The Untold Fiancé, Pt. 1

Title: The Untold Fiancé, Pt. I

Author: ExcentrykeMuse

Fandom(s): The Twilight Saga (New Moon), Pride & Prejudice

Pairing(s): Bella Swan/Darcy

Rating: PG13

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: dimension travel, negative Elizabeth Bennet, mention of early 19^th century medicine, Jane Volturi

Summary: Bella follows Edward into the woods in New Moon, but somehow stumbles into the woods of Pemberley.  However, something more sinister than dancing masters and unknown fiancés await her…

I

“Edward!” Bella called into the forest, but saw nothing but trees that no longer seemed familiar.  She was near frantic now, but she was terribly cold.  “Edward,” she breathed out, tripping and falling to the ground.  The palms of her hands skimmed against rocks on the ground and she could smell the scent of blood that made her feel woozy.  She always felt sick at the smell of blood.

As she lifted her left hand, she saw the sickening red liquid and felt even more faint. 

She must have tipped forward because she felt moss against her cheek and she closed her eyes.  “Edward,” she begged.  “Don’t leave me.”  The last thing she heard as she closed her eyes was the sound of a horse in the distance, but that couldn’t be right.  No one rode horses in Forks and certainly not in the forests.

When she was next aware, she could feel bandages against her hands and a pillow against the back of her head.  She breathed out quickly through her nose and let her eyes flutter open.

“She’s awake,” a deep voice murmured.  Then, louder, “Doctor Choake, she’s awake.”

Above her she saw the face of a handsome man with dark curls, but he was soon gone and replaced with the visage of an old man who appeared to be wearing a gray wig.  He had small outlandish spectacles on his nose, but Bella was soon distracted as she felt cold hands pressing up against her lymph nodes and then her eye was being stretched open as a candle was being held up to it.

“Good, good,” the man who must be the doctor said.  “How do you feel, young lady?”

“Cold,” she answered honestly.

Doctor Choake turned toward the end of the bed where there was a fire and nodded.  Immediately an unseen figure threw what seemed to be wood into the fire and began to stoke it.  Other unseen hands came and brought another quilt on top of her.

“Did you hit your head?” the doctor asked her seriously when the fussing was over.  “When you fell?”

“I don’t—” Bella began, but her tongue felt heavy in her mouth.

The doctor, wizened as he was, waited a moment and then leaned forward and began gently pressing on the back of Bella’s head after lifting it up off of the pillow.  After seeming to find nothing, he let her lie down again and turned to the man with curly hair.  “I don’t want to bleed her despite her disorientation.  I hope once she sleeps it will pass.  Give her beef tea and nothing else, and I will call again in the morning to see if there’s any improvement.”

“Of course, Doctor Choake,” the man agreed, shaking his hand.  “My footman will see you out.  I should like to stay with Isabella.”

At the sound of her name, Bella’s ears pricked up, and she turned her head to gain a better look at the man who seemed to be in charge.

He was tall.  He was certainly handsome.  He was older than she was at eighteen.  Twenty-five?  Thirty?  Bella could never tell.  He certainly wasn’t as old as Charlie who was thirty-seven.  His hair was a mass of dark curls and his eyes—Bella was used to looking into Edward’s golden vampire eyes.  This man’s eyes were human and a vivid green.  The firelight reflected off of them and made them unearthly in the dark room.

As soon as the doctor was gone, the man was sitting on the bed and had carefully taken one of Bella’s hands between his own and was looking at her openly.  “You should take better care than to go walking at night unattended, my darling.”

She shifted uncomfortably.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that not all of Pemberley’s woods are fit for young ladies,” he told her again firmly, and she looked up at him in shock.  Pemberley? 

He seemed not to notice her distraction.

“You could have caught a chill, Isabella.”

Having a horrified feeling in the pit of her stomach, Bella asked carefully, “Who are you?”

As if he was expecting the question, he told her, “Fitzwilliam Darcy, your fiancé.”

She blinked at him.  “Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley?” she confirmed.  From Pride and Prejudice?—she did not ask.

“There,” he murmured, reaching to push a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, “your wits are not so befuddled as Doctor Choake fears.”

But what of Elizabeth? she wanted to ask, but was afraid to.

Instead, she looked at Darcy and realized he was better than she had imagined him.  Pride and Prejudice was her favorite book and if she was to faint from the smell of blood on the forest floor and have a strange dream, she could certainly have more disturbing nightmares.

Deciding this was most certainly a dream, Bella looked around her and murmured, “This is Pemberley.”

“Assuredly,” he told her.  “We decided it would be better to be married here as you are an orphan and neither of us care for London.”

He was looking at her carefully, as if he was uncertain of her reception of the news, but it was her dream and she was going to dream it.

“Indeed,” she agreed.  “I suppose I have fittings when I am out of this bed.”

Darcy seemed to relax a bit at her answer and reached out to stroke her hair again.  “Georgiana is to arrive on the morrow.  You two have a free reign for wedding clothes.”

Bella hated shopping, but it wasn’t worth the argument.  She leaned back against the pillows and looked up at Darcy and did wonder at him being human.  What a strange dream to have. 

He was still playing with her hair.

“What year is it?” she murmured, taking in his shirt sleeves and britches.

His green eyes flashed up to hers but he didn’t pause in his ministrations.  “1806, my dear.”

She kept her gaze on him.

“It is August the second,” he elaborated.  Darcy ran his fingers up to her temple and across her forehead.  “I didn’t like the thought of him bleeding you, but hopefully the girl will be up with beef tea soon.”

“I faint at the scent of blood,” she told him, holding up her bandaged hands.  “That’s why I fainted in your woods more than anything else.”  He took her right hand and carefully kissed the back of it.

“I would not wish you hurt,” he told her.

Edward would wish her hurt, she thought darkly to herself.  He had left her alone in those woods.  He should have known she would have gone after him.  He should have known…

“Isabella—” Darcy was looking up at her with his expressive green eyes.

“I beg pardon,” she said, sounding like an Austen book.  “My thoughts were on the forest.”  Bella gave him an apologetic smile.  It wasn’t his fault that Edward was heartless.  “Surely I’ve asked you to call me ‘Bella’ before this.”

His green eyes lit up and he kissed the back of her hand.  “My Bella,” he vowed, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door. 

Darcy disengaged from her completely and went to settle in a chair beside her bed and Bella lay back on her pillows.  The interloper was bad to come in, and a maid entered with what was proved to be beef tea.

“This will fortify you,” Darcy promised as Bella took a spoonful before making a face.  “We must please Doctor Choake.”

“Must we?” she asked, taking another spoonful.  Still, she ate the entire cup and allowed Darcy to take it from her and put it on her bedside table.  Bella gave him a wan smile.  “The cure is worse than the ailment.”

“You exaggerate,” he murmured, taking her hand again across the sheets.  “We can both think of worse.”

Bella sighed.  She looked out the window into the darkness, the stars barely visible on a moonless night.  “How did you know to find me?”

Darcy was silent for several long moments, so Bella turned to look at him.  He seemed uncomfortable.  “It is enough that I did come to find you,” he told her after a long silence.

She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

He leaned down and kissed the back of her hand, so she settled back against the pillows.  She fell asleep to the sound of the crackling fire and the feel of Darcy’s hand in her own.

II

“We want Georgiana,” the voice of Jane Volturi said into the night.  “She is quite promising.”

“I know not what you mean by ‘promising’,” Fitzwilliam Darcy shot back.  He had heard it all before from the Lady Jane, but it still made no sense.

They were meeting in the stables before dawn, as was their custom.  He knew Jane Volturi did not care to meet in the day in case they were seen as she had a care for her reputation and because of the other matter, but it felt dishonest now that he had Isabella sleeping upstairs.

“Did you like my present?” Jane asked.

“A lady is not a present,” he told her viciously.

“This lady was a present.  I told you where she would be, who she would be, what she could be to you, and I offered to pay her dowry as my master has an interest in her.”

“An interest like he has in Georgiana?”

“—Yes,” Jane answered carefully, “but he’s willing to let Bella Swan go to punish another.  Her absence will prove useful.  Georgiana, on the other hand—”

“Yes, yes, the greatest of assets,” Darcy murmured.

Jane looked at him with her red vampire eyes.  “We grow impatient, Mr. Darcy.”  With that, she faded into the trees, and Darcy knew he would find the dead body of a stable hand somewhere on the grounds in the next two days.  How could he condemn his sister to such a life?

III

Georgiana was a beautiful if quiet girl.  Bella suspected she was wearing one of her old dresses and chemises because they were slightly large and slightly short on her, but she put a smile on her face when they were introduced.

“Miss Darcy,” she tried.  “I have so looked forward to meeting you.”

Looking as if she was afraid of having to talk, Georgiana merely curtseyed and blushed.

When she didn’t respond, Bella tried, “Your brother speaks so well of you.”

This caused a reaction in Georgiana.  Her large green eyes flickered up to Bella’s face and she asked, breathlessly, “Fitzwilliam speaks well of me?”

In truth, he had only mentioned that she was to arrive and he wished for them to get along.  Bella had spent the night in the strange room with Darcy sleeping by her side (although Bella suspected that wasn’t entirely proper), only to have Doctor Choake arrive after she had been fed more beef tea and had her pillows fluffed.  She had been pronounced well to a perfectly dressed Darcy (he had disappeared for all of twenty minutes), and Georgiana had arrived barely three hours later.

Bella couldn’t believe her dream was still continuing.  She had fully expected to wake up back in Forks, safely in bed after having followed Edward into the dark of the forest, found somehow—

–but she had awakened here.  The dress had been brought in, the maid had murmured something about a “growth spurt” before assuring her she was to go to the modiste soon, and Bella’s hair was braided and then folded on top of her head.  And now she was here.  In a room filled with light.  Facing Georgiana with Darcy in the corner, his perceptive green eyes on the two young women.

She took a deep breath.  “Of course, Miss Darcy.  You’re his beloved if younger sister.”  She bit her lip in her own nervousness. 

Georgiana looked at her with large green eyes, but she once again didn’t say anything.

“Do you come late from London?” Bella asked, remembering the language of Pride and Prejudice and mimicking it.

Clearly having said the wrong thing, Georgiana paled.  She cleared her throat, “Ramsgate.”

Bella felt her stomach fall out from underneath her.  Ramsgate.  Georgiana Darcy had been in Ramsgate when she had almost eloped with Mr. Wickham at the tender age of sixteen.

Licking her lips, Bella approached Georgiana and took one gloved hand in her own.  Georgiana’s green eyes, if possible, got even wider.  “Never mind that,” Bella told her firmly, their eyes connecting.  “You must tell me of Lambton.  I know nothing of it.”  She led Georgiana to a couch and sat down, pulling Georgiana with her.

Georgiana looked at her hard for a long moment before she broke eye contact, breathing out long and low.  Bella thought she was going to say nothing again, until she murmured, “It’s a lovely hamlet, Miss Swan.”  Her eyes flicked back to Bella.  “Madam Erlin is a wonder with a needle.”

“Is she indeed?” Bella asked encouragingly.  “I understand we are to go together.  I have grown out of all my gowns and I need my wedding trousseau—”  She glanced over her shoulder at Darcy who nodded at her in agreement.  “We’ll force Darcy to come as chaperone and torture him.”  She said this last bit low and for the exclusive benefit of Georgiana.  She had no intention of torturing Darcy, but a little sister might.

Georgiana glanced over at her brother.  “He cannot see your wedding dress, Miss Swan,” she said so earnestly it honestly surprised Bella. 

Bella glanced back at Darcy.  “Shall we send you to the carriage?” she asked him solemnly.  “Your sister has made a serious point, Darcy.”

He smiled at the two of them, both dark haired.  “I shall endeavor to find myself occupied at the bookseller,” he promised.  He got up and walked over to them on the sofa.  “Shall we call for tea?”

Georgiana was blushing again and looking down at her hands.

Bella looked over at her in worry before she glanced up at Darcy.  “Indeed,” she decided for the both of them.  “I am certain Miss Darcy would like some refreshment after her long journey.”

Georgiana quickly turned her wide eyes to Bella, as green as Darcy’s, in a face framed by dark curls, and nodded simply before she turned her gaze back to her hands.

Bella and Darcy shared a look before he called for tea.  He then took a seat across from Bella and Georgiana.

Bella took a moment to compare the siblings.  They both had the same verdant eyes, the same curling dark hair, the same cheekbones.  The likeness was remarkable.  Georgiana was clearly much younger and hadn’t grown into her full height.  She also curled into herself where Darcy stood tall.

After tea was served, Darcy looked at Bella and said, “You need a dance master.”

Georgiana looked up at this.

Bella nearly choaked.  “I—what?”

“You never learnt how to dance,” he told her firmly and Bella wondered what sort of dream this was where she couldn’t dance at a ball in Regency England.  “We should correct the deficiency.”

Bella could only stare at him.

“Do you not wish to dance?” he asked her at her continued silence.

“I’m terribly clumsy,” she told him plainly.  “Remember, I fell in the woods—”

“It was dark,” he argued.  “You’ve been perfectly graceful this morning.  There is no impediment to you dancing a reel with me next Season when Georgiana is presented.”

Georgiana’s eyes went wide and she curled into herself even more if that was even possible.

Bella glanced at her before returning her attention to her fiancé.  “Are you likely to want to dance a reel?” she asked him in all seriousness.

He smiled softly at her.  “I have been known to dance with women of my closest acquaintance.”

“Well,” Bella murmured.  “I think a fiancée counts.”

His startling green eyes fell on her.  “Your turn of phrase is singular, Bella, but I understand your meaning quite clearly.  A fiancée—and indeed a wife—certainly counts.”

Georgiana was looking between them, having barely touched her tea.

She remained silent when they called the open carriage to go to Lambton for Bella’s fittings.  She had disappeared for twenty minutes to refresh herself and it was then that Bella spoke to Darcy.

“She cannot always be thus.”

He looked over at the door through which Georgiana had retreated, and confessed, “I am afraid she has lost her confidence in herself.”

“Because of Ramsgate,” Bella pressed and Darcy looked at her quickly.

He assessed her for a long moment before he admitted, “She was the target of a fortune hunter.  She was saved from any scandal, but she has not remained unscathed.”  Darcy held her dark gaze for several long minutes.  “She needs a sister.”

Blinking, Bella then nodded, understanding.

When they arrived at the modiste, Darcy ordered her an entire new wardrobe, down to new stockings, as well as a trousseau.  Madam Erlin was quite agape but immediately had Bella on her pedestal, so she could take her measurements.

Bella asked Georgiana for her opinion on fabrics after voicing her desire for dark colors, and Bella left with new stockings, three new chemises, a new corset, and four tailored dresses, with much more on order.  She also had two new bonnets, one of which she wore out.

That night at dinner, Georgiana continued to be silent.  Bella, sitting halfway down the table between the two siblings, Darcy at the head of the table, Georgiana at the foot, wondered if she would wake up in her own bed after she went to sleep.

The evening was spent listening to Georgiana play the pianoforte.  Bella’s mind absently turned to Edward and Bella’s Lullaby, but nothing was as beautiful as Georgiana’s playing. 

She went to sleep with the images of Edward and Darcy warring in her mind’s eye, heart aching…

Bella woke up in the darkness with only the embers of the fire lighting the far side of the room.  She was not alone.  “Hello?” she whispered harshly, afraid.  “Who’s there?”

The darkness moved and she shrank back as a large hand landed on her arm.

“It is only I, Bella,” Darcy’s voice answered, and she breathed out in relief.

“Darcy?” she asked, voice stronger.  “What are you doing here?”

He was silent, but she felt him sit down on the edge of the bed, perhaps facing away from her.  “I was afraid—” he answered after a long minute had passed “—that you might be taken from me.”

Letting that sink in, Bella murmured, “Why would I be taken?” even as she thought that if she went to sleep, she would leave this place.

He reached out and his hand alighted in her hair and he stroked it down away from her shoulder.  “It is enough that you are safe,” he murmured.  Darcy drew her to him and clasped Bella in his arms.  “I would be heartbroken if I should lose you.”

Bella grasped his shirt and buried her face in his shoulder.  “You’re not going to lose me,” she promised, even though she knew she wasn’t sure she could keep that promise.

“God help me if I do,” Darcy murmured into her hair.

They held each other close for what seemed like hours, but Darcy finally laid her back down into her bed.  Bella, emboldened, dragged him down with her.  At first he was stiff, but she ran her fingers down the side of his face, and he relaxed into her touch.

When she awoke the next morning, still at Pemberley, he was gone, the maid bustling with her morning tea.  However, there was an impression on the pillow beside her of a head, showing that Darcy had slept beside her—and Bella smiled.

IV

Georgiana was ever present, always at her pianoforte.  Still, she would not say a word to Bella.  She watched the girl and realized she only came alive when she was playing. 

“Shall we go for a walk?” she suggested an hour before the dancing master was set to arrive and the tea had been swept away.

Georgiana curled into herself, not replying verbally, and Bella had to hold in a sigh.

“It’s such a lovely day,” she suggested, looking out the window.  The sun was shining out over the woods and it hadn’t rained in days.  She glanced over at her fiancé’s sister.  “Come, Miss Darcy.”

As if caught in headlights, Georgiana murmured, “I am not one for a walk today, Miss Swan.”

“I suppose you’ll play,” Bella mused, not really caring.  She quickly got up and walked out of the room, only turning to ask Georgiana if she was sure.

If she was an attentive fiancée, she should perhaps go find Darcy in his study or the billiards room and come ask him to join her, but she wanted to feel the fresh air on the side of her face, and didn’t want to have to wear a bonnet.  She did let the footman fetch her gloves, only to place them in her reticule, and tripped down the stairs down to the main driveway.

She looked left and right and saw only the beauty of the expansive park.  To the left were the stables, but Bella hadn’t ridden a horse since she was a girl of eleven.  Perhaps she should ask Darcy to teach her?  He’d probably have her ride side saddle.

Still, the smell of horses could be soothing.

Not having any other particular destination in mind and the woods being far across the park and well over two miles, judging the distance, Bella went off to the left in order to visit the horses.  Grooms were milling about, and she nodded to them and was only half-surprised when they doffed their hats at her.

She found a beautiful mare with Palermo coloring and she petted her mane.  The plaque on the door said her name was “Ladybelle.”

The sound of someone clearing his throat startled her, and Bella looked over to her right to see a groom holding out a carrot.  “Lady does so like ‘er ca’ots, milady,” he told her with a hesitant smile.

“She’s a lovely horse,” Bella agreed, taking the carrot and giving it to the horse who whickered at her.  “Does she belong to Miss Georgiana?”

The groom shifted on his two feet, and Bella looked over at him with her large dark eyes.  “Miss Georgiana don’t ride,” he told her.  He doffed his cap and left, tall and lanky with a sprig of blond hair on the top of his head.

She heard his footsteps retreat but then he cried out.  Bella quickly dropped the rest of the carrot and hurried out of the back of the stable and only found one of his boots near the tree line.  Bella recognized it from the tear in the back.  She reached down and picked it up and stared at the forest line.  Bella could have sworn someone was looking back at her—and she wasn’t sure it was the stable hand.

Getting a fearful feeling, the hair on the back of her neck standing up on end, she quickly tossed the boot into the tree line and went back to Ladybelle the horse. 

When another groom asked her if she would like to ride, she shook her head but said, “Perhaps next time.”

V

Exactly four Sundays after Bella was found in Pemberley woods, she married Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.  She knew Darcy would have married her sooner, but they waited for the banns to be read in church.  Darcy could have ridden to London for a Special License, but he was terrified that Bella would be taken away from him—a fear he never fully explained to Bella—and so he would not leave her side.

Georgiana remained with them the whole four weeks and she remained just as quiet and shifty as that first day.  She never gave Bella her name, and though Bella asked Georgiana to call her “Isabella” or even “Bella,” she was always “Miss Swan” or then “Mrs. Darcy” to the other girl.

After the wedding, Darcy after much consideration sent Georgiana to London with her companion for the benefit of the masters.

He and Bella had an invitation from an old friend of Darcy’s to go look and stay at a property in Hertfordshire.  Mr. Bingley came from money but no land and was looking to try his hand at estate owning.  His eye fell on Netherfield Hall in Hertfordshire, and the Darcy’s were to make up the party.

“No one can get at me here,” Bella assured her husband as they dressed for the first Assembly in the small community that made up Meryton and the surrounding area.  She now had the benefit of a dancing master and Darcy had already asked her for the first set and Bingley had secured her for her second. 

“Are you sure of that?” Darcy asked her, leaning down and kissing the top of her head.

Bella was dressed in deep green silks, her hair in a simple braid that was folded back into a bun on the back of her head.  She was wearing gloves that reached up past her elbows, and she found them hot and constricting—but they were necessary.  “You’re here to protect me,” she told him simply, leaning up to kiss him gently.  “Georgiana is safe in London.  There is nothing to worry about but the local Mamas all claiming Bingley for their daughters.”  Her mind went briefly to the boot, but she shook the thought away.

He grimaced.  “I am overjoyed I am saved from that particular experience,” he murmured, referencing mamas and their daughters.

“Is that why you married me?” Bella asked, “because I am the only woman in Christendom who didn’t care for your ten thousand pounds a year?”

“Partially,” he agreed with her.

She turned at him and smiled at him.  “Partially?”

“It’s not every day I find a lost nymph in the forests of Pemberley,” he admitted, startling Bella.

She looked at him with wide eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her.  Then—“How did I have a dowry?  How did you know my name?”

Ignoring the first question, he came up to her and took her hand and kissed the back of it.  “How did you know mine, Bella?” he asked her just as seriously.

But she couldn’t answer him.  She couldn’t tell him that he was the love interest in her favorite novel.  She had stopped trying to wake up back in Forks, but she did still regard the world around her and compare it to the words of Jane Austen.

“Exactly, my dear,” he told her as he led her out of the room.

Bella’s head was in a swirl and she almost didn’t acknowledge Miss Bingley when they came down the stairs.  But it was Louisa Hurst who drew her attention—

“Mrs. Darcy,” Louisa Hurst greeted from her seat, dressed in brown silks and feathers sticking out of her hair, “how beautiful you look.  You are still clearly in the first bloom of marriage.”  She glanced slightly to the right where her husband, Mr. Hurst, a man more of fashion than substance, was drinking deeply from a glass of wine.

Bella smiled as Darcy set her down on a settee.  “Thank you,” she murmured, blushing at the compliment.  “This is my first assembly since my marriage.”

She didn’t mention that it was her first assembly at all.  That she had only ever danced with Georgiana and her dance master in a drawing room at Pemberley in the weeks before her marriage.  The truth was she was nervous.  She didn’t want to dance with anyone with Darcy, but she knew she had to dance with at least Bingley, and Mr. Hurst was sure to ask her as a compliment to her husband.  Then there would be the other men she would be introduced to—and the thought made her stomach clench.

Her shyness came back to her as if it was her first day at Forks High again, but she valiantly tried to press it down.  With what success, she was uncertain.

“Well,” Louisa told her with a gentle smile, “you can enjoy it then because you need not worry about suitors.”

“Indeed,” her younger sister, Caroline Bingley, agreed.  She was a vision in orange silks with feathers similarly in her hair.  Bella would have thought the color would have clashed with her red hair, but she was a vision of sophistication.

Louisa Hurst cleared her throat.  Her husband looked at her and then he startled.  He turned to Darcy and asked, “May I beg the hand of your wife for the third set, Darcy?  I believe she has that one free.”

Darcy turned from where he was looking out the window and came up to Bella from behind.  He lightly placed his hand on her shoulder in reassurance before answering, “Of course, Hurst, if my wife has no objections.”

She glanced up at her husband and saw his green eyes looking down at her.  Bella then turned to Hurst.  “None, sir.  I thank you for the compliment.”  There—she sounded like an Austen novel again more than herself.

Darcy’s hand pressed down on her shoulder reassuringly and Bingley fetched her a glass of wine while they waited for the carriages.

The Bingleys and Hursts rode together as they were family and Bella and Darcy took their own carriage.  Bella looked out the window the whole way although she could only really see the full moon. 

“Assemblies,” Darcy began and she turned to him; he seemed uncertain so she nodded, “and other events are held on the night of the full moon so carriages can make their way in the night by its light.”

Bella blinked and realized that Darcy was giving her common knowledge, knowing that she did not inherently know it.  He not only knew her name, but he knew she didn’t know what she should.

She licked her lips.  “Who told you I would be in those woods?” she asked him carefully.  “Who knows me?”

Her dark eyes looked into his green ones, and their gazes held.  After what must have been several long minutes, the carriage rocked and their gazes broke.  Bella bit her lip in frustration and looked back out the window. 

When they arrived, Darcy handed her out of the carriage and she looked up to the sound of music and bright lights.  She looked at her husband, taking in his profile, before she leaned up and whispered in his ear, “I have an interest in Mrs. Bennet and her daughters.”

He looked down at her quickly, and then murmured, “Bingley visited a family named Bennet.”

She tilted her head and he regarded her.  Nodding, he lifted her hand and led her toward the Bingleys and Hursts who were waiting in a small group closer to the entrance.

The inside was like nothing Bella had imagined.  Bella, upon reading Pride and Prejudice, had thought the Assembly was a stately affair of manners and comportment.  It was quite the opposite.  It was light and music and bodies dancing and people milling about and laughter and talking over the violins and dulled colors.  Bella took it all in with a breath, but as soon as she had registered it, the room became silent with a single violin playing before it, too, became silent.

The dancers stopped dancing, the people stopped talking, and everyone was looking at their party.

Bella could hear her heart beating in her chest, and she shifted closer to Darcy.  She was glad she was still holding his hand because she thought she might faint otherwise.  All this scrutiny was worse than her first day at Forks High School.

A man in a faded coat and grey hair pulled back in a ponytail came up to them and bowed, and Bella was introduced to the first resident of the neighborhood—Sir William Lucas. 

The music took up again and everyone remembered to start dancing, and Sir William Lucas led them forward.  Bella was certain to remember the face of Lady Lucas and the eldest Lucas daughter—Charlotte, and then Bingley asked to be introduced to the Bennets.

Mrs. Bennet was a prettyish sort of woman who was happy to introduce the eligible Mr. Bingley to her two eldest daughters, Jane and Elizabeth.  Mary was off reading, and Kitty and Lydia were already dancing. 

Bella blinked when she realized that all Bennet children—and indeed Mrs. Bennet—had golden hair and blue eyes.  She hadn’t been expecting that.

The dance ended and the notes of a new one struck up.  Bingley engaged the hand of Jane Bennet and Darcy led Bella out into her first dance.

They stood across from each other and Bella breathed in and out until the downbeat sounded and she moved forward with her left arm extended, walking around Darcy until she was back in her place.  Another downbeat and Darcy extended his left arm and moved forward around her and then back to his own place, facing her.  Then they both moved forward, left hands extended, and they curled around each other’s bodies without touching, turning around in a circle, before moving away again and back to their original places in the line.

“Breathe,” Darcy reminded her when they were dancing around each other, and he gave her a small smile.

Bella quickly drew in breath and realized she had forgotten to breathe and fell back into the steps.

After the first dance with Darcy, Bella’s confidence grew.  She knew she was capable and she genuinely laughed with Bingley in the second set and appreciated the compliment Hurst was giving her in the third set.

There was a dearth of men, but Bella never lacked for partners.  Darcy only ever danced with her and then once with Caroline Bingley.  When she was drinking lemonade, Bingley approached her and asked, “Where is Darcy?”

“Fetching my shawl,” she told him with a small smile.  “It’s a bit close in here and I wanted to give him an excuse to escape for ten minutes.”

Bingley looked uncomfortable.

“What is it?” Bella asked.

“You were dancing and I urged your husband to take to the floor with some of the locals, to endear us to the residents here.”  He looked embarrassed.

Bella forced herself not to roll her eyes.  “He obviously refused you.”

“I’m afraid it is so close in here we were overheard,” Bingley apologized.

“Who?” Bella asked, looking into her lemonade.

Bingley shifted. 

Bella looked up at him sharply.

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet and she has now conveyed the conversation to Miss Charlotte Lucas.”

Bella swallowed.  It seemed they were following the book despite the obvious changes.  “Miss Lucas is the daughter of Sir William Lucas.  He is too congenial to allow her to believe any unfortunate—talk.”  She breathed through her nose.  “As to Miss Eliza,” she continued, using Caroline Bingley’s future nickname for Elizabeth Bennet, “haven’t you been paying especial attention to her sister?”

“Miss Jane Bennet is all politeness,” he assured her.

“We will hope that will manage it—for now.”  She glanced over at the door and saw that Darcy was making his way toward them.  “Darcy is here.  You can speak of it later.”

“Mrs. Darcy,” Bingley murmured, picking up her gloved hand and kissing the back of it.

It was moments between him leaving and Darcy appearing at her side with her shawl.  It was folded over his arm and he didn’t even go about the pretense of putting it on her shoulders, as it was clear that the air was a little warm. 

That’s when she saw it.  A flash of a red gaze.

Bella froze and looked over Darcy’s shoulder (despite his immeasurable height) and saw it again, this time in a pale face, etched in stone.  Then she realized—she was in the dance.

Darcy’s hand suddenly rested on the side of her shoulder, and she startled, looking at him.

“Bella,” he murmured, leaning down close to her ear, “you look as if you have seen an apparition.”

“An apparition” was an apt description.

She swallowed and lifted herself up on her toes and looked over his shoulder again.  There the girl’s face was again.  Her hair was boyish in its shortness, brown, and barely pinned on her head.  Her face, though, was more beautiful than a Botticelli angel, with its beautiful red eyes and full lips.

When Bella didn’t respond to Darcy, he turned to see where she was looking and she saw him stiffen when his eyes landed on the vampire girl.  He reached for her, and she gave him her hand and felt it spasm in her grasp.  Then she realized it—Darcy knew what vampires were and he was afraid of them.  He was rigid with fear.

He turned to her and his eyes were hard but determined.  “Bella, my dear,” he said, his voice shaking despite his best efforts.  “It is a little close.  Perhaps we should leave for the benefit of your comfort.”

She swallowed uncomfortably.  “Wouldn’t it be rude not to tell Bingley?” she asked.

“He’ll forgive us,” he told her firmly as he pulled her hand under his arm and began to escort her out of the assembly hall.

Darcy quickly called for their man, who was not so drunk as his compatriots, and their carriage was soon brought round, but not before a slip of a girl in a pretty pink dress escaped the merrymaking in the hall and approached them.

“I grow weary of this, Mr. Darcy,” she told him, giving Bella a sharp toothed smile.  “We had an agreement.”

Darcy shifted uncomfortably and didn’t answer.

“Will you not introduce me to your bride?” the vampire asked.  Her red eyes flashed, showing she drank from humans.

Darcy glanced between the two women, if the vampire could be called a woman, she was so young when she was turned.  “Bella,” he finally gave in when the silence became uncomfortable, “this is Lady Jane Volturi.”  Bella’s eyes widened at the name.  “My wife, Mrs. Isabella Darcy.”

Jane offered her hand and Bella carefully took it.

“Lady Jane Volturi as in Volterra, Italy?” she asked carefully.

“Indeed, Mrs. Darcy,” Jane answered eagerly.  “You have undoubtedly heard of my master, Lord Aro?”

Bella glanced at her husband and licked her lips in nervousness.  “I’ve seen his portrait,” she admitted.  She remembered Carlisle showing it to her, the three Volturi Lords—Lords Aro, Marcus, and Caius.  Aro was the one in the middle, if she recollected, not that it mattered.  It was not as if she would ever meet him or any of the others.

“Lord Aro has had many portraits painted over the centuries,” Jane Volturi told her.  “I would be curious to see the one you’ve seen, Mrs. Darcy.”

“I’m afraid it’s not in Hertfordshire, or indeed in England,” Bella apologized, not daring to look at Darcy.  His grip on her had tightened on hers throughout the conversation, not that Bella blamed him. 

The carriage at that moment came up and Darcy wrenched open the carriage door and murmured, “Bella.”

Not wanting to anger a vampire, Bella nodded to Jane, and told her, “goodnight,” before stepping up into the carriage.  Darcy exchanged a few words with Jane Volturi that Bella couldn’t hear before he got into the carriage behind her, and silence immediately fell between them.

They looked at each other openly, the carriage moving along, but neither was willing to speak.  Finally, Darcy told her the most amazing thing: “The fortune hunter at Ramsgate was a vampire who tried to abscond with Georgiana.  They want her because of some talent she possesses.”

This startled Bella.  Her mind flitted to George Wickham, who was supposed to be the one who ran away with Georgiana, but there were more important matters.  “What talent?”

“Music,” Darcy told her.

At Bella’s silence, he continued, “I know, it baffles why vampires would want music, but she is exceptional at the pianoforte.”

“It must be more than that,” Bella told him.  “A talent is just a talent when you’re human.  It manifests into something more when you’re turned into a vampire.”

Darcy looked at her with his vivid green eyes.  “You knew vampires before you came here.”

Bella dropped her gaze to her lap, thinking of Edward for the first time in weeks.  “I did,” she admitted, not wanting to think of Edward or how he led her into the woods in Forks and left her there to freeze to death.  Would anyone have looked for her if Darcy hadn’t found her instead?

She startled when Darcy’s large hand slid between her own.  Bella looked up into his green gaze.

“I wish I could save you from them in this life, but Lady Jane Volturi plagues me.”

Then something occurred to Bella.  “She was at Pemberley.  She feeds at Pemberley.  I found what was left of a groom—his boot.”

Darcy squeezed her hands.  “Why didn’t you tell me?  I would have spoken to her.”

“I thought,” she murmured, before biting her lip and looking away.  I thought I was dreaming, she wanted to admit.

Darcy shifted and came to sit beside her.  “I won’t let her take you,” he promised her solemnly, causing Bella to look up sharply.

“She’s what you’re afraid of.—Of course.  Who wouldn’t be afraid of the Volturi?  Carlisle was afraid of them.”

“’Carlisle,’ my love?” Darcy asked her.

“A vampire I knew,” she admitted distractedly.  “I knew a few—vampires—before.  They never hurt me,” she assured him when he cupped her face to look into her eyes, his own green gaze full of fear.  “Not until the end,” she admitted.

“What did they do?” Darcy asked.

“Edward—he—” she bit her lip.

“He was the one you were calling for,” Darcy murmured distractedly, clearly thinking.

“He left me alone in the middle of the woods late in the afternoon—and it was getting so cold—I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come out of those trees—somehow—and rescued me—”  She glanced up into his green eyes.

“My pleasure,” Darcy murmured as he leaned down, and Bella reached up to kiss him.

To Be Continued….