Mr. Darcy walked with Lizzy as far as the house, but then excused himself and went off in the direction of the stables. When she entered the foyer, Georgiana and Anne were waiting for her, and both ladies could tell that Darcy’s revelation had completely shattered her composure. With all color drained from her face, Elizabeth looked as if she had just had the fright of her life, and she might very well have.
Georgiana looked to her twenty-five-year-old cousin, hoping that she would know what to say, but Lizzy spoke first.
“I just want to go to my room, so if you will excuse me.” She swept past them and went up the stairs.
Georgiana thought that they should go after her, but Anne discouraged her. “She needs time to think about what she has just learned. If we speak to her now, we might only make matters worse.”
“From the look on her face, I don’t think that is possible,” Georgiana said, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. “Will loves her so much. If she rejects him, it will break his heart,” she said as the tears spilled down her cheeks.
“This is far from over,” Anne said with an optimism she did not feel, but for William’s sake, as well as Georgiana’s, she had to hope for a better outcome than one could reasonably expect at the moment.
Lizzy’s room was on the north side of the house, and although it was early afternoon, the room was already growing dark. She went to the bed and removed the ties holding the curtains open and climbed in as if she were crawling into a cave. She did not want to see anything that reminded her that she was in the home of Fitzwilliam Darcy, master of Pemberley, country gentleman, and werewolf.
She curled up into a tight ball and lay there as if paralyzed, and she felt as if her brain was frozen as well because she could not take in what she just heard. Mr. Darcy, a werewolf? But werewolves only existed in fright tales, such as those published by the Grimm brothers, and she only knew of their existence because Charlotte’s brothers loved to tell such stories and derived great pleasure from scaring the living daylights out of the Bennet sisters.
Lizzy lay in that position all afternoon, and when she heard Ellie, the maid, come into the room to ask if she planned to come down for supper, she pretended to be asleep. When she heard the door open again, she assumed it was Ellie. She had no idea how much time had elapsed, nor did she care.
“Elizabeth, it is Anne. May I please speak to you?” When Lizzy did not answer, Anne told her that she would sit quietly in a chair near the fireplace until she was ready to talk, but Lizzy desperately needed to use the chamber pot and asked Anne to come back in fifteen minutes. Maybe, possibly, in that span of time, she could compose herself enough to talk to Mr. Darcy’s cousin.
When Anne returned, she was carrying a candle, but Lizzy asked her to put it out. “I do not want any misunderstandings.”
At first Anne was confused by her response, but then she realized that Elizabeth was afraid that William would see the candle and interpret it as a sign that all was well.
“Do not worry about the candle,” Anne reassured her. “The arrangement William and I agreed upon was that a candle would be lit in a specific room on the south side of the house. A light in any other room would have no significance.”
Anne looked at Lizzy who was sitting in a chair with her legs pulled up underneath her and with her head resting on the arm of the chair. Because she had not bothered to undress, her frock was wrinkled from her having slept in it, and her hair had broken free of its ties and was an uncombed mess.
“Would you like for me to send for some tea?” Anne asked.
“No. I do not want anything.” But then she sat up. “Actually, I do want something. I want to return to Longbourn as soon as possible. I will say nothing of what I have learned here, but I cannot remain at Pemberley.”
“I understand, and I will speak to Mr. Jackson immediately to make the arrangements.”
After several minutes of silence, Lizzy finally spoke. “He is out there right now, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he will be gone tonight and tomorrow night. But as soon as the sun rises the day after tomorrow, he will return to human form, and it will be as if nothing had happened.”
“As if nothing happened? How is that possible?”
“Because he was bitten fourteen years ago, nearly half of his lifetime. He is quite used to it.”
“But to be all alone, roaming the countryside.”
“Oh, but he is not alone. He runs with a she wolf from a nearby estate.”
“What?” It was hard to believe that such a thing as a werewolf existed. Now, she was being told that there were at least two in England, and one of them was a female. Lizzy felt something stir within her. Mr. Darcy was out there loping through the countryside with another woman. No that wasn’t right. Another she wolf.
Anne explained that William and the neighbor were far from being the only persons living in the country who had been bitten by a werewolf.
“It is ironic that it happens almost exclusively to people from the higher echelons of society or their servants because they are the ones who have the money to travel and who can hire private carriages. People who travel by coach are much safer because a wolf will not go near so large a party. But if a carriage breaks down in the woods with only a few passengers, then a wolf might be bold enough to go near it, or in William’s case, not even be aware that he was there. That is what happened to Nell as well.”
“And who is Nell?”
“I would rather not use her real name without her permission, but she is the daughter of a peer who lives on a nearby estate. Her family was traveling in Ireland when their carriage broke down. Nell told me that she went into the woods to relieve herself and was bitten on the leg. The werewolf remained nearby until someone responded to her calls for help, which, of course, was very dangerous for her to do. If she had been caught, she would have been…”
“Please, do not say it. I couldn’t bear to think that something might…”
“Yes, I understand your feelings, but William is quite safe here. While Nell and he are transformed, they remain on the Pemberley estate where there is plenty of food for them to eat, and both are expert hunters.”
“Of course, he hunts. That explains why he knows so much about all of the animals hereabouts. He said it was a matter of survival.”
“He was referring to werewolves in general, and for some, it truly is a matter of survival. When a wolf is hungry, he is more inclined to take risks and to come out into the open, but William and Nell do not have such concerns.”
“I am happy to hear that he is not alone. How old is Nell?”
“I believe she is just shy of her twenty-first birthday.”
“But if Nell is of a marriageable age, why does Mr. Darcy not marry her? He would be marrying one of his own kind.”
Anne was careful in formulating a response. She did not want to say anything that would further distress Elizabeth, but Miss Bennet was in need of correction.
“In order for William to marry ‘one of his own kind,’ as you put it, he would need to marry a human as he was born a human and that is the form he takes for all but two days in every month.”
Lizzy could see that her question had stung, but was it possible to be both human and animal?
“What I meant to say was that if he married Nell there would be no misunderstandings. Both would come to the marriage knowing each other’s altered state, and his chances of being happy would be much greater.”
“That is true that there would be no secrets between them. But there is a problem. William is not in love with Nell; he is in love with you.”
Lizzy fell back into the chair. She felt as if someone had reached into her chest and pulled out her heart. Yes, Mr. Darcy was in love with her, and she was in love with him. She had come to Pemberley with such high hopes, only to find that her handsome gentleman turned into a furry Mr. Darcy with every full moon.
At that moment, there was a mournful howling very close to the manor house, and Anne looked alarmed.
“William is nearby. I do not understand. He never comes this close to the house. It is not wise.” Anne went to the window, but before she could unlatch the door leading to the balcony, Georgiana came running into the room.
“Anne, did you hear Will calling? He is too close. A servant or one of the grooms might see him.”
“Yes, dear, I know. But William has a cool head on his shoulders, and he will soon depart.” But no sooner had that statement been uttered than another heartbreaking howl was heard.
“Oh, God, Anne. He knows. That is why he is nearby.” Georgiana fell to the floor in a heap, her body wracked with great heaving sobs, and then she looked up at Lizzy, her face a picture of the anguish she was feeling for her brother. “He knows that there will be no candle in the window, and he cries out in his grief.”