Vampire and Prejudice

Chapter 13 - Darcy

I was never so thankful for having left Georgiana at Pemberley as when I beheld the face of a devil in the middle of Meryton. He smiled, as devils are wont to do, at the pretty creatures around him, eager to spoil the purity of their happiness. I marveled at the fact that I had not killed him right there and cursed myself for not doing it ten years ago. Then my rage had been great, but now my rage had festered, grown eager and hungry.

I had not sought him out; it was faith that had driven us together, and it seemed a lady again was between us. This time I had no right to call her mine—my feverish dreams notwithstanding—and no way to protect her. That she was not mine to protect gave me little solace. I had seen her father, interacted more than I liked with her mother, and my conclusions were pitiful: they had no drive to protect their children, they saw the danger of nothing, their daughters traipsed across muddy fields and made friends with accidentally met strangers. The irresponsibility made me sick and disgusted.

These feelings did little to quell my rage, which followed me from room to room like a cloud that was determined I never see sunshine. My friends could feign ignorance of it only for so long.

"I scarcely dare ask, Darcy, what has gotten you in such a mood," said Bingley, sitting in the drawing-room at Netherfield. "Caroline, do you know anything about this?"

Poor Miss Bingley was sullen and penitent in my presence ever since our last conversation, which was a fair punishment for her, and now she shrunk a little more in her chair, as if her brother accused her specifically of something she had done wrong. Wretched girl. I was sure she would find her happy manners around Miss Elizabeth without needing to look for them very long in the future.

"I am sure, brother, I know not of what you speak of," was her quiet answer, scraping the very bottom of her well of dignity, no doubt.

"Darcy, I must have you in a better mood. Especially at the ball."

Bingley was going over and beyond with his little entertainment for the country people—all to impress Miss Bennet. In my opinion, he needn't bother so. That girl was his as soon as he had arrived in Hertfordshire, her parents eager to sell her off to anyone who could sustain her.

"I seem to remember you promising to send me to my room if I did not feel like participating," I said. I aimed for a bored tone, instead it sounded angry, even to my ears. All my words were laced with anger lately, as if I had so much of it for one person, that I could not spare others from it either.

I was again thankful that Georgiana had stayed at Pemberley. I would never wish her to hear me speak thus to her.

"That was a long time ago." Actually, it was not. "I trust now you feel at Hertfordshire as at home as I do and you have many pleasant acquaintances to spend the evening with."

I could count on one hand the people I would wish to spend any amount of time with in this place, and that number was not equal to be a practical pretence for a ball.

"My concern is more with the people I would rather not see," I said, and felt Miss Bingley's eyes on me. I was sure she thought she knew of whom I was speaking and I was also sure she was wrong. I had to voice my worries even if they were censored for the good of all. At least with her present, I would be sure that her feelings of superior knowledge would suffer some more at my hands. "I have spied a person in Meryton of incredibly ill reputation—I fear you have invited him to attend."

"What person?" Bingley was suddenly very anxious about his ball. I did not bother telling him that it would not impact his relationships with his would be in-laws. The music could be terrible, the wine undrinkable, the food to nobody's taste, yet he could still have his lady with the same patient smile plastered on her face with which she passed through the rest of the world. If I could not help it, that is.