This last ejaculation used up Jane’s meager store of forwardness, and she could say no more. Lt. Tindall seemed truly pleased to see her so overcome, however. The pinched look to his face faded away, and his eyes seemed to gleam brighter than the dim light could account for.
“That anyone would wish to extinguish such delicacy . . .,” he began. Then he, too, couldn’t go on, and he took his leave with a muttered “Good night” and a bow so deep it brought his head almost even with Jane’s knees.
Jane returned to her bed and lay down, though she knew she may as well be doing dand-baithaks for the Master. Sleep would be coming no time soon. Now she had the lieutenant to think of, too.
That morning, he’d made his disapproval of her plain, and the rebuke hurt her deeply. What salve it was—and what a puzzlement—to find that he harbored such concern for her. And such tenderness. He seemed so stern, so stiff, yet perhaps this was but the shield he wielded to protect a vulnerable, more sensitive self. With a little careful coaxing, maybe that gentler spirit could be drawn out from—
There was a soft, shushing sort of sound and what might have been the squeak of a hinge, and one of the shadows in the darkest part of the room began moving toward the bed. By the time Jane realized it was Lord Lumpley, she already had her dagger at his throat.
“Ah, you are awake, I see,” the baron croaked. “So very, very awake.”
“My Lord! I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was you!”
Jane scurried back to the bed, tossed her dirk on the pillow, and snatched up a dressing gown to cover the white chemise in which she slept.
As she pulled her nightgown on, Lord Lumpley averted his eyes. (A little. Until he thought Jane wasn’t looking.)
“Perhaps I did doze off,” Jane said. “I didn’t even notice you come in.”
“Oh, that shouldn’t surprise you. Netherfield has been in my family for years. I know where all the squeaky floorboards and rusty hinges are!”
“Still . . .” Jane peered into the gloom across the room. “What were you doing over there, if I may ask?”
“Of course, you may—and I pray you’ll forgive me the unpardonable liberty I was taking. It’s just that I misplaced my favorite . . .”
The baron must have been awfully tired himself, Jane thought, for he had to think a moment before dredging up the word he sought.
“. . . Bible,” he finally said. “I keep some of my most cherished volumes in this room, so—seeing as you were surely asleep—I thought I’d just pop in and look for it. Abominably overfamiliar, I know, but we barons are generally allowed our little eccentricities.”
When he wasn’t eyeing Jane, Lord Lumpley had been eyeing the room, as if searching for something—the Bible, Jane assumed. His gaze finally settled on the goblet the maid had left. It had tipped over when Jane knocked the carafe into the fire, and the pool of brandy around it sparkled dully in the firelight.
“I see that someone brought you my favorite sleeping draft,” the baron said. “Pity it spilled.”
“Oh! Yes! I’m sorry. I forgot all about it. And I’m afraid I broke the decanter, too. So careless of me.”
Lord Lumpley waved away Jane’s apologies with a strained smile. “Think nothing of it. I’ll have someone sent along to tidy up . . . and to bring you another glass of brandy, of course.”
“That’s really not necessary, My Lord.”
“But I insist.” The baron bowed. “Au revoir, Miss Bennet.”
“Good night, My Lord.”
When the door was closed again, Jane shrugged off her dressing gown and climbed back into bed, certain now that she’d never fall asleep. Not only was a maid on her way, there was even more to think about now.
The baron. Lizzy and Father seemed to consider the man barely one step up from a dreadful—and perhaps even less preferable, as hosts go. Yet he’d been nothing but polite and attentive all day. Yes, it was beyond brazen, his creeping into a young lady’s bedchamber. But how different was that, really, from what Lt. Tindall had done? And hadn’t it been motivated by the most admirable of interests?
Though, come to think of it, Lord Lumpley had left without any Bible, nor had he mentioned where he was off to search for it next. Strange how thoroughly he seemed to forget about it once he’d offered his excuse for being in the room.
It wasn’t often Jane acknowledged the possibility of duplicity. It was so much simpler, so much nicer, to take everyone at his or her word without complicating matters with guile or suspicion. Yet could it be, she wondered, that the baron had indeed been doing just what the lieutenant had—assuring himself of her well-being—because he was . . . oh, it was embarrassing simply to think it!
Was he really in love with her?
Even sitting alone in bed, Jane looked down and blushed.
A thump on the door roused her from her reverie. The chambermaid was already back with a new decanter of brandy, it seemed, and Jane, feeling guilty about the mess she’d made for the girl, hopped out of bed to let her in.
The girl Jane found standing outside wasn’t the servant she’d expected, though. She wasn’t a servant at all, in fact.
Nor was she alive.
It was a dreadful, long dead but fresh from the grave to judge by the black earth still caked to its dress and withered flesh and patchy blonde hair. In spots—the tips of the fingers, on and around the teeth no longer covered by lips or gums—the dirt had been smeared away with something new: a paste of jellied brain.
The unmentionable’s hands were flapping at waist level, gaze tilted downward, as if the creature had been fumbling clumsily with the door-knob. When it looked up and saw Jane frozen pop-eyed before it, it hissed like an angry cat and lunged forward.
Jane ducked to the side and gave the thing a shove as it hurtled past. But the dreadful stumbled only a few steps before it whipped around and charged again, hands slashing.
Jane hopped onto her bed, grabbed one of the posts, and launched herself up atop the canopy frame. She meant to try a Panther’s Bound down again, hopefully within grabbing range of one of the weapons strewn about the room—a battle axe propped up beside the bedside table was particularly tantalizing. The unmentionable didn’t give her time, though. It began jumping up swiping at her, tearing down ragged strips of cloth as Jane scuttled this way and that to avoid its raking nails.
Looking down on the zombie’s upturned, hideously decayed face, Jane thought she saw a flash of something familiar—although with no nose or mouth or eyelids to go by, and the ears dangling from flaps of loose flesh like grisly jewelry, recognition was impossible. Still, Jane began to feel she might have known this girl.
If only she’d stop jumping around for a second. If only she’d stop trying to kill her. . . .
“Oooo, I hope I’m not interrupting any-AHHHHHH!”
Both Jane and the dreadful turned toward the doorway. Standing there, the tray in her hands loaded with another bottle of brandy, was the plump chambermaid.
The unmentionable rushed toward her with a snarl. So shocked was the girl she didn’t even turn to flee but simply stood there, motionless, as if calmly offering the thing a drink.
Jane flipped down from the canopy, snatched up the battle-axe, and used all her momentum to bring the blade down into the zombie’s skull.
The chop split the dreadful down the middle like a rotted-out log.
The two halves splayed out on the floor at the chambermaid’s feet.
“Ahh . . . ahh . . . ahh . . .,” the maid spluttered, too breathless even to scream. Her hands were shaking so violently the decanter danced around on her tray, rattling and sloshing and threatening to topple over.