Wolf Girl

Title: Wolf Girl

Author: ExcentrykeMuse

Pairing(s): Darcy/Bella, Fitzwilliam/Anne

Fandom(s): Pride and Prejudice, Twilight Saga

Word Count: 5.3k

Rating: PG13

Warning(s): time period typical vampires, murder, social class, fortune hunters, dowries

Prompt: for Haru: Darcy/Bella, perhaps where Bella is the ward of Lady Catherine?

There were no wolves left in England.  How then could Darcy explain the wolf he saw outside the carriage as he traveled to Kent to visit his aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourg?  Staring in shock, he watched the majestic creature running across the landscape, wild in the moors, and then he blinked.  A young woman, with long dark hair and even darker eyes, was running with the wolf. 

Hitting the top of his carriage twice to signal that they should stop, Darcy jumped from the carriage.  His cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, looked up from the newspaper he was reading, and asked, “Why are we stopping?”

“Did you see that?” Darcy asked wildly.  “There was a wolf—with a young lady.”

“A wolf?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, looking out the carriage door at the natural scenery.  “There have been no wolves in England for over a hundred years.”

Darcy could feel his pulse had accelerated and he looked about, trying to find any trace of the wolf or, indeed, the young lady.  “Yes,” he agreed carefully, “you must be right.”

He carefully looked around one more time and got back in the carriage.  They had more than an hour until they reached Rosings Park, and it wouldn’t do to be late.  Their aunt abhorred lateness.

Of course, when they arrived in time for tea, it was not only to see their aunt and their cousin, Anne, but Lady Catherine’s new ward, Miss Isabella Swan.

Darcy stared at her.  She was the young woman who had been running with the wolf.  Dressed in a white muslin and a dark blue pelisse, her hair was hanging windswept down her back.

“Yes, Isabella,” Lady Catherine was telling him over tea, Anne and Bella having withdrawn to a different sofa, “Bella, as she likes to call herself.  It is the most curious thing.  Her father was a Sir Charles Swan.  He died quite suddenly.  If you ask Isabella, she’ll tell you vampires, but I take it that’s just the shock of the situation.  Sir Charles was a great friend of my husband’s, Sir Lewis De Bourg, and it was his last wish that Isabella be brought up at Rosings until her marriage if anything should happen to him.”

“Vampires,” Darcy echoed, thinking this no less strange than wolves in England.

“Yes,” Lady Catherine agreed.  “At least, that’s what she told the magistrate.  She’s since recanted the story.  As I said, shock, and it really was a horrific murder.  As I understand there was blood everywhere.  It is no wonder a young impressionable mind got the wrong idea.”

Darcy looked over at Bella and took in her pale complexion, her deep brown hair, and her dark pink lips.  She was absolutely breathtaking and like a heroine out of a fairytale.

“Is she out?” he asked carefully, knowing with Lady Catherine De Bourg it was better to err on the side of caution, especially as his aunt had hopes of a union with his cousin Anne.

Lady Catherine put down her teacup.  “Oh, I see what you’re thinking.  The estate in Cornwall is quite entailed away.  The barrister has yet to come to explain what Bella’s expectations are.  She could be an heiress or she could be a pauper.  At least she has an appropriate wardrobe.”

Darcy looked at his aunt.  “Please,” he asked her, since they seemed to understand each other.

She sighed.  “Anne is five and twenty,” she admitted.  “I had given up hope.—Bella is seventeen, so not much older than Georgiana.”

Nodding, Darcy took another sip of his tea.  Bella Swan most definitely intrigued him.

“Oh,” Lady Catherine added, just as Colonel Fitzwilliam was coming in, having refreshed himself, “the vicar has a new wife.  Mr. Collins.  Mrs. Collins has a sister and a pretty little friend visiting with her.  I’ve invited them to dinner Thursday next.  It’s good for Isabella to be in society.  She does like her poetry and her walks out of doors.”  Looking out the window at a gathering storm, she mused, “She does so like to ponder God’s creation.”

Lady Catherine fortunately arranged it so Darcy was dinner partners with Miss Swan.  “I must offer my condolences on your sad bereavement,” he murmured as he took her into dinner.  “Is it long past that you lost Sir Charles?”

She looked startled, but her dark brown eyes caught his verdant gaze.  “Dear Charlie,” she murmured.  “I always called my father by his name,” she explained.  “They never caught who killed him.”

“That is most unfortunate,” he agreed.  “The case remains open, then?”

“Yes,” she murmured as he held out her seat for her.  “I unfortunately found him and went quite off my head.  They had to administer laudanum for three days before I could calm down.”

“Horrible,” he murmured, noticing that she had put her hair up in pins for dinner, and how fetching she looked.  “At least he’s been laid to rest.”

“That’s what they say, anyway,” she agreed, putting her napkin on her lap.  “That he’s at peace.  I can’t imagine he’s at peace when that—person—who did that to him is still at large.”  Her lips thinned into a displeased line, but she seemed to collect herself.  “But I know nothing of you, Mr. Darcy, except that you are Lady Catherine’s nephew.  Tell me, is that through the maternal or paternal line?”

“Maternal,” he told her.  “Lady Catherine and my mother, Lady Anne, were the sisters of the Earl of Matlock.  That is, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s father.”

“Indeed,” she sighed, taking a sip of his wine.  “My own relations aren’t so grand.  My father was a simple baronet.”

“But you run with wolves,” he noted carefully, leaning toward her just before the servants came to serve them squash soup.  “I saw you before we arrived.”

Her head whipped toward him in shock.

“I see there’s a wolf on your bracelet.”

They both turned their attention to a woven bracelet around her left wrist, which had two charms on it, one a diamond, and the second a small wolf. 

“It was a birthday present,” she explained away.  “I never take it off.”

“Do more friends add charms to it?  The diamond appears incongruous with the rest of the bracelet.”

Bella paused, waiting for Lady Catherine to pick up her soup spoon so that they all might.  “Yes,” she agreed.  “The bracelet and wolf charm were from one friend—and the diamond from another.  If I could take the diamond off without compromising the bracelet, I would,” she confessed, “but I cannot seem to manage it.”

Darcy saw an opportunity to touch her wrist and so offered, “Would you like me to take a look at it this evening?”

She paused and then looked at him.  “Would you?  You may keep the diamond, if you like.”

“I would never steal a lady’s diamond.”

“I don’t want it.”  She took another sip of her soup.  “I’m of the opinion that the person who gave me the diamond is—well, is.  It’s why I’m trying to get it off.  But the bracelet itself has such sentimental meaning—”

“Think no more of it, Miss Swan,” he assured her, looking at the slope of her neck.  “I will see the diamond taken off, even if I have to send the bracelet to London.”

He looked up and saw that Colonel Fitzwilliam was regarding him.  Anne was never much of a conversationalist, so he was subject to Lady Catherine’s pronouncements.  Darcy had a far pleasanter dinner companion.

Of course, Colonel Fitzwilliam would have music after dinner, and he applied to Bella.  She gave him a small smile and told him she only had a middling talent.  “I never had the benefit of the masters,” she apologized as she sat down at the instrument.  “I was taught by a young gentleman who saw it was worthwhile to teach me.”  She set her fingers on the piano and began to play a haunting lullaby in a style unbeknownst to the assembled personage.  When she picked up her fingers, Darcy having gravitated toward her, he asked, “Who wrote that?”

“Mr. Edward Cullen,” she told him forthrightly.  “It’s ‘Bella’s Lullaby.’—He gave me the diamond,” she added darkly.  Placing her fingers back on the piano, she picked up a no less haunting tune, and lost herself in the music. 

It was when they were having coffee, that Darcy finally got to take Bella’s wrist between his fingers and release the clasp of the bracelet.

“What are you on about, Darcy?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked from his place beside Anne.

“Miss Swan would like to remove one of the charms and cannot manage it,” he explained, looking at the diamond.  “I promised I would look at it for her, and if I cannot do it, I’ll send it to London.”

“It snags,” she explained, leaning toward him and pointing.  “The bracelet is handwoven and I’m afraid of damaging it.  Of course, I could always write Cornwall and ask for another, but that seems indelicate.”

“Very indelicate,” Lady Catherine agreed, setting down her coffee cup.  “No, Darcy shall see to it for you.  Hopefully you shall have it back tomorrow or the next day.”  She looked between Darcy and Bella in wonder.  “Well, young lady.  Say ‘goodnight.’  You are still under my care, and it is well past midnight.  Anne should be up as well.”

Bella looked between the cousins before standing and curtseying to them.  She really did look like a storybook character with her white skin and pink lips and dark hair.  Darcy stood and took her hand.  “Goodnight, Miss Swan.”

She smiled at him. 

Then she went over to Lady Catherine and kissed her cheek before leaving the room with Anne and her companion, Mrs. Jenkinson.

They waited until they could hear that they had fully retreated upstairs.

“Since when, Aunt, have you abandoned your machinations for Anne and Darcy?” Colonel Fitzwilliam demanded.

“Even I am not that blind,” she told her nephew.  “No, Anne shall never be married except to a fortune hunter.  It is most unfortunate.”

Darcy was ignoring them and looking at the bracelet.  “Do you have a magnifying glass, Aunt?” he asked.  “I think this should be easy enough.”

“In the library, on the desk,” she answered easily.  “That’s where Sir Lewis always kept it.”

He stood and left his cousin and his aunt to talk about his marriage prospects without him.  He took a candle with him and had a footman follow him in and light multiple candles as he found the magnifying glass.  Yes, he saw the problem.  This Edward Cullen had placed the charm into the weave.  He just needed some plyers.

Calling the footman back, he described what he needed and went back into the living room to get himself another cup of coffee.

“Well, am I a fortune hunter?” Colonel Fitzwilliam was now asking.  Darcy was wondering when they would get to that.  “I am the younger son of an Earl.  I’m not too shabby.”

Darcy had only forty-five minutes to wait before he got a toolbox with everything he would need.  It was short work after that with the magnifying glass.  Once the diamond was separated, he folded the bracelet and the diamond into a handkerchief and set them into his jacket pocket before he blew out all the candles and returned the toolbox.  Someone might surely be missing it.

Darcy fell into bed shortly after that and thought of the possibility of Miss Bennet being in the neighborhood.  She was undoubtedly the pretty little friend of Mrs. Collins.  The then Charlotte Lucas was always close with Elizabeth Bennet.  He remembered them whispering to each other at the first assembly in Meryton.  They had, in fact, been whispering when Darcy had asked Miss Elizabeth to dance at the Netherfield Ball.  That had been a mistake in retrospect.  Dancing with Miss Isabella Swan was surely a pleasanter prospect.

He unfortunately rose late and learned from the footman that Miss Swan had already breakfasted and was out on the estate.  Undoubtedly, with the wolf, he thought to himself.  He wasn’t sure if it was a wise idea to try and find her. 

Still, he went down to the Greek Folly with a book of poetry and wondered if she would appear.  Nearing lunch, Bella surprisingly did.  She was wearing a green muslin, her hair windswept, and a wolf was at her side.  Her hands were gloveless and buried in the wolf’s mane and Darcy worried for her safety, his heartbeat kicking up.  However, the wolf seemed to be tame.

Carefully, he stood and left the book on the bench he had been sitting on.

Coming toward her, he raised his hand in greeting, calling out to her.

Startled, she looked up and the wolf ran behind her into the woods. 

“I would not hurt him,” he said in greeting, “if he were not hurting you.”

Bella looked up at him with large doe eyes.  “He does not know that.”  She bit her dark pink bottom lip, causing it to stain darker.

“Of course not,” he murmured.  “We are not friends.”  Reaching into his jacket pocket he took out her bracelet.  “All fixed,” he promised. 

She looked up at him in wonder and smiled.  “You got it off?”

“And I have it right here in my pocket—to do with as you wish.  Now, shall I put it on you?”

Smiling, she held out her left wrist, and he clasped the bracelet to her gently, making sure it was set before he released her.  “There,” he murmured, looking into her eyes.  “You have your wolf bracelet back.”

“In Cornwall,” she admitted, taking back her wrist, “I knew a girl named Emily who was called ‘Wolf Girl.’”

“You did not earn that name?” he asked in shock. 

“No,” she told him.  “My friend is only protecting me while my father’s killer is at large.”  Her dark eyes looked up at him anxiously.  “You do believe me, don’t you?”

“My dear Miss Swan,” he told her, offering her his arm.  “You seem to have found a mythological creature reborn.  Of course I believe you.”  Darcy held her gaze.  “He should just perhaps stay away from Lady Catherine’s chickens.”

Bella laughed.  “Jake does so like chickens,” she told him as if it were a great secret.  “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he promised her, resting a hand over hers as they made their way back up to the house.  Darcy looked over at her and smiled.  “You named him ‘Jake’, did you?”

She looked at him, surprised, before she smiled.  “It seemed appropriate.”

When they got up to the house, it was to see Colonel Fitzwilliam carefully conversing with Anne, under the watchful eye of Mrs. Jenkinson.  Darcy was glad to see everything progressing nicely.

He took Bella into dinner again, noting that she had once again put up her hair from its wayward dishevelment of earlier in the day. 

“I really don’t want the diamond,” she was telling him over the third course.  “Edward was hateful in the end.  I want nothing from him.”

Uncertain what he could do with a lady’s diamond, he asked, “Would you like me to give it in offering to the church?”

She shrugged.  “If you think it will be useful there.  I must confess I haven’t seen this Mrs. Collins excepting Sundays.  Mr. Collins does give a sanctimonious sermon, but Lady Catherine seems to like it.”

“Mr. Collins is her parson,” Darcy agreed.  “I saw Mr. Collins in Hertfordshire before he married.  Mrs. Collins is a very practical woman.”

“Well, then I suppose she is a good choice for a parson’s wife,” Bella mused, eyes widening in a tease.  “I should not like to be married to him.”

“You, Miss Swan, do not seem to be in danger of becoming a parson’s wife,” Darcy soothed her.

Her reply astonished him.  Her face turned black, her eyes glittering darkly, when she said in a crisp tone, “No.  That was not my fate.”  She cut the meat vigorously on her plate.  Bella looked away.

“Miss Swan,” he asked carefully, “are you quite well?”

She turned back to him with a false smile on her face.  “I simply despise Mr. Cullen,” she told him.  “Do give the diamond away.  I want nothing to do with it.”

Darcy began to wonder at the exact relationship between Bella and this Mr. Edward Cullen.  He had taught her how to play the pianoforte, he had written her a lullaby, and he had placed a diamond on her charm bracelet.  She had inferred, however, that he knew who had killed her father.

He approached his aunt carefully once Anne and Bella had retired for the night.

“Who is Mr. Edward Cullen?” he asked her carefully.

“Who?” she asked, bewildered.

“He gave Miss Swan a diamond—the one on her charm bracelet.  She wants me to get rid of it now.  I thought I’d have it appraised and give the worth of it to your parish church.”

“A worthwhile cause,” Lady Catherine agreed.  “Mr. Edward Cullen, you say.  I know of no standing engagement.”

“Well, shouldn’t we find out?” Darcy asked carefully.  “And when is her barrister to arrive?”

“Day after next,” Lady Catherine promised her.  “I thought since you were already going over the estate ledgers you would look after Bella’s dowry.  You have looked after Anne’s so faithfully all these years.”

“Of course, Aunt,” he agreed.  He took another sip of his coffee.

Bella did not come down for breakfast the next morning.  Mrs. Jenkinson said that Lady Catherine had called up breakfast for the two of them and they were in conference.  Anne always took breakfast in bed.

“You seem like a trapped animal,” Fitzwilliam noted.  “Your preference is noticed, even to Miss Swan, I’m sure.”

“Does Anne notice your preference?”

Fitzwilliam sighed.  “She is bewildered.  I shall have to be persistent in my campaign.”

“I shall look forward to giving the bride away,” Darcy assured him with a small smile. 

Darcy took to the lanes of Rosings Park and came upon Miss Elizabeth Bennet.  She was hardly windswept in the way Bella often was with her wolf, but she had forgotten her bonnet and she had cut a fringe into her forehead.  It was most disappointing with the shape of her face.

“Miss Bennet, I had heard you were in Kent,” he greeted.

She did not seem remotely pleased to see him.  “And you are here to see your aunt, Lady Catherine?” she inquired, barely polite.

“Indeed,” he answered.  “I am with my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

“Miss Mariah Lucas is also one of our party,” Miss Elizabeth informed him.  She seemed a little lost.  “I often walk this way.”

That was certainly startling information.  “I shall endeavor not to disturb you, then, Miss Bennet,” he told her with a bow, before he took off toward the Greek Folly.

It was just the lunch hour when Bella arrived with her wolf, her hair tumbling down her back, with leaves mixed in with the strands.  “You look quite wild,” he greeted.

She sighed and combed her fingers through her hair.  “There was another young lady hereabouts,” she complained.  “Jake and I had to hide.”

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he agreed.  “I came upon her myself.”

“Are you acquainted?” Bella asked, coming up to him as Jake slunk off back into the trees.

“We have met before in Hertfordshire.  I remember her often being in the company of the new Mrs. Collins.”

“Well,” Bella decided, “Jake doesn’t like her.”  She turned her full attention to Darcy.  “Did you send Lady Catherine to me?”

“I thought you might be in a situation that was undesirable,” he tried to explain.

“I am,” she agreed.  “I know the man who probably killed Charlie—I just can’t prove it.”

“If he imposed upon you—” Darcy warned carefully, taking a step forward and looking into her beautiful dark eyes. 

“Charlie never liked him,” Bella confessed.  “Still, I thought I knew best.  He was a suitor, nothing more.  When Charlie denied him my hand in marriage, it seems like he lashed out.”  A far off look passed over her eyes.  “I think that’s what happened.  Jake is always nearby now.”

Darcy wondered how her original statement of vampires factored into the story, but he didn’t pry.  It was enough that she was unharmed and was here with him at Rosings Park.  If she had to have a wolf with her to ease her state of mind, then he was not going to quibble with her.  He only hoped it didn’t follow them back to Pemberley once they were married. 

“There are also footmen and the gameskeeper,” Darcy assured her, “and for the next six weeks, Fitzwilliam and myself.”

Bella offered him a small smile.  “I do not discount you, Mr. Darcy, I assure you.”

Without any prompting, she took his arm and they walked back up to Rosings Park. 

It was to the sound of Bella’s playing that Darcy locked himself in the study with the steward and the books.  He was sure to leave the door open so that he could hear her playing.  She even came in after an hour and asked him if there was anything particular he would like to hear, and he requested Handel, which she went and played for him from the music books Lady Catherine provided.

It was the next day that Sir Charles Swan’s barrister arrived.  He was a man of dark complexion with a cane named William Black, and he was welcomed into the study.

“I am Lady Catherine’s nephew and executor,” Darcy introduced.  “She’s asked me to oversee Miss Swan’s prospects as I oversee Miss De Bourg’s.”

“Quite,” Mr. Black answered, taking out a ledger.  “The estate was entailed away with the baronetcy, I’m afraid to report.  However, Charlie—forgive me, Sir Charles—was not idle.  He saved for Miss Bella’s comfort.”

“Bella?” Darcy asked in curiosity, sitting forward.

“Oh, yes,” Mr. Black told him with a wry smile.  “Heaven forbid we ever call her ‘Isabella’.  It is always ‘Bella’ or ‘Bells’.—Now, Charlie saved for a rainy day.  Miss Bella’s fortune is in the ten percents and is currently worth a little more than twenty two thousand pounds.  Quite respectable.”

Darcy took the ledger and looked it over.  It seemed like Sir Charles Swan was indeed careful with his money.  He set the book aside.  “What can you tell me of Edward Cullen?”

Mr. Black’s face darkened.  “We all think he murdered Charlie in cold blood—for Bella’s hand.  Of course, he tried to elope with her afterward before her father was cold in his grave, but to her credit she threw a teapot at him.  The boys in the village quite rightly threw him out.  Thing is,” he leaned forward and Darcy leaned over the desk to create a better sense of intimacy, “his eyes were red by then.”

His eyes were red?

“What were they before?” Darcy asked in confusion.

“I am told they were amber.  Murder got in his heart and turned his eyes red.”

That was certainly something.  “Everyone has been put on alert.  No one by the name of Cullen will be allowed anywhere near Miss Swan.  We have it well in hand.”

“Charlie had it well in hand, and look what happened to him!”

Yes, Darcy thought darkly, but he didn’t have a wolf of legend protecting him. 

He shook hands with Mr. Black and was glad that was done, and was relieved that Bella had a dowry.  No one could say he was marrying a penniless orphan if she came with more than twenty thousand pounds.  It was not Georgiana’s fortune, but it was more than respectable for a baronet’s daughter. 

He wanted to dance Bella after Mr. Black left, but she was off on the grounds, undoubtedly with her wolf, and there was no one to play for them.  After informing Lady Catherine of her ward’s prospects, which of course pleased his aunt.

Before lunch, Darcy walked down to the Greek Folly to wait for Bella and was displeased to see Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

“Oh, I see you’ve found this place, Mr. Darcy.  Is it not wonderful?”

“Indeed, Miss Bennet,” he agreed carefully.  “My uncle had it built when he was a young man.”

She looked up at him with big blue eyes, waiting for him to say more, but he was disinclined to conversation.  Darcy became uncomfortable.  He began to realize that Miss Bennet should not see the wolf, for fear of her informing other villagers in –.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured, before leaving the folly and walking down to the edge of the forest.  He looked in between the trees for a long second before breaching them and looking about him.  Darcy felt like a complete idiot until ten minutes later he heard a rumbling to his left and he reached out and grabbed Bella’s hand.  “Miss Bennet is at the folly,” he warned.

Bella looked up at him with her large doe eyes and then down at their entwined fingers.  She turned to her wolf and dropped down to hug him around the neck before sending him off into the trees.  Straightening, she turned back toward Darcy.  “Thank you,” she murmured.  “You take such good care of me.”

“Haven’t you realized that I should always like to take care of you?” Darcy asked her softly as he came up to her under the green leaves and tucked her windswept hair behind her ear.

She looked up at him and blinked.  “Someone once said that to me before.”

“But he wasn’t worthy of you,” Darcy told her firmly.  “He betrayed your trust.  Mr. Black told me how you threw a teapot at Mr. Cullen.”

A small smile formed on her dark pink lips.  “The teapot broke on his head,” she admitted.  “Sam Uley and Jacob Black had to come and get him to stop banging on the front doors.—He was making such a noise.”

“I’m sure they had it well in hand,” Darcy murmured, looking over at her.  “I should escort you back to the house for lunch.”

“Can we avoid Miss Bennet?” Bella asked.

“I think we can if we go around,” he answered, offering his arm, before leading her through the trees off to the far path, Miss Bennet avoided successfully. 

They were laughing and Bella was practically skipping when they entered the house, and Darcy was pleased to see that Fitzwilliam was once again speaking with Anne. 

The days fell pleasantly together.  Darcy would try to avoid Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and he would wait for Bella at the Greek Folly with her wolf.  They were always dinner partners, and Fitzwilliam continued to speak to Anne.

It was the night before the vicar was to come when Lady Catherine announced Anne’s engagement to Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“Anne!” Bella breathed, coming up to her and hugging her carefully.  “Congratulations!  Does this mean you can stay here always as you have wished to do?”

“Yes,” Colonel Fitzwilliam answered.  “I am a military man and a second son.  I have no estate of my own.”

“How marvelous,” Bella sighed, looking over at her friend.  “I am so happy for you.”

Darcy had come and clapped hands with his cousin.  This was truly excellent news.

“How is your own campaign going with your own little heiress?” Fitzwilliam asked over brandy once the ladies had withdrawn.

“Right on course,” Darcy informed him.  “I will surely be able to propose within the fortnight.  We shall be married by May and she shall come to Pemberley for the summer.”

“We could have a double wedding,” Fitzwilliam suggested, “that way, the family only has to travel here once.”

Darcy pondered the idea.  It certainly had merit.  Bella would certainly be a lovelier bride than Anne.  She did perhaps deserve her own wedding, though, not full of soldiers as Fitzwilliam’s wedding was certainly going to be.  It was a question he’d put to her when the timing was appropriate.

When Mr. and Mrs. Collins came, they were much as Darcy remembered them.  Collins was a slight man with blond hair and blue eyes, his wife slighter.  Miss Bennet was pleased with herself.  Miss Mariah Lucas wished she were a shadow.  The party partook in champagne to celebrate the new couple’s fortune and Miss Bennet was appropriated to play the pianoforte. 

Her playing was certainly nothing to Bella’s nor, indeed, Georgiana’s. 

There were just enough couples to form a line, if Fitzwilliam danced with Miss Lucas, so Darcy finally had the privilege of dancing with Bella. 

“Do tell me if I trip over my feet,” she begged him as the reel began to play.  “I do so remember as a young girl and just learning, always falling over myself.”  Bella did nothing of the kind, however.

Anne simply watched from her seat beside Mrs. Jenkinson.

Darcy could not help but notice the way that Elizabeth Bennet stared at him when she thought no one was looking.  Her gaze was heavy on him and it made him uncomfortable.  He was glad when she was finally gone with the rest of her party.

“There, Bella, you’ve had a dance,” Lady Catherine declared.  “How did you like it?”

“I am just glad I did not step on anyone’s toes!” she exclaimed, sitting down and accepting a cup of coffee.  “I haven’t danced in years for that very reason.”

“You were grace and beauty itself,” Darcy complimented her, sitting down by her side.  “You indeed had nothing to worry about.”

“Perhaps you just had the correct partner,” Colonel Fitzwilliam stipulated.  “Perhaps if you had danced with me, I would have sore toes at this very moment!”

They all laughed at his histrionics.

Darcy went to bed late that night, but not before turning out the sash.  He looked down out of his window and saw the wolf etched in the moonlight.  The wolf looked uncertain for a moment before running out toward the park.  Darcy wondered if vampires did have something to do with Sir Charles death if a potential werewolf was also involved.

He woke up to the sound of shoving and snarling, and looked out his window to see the wolf lunging at a man who had claws for fingernails.  Taking his candle, Darcy ran out of the room and down the stairs, only to find Bella waiting in the front door, opened wide, watching the fight.

“It’s Edward,” she murmured.  “Do you think he’s going to hurt Jake?”

The two beasts fought each other savagely, the wolf taking a bite out of the arm of the man and the man’s teeth dripping with blood in the moonlight.  Finally, Bella picked up what appeared to be a wood stake and ran at Edward and thrust it through his back.  He cried out, curled backward toward her, whispering, “Bella?” before he dissolved into ash, covering her.

She looked down at her hands and began to shake.

Darcy quickly ran to her and pulled her toward him.  “Let’s get you into a bath,” he soothed, pulling her inside.  He looked at what appeared to be a bloodstain on the stone walkway, but thought nothing more of it.  Calling for a footman, he demanded a bath in Bella’s quarters and half-carried her up there himself as they waited for her maid.

Bella was quiet after that.  The wolf had seemed to disappear, but then again the threat was now gone.  Bella still walked the paths of Rosings but the light was gone from her eyes.

“You did the right thing,” Darcy told her.  “You avenged your father.”

“Is that what I did?” she asked, looking out toward the Greek Folly.  “I murdered a man in cold blood.”

“He wasn’t a man.”

Bella looked up at him.  “No, no I suppose he wasn’t.”  She carefully placed her hand in his and Darcy smiled.  All was right in their world.

The End.