How gently Wickham treated Ellender surprised Darcy. The man that this creature once was still loved this woman, despite the havoc she had brought to his life.This was a new aspect of Wickham, and Darcy hoped to use it against him.
“The gentleman has his own lady love, my dear.” Wickham brought Ellender’s delicate hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it; then he called out,“Will you not join us, Mrs. Darcy?”
“Stay where you are, Elizabeth!” Darcy ordered.
“If you wish to see me end your husband’s life on the spot, then ignore my bidding.”Wickham purposely nicked Darcy’s neck to let the blood bubble there.
Darcy warned,“It does not matter, Elizabeth;Wickham plans to kill me anyway.”
Wickham jabbed Darcy again, and a second stream worked its way towards his shirt’s collar. “Enough!” Elizabeth ordered and stepped from behind the granite. She walked slowly to where Darcy stood, taking his hand as she defiantly took her place beside him.
“That is more like the Elizabeth I have come to know and despise,” Wickham growled. “Now, play nice, Mrs. Darcy, and acknowledge
“I gladly acknowledge Lady Ellender,” Elizabeth contended, “but she is not
“Ellender!” Wickham roared, but
Elizabeth’s hands tore at his fingers, and, instantly, Darcy reacted, his own high dudgeon exploding as he hit Wickham full force in the chest with instant power. The potency of the impact sent Wickham reeling backwards as Darcy caught the slumping Elizabeth in his arms and knelt lovingly over her. “My love,” he cajoled as he pushed her hair from her face.“Speak to me.”
But before she could respond,Wickham charged again, and this time he did not stop—plunging the rapier into Darcy’s back. Darcy collapsed on top of his wife’s body as blood oozed from the entry and exit wounds in both his back and his side. They laid perfectly still, arms and legs entangled in an intimate moment of ghostly love.
CHAPTER 29
Damon Fitzwilliam saw it all, but was too late to stop Wickham’s potentially fatal blow. Armed with his own sword, he charged the brute, spinning Wickham away from Darcy’s fallen frame before he could deliver another strike. Now, they faced each other, swords at the ready, and the match began in earnest. Surprisingly, Wickham adeptly fended off everything Damon threw at him as they zigzagged among headstones and mounted the banked earth indicating each of the graves. Sparks disappeared into the night as the blades crashed against each other and grazed markers, but for Damon, this was more than a simple fight.This was for Elizabeth, for what Wickham had done to her, and for the horror of seeing his cousin skewered by this animal.
Darcy’s body pinned Elizabeth to the ground, but she managed to leverage herself away from him, scooting to the side until she freed her chest. Pulling her legs from his eased his weight from her badly bruised backside. Getting to her knees beside him, Elizabeth searched Darcy’s body for the point of entry. Luckily, the blood flow slowed when she pressed her hand against it, so Elizabeth tore at the shirt she wore, ripping at it to make a bandage.
She could hear the battle going on behind her, but she needed to stop the life from being sapped from Darcy’s body. It was too much like her dream, and she would not let him die.“Fitzwilliam!” She pressed against the wound, feeling the bandage go damp under her fingers.“Do not leave me!”
Miraculously, his chest heaved, and she heard him groan.
Elizabeth stretched out over his shoulders and kissed the side of his face.“Please stay with me,” she whispered close to his ear.
“Help me up,” he moaned, his mouth turned into the earth.
Elizabeth came as close as possible.“What?”
“Help me to my feet.” In obvious pain, Darcy rolled to his uninjured side.
Elizabeth tried to turn him back.“You cannot!” she protested.
“Damn it, Wife. I need your help!”
Darcy pulled his knee up and prepared to stand. In opposition to what she knew he needed, Elizabeth braced his weight against her and helped him lift his frame to a standing position, although he hunched his shoulders forward in pain.
“Fitzwilliam, please,” she begged as he took a deep breath and staggered in the direction of the foray. Ignoring her pleas, Darcy simply gritted his teeth and took a few more faltering steps before his momentum gave an appearance of strength. Elizabeth trailed along beside Darcy, preparing to help him maintain his balance.
The battle, once powerfully contested, now was one more of strike and retreat than of continuous blows.The colonel used both hands to steady his sword as he caught Wickham’s downward thrust and deflected it. Spinning counterclockwise, Damon sliced into Wickham’s side with a horizontal arc of the blade.As it was with Darcy’s attack at the house, the blood ran in varying hues of red as it trickled down his side.
Now, hilts entangled,Wickham and the colonel struggled face-to-face, hellkite strength versus human resolve. Smelling of putrid decay, Wickham repulsed everything honorable in the colonel’s body, and Damon momentarily retracted—a foolish mistake—giving Wickham the advantage he sought. He used his waning powers to send the colonel’s body cannonading against the side of the church, fiercely knocking the breath from him.
Darcy and Elizabeth staggered into the midst of the horror, and now he stood between Wickham and his cousin. “Do what I ask when I ask it,” he murmured softly as he shoved Elizabeth away from him.
Wickham sighed heavily. “I thought to have disposed of you.” He pulled his shoulders back and prepared for
