Dreadfully Ever After

by Steve Hockensmith

  “Ooo,” Kitty couldn’t help but say. And then, for the first time, she didn’t just let herself be kissed. She kissed back.

  “Oh, Avis,” Bunny moaned a moment later, when pausing for a quick gulp of air. “I knew you were a saucy one the second I saw you.”

  The voice nearly ruined everything. Because it wasn’t the right one.

  “Shut up,” Kitty growled, and she put a hand on each side of his face and jerked his lips back to hers.

  She had him. He would answer any question, reveal everything, do anything. All she had to do was kiss him like this. Kiss him while thinking of the man she wasn’t kissing.

  If this was being a jezebel, it really wasn’t all that bad. A little awkwardness, a little titillation, a lot of shame later, no doubt. But in the moment: success! Mr. Darcy was as good as cured.

  “What the devil is going on herrre?” a gruff voice barked, and Bunny spun away so quickly, Kitty was left with her head tilted and her eyes closed and her lips parted, kissing empty air.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Sir Angus MacFarquhar standing in the doorway, his hands on his hips and his eyes, flashing with rage, on her.

  CHAPTER 27

  “It won’t take both of us to deal with those ruffians,” Elizabeth whispered as she and her father left Kitty and Bunny alone in the drawing room.

  “I should hope not,” Mr. Bennet whispered back. “And with Sir Angus gone—”

  “My thought exactly. Do you have a preference?”

  Mr. Bennet nodded. “The ruffians. I wish to show them what this ‘old man’ is still capable of.”

  He hustled out the front door at a pace just below a sprint. The thugs he was after had a significant head start, but Elizabeth was confident he’d catch them quickly enough. They didn’t seem the types to have a carriage waiting, and there’s only so quickly one can walk while cradling a giant rabbit.

  Elizabeth stopped in the middle of the foyer and for the next minute did nothing, not even breath or blink, but listen. At first, she feared the sound of the door opening and closing would draw out the footman, Scroggs, to investigate. The servant never appeared, and eventually she satisfied herself (by the occasional squeak of a floorboard overhead) that he was occupied upstairs. Kitty and Bunny, meanwhile, were still murmuring in the drawing room. Otherwise, the house seemed to be empty.

  Perfect.

  Elizabeth moved swiftly yet silently through the first floor. It didn’t take long. Though elegantly (if dustily) appointed, the MacFarquhars’ town house wasn’t large, and once she’d made a quick circuit of the dining room, kitchen, pantries, cloak rooms, and servants’ quarters (abandoned but for one), she was back in the foyer having seen nothing that looked like a laboratory or study. She would have to try the second floor.

  That was riskier. There would be no excuse if she was discovered.

  Oh, I was just trying to get back to the drawing room and I guess I went up the stairs by mistake and then I stumbled into Sir Angus’s chambers and—oopsy!—I seem to have begun accidentally rifling through his things.…

  So the first questions to settle: Where was Scroggs and what was he doing?

  Elizabeth hopped atop the banister—in her experience, balustrades were far less likely to creak than steps—and glided up the spiral of the staircase as gracefully as a skater sliding over ice. She slowed as she approached the top, focusing all her Shaolin-sharpened senses on the hallway just beyond. The footman was up there somewhere … as was, perhaps, the salvation she sought.

  The rustling of fabric and the sound of someone humming told her where Scroggs was: in the first room to her right. The door was slightly ajar, and Elizabeth dropped soundlessly to the floor and crept toward it. When she reached the doorway, she peeked through into what looked like a lady’s boudoir.

  There was her dressing table topped with perfumes and powders and combs. There was her wardrobe, opened to reveal a veritable rainbow of gaily colored silk and muslin. There was her four-post bed, the white sheets so smooth and taut it would seem like sacrilege for someone to muss them by actually touching them.

  And there was the lady herself, staring back at Elizabeth. She showed no surprise, however, as staring and being stared at were all she was capable of.

  The portrait hung over the empty mantel that (Elizabeth assumed) had until recently held her urn. If the likeness was at all accurate, Mrs. MacFarquhar had been a slender raven-haired woman with rosy skin and sly, dark, wily eyes. Her full lips seemed to be tilting ever so slightly to one side, almost smirking, as if the painter had just offered her a cheeky wink.

  Sir Angus had described his wife as “formidably silly,” but Elizabeth found herself instinctively liking the woman. She looked like the kind who are so often dismissed as thoughtless merely because the follies of those around her move her to laughter instead of tears.

  Her husband might not have appreciated her, yet he honored her all the same. Why else maintain this shrine to a woman dead these twenty-some years? The room was so perfectly preserved, it was as though death was but a day trip for the lady, a little outing from which Sir Angus expected her to return any minute.

  If she’d walked in just then, she would have found more than just Elizabeth peering into her bedchamber. She would have come across Scroggs … doing what, exactly? Elizabeth could still hear him humming to himself and (from the sound of it) sorting through gowns in a far corner of the room. She couldn’t quite see him, though, so she dared the smallest push against the door, all the while praying that Scroggs wouldn’t let the hinges get too rusty.

  Fortunately, no squeak emanated from the door, although Elizabeth almost let one loose when she saw what Scroggs was up to. Gore and horror she’d seen in a million varieties, yet nothing could have prepared her for the sight of a chubby footman trying on his dead mistress’s dresses.

  He wasn’t wearing them, thank goodness. That might have been more than Elizabeth could take. Instead, he was merely standing in front of a full-length mirror pressing a particularly resplendent ball gown to his chest and bulging belly. He hummed a lilting waltz as he inspected his reflection, and Elizabeth assumed (because the alternative was unthinkable) that he was imagining himself dancing with a beautiful lady. The way he spread the skirts out around his legs and rump and turned to admire his profile argued for something less savory, however.

  Either way, the man was occupied—engrossed, even—and this was a gift horse Elizabeth resolved not to look in the mouth (or, in fact, ever let herself think of again). She moved on to the next door.

  Beyond it was the room Scroggs was supposed to be in, apparently. It was another bedchamber the same size as the first, only this one didn’t double as a mausoleum. Indeed, it looked quite lived in, for the bed was unmade and a sleeping gown and night cap lay tossed across the rumpled sheets. On the bedside table, Elizabeth saw as she came through the door, was a half-melted candle and a bookmarked copy of A Continuation of Facts and Observations Relative to the Variolae Vaccinae, or Cow-Pox, by Edward Jenner, M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S., Etc.

  Obviously, this wasn’t Bunny’s room.

  On the other side of the bed a small writing desk was pushed against the wall, and the sight of loose papers upon it drew Elizabeth closer. Among the documents she found was the smudged draft of a letter dated the day before.

  My dear Lord

  Dear Lord Dundas

  “Squidgy”

  Sir,

  The curative restorative thing item after which you once inquired is in readiness at last!. The final problem remains one of production. Procuring the necessary ingredients involves the most revolting requires the blotting out of all human has proved problematic and, in mass quantities, impossible unacceptable impossible. I must continue to move slowly and with the greatest secrecy discretion. You will have to be patient a little longer, my friend Squidgy good sir. I will see to it, however, that your support fortitude supportive fortitude patience is known to the king you know who He who shall soon be
, praise God, again in the best position to reward it. Not all have shown your faith and loyalty. Some, in fact, have attempted to steal that which you have earned through fealty. They will still be waiting in vain long after Miss Wilson your beloved Harriette your inamorata your “special friend” (wink wink) the one you have so selflessly supported is fully restored to you as she once was.

  Yours sincerely

  Your humble servant

  Yours in Christ

  Yours etc.

  Sir Angus MacFarquhar

  “Old Haggis Breath”

  A.M.

  As she reached the end of the letter, Elizabeth found herself clutching the paper so hard, it was starting to crumple. She had to force herself to relax her grip and put the paper down and calmly smooth it out, all while silently exalting.

  So it was true! There was a cure. Just a few more minutes going through Sir Angus’s things, and she might learn exactly where to—

  “What the devil is going on herrre?”

  There was no mistaking the voice echoing from downstairs. Sir Angus had come home at the worst possible moment. It was easy to guess what had upset him: Elizabeth could hear him railing on about “shame” and “disgrrrace” and “prrroprrriety.” Kitty should have heard him come in, of course; usually, it would have been impossible for so much as a ladybug to flap past her back undetected. But the lapse was understandable if she’d been buying time for her father and sister in the way Elizabeth suspected.

  They were out of time now, though. There was no way Elizabeth could slip back down the stairs without being seen by Sir Angus or Scroggs or both. Yet if she stayed where she was, she’d be found out soon enough anyway—perhaps within seconds, if Scroggs decided to hastily make his master’s bed, as he should have done hours ago.

  She had no choice. She rushed to the windows.

  They were French windows, glass doors leading out to a narrow terrace. Elizabeth hurried through onto the balcony, closed the doors behind her, and then turned to survey the street below.

  Mr. Bennet was walking up to the house, Brummell tucked under one arm, Mrs. MacFarquhar’s urn in the other. He’d apparently been whistling some jaunty tune, for his lips were frozen midpucker even as he stared up pop-eyed at his daughter.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only person staring. Some two dozen others were scattered up and down the thoroughfare—gentlemen, ladies, children, servants, workers. It would be impossible to make her escape without witnesses.

  At least she’d give them something worth seeing.

  “Oops!” she said, and she pitched forward over the wrought-iron railing, spun end over end, and landed on her feet directly beside her father.

  “My goodness,” she said loudly, looking back up at the balcony as if in astonishment. “What an amazing stroke of luck I wasn’t injured!”

  “Yes,” Mr. Bennet said, matching her volume. “We shall have to tell MacFarquhar that railing is dangerously low!”

  Neither of them dared to glance back to see how their performance had been received. Instead, Mr. Bennet simply handed Elizabeth the rabbit and knocked on the MacFarquhars’ front door.

  “Trouble?” he said under his breath.

  “Sir Angus came home unexpectedly,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Trouble,” her father said, sighing.

  Elizabeth peered down at the rabbit in his arms.

  “Don’t worry.” Mr. Bennet wiped at the blood that speckled the rabbit’s thick fur. “It’s not his.”

  The door before them opened a crack, and Scroggs peeked out at them warily.

  “Yes?”

  “We’ve returned,” Mr. Bennet said.

  Scroggs refused to open the door any wider.

  Mr. Bennet raised the urn in his hands. “With the lady of the house.”

  “So I see,” Scroggs said, still not stepping aside. Obviously, he was in no rush to throw fuel on his master’s raging fire. “If you would be so kind as to wait here while I—”

  Before he could close the door, his master’s voice boomed through it.

  “I tell you, I will not tolerate such behaviorrr in my home! I should throw you out on your earrrrrr!”

  Someone in the drawing room let loose a sudden, girlish sob.

  “Step aside,” Mr. Bennet snarled. And snarled very well, apparently, for Scroggs hopped back to let the man pass.

  A moment later, Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth were marching into the drawing room, where they found Bunny MacFarquhar doing all the sobbing. Kitty was slouched beside him on the couch looking even more embarrassed than she had the time a dreadful tore away the top half of her battle gown. A scowling Sir Angus was looming over them both as if they were vermin he was about to flatten beneath his boot heel.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Mr. Bennet said.

  Sir Angus turned his glare on him and then swung it down to the urn he was holding.

  “I would ask the same of you, sirrr! By what right do you lay hands on the most prrrecious and sacred thing in this house?”

  “I claim no such right,” Mr. Bennet said, and he stalked to the nearest table and placed the urn atop it. “I was merely retrieving it from those who would.”

  Elizabeth, meanwhile, was returning Brummell to Bunny, who proceeded to kiss the rabbit repeatedly and deeply, drying his tears on its fur.

  “Dirrrk?” Sir Angus said, turning to his son. Apparently (and unsurprisingly, given his father’s disposition), “Bunny” wasn’t the young man’s given name.

  “Some of Mr. Mugg’s associates paid a call,” Bunny said, still nuzzling his pet. “They were rather adamant about those accounts that need squaring. On behalf of my friend, you’ll recall. When I couldn’t satisfy them, they insisted on taking something as a guarantee.”

  Sir Angus pointed a shaking finger at the urn. “And you let them take that?”

  “How could I stop them?” Bunny sniveled. “They already had Brummell!”

  Sir Angus turned toward Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet, his anger giving way to something like horror. “And you went afterrr them?”

  Mr. Bennet nodded brusquely. “Those two, at least, have been given an incentive not to bother you again. I cannot speak for their employer, however.”

  “I see.”

  Sir Angus’s gaze shifted so that he was no longer staring at Mr. Bennet or Elizabeth but instead seemed to be entranced by some mote floating in the air between them. He was assuming, no doubt, that the “incentive” offered to the thugs was a bribe as opposed to a generous offer to let them escape with their lives.

  “I am in yourrr debt, then,” he murmured.

  From the softening of Mr. Bennet’s expression and the little twinkle of self-satisfaction in his eyes that only his daughters would recognize, Elizabeth knew her father was about to say something appeasing, soothing, conciliatory. They had Sir Angus where they wanted him. They could start another round of calls and outings and strained flirtations aimed at inching their way toward what they sought.

  Elizabeth was no longer satisfied with inching. Not with the prize in sight at last.

  “Unlike some,” she said coldly, “we have no desire to acquire debtors. It is friends we hoped to find here in London—and friends, despite the embarrassment that has dogged our every encounter with you, that we thought perhaps we’d found. Yet to return just now, only to hear you impugning my sister’s honor? It is more than we can bear.” She turned to her father. “Let us go before we are further insulted.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” Mr. Bennet said with a slow uncertainty that wasn’t just for show. Elizabeth’s gambit wasn’t entirely to his liking. “Come, Avis. We should—”

  “Wait,” Sir Angus said. “Perrrmit me to explain, Mrs. Bromhead. When I came home a few minutes ago, I walked in on Miss Shevington …”

  The man swallowed hard. He had a lot of pride to get down.

  “… consoling my son. Finding her herrre without chaperone, engaged in such tenderrr intimacy, I misread the situati
on in a way that shames me. I let my temperrr get the betterrr of me and I spoke rashly, and for that I apologize with all my hearrrt.”

  “Apology accepted,” Bunny said.

  Everyone ignored him.

  “You’re rrright that I have insulted you,” his father went on. “Again. So I must beg you to allow me the chance to make amends. I would offerrr you the highest honor it is in my powerrr to bestow.”

  Elizabeth’s whole body went numb.

  What could this privilege be? A tour of Bethlem Royal Hospital? A peek at Sir Angus’s secret laboratory?

  Or could it be a cure for the strange plague, made available only to the most select of a very select few?

  “Mrs. Bromhead, Mr. Shevington, Miss Shevington,” Sir Angus said gravely, and Elizabeth’s heart began pounding so loudly she feared she wouldn’t hear what the man said next. “Would you like to see ourrr king recrowned?”

  CHAPTER 28

  After discovering the letter from Elizabeth in his aunt’s study, Darcy took to his bed for two days. He didn’t just take to it, in fact. He may as well have become it.

  He did none of the things one usually feels obligated to do when “taking to bed”: sleeping for long stretches, moaning, writhing in sweat-soaked linens, crying out at fever-born phantasms, slurping spoonfuls of broth offered by anxious loved ones, vomiting said broth back onto ones who are, as a result, even more anxious and slightly less loving.

  No. All Darcy did was lie upon his bed so still and silent that he could have been the stone effigy of himself atop his own tomb.

  He did not sleep. When his aunt had food sent up to him—not broth but dollops of calf’s brain, bloody chunks of Kochi’s unagi, lumpy pastes it was impossible to identify except as “flesh” freshly minced—he did not eat. Even when Lady Catherine herself came up with his daily dose of serum, he only grudgingly consented to part his lips and swallow the astringent crimson liquid that kept him alive (more or less).

  What need had he for more life? His appetite for pain was sated.

  “I don’t know that I should tolerate this disagreeable humor of yours,” Lady Catherine said on the second day of his self-imposed internment. “Wallowing in self pity—it is beneath you. What do you have to moon about, anyway? With each passing day, up till now, you have gained more strength. There is every reason to believe you will make a full recovery.”