Jane tried to think of something comforting to say. To her surprise—and vague consternation—she realized that she needed no comfort herself, and in fact she found it difficult, for once, to commiserate with someone who did.
She searched for words another moment, then put down her axe and placed a firm hand on the girl’s trembling, fleshy-soft arm.
“Why don’t you take that back downstairs?” she said, nodding down at the tray. “I don’t even like brandy, you know.”
CHAPTER 30
ELIZABETH AND MR. BENNET spoke not a word to each other until they were almost back to Longbourn. The parting with Jane had been painful for each of them, Elizabeth knew, yet she couldn’t bring herself to console her father in any way. Leaving her sister at Netherfield for the night was no better than abandoning her in a nest of vipers, and if he felt guilty about that, well, that was the least he could do after the fact. So they’d stalked toward home side by side, each scanning the opposite side of the lane, hand on hilt, saying nothing.
It was Elizabeth who finally broke the silence.
“Zombie droppings?” she asked, jutting her chin out at a glistening red mound of pulp beside a low stone wall just off the road.
Mr. Bennet crossed over to kneel down beside it.
“Zombie droppings,” he said.
“Fresh?”
“Fresh.”
Mr. Bennet stood up and swiftly carried on toward Longbourn. Yet as he did so, he finally defended himself against the rebuke his daughter had never put into words—because she didn’t have to.
“The stakes we play for are the highest, and if I must put up my own flesh and blood as collateral, I will do so.”
“You have done so,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes. And you, my favorite, I would gladly sell into a sultan’s harem if it gave the living even the slightest advantage over the dead.”
They walked a little farther without speaking or looking at each other.
“Of course,” Mr. Bennet eventually said, “I would fully expect to find you on my doorstep the next morning with the sultan’s head on a pike.”
Elizabeth glanced over at her father and found him watching her with a sheepish smile. She didn’t quite smile back, but she did allow the tight, hard line of her mouth to loosen just a bit.
“Is that what you expect to find when you awake tomorrow?” she said.
“I hope not. Not tomorrow, at any rate.” Mr. Bennet looked away again. “If Jane could stay her hand at least a day, it would suit my plans better.”
“And which plans are those, exactly?”
“Ah,” Mr. Bennet said, nodding ahead. “It appears someone has been anxiously awaiting our return.”
By the pink-gold glow of twilight, Elizabeth could see a lone figure standing to the side of the lane just where it curved past Longbourn’s front lawn.
A big, brawny figure that put a flutter in her stomach.
Master Hawksworth was watching their approach silently, motionless. All the same, he somehow projected an air of nervous anticipation. It reminded Elizabeth of a chained dog, of all things—a pet sensing its owner’s approach yet unable to dart up for the pat on the head it yearned for.
Which made no sense. It was supposed to be she who craved his approval. Who was the Master here, after all?
Elizabeth assumed it was the presence of her father that held Hawksworth back, and indeed he addressed himself only to Mr. Bennet as they approached.
“It is good you chose to return before nightfall, Oscar Bennet,” the Master said. He’d relaxed as they drew near, spreading his legs and clasping his hands behind his back and studiously composing his features until they were so immutably cool they could have been chipped from a block of ice. “Today we encountered The Enemy again not two hundred paces from this very spot.”
“Did you, now? Where were you going?”
There was a pause before Master Hawksworth answered.
“To the west along the lane. The dreadfuls seem drawn to that stretch of road, and I thought it time to take the young ones out of the dojo, into the field. Their performance was . . . not bad.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mr. Bennet said, nodding in a wry, knowing way that called into question what it was that didn’t surprise him.
Elizabeth fought to keep her face as frozen as Master Hawksworth’s.
He’d been heading toward Netherfield Park when he “encountered The Enemy.” Toward her.
“Come,” Mr. Bennet said. “Let us retire to my library, and you may tell me the whole story. I have much to tell you, as well.” He started for the house, then slowed a moment and added as an obvious afterthought: “If that meets with your approval, Master.”
“It does.” For the first time, Master Hawksworth let his gaze settle fully on Elizabeth. “As for you, Elizabeth Bennet—”
“Yes, it will be an early night for her,” Mr. Bennet cut in. “You should be in bed within the hour, Lizzy, and I want you sleeping in late come morning, too. You have quite a day before you.” He looked at the Master and spoke in a voice that seemed less to state a fact than issue a command. “She’s coming out tomorrow. At a ball at Netherfield.” Then he smiled and went on lightly, “A pity she hasn’t had time to practice her dancing lately. But then again, I always found even the liveliest quadrille to be child’s play after mastering the Way of the Panther.”
“Coming out?” Master Hawksworth said. “Indeed, you do have much to explain, Oscar Bennet.”
He spoke sternly, like a man reserving judgment on some possible folly he could squelch with a single word, should he choose. Yet the look he gave Elizabeth before disappearing into the library with her father seemed doleful and thwarted. Longing, one could call it . . . and Elizabeth both did and didn’t want to.
The library door was still swinging shut when Elizabeth’s sisters descended on her, Lydia and Kitty each taking an arm and dragging her into the drawing room demanding news of the day while Mary walked behind sharing some of her own.
“I slew an unmentionable this afternoon. The Master seemed quite pleased.”
“Oh, hush. No one wants to hear about that,” Mrs. Bennet said from her chaise longue. She sounded more affectionate than annoyed, though, and there was a look of contented ease upon her face that Elizabeth hadn’t seen in a long, long time. “Lizzy’s back—that’s what matters.”
Mrs. Bennet turned her head and pushed an uncharacteristically rosy cheek upward, signaling Elizabeth to come plant a kiss upon it, which she did.
“You must tell us all the news from Netherfield. Jane and Lord Lumpley are getting along famously, I trust.”
“Well, there was nothing infamous about it. Though I don’t doubt the baron would change that, if he could.”
Mrs. Bennet waved a languid hand in the air and replied with a simple “Ohhhhhhh.”
“And Jane told me some of our neighbors were less than convivial when she and His Lordship went into the village together this morning.”
Mrs. Bennet shrugged. “They’ll come around. We have a nobleman’s patronage. That more than compensates for the little quirks your father has foisted upon you.”
Elizabeth could scarcely believe how at ease her mother seemed. It was almost as though some other woman had slipped into Mrs. Bennet’s skin—for which Elizabeth was glad, since this other woman was altogether more pleasant to be around.
“Perhaps you’re right, Mamma,” she said. “We’ll certainly see that put to the test tomorrow. The spring ball is no longer to be held at Pulvis Lodge. It will be at Netherfield—and the Bennets are once again welcome.”
Mrs. Bennet’s newfound tranquility was obliterated in an instant.
“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!” she cried. “At last, our luck has changed for the better! We are redeemed! We are redeemed!”