The house was a large unadorned three-story manor house built of stone but in no identifiable style. Attached to one side of the house was a turret with a flagpole flying a banner the color of sunrise that brought a smile to Lizzy’s face. Lizzy would soon learn that the turret had been added to the manor house at the request of the newly married Lady Marguerite Ashton, its design influenced by illustrations from a book of French fairy tales.
Lady Marguerite’s daughter Jeanne, a tall, pretty, and elegant lady, warmly welcomed the travelers to Ashton Hall and said that she hoped they would consider extending their visit, and it was soon apparent why she wanted her visitors to stay on. There was a war going on between her mother and her husband. George Wimbley was a man blessed with exceptionally good looks, but one with a wandering eye and a well-deserved reputation as a cad, and his mother-in-law was unhappy with her daughter for tolerating his dalliances.
“Kick him where it hurts and that will put an end to that,” Lady Marguerite had told Lizzy as they sat by a fire following supper. “But Jeanne’s afraid of losing him. Nonsense! You can’t lose people like him; they always find their way home. But never mind about them, I want to talk about
“Really? For a year?” Lizzy asked genuinely surprised, but pleased. “That would be when we first met at an assembly near my home.”
“He also told me how he had mucked up the marriage proposal, but I told him that that did not matter as long as he got it right in the end. So tell me, dear, how well do you know my nephew?”
“I know that he is a good man and…”
“No, that is not what I am asking you. I want to know if you
“Good!” she said, letting go of Lizzy’s hand. “If you had just blurted it out, I would never have trusted you again. That shows you will protect him. The reason the others do not know that I am aware of his unique situation is I don’t think of him in that way. To me, he is my wonderful nephew. No need to go on and on about that other business. It would be like telling the Prince of Wales he is fat. He owns a mirror; he knows he’s fat. And I am sure you are not the most pleasant person to be around when your courses begin. It is the same thing with him. He is different for those two days.” She stopped talking and let out a hissing sound as her son-in-law went by, and he quickly walked to the far end of the room and sat next to his wife.
“I named my daughter after Jeanne d’Arc, a woman who led an army against the English and gave France a king, but who does she marry? A man who cannot pass a mirror without looking at his reflection. He has been unfaithful to her from the start. I am told his assignations are exclusively with women. You never know with these pretty men, so I thank God for small favors.
“Now back to my nephew. The reason I know about William is my brother told me what happened in the Black Forest. It gnawed at him, and he had to tell somebody. Since he knew that I was not on speaking terms with anyone in my family, his secret was safe with me. You see, David, William’s father, felt responsible, and for the better part of a year, he dragged his son all over Europe looking for a cure because he did not want his mother to find out about the boy’s transformation.”
“But how did Mr. Darcy’s father know where to go for help?”
“He was given a list by a German doctor, the one who treated him for the bite in Baden, but then they found Dr. Wilkolak in Edinburgh. His wife is a she wolf, and he studies the phenomenon. If there ever is a cure, he will know about it, and he will share it with the community.”
“Did Lady Anne find out about William’s condition?”
“Yes, God rest her soul. She was a frail thing for the last few years of her life, and when she learned what her son was, she passed out cold. But when she was revived, she told William that she would love him always no matter what, so when David said he had heard about yet another cure in Sweden, Lady Anne would not let the boy go. She told her husband that he was the only one who could not accept it, and he had to stop.”
Since her arrival at Pemberley, Lizzy had been trying to come to terms with the idea that the man she loved was a werewolf. Because that subject had occupied all her thoughts, Lizzy had not given any thought to how his parents must have suffered because of their son’s affliction. Her heart was deeply touched by his father’s efforts to find a cure for his son and his mother’s unconditional love, and when added to the depth of caring shown by Georgiana, Anne, and all who served him, a picture of a man worthy of her love and respect emerged.
Lady Marguerite handed Lizzy her handkerchief. “Now don’t go all weepy. William needs a strong wife, someone who can deal with the unexpected and unpleasant, which reminds me, did you meet Lady Helen?”
“Lady Helen? Well, yes I did. She is quite… She is quite beautiful and a…”
“Pain in the wide end of a horse.” Lizzy made no attempt to stifle her laugh. “God may have blessed her with great beauty, but as far as intelligence is concerned, he skipped over her entirely. She has been flirting up a storm with William ever since he came back from North America two years ago.”
“Mr. Darcy was exiled to North America!” Lizzy asked. She could hardly imagine him breaking any rules, no less one that demanded disciplinary action.
“No, no, no. He was not exiled. He went there on holiday. With Georgiana in seminary, he thought it was a good time to go, and he went with Teddy and two others. They traveled from Scotland to Iceland to Greenland to North America, and in the far north of that frozen land, he developed a taste for caribou. But you can’t get it in England. He tells me that reindeer is a good substitute.”
Lizzy had never heard of caribou. If Mr. Darcy had a preference for the meat of the animal, she would have to learn more about them.
“It must have been a real challenge to live under such harsh conditions when he was not… You know, when he was not something else,” Lizzy responded.
“It did test him, but he came back stronger than ever. He was already handsome, and so when he came home tall, dark, lean, and with all those muscles rippling under his coat, Helen wanted him. I still have not decided if he is pretending that he does not know that she is after him, or if he is so immune to her charms that he just does not see what a flirt she is. But once he set eyes on you, she did not have a prayer of securing his affections. You knocked the legs right out from under him. You should have heard some of the things he said about you.”
“I can believe it. We had a rather rough start.”
“A harsh word about you has never crossed his lips, and it was that rough start that convinced him that you were perfect for him. Anyone who would say no to the benefits of his rank and wealth and the prestige of marrying a Darcy and the grandson of an earl would be able to handle difficult times. I can tell a lot about a person just by looking in their eyes, and you have what is necessary to make him a good wife.”
“I am not sure that is going to happen. There was an emergency concerning someone in the community that required that he go to Scotland. He thought I should reconsider his offer while he was gone.”
“Oh, Lord. He is being noble again. That is my fault. In my tower, I have all these books about King Arthur and all his knights, and we would go up there and read them together. But in real life, no one is that good. If they were, their presence would be intolerable. So if he says anything like that again, you tell him you are not in the mood for any noble speeches. As far as you are concerned, he asked you to marry him, you accepted, and that is the end of it. You tell him his aunt Marguerite said so.”
Chapter 19
Darcy sat across from Josiah MacGregor in a dark study in a dark house with candles casting shadows on wood-paneled walls lined with swords and muskets and the heads of a hundred red deer that reminded a hungry Darcy of how much he liked the taste of venison. It wasn’t as good as caribou, but he definitely preferred it to squirrel or vole. But first to the business at hand.
When he had arrived at the Underhill estate, he was pleased to learn that both Teddy and Rupert had been released by the laird, but the estate manager had suggested that Darcy visit MacGregor in order to extinguish any lingering doubts about what the gamekeeper had seen in the woods. The next day, after hearing the whole of the story from Teddy and Mr. Underhill, including the alias he was to use, Mr. Darcy, who was to be addressed as Mr.
