“Good God,” Lord Lumpley muttered, looking almost as green as the zombie. “Good God . . .”
“Not as sporting as you remember it, My Lord?” Mr. Bennet asked.
The baron simply shook his head. Most of his fellow huntsmen had stumbled off into the bracken to throw up, though a few—the older, sober ones, mostly—stood their ground.
The Reverend Mr. Cummings came rolling up in his little dogcart just as Lord Lumpley spun on his heel and streaked for the trees to join his retching friends. The vicar hopped from his carriage—then found his knees not entirely up to the task at hand. As he started toward the lake, his legs were wobbling so badly it looked like he’d slipped a pair of snakes down his trousers.
“B-but surely that’s not Miss W-w-w-w-ard? G-G-God save us!”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Mr. Bennet mumbled under his breath.
One of the more frenzied hounds made a running lunge for the dreadful, sinking its fangs deep into the thing’s throat. The zombie screamed, though more in rage than pain, it seemed to Elizabeth, and then knocked the dog aside into the shallows.
The dreadful’s shrieking suddenly stopped—because the hound had torn out all the flesh between the collarbone and jaw. There was no windpipe left to scream with.
And still Emily Ward struggled to reach land, the stone behind her moving but a fraction of an inch with each lurching step. Her mouth remained open wide, her arms out straight before her, as if she were beseeching, pleading for help.
“Well,” Mr. Bennet said, “I don’t suppose we’ll have a better opportunity for practice than this. It’s not often you find an unmentionable staked down for you.”
Elizabeth moved a hand toward her sword. Not that she was so anxious to draw it. Gripping the hilt, she found, helped keep her hand from shaking.
“You . . . you want me to . . .?”
“No.” Her father’s eyes slowly slid from hers, locking onto the silent figure standing at her side. “It is Jane’s turn.”
“Sir!” the vicar said. “Why do you insi-si-sist on subjecting your own d-daughters to all this—”
“Last rites again, if you please!” Mr. Bennet snapped without taking his gaze from Jane.
The vicar started to reply, but whatever he meant to say died, strangled by stutters, on his spluttering tongue. He stumbled away from the Bennets and faced the lake.
“Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world,” he mumbled. “In the name of God the Father Almighty who c-c-created you . . .”
“I can’t do it,” Jane whispered.
“You must.”
Tears streaked Jane’s face, and she shook her head. “I won’t.”
Her father took an angry step toward her, scowling so fiercely he looked like another man entirely—a man Elizabeth might have fled from not so very long ago, before her training began. A man she still might flee from.
“You must!”
Jane’s tears flowed faster, then turned to sobs.
“Crying will not save us!” her father raged. “Mercy will not save us! Only the sword will save us! Draw yours and use it, girl! Do it now!”
Yet Jane just buried her head in her hands and sobbed all the harder.
Mr. Bennet stepped up so close he was practically shouting in her ear. “Prove you are not weak! Prove you are not worthless! Prove . . . oh, hang it all.”
And he wrapped his arms around his daughter and whispered “There, there.” When he peeped Elizabeth’s way a moment later, she saw her father once more, only more sad-eyed now. Defeated.
If they were to survive the coming days, this fragile, beautiful thing he cherished—her sister’s compassion and gentleness, her spirit, her very soul—had to be destroyed. Or so he’d believed. Yet still, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He’d failed. His daughters would never be warriors. Elizabeth looked around at the men watching them from beside the lake and peeping out from behind trees and bushes. Many of their faces were slack with dismay; just as many were curdled with disgust.
Her life would be in their hands, now—the hands of those who either lacked the fortitude to fight or judged her improper, mad, unworthy for daring to think a young lady might possess it. All she and Jane could do was slink home with their father, their reputations ruined, and pack away their weapons, and wait for the dreadfuls to come.
Or not.
Elizabeth heard the shing of a blade leaving its scabbard, saw a glint of sharp-edged steel, and realized only when she took her first step toward the water that it was she who’d drawn her sword. She went striding through the dogs, out into the lake, and aimed a swing of her katana at what was left of the dreadful’s neck.
She missed, instead slicing off a raised arm that promptly plopped into the water and sank. As Elizabeth brought back the sword to try again, the zombie reached out and grabbed it—actually snatched the blade out of the air with its remaining hand and held tight to it, all the while straining against the rope around its waist, pushing its black, protruding tongue toward Elizabeth’s face.
AS ELIZABETH BROUGHT BACK THE SWORD TO TRY AGAIN, THE ZOMBIE REACHED OUT AND GRABBED IT.
The stench hit Elizabeth, then, the odor of rotting flesh so close, so overpowering, her vision blurred. The katana was ripped from her grip. Her knees began to buckle.
And then another blade flashed out, and Emily Ward’s head toppled off its severed neck bone. As the rest of the body splashed backward after it, Elizabeth turned to find Jane at her side, still weeping. The sisters started to fall into each other’s arms.
“Not bad!” an unfamiliar voice boomed out. “But not good! Now dry those tears! Your father is correct—warriors weep not!”
Elizabeth and Jane looked up, past their shocked father, past the pale, trembling Mr. Cummings, past the assorted huntsmen cowering in the woods, and beheld a large, raven-haired man standing, legs spread and arms akimbo, near the vicar’s dogcart.
Lord Lumpley leaned out from behind a vine-choked oak. “Who are you?”
The man ignored him so utterly that one somehow understood he would’ve done the same even if he’d known he was a nobleman.
“You are Oscar Bennet?” he asked Elizabeth’s father.
“I am.”
The man started toward him through the brush with quick, confident steps. As he drew closer, Elizabeth noticed that he was extraordinarily young for one with such commanding ways. He was about Jane’s age, she would have guessed—eighteen years old.
He was also extraordinarily handsome, though Elizabeth was still too stunned and distraught to register that fact fully.
The sword at his side, though—that she couldn’t miss.
It was a katana.
“The Order sent you?” Mr. Bennet asked.
The young man gave his head a sharp, downward jerk. “Your message was received. I am the response.” He looked at the girls with such stony coldness he seemed more statue than man. “I am to be your daughters’ new master . . . and yours, as well, Oscar Bennet.”
CHAPTER 10
THE STRANGER’S AIR of chilly calm seemed to help everyone recover their nerve—at least enough to stop throwing up or hiding in the shrubbery. Even the dogs settled down, though this was more because the dreadful had been dispensed with and an attempt to catch another scent (with Emily Ward’s fresh-severed arm) had come to naught.
There were no more unmentionables near Netherfield Park—at least not any that smelled like Mr. Ford or Miss Ward.
“Oakham Mount might be a good spot to try for the scent again,” Mr. Bennet suggested. “Perhaps it would be wise to carry on the search from there . . . this time with a little less pomp and a little more firepower.”