Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion (11 page)

“I admit it.” His voice was rich and quiet and resigned. “I think only of what is best for you. All I do, it is for love.”

She shifted, as though arranging her feet for a dance; turned her right foot from the heel, adjusting her stance, and swinging her arm with the gleaming pistol to aim at William. Her shot could banish him to hell: immortal, yes, but indestructible, certainly not.

“All for love. I think not, sir. You might have some concern for my soul, as I do. I have every justification for pulling the trigger. One small movement of my finger, that is all.”

“It is your choice,” William said.

She knew it was the part of her that was Damned that stilled her finger, and equally, it was her instinct as a Christian and as a woman to spare him. But the anger and despair burned within her.

“You deceived me once when you created me and abandoned me. That was an unnatural act, was it not? You should have loved me then, William; you should have been a true Creator to me. So I shall end this sad charade now.”

She took the breath that would precede the tightening of her finger upon the trigger, but a warmth enveloped her, stole around her with the scent of spices and herbs. Raphael’s arm wrapped around her shoulders. His other hand grasped hers and lowered the pistol, took it from her hand. She heard the quick metallic sound as he uncocked it, still holding her in his embrace.

“Well, that was exciting,” Tom commented. He licked his wound himself and breathed it closed. “I wonder what would have happened if we’d chosen Raphael for your target practice?” He viewed his ruined shirt with distaste. “I need to dine. I’ll bid you good morning.”

He opened the door of the barn, and a little grayish light, that of a very early morning, seeped inside.

William walked out of the barn, not looking at Jane. Tom gave her a rueful glance and followed him, leaving Jane still wrapped in Raphael’s embrace.

Chapter 11

J
ane turned and laid her face against Raphael’s shoulder, too weary and sick at heart to feel arousal at his embrace. A little hunger lingered, fighting with exhaustion.

“I could sleep like a horse, standing up,” she murmured.

“Do you wish to come to the house?”

“No. And am I to think you are yet another temptation cast before me by William?”

He stepped away from her, his face severe and rigid. “You insult me. I hope I am my own man, still.”

“I beg your pardon.” She reached for her discarded coat and shrugged it onto her shoulders.

“But I fear our continued association may well have dire results and propel us both toward Damnation. It is better, madam, that we associate no more.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I am wearing men’s clothes and you address me as ‘madam.’ And I believe that the decision regarding our continued association is mine also. So I have judged right, Raphael. You are one such as me. But what is your association with William?”

He paused, one arm halfway into his coat. “William is my brother. Yes, brother by blood and by birth, and my Creator, the one I hate and love most in the world.”

“So you also are his fledgling.”

“I was.” He pulled his coat onto his shoulders and reached to adjust her lapel, smoothing it. “Some twenty years ago I took the Cure. There was a lady who would not countenance marriage—or any other sort of liaison—to one of the Damned.”

“You are married?”

“No, no.” He shook his head with an ironic smile, and in that gesture she could see William. “The Cure was lengthy and difficult, for I had been Damned so long, and I retired to a monastery to recover. She would not wait. I cannot blame her. I had leisure to contemplate my soul and repent of the evil I had done as the Damned.” He opened the barn door.

Jane stepped outside into the chill gray of early morning. A tentative flute and whistle indicated the start of the dawn chorus. “You took vows?” She tried to suppress an inappropriate laugh. “I beg your pardon, it is like something from a gothic novel.”

“Life in the monastery gave me the opportunity to undertake scientific studies to find a true cure for the Damned. Even then I knew taking the waters was a difficult and imperfect process that might not work permanently.”

“And did you succeed?”

“I did, after correspondence with some of the leading men of science throughout Europe. It is why I came to England, to confer with a Mr. Davy in Cornwall and Mr. Herschel, the Astronomer Royal. I believe I have the solution. If it is successful, it will not only provide a permanent cure but make the person who takes it safe from the lures of the Damned so they may never be created again. And William asked to see me, so, here I am.”

“Why?”

“He is my Creator,” Raphael said. “And my brother. Is not that reason enough? He wants his fledglings, even if, like me, they seek to destroy what he is, or, like you, reject him. It is what he is.”

Their boots crunched on the gravel of the house as they walked back toward the village. A sleepy child, yawning, accompanied by a calf on a rope, passed them, gazing at them with curiosity.

“Will you take your cure yourself?” Jane said.

He shook his head. “I hope I shall not need to. It may kill if taken as a preventative. I do not know, for I have but one small flask of the solution and I fear it is an imperfect solution at present.” He sighed. “I fear, however, that I may need it soon. You have noticed, my dear Jane, that association with the Damned, in our state of imperfect metamorphosis, speeds the process. Our association with each other, also, for our vampire tendencies are stronger than our human souls.”

“You mean we damage each other,” Jane said. “Well, my mother will be disappointed but relieved that I do not contemplate an affair of the heart with a Roman Catholic. I believe that making the choice between a papist and one of the Damned as a son-in-law might prove a weighty moral dilemma for her.”

“You jest about it. I admire you for that.”

“What else can I do?” She walked ahead of him as a cart clattered by on the road, for they had now left the driveway of the Great House. “Surely at my time of life to think of love is absurd.”

“My dear, I am older than you even in human terms.”

She nodded. “I shall go the rest of the way alone. I thank you for coming with me.”

She turned away quickly, ignoring his outstretched hand. A handshake between two friends, what harm could there be in that? Merely the danger of bursting into tears of disappointment and anger, and she did not want him to see her weep. She entered the yard of the cottage, where chickens stretched and fluffed themselves but scattered at her approach, and let herself in through the back door of the house. From the kitchen came the sound of banging pots and the servants’ voices; the household was awake.

She grabbed her own clothes from the peg where she had hung them last night and crept into the shuttered, dim dining room to change into her shift, and then barefoot, and hoping Cassandra would not awake to ask awkward questions about the boots and men’s clothes she carried, ascended the stairs and entered their bedchamber.

Cassandra lay asleep, as usual buried beneath the bedclothes.

Jane thrust the men’s clothes beneath her bed. She would have to send them back to the Great House, for she would not go herself. William’s presence, as her Creator, was too strong, and she did not want to see Raphael again.

She substituted her nightgown and cap for the shift and crawled beneath the chill sheets.

She should have tumbled Raphael in a haystack when she had the opportunity, and to the devil with her reputation as a respectable spinster, daughter of the late Mr. Austen, rector of Steventon. Damn Raphael for his scruples. She thought of that one kiss and sighed, remembering the richness of his taste and smell.

She was damned one way or the other, at the very least to eternal spinsterhood.

S
he woke once to grayness and the spatter of rain on the window and turned to see Cassandra’s bed was empty. So it was not early, but she fell back into sleep.

“Jane! Will you not wake?” Sometime later, Cassandra shook her awake. “We let you sleep for I thought you might be unwell. Do you not want to write? It’s close to noon.”

“I’m quite well, thank you.” Jane sat and swung her legs over the side of the bed, wincing as she did so. She was still mortal enough to feel the effects of the previous night’s energetic run through the woods and fields. “What is everyone up to? I see you’ve been outside; your skirts are sadly bedraggled.”

“It is indeed a dirty sort of day. Martha is in the kitchen. I’m afraid our mother has taken to her bed.”

“I’m most sorry to hear it.” Mrs. Austen, for all her great energy and good humor, suffered from frequent bouts of melancholy where she would spend her days in bed, the curtains drawn, and refusing any efforts by others to rouse or cheer her.

“Anna is reading to her.”

“Poor child. She’ll probably leave with a flea in her ear.” Jane looked at the rain trickling down the window and thought her mother had chosen a good day to stay abed.

When she was dressed, she retired to her usual spot in the dining room, annoyed at the extravagance of a candle, for the day was greatly overcast, and set to work. This is what she should do; she must resist the Damned and all they stood for, and she would certainly not brood over Raphael, a gentleman she barely knew. And a Catholic, she reminded herself. The house was quiet apart from the scratch of her pen and faint sounds from the kitchen.

Someone tapped at the door. “Jane?”

Jane laid down her pen. “What is it, Martha?”

A giggle and a shuffling sound. So both she and Cassandra were there. “A servant is here from the Great House with something for you.”

“Very well. Leave it outside.”

“But we want to see what it is! And which of the gentlemen sent it to you.”

Jane stood and stretched, stiff from having sat in the same position for so long. She walked to the door and opened it. Cassandra and Martha stood there, and one of the handsome footmen presented her with a parcel wrapped in paper. Inside was a large reticule, a beautiful silk and leather bag with tassels and embroidery.

Jane took the reticule, surely one of the finer items of fashion she had ever owned, and slipped her hand inside it. She pulled out a card. “It is from Mrs. Kettering. How very kind of her.” She glared at her sister and friend. “And here is the music she promised she would lend Anna.” She certainly wasn’t going to tell them the reticule also contained pistols, shot, and powder.

“Oh, how very generous!” Cassandra cried. “And Anna can copy the music, since it is too wet to go outside.”

Jane said to the footman, whose livery was dark with rain, “Perhaps you could wait in the kitchen and have some refreshment while I compose a note to Mrs. Kettering.”

Before Cassandra or Martha could inquire too closely into the contents of the reticule, she took it upstairs and stowed the pistols and ammunition beneath her bed, wishing she had some way of returning the men’s clothing to the Great House. She could return the reticule, but then how would she carry the weapons? She was determined not to succumb to the lures of the Damned, but even her pride would not allow her to turn down this opportunity to protect her family.

The letter (a polite and formal note of thanks) was written and returned to the footman, who sat with a pot of ale and a hunk of bread and cheese, his clothes steaming from the heat of the kitchen fire and not in any hurry to go back into the rain. Jane found Cassandra and Martha deep in conversation in the parlor.

“ . . . but I think it is from Mr. Fitzpatrick, not Mr. Raphael—oh, Jane, there you are. Look at this music Mrs. Kettering has sent! Some of the very latest airs and compositions that are fashionable in London. How splendid!”

“Pray do not speculate on my admirers,” Jane said. “At my age, it is ridiculous. I shall fetch Anna downstairs. She will enjoy this music, and I must bid our mother good day.”

But when she entered her mother’s bedchamber, Mrs. Austen was alone. Jane’s heart sank as she approached the bed. “How do you do, ma’am? I am sorry you are unwell.”

“Why did you not come before? Too busy writing, I suppose, to care for the duty you owe your parent.”

“Indeed not, ma’am. I was somewhat indisposed myself this morning but have felt a great deal better since rising.” She continued hastily, “I am sorry Anna is not here to keep you company.”

“That wretched poetry rants on so. I sent her away.” Mrs. Austen turned over.

“I hope you feel better soon,” Jane said. “Is there anything I may fetch you? A glass of wine? Some tea?”

As her mother made no reply, Jane left, closing the door quietly behind her. She returned downstairs and opened the parlor door, intending only to tell Martha and Cassandra that she was returning to her writing slope.

“But where is Anna?” Jane asked. “Our mother sent her away. Surely she has not gone outside on a day like this!”

The other two women exchanged a glance. “Well,” Cassandra said, “she is certainly not in the house.”

“She’ll get soaked,” Jane said. “Foolish girl. You should have—”

But at that moment she heard the rattle of the back door. Jacques the pug, who had been asleep, snoring noisily, on a cushion, jumped up and ran into the vestibule to meet his mistress. Jane followed him and found Anna standing in a puddle and shaking out an umbrella. As she had predicted, her niece was indeed soaked to the skin, but her glowing eyes and complexion indicated that the walk in the rain had been something more.

“For heaven’s sake!” Jane said, relieved that Anna was home. “Where have you been? And not to tell anyone! This was badly done, Anna. And look at you, soaked to the skin. I am certain you will catch a cold.”

“I’m very well, Aunt.” Anna stood the umbrella in a corner and tugged at her bonnet strings.

Jane reached to help her. A faint scent of blood and the feral scent of the Damned hung around Anna. She untied the bonnet strings and gathered the wet folds of Anna’s red cloak. “Did you meet Mr. Richards?”

“Yes, I did, Aunt.”

“You do not deny it!” Jane gritted her teeth. “Do you not see, Anna, this is precisely the reason why your father is so angry with you—that you pursue the dictates of your heart with so much thoughtlessness. Have we not given you warning enough to avoid Mr. Richards? If this continues, we shall have no choice but to send you to Kent.”

“Pray, how else should I pursue the dictates of my heart? With cold reason? Is that why you have never married, Aunt Jane?” Anna brushed past her into the parlor, where Jane heard Cassandra and Martha exclaim over her bedraggled appearance and urge her to sit close to the fire.

Jane dropped the sodden cloak onto the floor and followed. “Cassandra, Martha, I have reason to believe that if Anna has not yielded to Duval Richards yet, she is well on the way to becoming his mistress, and her behavior must cease immediately.”

All three of them stared at her, and then Anna cried, great childish sobs that shook her slender frame, while Cassandra and Martha comforted her and shot vicious glances at Jane.

“What is the matter with you?” Cassandra whispered to Jane. “I though Martha was the one given to odd fancies and fantasies, but you have become both vulgar and fantastical in your statements. Look at the poor child! See how upset she is!”

“You condone her assignation with a known libertine?”

“We have only hearsay on the matter. For that matter, we know very little of Mr. Fitzpatrick and his friends. How are we to know who speaks the truth? Next time Mr. Richards calls—”

“We should not receive him—”

“Next time we shall receive him graciously and note his behavior. You, Jane, sent him from the house, and is it any wonder then that Anna met him secretly?”

“But—”

Cassandra turned away and, talking of hot possets and warm bricks, left for the kitchen.

“I’m going to write,” Jane said to no response from either Martha or Anna and returned to the bleakness of the dining room and her writing slope.