The girl’s father and sister Elizabeth were riding alongside her, but Lord Lumpley paid them no heed until all three were reining up before him.
“My Lord,” Mr. Bennet said with a bow of the head that struck the baron as a tad perfunctory. “Mr. Cummings.”
“Mr. Bennet. So good to see you again.” Lord Lumpley turned to Jane. “And what a lovely surprise to see you—and on horseback, no less! If I may say so, Miss Bennet, you have an excellent seat.”
Jane smiled demurely and averted her eyes.
“I can’t believe this is the first time you’ve noticed it, My Lord,” her sister said. She, too, was wearing a scabbarded sword, though the baron hardly thought she needed it. Her tongue was sharper than any blade.
“I’ve never seen the young lady ride,” Lord Lumpley replied. “At any rate, you’ll both want to keep back after the hounds are loosed. There will be a great excitement amongst the horses, and even the most skillful rider might find his mount bolting. Once the hunting party is a safe distance ahead, you can follow along the lanes until—”
“My daughters will not be following the hunting party,” Mr. Bennet said. “They will be in it.”
The baron was too astounded to even take umbrage at the interruption, and it was Mr. Cummings who gasped and said, “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Deadly serious. Unlike some, it would seem.”
Mr. Bennet threw a look toward the front steps, which was now clotted with guffawing men stumbling from the manor house with half-filled glasses in their hands. Several stopped to gawk as they caught sight of the Bennet girls with their austere gowns and sheathed swords.
Mr. Bennet turned back to Lord Lumpley. “Do they even know why they’re really here?”
The baron puffed himself up, breaking two more truss strings while he was at it. First the vicar dares question him, and now this two thousand per annum “gentleman”? If not for his designs on Jane, he would’ve put the upstart in his place right then and there.
“I’m sure many have guessed our true intentions, Bennet. I suppose it’s time we told the rest.”
Lord Lumpley stalked away before he could lose his temper and insult the father of the woman he loved. Well, lusted after.
“Belgrave!” he barked, and his manservant instantly appeared as if he’d hopped from his master’s pocket. “Escort the rest of our guests outside, if you please.”
“I’m afraid a few have already passed out, My Lord.”
“Fine—the ones who can walk, then.”
“Very good, My Lord.”
Belgrave bowed and went back into the house. While he was gone, the baron positioned himself on the front steps, experimenting with various poses until he found one that struck the right balance of lordliness and sport.
“My friends,” he said, once the last would-be huntsman had joined the crowd on the lawn, “welcome to Netherfield Park! Are you ready to slay your first dreadful?”
CHAPTER 9
ELIZABETH, FOR ONE, was not ready to slay her first dreadful. Yet at least she knew it. Looking at the men gathered before the baron’s manor house, it was obvious most thought otherwise of themselves. They were laughing, cocksure, anything but scared.
Perhaps it was the drink Lord Lumpley had obviously been so generous with that afternoon. Perhaps it was simply the confidence of youth, for the loudest merrymakers were invariably the youngest.
But most likely it was plain ignorance. The great, undead herds of The Troubles had never made it as far as Meryton. Here and there in the crowd, however, you could pick out the men who’d seen them. They were the ones with grim, pinched faces and haunted eyes. The men like Elizabeth’s father.
“We talked about quietly raising a militia,” he spat as the baron brayed on with his welcome speech, “and the bloated dolt throws a party.”
He got a few stares for that. It provided a moment of respite for Elizabeth and Jane, actually, for up to then the stares had been reserved for them. There had been a wave of whispers, too, and though Elizabeth did not catch any of the words, she knew exactly what was being said.
What are they wearing?
Are those swords?
The Bennets have always been eccentric, but now they’ve gone quite mad!
Holy Father, what hast Thou loosed on fair England?
This last wasn’t being said but silently prayed, to judge by the expression on Mr. Cummings’s face. He’d looked only slightly more appalled when Mr. Bennet had splattered his pulpit with zombie gore.
Elizabeth did her best to block it all out with her mantra (smooth stone beneath still water, smooth stone beneath still water . . .), but nothing could blunt the piercing sting of shame. After Papa had announced that she and Jane were to accompany him that afternoon—were, in fact, to have their coming out as warriors-in-training—she’d felt queasy and faint, as if Kitty had accidentally thwacked her upside the head with her fighting staff. Which, in a very few minutes, she did. Now, however, the pain was far sharper, stabbing deep into her heart.
Her mother had told her more than once she was a headstrong girl, insufficiently concerned with the good opinion of her neighbors. And it might have even been true, back when her gravest offense was rolling her eyes at someone else’s foolishness or speaking with a tad more honesty than polite society permits. Yet that hardly mattered now, for no young lady’s good name could survive the spectacle they were making of themselves.
The proof of that was beside her. Her sister Jane was perfection, with a reputation as unblemished as any could hope for with the Bennets for a family. Yet that hadn’t turned aside any of the stares or stifled any of the snickers, and the demure, gentle-spirited girl listened in slump-shouldered silence atop her steed as Lord Lumpley did his best to rouse the crowd that found her so absurd.
“I’m sure you’ve all heard of the shocking incident in our very own St. Chad’s Church a few days ago. Well, we’ll have no more of that around here! We shall sweep the countryside clean of any such rubbish . . . then sleep sound in our beds tonight knowing the peril is safely behind us once again!”
“Imbecile,” Mr. Bennet hissed so loudly his horse whinnied and pranced nervously beneath him.
“Are you ready to ride with me?” the baron cried.
“Ready!” called back a chorus of brandy-soaked voices.
“To your horses, then!”
There was a great commotion as drunken huntsmen staggered to steeds, tried to mount them, in many cases fell off, and then either lay on the ground laughing or berated some unlucky groom for his supposed incompetence in keeping the horse steady.
“Be ready with your steel, girls,” Mr. Bennet said. “I don’t know if these fools are going to kill any zombies today, but it’s quite likely they’re about to create a few.”
“Yes, Father,” Elizabeth and Jane said together.
Lord Lumpley had better luck getting himself mounted than most of his friends, and soon he came trotting toward the Bennets on a sleek, brown mare.
“I would suggest that the ladies stay to the rear. I would hate to see either of them unhorsed in all the commotion of the hunt.”
“You need not worry about my Jane,” Mr. Bennet said. “A finer horsewoman you will never see.”
He peeped over at Elizabeth, offering wordless apologies with a doleful look. A more awkward horsewoman than she one would never see, for anyone else with as little horse sense wouldn’t dare sit in the saddle. If her father had known of the baron’s plans, it very likely would have been Jane and Mary he’d brought with him to Netherfield.
“As for this idea of a hunt,” Mr. Bennet said, looking at Lord Lumpley again, “we spoke of using the hounds, yes, but only after we’d organized a proper—”