . . changeability?”

“She knows not”

“But, you said she did not report you when she had seen the change.”

“I was mistaken . . . she thought . . . it is immaterial what she thought, but I could not bring myself to tell her because it involves Bingley as well.”

Quentin looked over. “I don't see that as a problem.”

"So, if your friend had a secret, you'd divulge it, Quentin?"

"Only if I thought by divulging the secret I could contribute materially to my friend's happiness."

Mr. Darcy's eyebrow rose. "Indeed?" he asked, as he helped himself to the ham. "And who is to be the judge of that happiness? Or the risk of revealing the secret."

"Oh, come, Darcy, you can't think you..."

Mr. Darcy's eyebrow rose further.

Quentin Fitzwilliam was overcome by a sudden attack of coughing. "I mean... I'd only reveal it if I were absolutely sure there was no risk."

"You, Quentin, are terribly cavalier with other people's secrets."

"He's cavalier with his chewing too," Anne said. "Almost choked himself to death.

“I do not understand,” said Lady Catherine. “What is all this talk of secrets and cavaliers not chewing their food properly?”

“It is a new play that is all the rage in London, Mama,” said Anne sweetly.

“It sounds preposterous! Playwrights these days! William Shakespeare will be turning in his grave!”

“Tell me,” said Darcy, behind the screen of his aunt and Anne's conversation, “have you been divulging secrets not your own to anyone lately?”

“I did not suppose it to be a secret, at least not from that lady,” said Quentin. “And she was most interested and understanding of all I said.”

“She was not . . . astonished? Disgusted?”

“Darcy - the lady is clearly infatuated with you. She saw you change and did not run away screaming. In fact, from what I can surmise, she had a good look at your . . .” He grinned and winked in an annoyingly lascivious way.

“Your mind is in the gutter,” said Darcy, his eyebrows arrowing towards his nose. “What exactly did you say to her?”

“Say?” Quentin asked innocently. “Only that you were honorable and gentle in your dragon form, despite what appearances might have led her to believe.”

“Blast you, Quentin! I do not want her pity! Could you not have left it to me?” `Not that I did any better of a job,' Darcy reflected, `considering what a disaster my proposal was'. His face darkened.

"Oh, there is no talking to you in this mood, Darce. You always act the fool the day after your flights..." And in response to a dangerously quirked brow, "of fancy."

Lady Catherine turned away from her conversation with Anne suddenly, and interjected. "Very true. Darcy was always fanciful. Even as a child. I only hope Anne will steady him.”

"I know no one steadier than Anne M'am," Quentin said.

"It comes from her pure blood," Lady Catherine said, complacently. No were blood at all."

“Ah yes, the bluer the blood, the better the stock!”

Darcy looked directly at his aunt. His mood had not lightened in the least. “Madam,” he said stiffly. “I beg you will desist from your illusion that Anne and I will one day wed. You must know that it will never be.” With that he rose from the table, shoving the plate with his uneaten breakfast aside. “Before long we will both choose for ourselves, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Lady Catherine stared at him in horror as he stalked out of the room. “Whatever did you say to put him in such a mood, Quentin?”

Darcy heard his aunt's last words as the door closed behind him. Did his cousin's indiscreet revelation really deserve such an angry reaction? He wasn't entirely sure. He felt cheated that his secret had been told to Elizabeth by someone other than himself. But, she had accepted the truth about him with equanimity. More - with interest. She had not decried him. And she had not feared his dragon form. The only thing that disturbed him was, had she touched him because she was beginning to care for him, or had she reacted out of compassion and pity?

Above everything he did not want her pity.

Chapter Ten

Lizzy had stayed up quite late, hoping the dragon would come and pay a visit, though she hardly wanted to admit that, even to herself. She stood by the open window, leaning against the casement and looking out into the velvety night sky, breathing in the scents of flowers and trees and thinking that she was being a very great fool. A very great fool indeed.

If she did not love the man, why did she wish to encourage the dragon to fly past her window again and again? If she did not love the man, why did she want the dragon to come? Why did she want to caress the soft green muzzle again? Was it the dragon or the man who attracted her, or was it both? What was it that drew her so strongly?

It was, she decided later in the night, that he'd been so bereft of affection. Yes, she was sure that was it. He'd been bereft of affection and she wished to have him know that not everyone despised weres. That was the only reason she stood by the window, in her bare feet and nightgown, the chill night air seeping into her room. The reason she stood waiting till her feet were quite cold and her eyes threatening to close under their own weight.

At long last, when she judged from the moon it must be nearing midnight, she went to bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. But a few short hours after falling asleep, violent pounding on the front door of the house awakened her.

Before she could even conjecture what the noise was, the pounding was followed by the sound of the door opening and then a confused babble of voices.

There was obviously some distressing news that had aroused the household. Lizzy was too responsible not to feel called to take some part in the proceedings. Getting up, she pulled on her dressing gown and rushed down the stairs. The tiny entrance hallway was a scene of pandemonium.

Charlotte and Mr. Collins, the latter looking very simian, were standing bundled up in robes in the open doorway. Sir William Lucas hovered at Mr Collins' shoulder, his bed-cap askew. Maria stood a few paces back, her hair tied up in rags, clutching a woollen shawl tightly about herself. A carriage stood in the street, steam rising from the horses' backs as they shuffled restlessly in their harnesses.

In the doorway was a man that Lizzy recognized. Indeed, he was none other than Joseph, her uncle's manservant. "Miss Bennet," he said as he spied her at the foot of the stairs. "These people would not send for you."

"Indeed not," Charlotte said, and turned to Lizzy, looking fully baffled. "This man insisted we should bring you... that we wake you now, in the middle of the night. He would give no explanation but that it had to do with Jane."

"Jane?" Lizzy said, suddenly awake and aware. "What has happened to Jane?"

"Miss Bennet has a fever which, as the doctor says, has turned putrid," Joseph said. He doffed his hat and looked at her earnestly out of his washed-out blue eyes.

A man of near seventy, Lizzy had known him and his unswerving loyalty to her relatives since she was a very young child. She trusted him implicitly.

"Mrs Gardiner wishes you to come, Miss. She thinks Miss Bennet might take a bad turn, and that you would wish to be with her. She said at whatever hour I got here, you were to return with me, right away, and she would send someone for your things later. Miss, it is important..."

"Yes, yes," Lizzy said, thinking there was more involved than a fever, whether putrid or not. "Yes, of course. I shall change out of my night clothes and come right away."

“But Lizzy,” cried Charlotte. “Can you not wait till morning? It is but a four-hour drive to London. You would be there before noon, and well rested to help nurse Jane. Your uncle's man could take the carriage to the inn where they can attend to the horses. Can you not see the poor animals are all lathered with sweat?”

“The horses are in fine fettle to journey back to London, M'am,” said Joseph to Charlotte. “My groom will rub them down now whilst Miss Elizabeth makes herself presentable.”

“I still cannot like it,” cried Charlotte as she and Lizzy began up the stairs. “To travel so far so late - think of the dangers, Lizzy. There could be highwaymen, or the carriage could have an accident, driving so fast in the dark.”

“Charlotte,” said Lizzy. “Do not worry. Joseph is very able and there is almost a full moon outside.”

“A full moon?” cried Maria who was following them up the stairs. “Oh Lizzy! You cannot possibly travel all alone during a full moon!” Her eyes grew as big as saucers and she clutched her shawl even tighter about herself. “You could be set upon by werewolves or were-bears! Father says that a were-dragon has been seen in these parts!”

“Nonsense!” cried Charlotte. “A were-dragon in Kent? Lady Catherine would not allow such a creature in her domain. Do not give credence to rumours, Maria. If Lizzy insists upon travelling tonight I do not want her to be worrying about something so unlikely as a were attack.”

Lizzy laughed. “You yourself were trying to frighten me with highwaymen only a moment ago. Do not worry, Charlotte. I am so full of concern for Jane I can think of little else. An attack by were-beasts would be a welcome distraction. My sister is ill and I must be with her. Cannot you understand? I would not sleep at all, knowing that she needs me.”

Charlotte sighed. “I know, Lizzy. You are such a good sister. While you dress I shall go to the kitchen and make you a cup of tea to sustain you for your trip.”

“Thank you, Charlotte,” said Lizzy, hugging her.

As she closed her door behind her, Lizzy heard Maria say to Charlotte. “It was not a rumour! Papa told me. I am so worried for Lizzy with a were-dragon on the loose.”

“Hush,” said Charlotte. “There are times when it is best to keep your concerns to yourself.”

Lizzy rushed to the wardrobe and took out a serviceable gown. As she dressed she allowed a vision of the dragon to pass before her eyes. If he were to accompany her carriage on the road to London, she knew she would gain some measure of comfort from gazing from time to time into his green eyes. But she knew that could not be. And she knew that she must think only of Jane. At this moment she was all that mattered.

When Lizzy came downstairs a few minutes later, Charlotte had a cup of tea and a plate of cakes waiting for her. Lizzy tried her best to eat and drink for Charlotte's sake, but she could think of little more than that Jane needed her, and that the sooner she was in the carriage and on the road to London, the sooner she would be with Jane. She managed one slice of cake and half a cup of tea before she stood and embraced Charlotte.

“I must go.”

“Take care Lizzy,” said Charlotte. “I hope you find Jane improved upon your arrival.”

“I hope so too,” said Lizzy and then she hurried out into the night and boarded the carriage. Joseph climbed up on the box beside the coachman and signalled for them to leave. Charlotte stood in the open doorway long after the carriage had driven off into the dark, oblivious to the urgent `ook's from her husband who hopped impatiently from one foot to the other beside her.

~

It wasn't till they were some distance from Hunsford, on the moonlit road, that the carriage stopped. Joseph, who was riding outside next to the coachman, came around and gave Lizzy a sealed letter. "The Mistress said to give you this when away from prying eyes," he said. "She did not want your friends to see or penetrate the content of her missive." He touched his forelock, then left her. The carriage was soon moving again.

Not sure how much Joseph knew or guessed, but sure of his loyalty, she broke the seal on the letter and read:

Dear Lizzy,

By now you will have penetrated my deception, or at least suspected it.

If you have not guessed it, though, let me tell you that Jane does not have a fever. I wish it were that simple. Oh, Lizzy, I dont know how to tell you of it, but I assure you we took all the care we've ever taken in keeping our dear Jane safe in the special room. However, somehow, three days ago she managed to open the secret room and go out into the night.

Dear Lizzy, we have no idea where your sister might be or what kind of danger she is in. Surely, as you know, we were as careful as ever to put her into the locked room, during her difficult time.

But, oh, Lizzy something, possibly some small animal, managed to get through the little ventilation hole at the top of the room adjoining her secret room, which I keep locked. Somehow it managed to open the door and she left during the night. Where Jane might have gone, is anyone's guess.

She's now somewhere in London, alone and undoubtedly frightened. It's been three days and we've done all within our power to recover her. We can only hope that with your special knowledge of your sister, you might yet find her. We shudder to imagine what might befall her in the London streets.

Your fond Aunt,

M. Gardiner.

Lizzy clutched the letter to her chest, wishing she could change the contents. Erase the words and replace them with something benign. Three days. Jane had been lost in the hell of London for three days. When she had thought Jane ill, Lizzy had been filled with worry for Jane; now she was devastated. This was almost the worst possible thing that could have happened. All she could think was that she ought to have been there. She had let Jane down.

"Jane, oh Jane," Lizzy cried, as tears sprang to her eyes. Just then she heard the sound of hooves, frantically chasing the carriage.

~

What a fool he was. He'd come to her a few hours after midnight, seeking to evade anyone who might set watch for him. He'd come with the silly hope she might touch him again. Why did a touch of hers seem worth every risk? He knew he did not have her love, and yet, he could not give her up. So he came to her when he could no longer withstand the power of the moon and the tug of his yearning. He came to her as dragon.

From the air, fortunately yet at a distance, he'd seen the waiting carriage, the house wakened. He'd seen HER board the carriage and depart. Why? What had happened?

This had all the marks of a disaster. An illness at home, perhaps? Her father? Her mother? One of her sisters? He needed to know - to discover if there was any way he could be of help. Offer her comfort.

He flew back to Rosings as fast as he could, plunged in through the open balcony doors of his room, already changing back to human form as he landed. Picking up his underwear and putting it on, he went across and knocked at the door of the little dressing room, where his servant slept.

"Jennings, Wake up man," he said. "I need to go out at once. Get me my green jacket and hunting pants and a clean shirt. Quick, man, hurry."

Seconds later, a sleep-beffudled Jennings stumbled into the room, carrying the pants and a blue jacket. Darcy seized the pants and shirt, pulling them on without Jennings help, as he handed back the jacket and said, "No. No. The green one." The one Georgiana said highlighted his eyes. Oh, what a fool he was.

Less than two minutes later, fully dressed and shod, he hurried to the stables where he'd sent Jennings ahead to have a groom prepare his horse.

Mounting his horse, he set off in pursuit of the carriage, on the road to London.

~

Lizzy looked behind the carriage to see Mr. Darcy, in what seemed a desperate pursuit atop a black palfrey.

Mr. Darcy? Chasing her? What could this mean? In her distress and confusion she was without full command of her powers of reason, but wanting to find an explanation that suited her dilemma; she could only think that he'd somehow heard something about Jane from Mr. Bingley. Mr. Bingley was in London. He was a werewolf. Well, a were-dog like Jane. Wasn't it true that they all knew each other? Bingley must have sent an express.

She banged on the roof of the carriage. "Stop, stop, Joseph. It's Mr. Darcy."

The man must have heard her because the carriage stopped. Mr. Darcy pulled up near the carriage window and bowed to her, still astride his horse.

"Miss Bennet. I was... that is... I'd gone for a late night... er... walk. I saw you leaving. Is everything quite all right? Is there any way in which I can be of service?"

She shook her head. "I'm very afraid," she said, "that in this calamity no one can be of any help."

"You look very ill. Is this... is your family well..."

"My family..." Lizzy shook her head. "It is my sister Jane, you see..." She felt a sinking in her heart. He knew nothing after all - of course, how could he have? She had been foolish to think otherwise. But he needed an explanation. It was the least she could do after he had followed her out into the night in evident concern for her welfare. Not feeling herself equal to explaining the whole to him, particularly in the veiled terms which the nearness of the coachmen would necessitate, she retrieved the letter from her bosom and passed it to him. Would he understand all the implications from it?

Darcy perused the letter quickly, then once again, slower.
He looked at her. "Her time..." he said.

Lizzy, nodded.

"Like... Mr. Bingley?"

Lizzy nodded again.

"Good God, how could this happen?"

Lizzy gestured for him to mind the coachmen, and he choked back what he was about to say and shook his head. His expression became very solemn. He leaned forward, handing the letter back as he spoke softly, his eyes never leaving her face. "Godspeed and good success Miss Bennet. I fear you've long been desiring my absence."

He then bowed stiffly to her, turned his horse, and spurred it back to his aunt's house at Rosings.

Lizzy watched him go until his horse had become one with the shadows of the trees and the dark of the night. She barely noticed when the carriage began moving again. He had come and he had gone so quickly it was almost as if she had imagined the whole. She was left feeling strangely bereft. What had she expected? That he would go with her? That he would help? That he would stand by her so she did not have to face such dreadful problems alone?

What did she expect from a man she had but recently rejected? He was probably now congratulating himself upon his escape. He, himself, had told her he wanted a wife for procreation. Why would he want to marry into a family whose blood was as tainted as his own, and thus stand a higher chance of bringing this horror upon his own children?

He would not. Lizzy feared, very much, that she would never see him again. She couldn't understand why that realization left her feeling so cold and so very lonely.

Chapter Eleven

Lizzy slept and woke, woke and slept again fitfully, while the wheels of the carriage trundled beneath her along the road to London. Sometimes in her dream it seemed to her she heard great wings overhead, and once, while awake, she twitched the curtain aside and was certain she could see, against the sky, the silhouette of a dragon in full flight.

But she was not a fool and, as they got to London in the cold dispirited light of an overcast dawn, she had to admit that she'd probably dreamed of both the sounds and the shape of the dragon against the sky. And dreaming of it, knowing it wasn't true, made her all the more regretful. He was lost to her, now when she finally understood his true worth. He had no reason to follow her; to fly above her carriage as a fearsome winged escort in the dead of night. She was on her own, and it was up to her, and her alone, to help Jane. Regrets could wait. She had to find her sister.

Joseph helped her from the carriage at her uncle's home, and she had no more than set foot on the bottom stone step of the handsome townhouse than the entrance door opened wide. Mrs. Gardiner stood in the opening, waiting. She received Lizzy with great affection, but made nothing but the most polite enquiries until - under cover of taking Lizzy to her sister, she took her into the room which gave access to the more secret chamber where Jane had been locked. When they were finally alone, she clutched Lizzy's hands and stared into her eyes, allowing her concern to show on her face.

“You see, Lizzy,” Mrs. Gardiner said. “It would have been impossible for her to have got out on her own. Our security was as good as ever, or so we thought. But we were protecting her from herself - we never expected someone would attempt to free her.”

“Hush, Aunt. Do not fret. I know you did all that was in your power to protect Jane.”

“There was some great mischief, and I can only conjecture that something with the power to turn into a very small creature must have found its way into this room. A were-bat, perhaps. Or a were-mouse.”

“Aunt,” Lizzy said, rubbing Mrs Gardiner's hands in consolation. Calming her aunt was difficult with her own distress rising. She looked at the bare chamber where Jane had spent her nights. There was a small, simple bed and, on the floor, a cushion, where most likely she'd been sleeping. And on the only chair - in the corner - lay a piece of embroidery, upon which she'd been working little by little in the evenings, till her urges got too strong and she had changed shape. “Such creatures have never been seen or heard of, or at least have never been recorded in history. Certainly...”

“Oh, I know, but how else can you explain it? How else did she escape from here, but that someone opened that secret door? But no one could have come to the room to open the door because there is only one key to the chamber, and I wear it on a chain about my neck at all times. The only explanation is that someone gained entrance through the small crack under the window, which we opened barely an inch for ventilation.”

Lizzy sighed. “I have no understanding of it, Aunt,” she said. She took off her bonnet and ran her hand through her hair. “And even less do I have a solution. How are we to find her? What has been done to discover her?”

“Everything we could think of,” her aunt said. “Your uncle and Joseph have scoured the streets day and night since we found she was gone. We did all we could before we thought to worry you.”

#

He should never have flown to London. It was folly, the sheerest folly, exposing himself in such a manner to all the world. Anyone looking at the sky could have seen the dragon. And anyone who saw the dragon would know to call the RWH. If there were beasts that elicited the kinder emotions of men, or doubt as to their dangerousness, the dragon was not one of them.

But to follow upon horse would have taken too long. And besides, Darcy had given in to his deepest desires. He could no longer reason logically. He - who so often exhorted Charles to control his baser were-instincts - could now do no more than follow his instinct and his most foolish impulses.

But even in foolishness he was cautious. Before changing to his dragon form, he took his horse back to the stables and gave him to the care of a sleepy stable boy. Then he went up to his room, taking heed to listen and make certain his servant had gone back to sleep. Getting a bag from his wardrobe - a satchel-like sack with a long carrying strap - Darcy undressed and put into it all his clothes, as well as enough money to see him through, should he need to change shapes in a strange place. He wrapped the strap loosely around his wrist. Then he went to the balcony and jumped, shifting as he did, and spread his wings towards London.

Propelling himself through the night air with powerful strokes, it didn't take long for him to catch up with the travelers. On the road beneath, he could see Elizabeth's carriage, slowly making its way to the city. He wished he could be in the carriage with her, offering what consolation was in his power. But most of all, he wanted to put his arms around her and press her to him, stroke her cheek, kiss away her tears. These were strange thoughts to be coursing through the dragon's mind, but he did not care. All that concerned him now was her safety and her happiness.

Thoughts of Jane and Bingley haunted his mind. What a fool he'd been to keep them apart. It didn't make him feel any better that Elizabeth, too, had thought they should be kept apart, that she had no idea that Bingley was a were-dog, just as he had never suspected Jane suffered from the same affliction. That they were perfect for each other.

He flew in time with the carriage for a few miles, relishing in the knowledge that Elizabeth was below him, and he could protect her from any danger the night may afford. He resisted his desire to fly low, to look in through the windows for a glimpse of her face, her eyes. He knew flying to her would do nothing but increase her distress. And he knew that as much as he wanted to fly above her carriage as escort the entire way, time was of the essence.

Instead, he circled above the carriage one last time, then strengthening the strokes of his muscular wings, set off for London to an area he'd used before, where the blind backs of three buildings formed a sheltered area to land in. The cobbled yard in between was strewn with old furniture and broken prams and other discards of city living - the kind that accumulate in any hidden space. He landed carefully, avoiding the debris with his taloned feet. As he landed, he willed his human mind to take over the beast, and no sooner had talons scraped cobbles than it was bare toes searching for purchase as the force of his landing threw him off balance.

Darcy quickly unwound the satchel from his wrist, and in the shadow of a decrepit armoire he dressed himself as best he could. He knew his neck cloth would not pass scrutiny in daylight, but dawn was not yet upon him, and if seen in the still-dark streets, he would be indistinguishable from any other gentleman who had imbibed a little more than was good for him.

Though the landing place was in a less than savory locale, it was a short walk to the Darcy townhouse. In the east, a delicate rose streaked the London skyline as Darcy banged upon his door. If his butler was surprised to see him unannounced at such an early hour and with no visible means of transportation, he did not show it.

Darcy went up to his study and rifled through his desk drawers. He didn't know what, exactly, he was looking for, but he had to engage in some pursuit until he could safely call upon Bingley.

#

If Caroline Bingley was surprised as her footman showed Darcy into her drawing room, she didn't show it. Instead, she rose from her chair eagerly.

“Mr. Darcy,” she said. “So kind of you to come. Indeed, I expected nothing else of your kindness and care for us.”

Her greeting momentarily confused Darcy. What kindness was it that he was performing? His visits to his friend were natural, commonplace occurrences. When they were both in town they were always in each other's company. But Miss Bingley left him no time for further conjecture, so eager was she to show her appreciation of his beneficence.

“Tell me what news you have of my brother. How like him to leave without word - he has no consideration for a sister's feelings at all. But I knew I could rely upon you - a friend is always in the know.”

“Bingley is not at home?”

“Mr Darcy! You are funning me, to be sure. Wht else can you have come than to set my mind at rest? Is it the races at Newcastle? Or has he driven his curricle to Harrogate on some obnoxious dare? The larks young men get up to these days!”

“How long has your brother been gone?”

“These two days at the very least,” cried Caroline. “I attended a soiree at Lady Jersey's as the guest of my new friend Elizabeth Elliot, so I had no need of his escort. He said something about going to White's. I have not seen him since.”

First Miss Bennet was missing and now Bingley! Darcy could not but believe there was some sort of connection, but he saw no purpose in sharing his concerns with Miss Bingley. Though he abhorred deceit, he believed that the kindest thing to do, at this juncture, was to set her mind at ease until he knew there was truly a need for her to worry.

“If he went to White's, then no doubt it is as you say,” said Darcy. “He must have become embroiled in a rash bet that involved a challenge.”

“You do not know? I was sure he would have done nothing, however hare-brained, without your approval.”

“Madam,” said Darcy severely. “I am not your brother's keeper. He has the ability to follow his own judgment. Besides, I have been in Kent and only just returned to Town.”

Caroline simpered. “And your first thought was to visit me.”

“I came looking for your brother - but I will now go to White's. I will send a note when I discover his whereabouts, but in all probability he will walk through the door before long.”

“You are too good,” she said as he took his leave.

Darcy walked down the steps and hailed a hackney. If Bingley were missing and Miss Bennet were missing, could it be that they were together somewhere, or had they both been discovered in their changed forms and reported to the RWH? That thought was frightening to consider, but it was a fear that hovered constantly in the back of every lycanthrope's mind. But if any weres had been caught recently, rumor would be rife. He directed the driver to take him to White's and then leaned back in the seat. If the RWH had captured any were-creatures, the denizens of the men's club would know of it first.

At the club Darcy sat at his usual table and ordered a brandy. He sipped it as he discreetly listened to the conversations around him. He overheard nothing but the usual bored social banter. Some acquaintances approached him and exchanged greetings. All he was able to ascertain was that Bingley had not been seen at the club for over a week. He finished his drink and left.

All day Darcy walked the less reputable streets of London, stopping at the inns and public houses that he passed along the way. Trying not to draw too much attention to himself, he searched the hazy rooms with his intent gaze and listened to the general hubbub with the appearance of disinterest. Occasionally he asked a question of the tapster or a barmaid.

He returned to his townhouse late in the night, weary and dejected. The only thing he knew for certain was that if either Bingley or Miss Bennet had been captured by the RWH, it was being kept a supreme secret. He gave himself up to the ministrations of his manservant, and then sat for some time before his fire in his bed attire. He was no closer to knowing the whereabouts of Miss Bennet or his friend. He felt he was failing them. But most of all, he felt he was failing Elizabeth. He remembered the look of despair upon her face when she gave him the letter that told of her sister's disappearance. He had to erase that pain. He could not fail her.

#

Lizzy gazed out the drawing room window upon Gracechurch Street. It had been a long and fruitless day. The lamplighter was going up the street, lighting all the lamps as the sky darkened to indigo. Jane was somewhere out there, lost and alone. Or captured by the Royal Were Hunters. Her uncle insisted it was not the case. He said that if anyone had been caught, the news would be on the street, but Lizzy could not help but let her worst fears haunt her.

She felt completely useless. Since her arrival in the morning, she had done little more than talk with her aunt and uncle, go out for a walk with her aunt through a very respectable neighborhood, and play dispiritedly with her cousins.

All the time she tried to solve the puzzle of where Jane might be. Of why she did not return to Gracechurch Street when the morning light had dawned and the moon no longer had its hold upon her. Of who it was that had let her out of her room. Who could have known she was in there? The room, along with Jane's shifting affliction, was a deeply held secret. But what was more worrying than even that was the idea of a were-creature so small it could squeeze through a crack in a casement and release Jane while she was under the influence of the moon. And to what purpose?

The thoughts raced back and forth in her head, but she could make no sense of anything at all. The only thing she knew was that her sweet Jane, who she had vowed to protect with her life, was gone, and she was doing nothing to get her back. It was insupportable!

Lizzy was certain she would not be able to sleep, no - she would not be able to live with herself, if she did not do something. She stood and tiptoed out of the room. Her uncle was still in his study. Her aunt was in the nursery putting the children to bed. Lizzy retrieved her pelisse and bonnet from the cloakroom and then went out to the foyer. She tried the front door. The bolt had not yet been shot for the night and it opened smoothly and quietly. She slipped out into the dimly let street. She had no idea where she was going to go to search for Jane, but at least she was doing something.

#

There no longer were lights on the streets Lizzy was walking. All that lit her way was the silver light from the risen moon, and the flickering glow that seeped from un-curtained windows. She didn't know how long she had been wandering up and down the streets, leaning close to the walls of buildings when people passed by in the hopes of making herself invisible. She had been lucky. There had been a few leers, but no one had accosted her.

Lizzy didn't know what good she was doing, going from one dark street to the next, or how in the world she was going to help Jane by doing so. But there was one thing she knew for certain. She was totally and undeniably lost.

And as she trudged along she attempted to keep her mind on Jane, trying to guess at where she would go in her changed form in a city such as this. At Longbourn there were fields to run in - pastures, meadows, lanes. Here there was nothing but cobbles and hulking, shadowy buildings rising up. Narrow, winding streets, intersected with darker alleyways. Horses pulling laden carts up and down the roads and skinny dogs slinking in the shadows.

And then Lizzy had it - there were parks in the city too. Huge expanses of lawn and trees and flowerbeds. If Jane were running loose in London in her dog form, would she not prefer Hyde or Green Park to the grimy streets?

Lizzy needed to find a park, but she had no idea how to get to one of the larger ones, even from Gracechurch Street. Lost as she was she had even less hope of discovering one. And on no account would she approach anybody to ask her way until she found herself in a more respectable district.

As she turned down one street and up the next, Lizzy found it difficult to keep her mind from straying to thoughts of Mr Darcy. If only he were with her. Just his presence would build up the courage that was failing her, The fear that had her cowering right against the buildings, where she found safety in the deeper darkness. Mr Darcy with his vivid green eyes, and his gleaming gold scales. Thoughts of the man and the dragon mingled in her mind confusedly.

#

Darcy gave up trying to sleep. There was a moon outside taunting him, and although he knew he could withstand its pull he also knew that either Miss Bennet or Bingley could be caught in its sway, roaming the streets of London in changed form, easy prey to the RWH who patrolled the city more than any other place in the country.

He dressed and went out the front door without alerting his servants. He walked along side streets until he came to the bank of the Thames. The moon shone down upon the river, magnifying its glow. He felt a surge in his body that he had to control. He turned from the river and made his way down a maze of narrow lanes and cavernous closes. He didn't know what it was, but something was drawing him. Something that had more power on him than even the moon.

Darcy felt the tension increase and he picked up speed, almost running through the dark, deserted streets. He heard muted noises that sharpened to the sounds of growls and barking as he turned into an alley a little wider than those he had just passed through. The moon was streaming down upon a pack of wild dogs. These were not the meek, scabby curs that slunk behind market stalls, but true hunters. And they had their prey at bay, trapped against a stone wall that blocked off the alley.

The prey were two dogs - one that Darcy knew very well by sight, the other a dog that had once been described to him by his friend upon their first coming to Hertfordshire. Bingley and Miss Bennet in their were forms! Bingley was standing a little ahead of Miss Bennet, his hackles raised, snarling fiercely. She was bravely facing the pack too, her teeth bared.

Darcy looked about for something - a stone or a stick to throw at the pack of wild dogs, to distract them, when suddenly, from a darkened archway there came a startled gasp. The pack of dogs turned their heads as one.

“Jane!” cried Elizabeth, stepping out from the shadows. The dogs shifted in her direction.

“No! Get back!” yelled Darcy.

Elizabeth stared across the alleyway at Darcy. The moon held her in its embrace and he could see the look in her eyes. It was something more powerful that fear.

“Get Jane out of here!” she cried, as the dogs rushed towards her, snarling and yapping like a pack that knows its fox is cornered.

Darcy felt as if his head were exploding. He heard his clothes rip and fire rippled through his veins.

“Elizabeth!”

It started as a scream, and ended in a roar as his huge dragon wings unfurled and he lunged forward.

---