Dreadfully Ever After Page 9

  “Yes, well … I do appreciate your attentiveness since I arrived. You’ve been extraordinarily understanding, given the circumstances. After all that’s happened these past few years, I could hardly have expected you to show such concern for me.”

  “How could I not support my cousin when I find him on my doorstep in such need—and so very alone?”

  If Darcy hadn’t been trained to withstand every torture known to man, he would have winced.

  Anne gave his hand a squeeze. It was a cold grip, but one Darcy found, to his surprise, not entirely unwelcome. It was good to have something to cling to when all else seemed to be slipping from his grasp.

  “Ahh! Look! Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Anne stopped and leaned toward one of the bushes lining the path, pulling Darcy in beside her. Before them were half a dozen flowers in full bloom, though Darcy couldn’t tell what color they were. They looked washed out and drab in the hazy half-light, and he could smell them not at all. It made him wonder what his cousin was admiring.

  “I’m ever so fond of roses,” Anne said. “They don’t close their blossoms when the sun goes down like those haughty daisies and poppies. I think that’s quite sporting of them, don’t you? The night creatures deserve their beauty, too.”

  Darcy was about to make some neutral reply when he noticed a glimmer of light just beyond the nearest flowers. The little points of light were back—two of them, close together, hovering not a foot from him. When he squinted at them, he saw that they were suspended on a lattice of thin, interconnected lines stretching from one rose stem to another.

  He was looking at a web, and the lights were a spider and the cocooned fly over which it hovered.

  Darcy felt the strange urge to reach out and touch them. Feel their radiance.

  “Yes, I do dearly love them,” Anne said. “Day, night—it’s all the same to them.”

  The two glows seemed to merge for a moment; then the fly’s flickered and went out.

  The spider’s light burned on all the brighter.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kitty Bennet had studied under four masters in her life. Her father and a young man named Geoffrey Hawksworth had introduced her to the deadly arts. Master Liu of Shaolin had deepened her understanding and broadened her skills through years of grueling training in China. Yet it was her fourth master—her final and yet also her first—whom she found herself most indebted to now.

  Kitty was drawing upon all the lessons she’d learned during her years as an acolyte to her sister Lydia.

  Bunny MacFarquhar and his dandified friends were gathered around her as their toadies wrestled away the dreadful that had cleared Hyde Park just minutes before. And Kitty was doing all that Master Lydia would have done in her place.

  When the men made bad jokes, she laughed.

  When they gave her long, leering looks, she simpered and bit her thumbnail.

  When they made disparaging remarks about her father and the comical way he’d run screaming from the unmentionable, she said, “Oh, you’re beastly!” in a tone that added, “And I just adore beastly boys!”

  To her own dismay, it worked. With no dagger-dangling bandoliers or scabbarded katana or dowdy battle gown to hold her back, she could actually charm these wild young London bucks. Or Avis Shevington could, at any rate. In fact, it became obvious quite quickly that Avis Shevington could have a lot more fun than Kitty Bennet ever did.

  Kitty had only ten minutes in Avis’s skin, however. Then the soldiers began moving in from the guard towers, and Bunny called for a hasty retreat before their most excellent joke could be ruined by those twin spoilsports: responsibility and consequence.

  “I do hope I shall be seeing you tomorrow at Ascot,” Bunny said as he scooped up his rabbit, Brummell, and got ready to run.

  “You can bet on it,” Kitty told him, “and count on a better return on your investment than the races will bring!”

  “Ho!” Bunny guffawed, and off he went, in the company of his little troop, scampering into the trees.

  Kitty turned and walked back to the barouche from which Lizzy and her father had watched her impromptu debut into London society.

  “Well, it would seem we’re off to the races. La!”

  “Indeed,” Lizzy said. “Well done, Kitty.”

  Kitty climbed up and settled herself beside Mr. Bennet.

  “It was my pleasure. Truly! Why, I’m half-tempted to stay Avis Shevington forever. Who would miss boring old Kitty Bennet anyway?”

  This, of course, was a hint for her father and sister to exclaim, “We would! Never change, dear Kitty!”

  They missed their cue. Instead, strangely enough, it was only Nezu who seemed to note the comment at all. He glanced back from the driver’s seat with a quizzical look upon his face. But, just as he opened his mouth to speak, there was a thundering of hoofbeats and the crash of something tearing through brush.

  A black ambulance was bursting out of the thicket nearby, and from the hoots and giggles coming from inside it was clear who the passengers were.

  “Let us follow young master MacFarquhar’s party,” Mr. Bennet said. “I don’t think answering a lot of questions would serve us any better than it would them.”

  At a word from Nezu, the coachman snapped the reins, and the carriage darted off before the soldiers could reach them. A moment later, they were following the ambulance as it streaked through the easternmost gate onto the streets of Section Two Central. Bunny apparently noticed who was behind them, for Brummell appeared at the ambulance’s barred back window and (with the help of an unseen hand) waved one of his floppy paws at them.

  Kitty waved back—and kept on waving for quite some time, for they ended up following Brummell northeast through London. Both Sir Angus’s hospital and the MacFarquhar residence were near the home Lady Catherine had secured for the Shevingtons, Nezu explained, so their destination and that of Bunny MacFarquhar weren’t far apart.

  Mr. Bennet and Lizzy seemed to find this illuminating. Kitty could think little beyond, I’m going to Ascot!

  When they returned to the house, Nezu had to rush off to make preparations—for Ascot!—while the Bennets went through their usual evening rituals: stretching, sparring, meditating. (Ascot Ascot Ascot Ascot Ascot! was Kitty’s mantra that night). Then, after supper and a night of Ascot-filled dreams, Kitty was awakened at five in the morning to begin the journey.

  To Ascot!

  It took hours to make their way there, and Mr. Bennet passed the time napping while Lizzy, looking dour, merely stared off at the horizon. By contrast, Kitty was so excited she couldn’t even concentrate on the novel she’d brought along. A little flirting at the event of the Season—the races at Ascot Heath—and they would soon put all their troubles behind them.

  When she shared this optimistic thought with her sister, Lizzy replied only with a grim, “We shall see,” while Nezu glanced back from the driver’s seat and shot her another of his curious looks.

  Soon after they were weaving their way around the hoi-polloi-packed omnibuses that clogged the last stretch of road to the racecourse. When at last they were close enough to step out of the barouche, Nezu led them through the crowds milling about outside the blinding white grand stands.

  “What goes on in there?” Kitty asked, nodding at a row of nearby canvas tents. They were quite the hive of activity, with a constant stream of men (and only men) pushing in and stumbling out.

  “Things beneath a proper person’s notice,” Nezu said. “I would suggest that you restrict your attention to the ladies’ fine gloves and gowns.”

  “Now, look here. You might be Lady Catherine’s proxy, but you are not Herself. When I ask you a question—”

  Lizzy and Mr. Bennet leaned in on Kitty’s either side.

  “Gambling,” Lizzy whispered.

  “Gin,” said Mr. Bennet.

  “Dreadful baiting.”

  “Worse.”

  “Oh,” said Kitty.

  None of the accounts s
he’d read of the races had mentioned any of that. The gloves and gowns, yes. The worse (whatever that was), no.

  “Why, just look over there, Ursula,” she said to her sister. “Have you ever seen such a magnificent hat?”

  Just before they moved on into the stands, they passed one final distraction: A pair of zealots from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Z______s was being dragged out screaming the group’s slogan (“Undead isn’t inhuman!”) as the leaflets they’d been trying to distribute littered the ground behind them.

  “Let’s see you prevent this!” someone called out (sounding as if he’d paid an especially long visit to the gin tent), and a pack of men fell on the SPCZed fanatics with drunken kicks and punches.

  “This isn’t as dignified as I’d imagined,” Kitty said.

  “Dignity one must sometimes bring to a thing oneself,” Lizzy replied gravely. It seemed to be a thought she’d been pondering for a while.

  At last, they reached the private box in the upper stands that Nezu had secured for them. The seats inside were perfectly situated for the viewing of the races—and the crowd’s viewing of their occupants. Kitty’s excitement to find herself in such an enviable spot faded quickly, however, once she noticed the sneers and nasty laughs being directed at them from those both above and below.

  “Why are we getting such horrid looks?”

  “You are social unknowns who have presumed to claim one of the racecourse’s finest boxes,” said Nezu, who was standing at the back of the booth trying to look like a servant awaiting orders rather than a puppeteer peeking out from behind his Punch and Judy. “You are no doubt being accused of making a tasteless, ostentatious display of wealth.”

  “As, of course, we are,” Lizzy added.

  “A calculated risk. We must pique the MacFarquhars’ interest. To appear gauche is acceptable so long as you appear rich and ambitious in the process.”

  “Well, I don’t see Bunny or his friends,” Kitty said, leaning out to peer down into the crowd. “I can’t pique a man if he’s not here.”

  “I suspect MacFarquhar the Younger will have business to attend to in the tents before he comes in,” Mr. Bennet said. “If so, so much the better, for we will find him all the more pique-able.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Papa?”

  “Ah,” her father said, looking away. “Our master of ceremonies.”

  Kitty turned to see a hulking, florid-faced figure entering one of the center boxes. There was a smattering of tepid applause, which the man acknowledged with the hoisting of a single hand. (The gesture was too apathetic to be called a wave.) The object of the crowd’s not-quite adulation looked exactly like one of the men Kitty had mistaken for the Prince Regent in Hyde Park the day before, but this time there could be little doubt it was indeed George IV. His elegant clothes, his regal bearing, his sagging jowls and enormous protruding gut—all fit the descriptions Kitty had read in the ladies’ journals and fashion magazines.

  The man sat. Trumpets blasted a fanfare. There was a flurry of activity down on the track, and a great huzzah went up from the crowd.

  The first Irishman of the day was off and running. Seconds later, the gates opened, and out charged the dreadfuls.

  As always, a few zombies, catching sight of the great buffet arrayed in the stands, turned and rushed the high walls protecting the spectators. This was met with boos from those who’d wagered on them to win. The rest of the pack, meanwhile, galloped after the Irishman, their colorful silk tunics flapping as they ran. Kitty picked out an unmentionable to root for—a young female dressed in pink gaining quickly on the frantically fleeing bait. She cheered it on until it tumbled clumsily over a hurdle and impaled itself on the spikes on the other side. Soon after, the Irishman was scrambling up the rope that had been lowered for him at the finish line as the winner swiped and roared at him in futile frustration. After that, the unmentionables that could walk were lured back into their pens with fresh cabbages pulled on lengths of twine, while the rest (including Kitty’s favorite) were put down with quick pistol shots to the head.

  “Somehow I find all this less entertaining than I once did,” Mr. Bennet said.

  “I never found it entertaining at all.” Lizzy stretched her already strained smile a little wider. “Now, however, is not the time to show it. Not if we are to entice—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Nezu turned, slipped from the booth, and exchanged quiet words with someone just outside. When he returned a moment later, he was carrying Brummell the rabbit.

  “THE GATES OPENED, AND OUT CHARGED THE DREADFULS.”

  “I asked the gentleman to present his card,” Nezu said. “He gave me this.”

  “Bunny!” Kitty exclaimed. “Come in here this instant, you rascal!”

  Bunny MacFarquhar popped through the door, grinning. Kitty liked his smile. There was no guile about it whatsoever. Here was a man who smiled not to please those in his company but because he simply couldn’t help it.

  Of course, it didn’t hurt that he had perfect teeth and an equally perfect face to frame them.

  “You don’t mind?” he said. “This is terribly forward without proper introductions, I know, but when I saw you up here I just had to … I say! How did you know my name?”

  “Oh!” Kitty swiped a hand at him. “What a question!”

  She turned toward Lizzy and her father, eyes wide.

  “It was your calling card,” Lizzy said with a nod at Brummell (who was now sniffing around her feet as Nezu retreated discreetly to the corner to brush several small brown pellets off his jacket).

  “When one is the victim of a prank perpetrated by a man about town given to the company of rabbits, it is not altogether difficult to divine his identity,” Mr. Bennet explained.

  Bunny’s eyes lit up with delight. It obviously pleased him to hear he had a reputation.

  “Then you have the advantage of me.” He tried to put on a serious expression but, lacking practice, failed miserably. “Which means I do not even know to whom I should be offering my most abject apologies.”

  “My name is Shevington,” Mr. Bennet said, “and these are my daughters, Miss Avis Shevington and Mrs. Matthias Bromhead.”

  “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” MacFarquhar offered the family a bow. “I hope you can forgive me for my lapse of judgment yesterday. There was no malice intended. It was merely a lark carried too far.”

  “A lark to you—a humiliation to us,” Mr. Bennet replied coldly. “We are new to London and eager to make the best possible impression on its leading lights. Yet I can’t imagine anyone yesterday saying, ‘Just look at the delightful way that old stranger screams and cowers. Let us have him and his lovely companions to dinner!’ ”

  Kitty was caught off-guard by her father’s gruff talk until Bunny showed it for what it was: bait. He took it.

  “Your point is well taken, Sir,” MacFarquhar said. “I believe there is but one thing to do: You must allow me to make amends for my thoughtlessness by offering entrée into the very circles you aspire to. I am not without connections, some extending to the very pinnacle of not just London society but of all the empire, if you take my meaning.”

  Just in case they didn’t, he threw an insinuating nod at the royal box.

  “Ahh,” MacFarquhar said, shifting his attention to the track below. “They’re loading the gates for the next race. I must say, you have here one of the finest spots for taking it in.”

  “And it would be rude to keep it to ourselves,” Mr. Bennet said. He held out a hand to an empty chair beside Kitty. “Would you care to join us?”

  “I should be delighted.” MacFarquhar scooped up Brummell and seated himself with his furry mascot on his lap. “Actually, this isn’t the first time I’ve admired this particular view. I’ve been in this box before. Did you know it’s usually reserved for Lord Guernsey?”

  “I did not,” Mr. Bennet replied. “All I know is that I demand the best and pay acco
rdingly.”

  “Ho! A capital policy, Sir! I subscribe to it myself … though I daresay I don’t always manage the second p—”

  MacFarquhar cut himself off with a cough and focused on the scraggly line of unmentionables that was now lurching around the turf after another Irishman.

  “Better pick up your pace, Paddy!” MacFarquhar called out. “You’ve got one gaining on you!”

  “La!” Kitty chirped.

  “Ho!” MacFarquhar hooted.

  They looked into each other’s eyes, smiling.

  Could it really be this easy to land a handsome man? Kitty thought. If so, why didn’t I try it ages ago?

  Then she remembered (Oh, yes. The zombies. And Mother.), just as movement in one of the other boxes drew MacFarquhar’s attention away.

  An old gray-wigged man, stout yet seemingly frail, was easing himself onto a thronelike chair beside the Prince Regent as beribboned attendants fluttered around him anxiously. Once the man was safely seated, the crowd broke into cheers as if he’d just won a great victory. Neither the old man nor the prince acknowledged the applause, the former because he seemed to take no notice while the latter scowled as if it were beneath his.

  “Goodness!” Kitty exclaimed. “Is that the king?”

  “It isn’t the winner of the last race,” her father said.

  Kitty joined the applause … until she glanced over and saw that the man beside her hadn’t.

  MacFarquhar was gaping at the royal box as though a dreadful had just been seated there. Even Brummell seemed to sense something was amiss: The rabbit hopped off its master’s lap and hid under his chair.

  “Is everything all right, Mr. MacFarquhar?” Kitty asked.

  “Yes … yes, of course. Why do you ask?” MacFarquhar said.

  His face had lost all color.

  There was a knock at the door, three quick and insistent raps, and MacFarquhar went practically translucent.