pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 17

CHAPTER 17

With more rest and ample servings of roe and sashimi and regular doses of his aunt's elixir, Darcy began to regain his strength. Yet the world around him remained a gray place draped in a dingy haze. Only occasionally did flashes of light and splashes of color cut through the gloom and warm him somewhere deep inside: in his dreams of tangy-fresh liverwurst and near-raw rashers and the red juice of undercooked beef running over his chin. Or anywhere there was life.

It gave him all the more reason to struggle out of bed, dress himself without fainting, and shuffle out the door, for his room now had the air of a tomb. To once again feel fully alive, he had to be among living things. Birds, insects, squirrels, people. It didn't matter which. The mere presence of life strengthened him—though he always felt compelled to get closer, to take from it something it wasn't giving, something hidden, hoarded. He was a hungry man always smelling a feast he couldn't see, let alone eat.

Which was why he ended up taking so many long walks with his cousin. Lady Catherine he saw only twice a day, when she administered his medicine and coolly inquired about his dreams and appetite and bodily functions. The rest of the time she was off "on patrol" or "attending to affairs." Her Ladyship's servants, meanwhile, were skittish, her ninjas standoffish. Besides, it would hardly be fitting for a gentleman to keep company with the help.

So Anne became his near-constant companion, and each day they rambled around the grounds together. They spoke of their childhoods and family members long dead or, for long stretches, merely strolled side by side in silence. Thus the conversation was kept to either the past or nothing. What neither ever brought up, by unspoken mutual agreement, was how the present was once supposed to look and what the future might hold for them.

Until, that is, one of their walks took them both farther and further than ever before. It was late afternoon, approaching evening, and they'd strolled so long Darcy no longer recognized where they were. The ground swept up and down in bramble-covered hills that felt like the cresting waves of a choppy sea, and the slant of the setting sun sent beams of radiance slicing through the trees while leaving the gulleys in shadows as dark—to Darcy, anyway—as any ocean depths.

"Perhaps we should turn back," Darcy said. "We have strayed far from the house, and the spring dreadfuls lack the sense to give Rosings a wide berth."

"Oh, I'm not worried," Anne replied blithely.

She was dressed, as always, in black, and with Darcy's vision muddled as it was, all he could see clearly of her was a pale face that floated along beside him, smiling serenely. She paused to admire something above them—a starling trying to stuff a fluttering moth into the upturned mouth of a cheeping chick, Darcy saw when he looked up—and then moved on.

"Perhaps the slightest bit of worry, or at least caution, would be in order," Darcy said. "I am in no condition to defend us should any unmentionables avoid Lady Catherine and her traps, and you ... well ..."

"I am a weakling untrained in the ways of death," Anne said. For some reason, her smile grew.

"I would not have used those words."

"Surely, I captured your sentiments, though."

They were heading down into another ravine, and the light grew so murky that Darcy was no longer certain they were on a trodden path anymore. Yet Anne walked with such a sure step, Darcy found himself carrying on beside her.

"Anne," he began.

"Tell me, Fitzwilliam," his cousin cut in. "Is that what first drew you to Elizabeth Bennet? Her skills as a warrior? Lady Catherine disparages them, but I can tell when she's talking simply to convince herself. Your wife's talents must be quite formidable for her to have withstood Her Ladyship's wrath."