‘I don’t know. I have always confided in her about everything, but this… I cannot decide. Does Bingley know?’
‘No.’
‘Will you tell him?’
‘Perhaps, in time, if you tell Jane.’
‘For now, I think I will not mention it. I will tell her that we have been travelling round Europe, but that we mean to be home soon, and leave anything else for another time.’
***
The blissful interlude could not last. They both knew they would have to face the world again and when the weather changed, with rain falling outside the window, they knew the time had come.
‘Annie said that you sent the retinue back to Venice,’ said Elizabeth as she looked out at the rain.
‘Yes,’ said Darcy. ‘It seemed the safest place for them at the time.’
‘Will we return to Venice on our way back home?’
‘No. We will travel home by sea, I think. It will be easier than going across the mountains so late in the year. Are you ready to go back to England?’ he asked her.
‘Yes, I think I am,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I would like to be at home for Christmas.’
And once back at Pemberley, she thought, she and Darcy would have to find a way to live, a way to bear the torment of his terrible curse.
‘Then I will start making the arrangements. I will have to leave you for a few hours; I must go to the bank in Rome and that is not a task I can give to anyone else, but I will be back as soon as I am able.’
He left the room and Elizabeth heard him giving instructions for his horse to be saddled.
The rain did not last for long, and Elizabeth decided to make the most of her last few days in Italy by walking on the beach. It was very different to the beaches in England. When she had visited the seaside with her family many years before, there had been a cold wind blowing and the other holidaymakers had gritted their teeth, determined to enjoy themselves. They had changed their clothes in bathing machines drawn up on the sand and then dipped themselves in the cold sea. Here there was no cold wind and the sea was warm. There were no bathing machines nor any sign of human endeavour, only the sand, the sea and the cliffs, and above them the sky.
The waves were small and playful, running in and rolling out with a swishing sound that mingled with the cry of the seagulls which wheeled overhead.
On a sudden impulse, she sat down and took off her shoes and stockings, then holding up her skirt she walked down to the water. The sand was hot and she hopped from foot to foot, sinking into the fine grains which enveloped her small white toes as she landed until she reached the firmer sand. It was dark and wet and better able to support her weight, and behind her she left perfect imprints of her well-shaped feet.
Her eyes wandered lazily over the pleasant landscape and followed a carriage that bowled along the wide road on top of the cliff. But when it stopped and turned down the narrow road that led down to the beach she began to feel apprehensive. She ran across the beach to take shelter in the lee of the cliffs and quickly dried her feet on her handkerchief then slipped them into her shoes. The noise of the carriage was growing louder, its wheels rasping and its horses whinnying, with every now and then an oath from the coachman as the way became more difficult for him to negotiate.
Then the noise stopped and she heard the sound of the carriage doors opening. She heard a voice she recognised and was startled to realise that it belonged to Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
‘Miss Bennet!’
Any attempt at concealment was useless. Lady Catherine had already seen her and so Elizabeth moved out of the shelter of the cliffs and faced Lady Catherine who, with Anne, was picking her way across the sand.
‘Miss Bennet! Where is my nephew? I must speak to him at once. It is a matter of great urgency. I have been to the lodge, but his servants were obstinate and they refused to tell me where he could be found.’
She was dressed, again, in black, as she had been in the Alps. Beside her, Anne was dressed in drab green, her pelisse hanging heavily around her thin form. They looked incongruous in such clothes on the beach.
‘He has gone out riding,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Do not prevaricate with me,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘Where is he?’
‘That I cannot say.’
‘You can say at least when you expect him back,’ returned Lady Catherine
‘Indeed I cannot,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Headstrong, obstinate girl!’ said Lady Catherine in an angry tone. ‘You must tell me at once.’
‘You have been betrayed,’ said Anne, doing with a few quiet words what her mother could not do with her angry tirade, and winning Elizabeth’s attention. ‘By Wickham.’
‘Wickham!’ exclaimed Elizabeth in astonishment.
‘Yes. George Wickham. We have just come from Paris. Mama had a fancy to stay there for a while after we left you in the Alps and we met George there.’
‘He was in his cups,’ said Lady Catherine, determined to have her share of the conversation.
‘And he was frightened,’ said Anne.
‘With good reason,’ declared her mother.
‘If Darcy finds out what he has done—’ said Anne.
‘Wickham seems born to be a thorn in his side,’ said Lady Catherine to Anne. ‘First attempting to elope with Georgiana, then running away with Miss Bennet’s sister, and now this.’
‘This is the worst of all,’ said Anne.
Lady Catherine nodded in agreement.
‘He has betrayed you to an ancient evil,’ she said to Elizabeth, ‘a thing old beyond imagining, a monster, a—’
‘Vampyre?’ asked Elizabeth.
‘You know?’ said Lady Catherine in surprise.
‘Yes, I do. But I did not know that Wickham had anything to do with it,’ said Elizabeth with a frown.
‘He quickly tired of your sister and left her in England whilst he resumed his debaucheries in Paris,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘He indulged in drink and women and cards, and in sympathetic company he bemoaned his fate. But one was listening who should not have been there, who should have been dead. He heard Wickham saying that he had married Darcy’s sister-in-law and knew then that Darcy must have married. The Ancient believes in the old ways, that every vampyre bride should be his on her wedding night, and he is determined to have you. He has a friend, a prince, who means to invite you to his villa. If you value your sanity, do not go.’
‘Your warning comes too late,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We have already been, and the Ancient has already tried to claim me.’
‘Impossible!’ said Lady Catherine. ‘If he had found you, you would never have escaped.’
‘But I did escape, with Darcy’s help.’
‘Darcy? But then that must mean…’ she said, giving Elizabeth a shrewd glance.
‘Yes, I know about Darcy,’ said Elizabeth boldly.
‘And you have not fled in disgust or despair?’ asked Lady Catherine in surprise.
‘As you see, I am still here.’
‘You surprise me. You have more courage than I thought,’ she said with grudging admiration. ‘But it will do you no good. You will succumb to fear or loathing in the end. When a mortal loves a vampyre, it is always the way.’
‘No, Mama,’ said Anne. ‘Papa never did.’
‘Your Papa was the exception,’ said Lady Catherine. Her expression softened. ‘He was exceptional in every way.’
‘I believe that Elizabeth is exceptional, too,’ said Anne, turning appraising eyes on Elizabeth.
‘She is nothing out of the ordinary,’ said Lady Catherine with a dismissive wave of her hand.
‘She captured Darcy, and that is something no one else has ever been able to do,’ said Anne.
Lady Catherine looked at Anne and said, ‘There may be something in what you say. But no matter, it is not important now. What matters is that you claim Darcy saved you from the Ancient. And yet that should not be. Now that the Ancient has reclaimed so much of his former strength, no one
can withstand him.’
‘It was not easy,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But when he picked Darcy up by the throat, his hand began to burn. I believe it was because it closed round the cross.’
‘A cross could not hurt him,’ said Lady Catherine contemptuously. ‘A vampyre can only be hurt by something older than itself, and the Ancient was old when Christ was young. Besides, why would Darcy be wearing a cross? He would never wear such a thing.’
‘Because I gave it to him,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Because you…?’ asked Lady Catherine, stunned. Then, to Elizabeth’s astonishment, she smiled. ‘So that is how Darcy managed to defeat the Ancient. I was wrong about you, Miss Bennet—no, I will not call you by that name, I will call you by your true name, Mrs Darcy. You were meant to be together, I see that now, as Sir Lewis was meant to be with me. Instead of giving you my curse, I will give you my blessing.’ She lifted her veil and leant forward to kiss Elizabeth on the cheek. ‘He was not burnt by the cross, he was burnt by your gift: he was burnt by—’
She was suddenly, without warning, knocked back with great force and Elizabeth, startled, saw that Darcy now stood between her and Lady Catherine. He had returned from his errand and, seeing Lady Catherine’s pose, he had moved with supernatural speed to defend Elizabeth.
‘Did she hurt you?’ he asked, taking Elizabeth’s face in his hands and looking at her in concern. ‘Did she touch you? Did she bite you?’
‘No,’ Elizabeth said, reassuring him. ‘You don’t understand. She was not threatening me. She came to warn me about the Ancient, but when she knew you had defeated him, she wished us well. She sees now we cannot be parted.’
He looked astonished and then smiled.
‘I hoped she would see it eventually. She loved a mortal; she knows what it is like to be unable to give up a loved one.’
He turned to help Lady Catherine to her feet, but she was no longer there.
Although he had given her the lightest of taps, the strength of it had hurled her across the beach and into the cliff. But such a blow, whilst it would have been capable of killing a mortal, had done no harm to Lady Catherine. Elizabeth saw her picking herself up and heading for the path that led from the beach, with Anne behind her, leaving an indentation in the cliff. So powerful had the blow been that it had driven her veil into the rock where it remained, blowing in the breeze.
‘We came to understand one another a little,’ said Elizabeth, watching Lady Catherine go. ‘She did not have time to finish her sentence, but I know what she was going to say. The Ancient one was defeated by my gift to you, by something older than himself: by love.’
Darcy’s face softened and he leant forward and kissed Lizzy tenderly.
‘I cannot bear it any longer,’ she said, her hand caressing his face. ‘I want to be with you, whatever the cost. Take me, I beg of you, let us be together as man and wife, come what may.’
‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ he said, his voice shaking with the effort of controlling the huge tide of passion she could feel churning within him. ‘There are torments to face if you turn. You will never age, but you will have to watch all those around you grow old and die. You will be cut off from life, a part of it and yet not a part of it, forever cast out.’
‘I don’t care,’ she whispered. ‘I will bear any fate to be your wife.’
He looked deep into her eyes to make sure that she meant what she said, and then he lifted her from her feet and carried her across the beach and up to the lodge, where he took the steps two at a time and kicked open the door before carrying her over the threshold.
As he crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs a shadow detached itself from the corner and one of the servants stepped forwards.
‘There is someone to see you,’ he said.
‘Not now,’ said Darcy, without breaking his stride.
‘Yes, now,’ came a voice from the shadows.
‘It is the head man of our village, Nicolei,’ said the servant.
An old, bent man stepped forwards. He was leaning on the arm of a younger man.
‘It can wait until morning,’ said Darcy, already beginning to mount the stairs.
‘No, Old One, it cannot wait,’ said Nicolei, looking at Elizabeth and then back to Darcy. ‘It must be now, before you do anything you regret. There is a way to relieve you of your burden. There is a way to break the curse.’
Chapter 16
There was silence in the hall. From outside came the rustle of leaves and the cry of a sea bird, loud in the unnatural stillness. Then Darcy let Elizabeth slip from his arms and onto her feet, and taking her by the hand, he led her into the sitting room, with Nicolei following close behind. Darcy strode over to the fireplace and Elizabeth stood beside him, their arms around each others’ waists, whilst Nicolei made his way slowly into the room. The young man helped him into a chair and he sat down with great difficulty.
‘You say you know a way to return me to my human self,’ said Darcy uncertainly when Nicolei was seated.
‘That is right,’ said Nicolei.
He spoke in Italian, but Elizabeth was by now so familiar with the language she needed no translation.
‘I have never heard of such a thing,’ said Darcy.
‘And yet it is so,’ said Nicolei, looking at him reverently. ‘The knowledge has been passed down from head man to head man in our village for many generations.’
‘You have never told me about this before,’ said Darcy with a frown.
The old man rested his folded hands on the top of his stick.
‘I did not know you wanted it, Old One. You are magnificent, a creature of the night, undead, undying. You soar aloft on mighty wings. You are a protector of the weak, a harbinger of both good and ill, a bringer of vengeance, a dealer of swift and sure justice. You scatter your enemies like straw before the wind. Never did I think you would want to give up such greatness. The centuries to you are as the seasons are to your children, for that is what we are in your shadow, nothing but children, weak and blind and pitiful. The land and the sea and the sky are all your home. You travel great distances before we can take a step. Your senses are more keen, more brilliant than ours: you see the ant at his labours, you hear the click of his jaws, you smell the sea when you are on the mountain top, you taste the pollen on the breeze.
‘Do we say to the wind, do you wish not to blow? Do we say to the thunder, would you rather be silent? No. We never think of these things.’
‘And yet you think of them now,’ said Darcy.
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding slowly, ‘that is so. My family, those you have here to serve you, heard you talking when you ate with your so beautiful wife. They knew you had found love and that you were a different man to the one they had known. They saw that your marvellousness was now, to you, a curse, and they were troubled. They take a pride in serving you, it is their way of repaying you for the service you do for them, but that service on both sides has always been willing. Now it is not so. And so they came to me, to ask me what was to be done, and I bid them bring me here so that I might tell you of that which you must know.’
The fire was leaping brightly in the grate. The atmosphere was peaceful. The furniture was faded but wholesome, and the sunlight was beaming benignly through the windows.
How strange it is, thought Elizabeth, that everything should be so peaceful when such dark secrets are being laid bare.
‘Can you truly offer me a way to be rid of the vampyric part of me?’ asked Darcy, still disbelieving but with a note of hope in his voice.
‘I can, if that is what you desire. But think long on this, Old One, I beg of you.’
‘I have thought of little else this past year. I have wanted and wished for this thing but I thought it could never be.’
Nicolei nodded.
‘If that is so, I will help you. My wish is to serve you, and if this is the service you desire, then I will give it, willingly.’
‘How is it to be accomplished?’ asked
Darcy, looking down at him intently.
‘I can do no more than point you on the first part of your journey,’ Nicolei said. ‘The answers you seek are to be found in a chamber beneath the ground. It is so old that a Roman temple has been built on top of it, and the temple itself is of a venerable age. But before you set your foot on this path, beware, for there is great danger. Once it was tried in my forebear’s time many centuries ago. I do not know what happened to the vampyre who tried it, only that he never returned.’
‘There is danger in everything,’ said Darcy. ‘There is danger in living, and an enterprise such as this one does not come lightly; there is always a price to pay. But I am willing to pay it. Where is this temple?’
‘That I do not know. I know only that it is set on a cliff in a green hollow, with the sea in front and a greater cliff behind and a tree growing above it. I know of three temples close by but none of them are like this. They have the sea, or the cliffs, or the hollow, but not all three, and I know of no temple with a tree close at hand.’
‘And yet it is familiar, what you describe,’ said Darcy thoughtfully. ‘I think I have seen this place, some ten miles to the northwest of here.’
Nicolei frowned, as though trying to recall the place of which Darcy spoke. Then his brow smoothed and he nodded, but he said, ‘I know the place you speak of, but it is not a Roman temple; it is the ruin of a monastery.’
‘But beneath it there is a temple,’ said Darcy. ‘I found it when playing there once as a boy. I fell through the floor of the monastery when exploring the cellars and found myself in a strange place ringed about with columns and statues. It was very old and I am sure it was a temple. The statues seemed to be of the Roman gods.’
‘This, then, might be the place,’ said Nicolei cautiously. ‘If so, the chamber you seek will be there somewhere underneath.’
‘Then I must go there. I saw no way down at the time, but there may be one, hidden,’ said Darcy, taking his arm from around Elizabeth’s waist.
‘I will go with you,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Darcy. ‘You heard Nicolei; it will be dangerous.’ When she was about to protest, he said, ‘You cannot come with me. There is more than just my desire to protect you at work here, there is fate, too. Remember the castle, Lizzy. Remember the axe. Remember when it fell from the wall, and the meaning of the portent, that you would cause my death. You cannot come with me, my love. I must go alone.’