Dawn Of The Dreadfuls Part 17

One of the soldiers had gone pop-eyed.

"Cuuuuuuuuu cuuuuu cuuuuuuu," he wheezed.

"I think he swallowed his musket ball, Sergeant," the soldier next to him said.

Simmons nodded emphatically.

"Dammit!"

The sergeant stomped over and swatted Simmons on the back until a small gray ball exploded from the man's mouth with such force he could have almost served as a musket himself.

"All RIGHT! Begin aGAIN!"

"With all due respect, Lieutenant," Elizabeth said, "after seeing this, not to mention the incident upon the road the other day, I'm not especially inclined to return to my needlework and let the king's army attend to anything."

Lt. Tindall snapped up to his full height as if something very sharp had just been poked into something very tender.

"These are new recruits, conscripted in London little more than a week ago. They still need much in the way of training. And, I might add, it doesn't help matters much when that training is disrupted by the presence of a young lady. To allow you to actually join in... it's madness."

Elizabeth straightened up as tall as she could, too, lifting her chin high. "So you refuse to teach me to shoot?"

The lieutenant shook his head. "No. I have orders and I will follow them. If you insist on this frivolous exercise, I will find someone who might be spared to indulge you. I would ask, however, that you remove yourself to the back lawn so as not to create a spectacle and further distract the men."

Elizabeth found herself gripping the hilt of her katana. The sword might have even slid an inch or two from its scabbard by the time she noticed.

"Far be it for me to wreck the morale of the whole English army," she said. "You need not worry about further distractions on my account. Good day to you, Sir."

She whirled around and headed for the trees on the far side of the lawn.

"Miss Bennet! Wait! Where are you going?"

Elizabeth stopped and looked back just long enough to say, "Home. And no, I will not require an escort. This sword is all I need!"

Then she was off again. She didn't slow down until she was on the path that led to Longbourn-and she was certain she was out of sight.

"Yes, that's the way to prove you wouldn't be a distraction," she fumed. "That's how to prove your mettle. Throw a tantrum and stomp off like a child!"

She knew she should go back. To do as her father asked. To learn to use a musket. To apologize to the lieutenant for causing a scene. To avoid the unmentionable eager to refill its belly with fresh meat.

Yet though she slowed, she couldn't turn herself around. She was grateful to be heading back to Longbourn, she realized. Perhaps she was even excited. But why?

Could it be something as foolish as, as improper as, as hopeless as-?

A tall, thin figure came bounding out of the brush by the road, and Elizabeth whirled on it, blade already flas.h.i.+ng brightly in the sun.

"Ahhhh, Miss Bennet!" Dr. Keckilpenny said, his toothy grin undimmed by the katana poised to slice through his scrawny neck. "I'm so glad I caught up to you! Good morning! Sorry to startle you! My, what an exquisite piece of cutlery!"

Elizabeth resheathed her sword and heaved a sigh heavy with both embarra.s.sment and thwarted bloodl.u.s.t. "Good morning, Doctor. I'm honored to find that you remember me. When we first met, you said you had to know someone at least ten years before you could recall their name."

Dr. Keckilpenny furrowed his brow and frowned. "Did I? I have no memory of that, of course, but it's certainly true enough. Only... yes. Elizabeth Bennet."

The doctor was in proper (if wrinkled and rumpled) clothes this day, and his dark hair, though free of the leaves and twigs he'd sported in his zombie disguise, was as wild as the thicket he'd just crashed through.

In his hands was something that looked very much like a b.u.t.terfly net.

"Well," he said with a shrug of his bony shoulders, "how could I forget after our first meeting proved so memorable?"

He planted the long pole he was carrying in the ground and leaned against it. Straps and buckles ringed the inside of the netting, Elizabeth now saw, and it didn't hang limp but rather jutted out stiffly, as if the mesh had been woven from copper wire. If this were a b.u.t.terfly net, it had been designed for b.u.t.terflies the size and strength of eagles.

"I say, Miss Bennet," Dr. Keckilpenny said, "are you engaged?"

Elizabeth blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Are you engaged, at the moment? Occupied? Busy? Unavailable? Spoken for? I was just about to head off into the woods again when I spied you up this way, and I thought to myself, 'Ooooo, I'd really rather not be eaten. I wonder if the young lady would care to join me. I'm no duke or earl or what have you, but if I'm lucky, perhaps I'll rate my own Bennet as a bodyguard!'"

"Oh. Of course. So you've heard about that. Well..."

Elizabeth looked away, facing again the winding lane to Longbourn, feeling again the tug that drew her on-a pull that intrigued and confused and perhaps even frightened her.

She decided to test her strength against it.

"I would be delighted to accompany you."

Elizabeth turned toward Dr. Keckilpenny, putting the road behind her.

"Splendid! Come along, then! This way!" The doctor went striding back into the trees, then spun around before Elizabeth could follow and marched in the opposite direction. "Or was it this way?"

"Um... and what exactly are we doing?"

"Why, isn't it obvious?" Dr. Keckilpenny gave his net a shake as he shot past Elizabeth, bound for the other side of the lane and the murky woods beyond. "We're off to catch ourselves a zombie!"

CHAPTER 24.

TO SAY THAT LORD LUMPLEY had beguiled more than one young lady under her father's nose would, by the baron's own reckoning, grossly underestimate his verve, nerve, and skill. Several of his seductions had been conducted in such plain sight they weren't so much under a parent's nose as dancing atop it, right between the eyes.

Wooing Jane Bennet in the presence of her father, however, presented challenges of a sort he'd never before encountered, and though he spent the entire ride to Meryton trying to work his charms on her, he ended the trip quite certain he'd have met with more success making love to an unmentionable.

There was, for one thing, Jane's demure-unto-nonexistent personality. If Lord Lumpley smiled at her, she blushed and looked away. If he tried to talk to her, she blushed and looked away. If he ignored her, she blushed and looked away. If the girl hadn't looked so incredibly fetching blus.h.i.+ng and looking away, he would've tired of the whole enterprise and told her father to go stuff himself.

There was, in addition, the fact that both Bennets were armed with swords half again as long as the baron was tall. He'd endured many a slap to the cheek in his time and found every way possible to dodge a duel, but this was the first time he'd had to worry about disembowelment.

Yet instead of cooling his ardor, all this merely fanned it to a higher flame. The thrill of the hunt had taken on a very real hint of danger, and what's more... well, it was strange, but Lord Lumpley was finding the sight of a beautiful woman wielding a deadly weapon to be almost unbearably arousing.

If anyone in Meryton had the same reaction, they did a good job hiding it. Smirks, leers, sneers, glowers-that was all he saw as they rode into town. And though most everyone was careful to greet him with smiling civility after he and his party climbed down from the carriage, the Bennets were acknowledged with no more than stiff nods, when they were acknowledged at all.

Mr. Bennet, inscrutable old rogue that he was, bluffed indifference, but his daughter's response was predictable. She blushed. She looked away. At one point-after a gaggle of young girls broke into giggles upon spotting Jane's sword-Mr. Bennet lay a hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Whatever he said seemed to give her strength, for she nodded and, for the moment at least, kept her gaze up, proud and straight. But Lord Lumpley could see the barely checked tears glistening in her eyes.

Which was all fine by the baron. A woman armed might have been exciting, but a woman wounded presented opportunity. Whatever respectability the Bennets had left flowed solely from their new connection to a n.o.bleman-a connection he could sever at his leisure. So Jane and her father had reason to fear him, too: They could take off his head, yes, but he could cut the whole family off at the knees.

Lord Lumpley occupied himself with these thoughts (along with idle imaginings about Jane that need not be described) as Mr. Bennet led them here and there around the village. First they collected Ensign Pratt and his pitiful little "garrison" of seven rather shabby-looking soldiers, pausing to suffer through the innkeeper's complaints about bad business. The regular hackney runs from London had been mysteriously suspended, there were no other travelers upon the roads, deliveries of ale and cheese from neighboring towns were long overdue, etcetera. Naturally, the baron found it hard to keep his eyes open while a tradesman wound out his woes, but Mr. Bennet listened to the fellow's grumblings with grim attentiveness.

While the innkeeper prattled on, Ensign Pratt dispatched his troops to collect the cargo that had (at Capt. Cannon's insistence) been hauled to town in the back of Lord Lumpley's fine phaeton as though it were a common lorry. And if that hadn't been indignity enough, it was then on to see a blacksmith, of all things. The baron refused to set foot inside the establishment, of course, and actually managed a minute alone with Jane while Mr. Bennet and the ensign disappeared into the smithy's dark, smoky shop.

"I have not had a chance to tell you, Miss Bennet, how smart you look with a sword at your side. It is quite unconventional, I'll grant, yet also, in its own way, quite uncommonly fetching. I fancy it will be all the rage for the ladies at court come autumn!"

"Thank you, My Lord," Jane said, face reddening, gaze falling to a spot just to the left of the baron's boots. The girl was nothing if not consistent.

"I hope you'll offer a demonstration later of your skills with a blade. You see, I fancy myself a swordsman, of sorts, and I'd very much like to see how you handle yourself with one."

The girl looked up, fixing her sky-blue eyes on him at last, and the baron feared she might remind him that no such demonstration was necessary: He'd seen her wield a sword once already, when she'd dealt with poor Emily Ward back at the lake.

At just that moment, though, a studiously respectable couple came by-a Mr. and Mrs. Beechman, it seemed from Jane's greeting-and though they gave Lord Lumpley a smile and a nod, the girl they ignored, sweeping past her with their noses so high in the air it was a wonder they could see where they were going.

Jane reverted to her customary pose, head hanging even lower, blush even deeper.

"You mustn't let the snubs of the small-minded upset you, my dear," the baron said. "Live as I do. Follow your conscience. Your heart."

Your loins, he didn't add, though the thought of it put a grin on his face he didn't even bother to hide. For all her weapons and warrior posturing, this Jane was a simple, naive thing, sensitive and overdeferential. She would think it a comforting smile, not a leer. And she would think him a friend-if not now, then one day. Hopefully, soon.

He was on the verge of risking a rea.s.suring pat on the hand when Mr. Bennet and Ensign Pratt came back, and the baron was so piqued by the swiftness of their return he barely even noticed that they were now lugging huge, black-headed hammers.

"Thank you for your patience, My Lord," Mr. Bennet said. "Our preparations are now complete. It's on to the vicarage, where I hope the Reverend Mr. c.u.mmings will prove as susceptible to your powers of persuasion as so many before him."

The insufferable man offered up one of his little smirks, and it was for the baron now to guess what intent lay behind another's smile.

The vicar they found preparing his Easter sermon, and he was displeased to be called away for anything of lesser importance. He was a meek, mewling sort generally, his rectoral style leaning more toward unctuous sanctimony than h.e.l.lfire and d.a.m.nation. It was one of the few reasons the baron had been able to tolerate the man: Anyone who took all that good-and-evil claptrap too seriously would've proved a thorn in his side.

Upon hearing what Mr. Bennet and the ensign proposed to do, however, Mr. c.u.mmings unleashed a self-righteous rage the likes of which he'd never even hinted at from the pulpit.

"It's abominable! Unspeakable! Sacrilege!"

"First and foremost, it is necessary," Mr. Bennet replied coolly. "And, secondly, it is overdue. As for all those other things, I can but agree. Your complaint, however, would best be lodged in the form of prayer, for is it not a higher authority than any of us who has, for His own mysterious reasons, loosed 'unspeakable abominations' upon us first?"

"YOU BLASPHEME!".

"I apologize if I do," Mr. Bennet said with a shrug. "I merely thought to observe."

He glanced at Ensign Pratt, then Lord Lumpley, signaling that it was up to them now to help the vicar see the light.

"I tell you, Sir, this is of the highest strategic importance," the ensign squeaked. (Though an officer, he was little more than a boy-and one so diminutive and baby faced he made the young troops he commanded look like a company of snowy-bearded Methuselahs.) "Captain Cannon absolutely insists that we proceed without delay."

"I do not answer to Captain Cannon! I answer to almighty G.o.d!"

"As must we all, Mr. c.u.mmings," the baron said. "Yet I have no desire to stand before Him any earlier than I have to. If Captain Cannon and Mr. Bennet feel that this unpleasant necessity will delay that day for any of us, I think it prudent to see it through forthwith. And you can be a.s.sured that this is an att.i.tude I will not keep to myself if any in the community raise objections."

"Have you not heard a word I've said? I object!" Mr. c.u.mmings roared. "I cannot allow you to defile hallowed ground!"

Lord Lumpley jerked back as if struck. Hang his "powers of persuasion." This self-righteous upstart needed to be squashed like a bug!

"You cannot allow me?" he said. "Might I remind you, Mr. c.u.mmings, that the Archbishop of Canterbury has been a guest in my home?" And nearly emptied my d.a.m.ned wine cellar! "That the Prince Regent is a close, personal friend?" Why, I've seen the man naked! "That I am the sixth baron of Lumpley and a knight of the Bath-which makes me the closest thing you grubby b.u.mpkins have to royalty in this miserable backwater?"

Mr. c.u.mmings, Mr. Bennet, and Ensign Pratt all popped their eyes wide in surprise.

Oh, the baron thought. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that last part out loud.

The vicar sucked in a deep breath, the scowl on his face making it plain how he intended to use it. It had been a long, long time since anyone had dared rebuke Lord Lumpley in public. Now his state of grace was about to end.

The baron steeled himself for thunder, but heard a soft, melodious whisper instead.

"Gentlemen, please," Jane said, "if I may offer a suggestion?"

The girl was sitting in a corner of the vicarage's cramped drawing room, so silent the men had, for a time, forgotten she was there at all. Though she'd asked for permission to address them, she didn't wait for anyone to give it.

"It seems to me," she said, her soft voice gaining strength without losing its gentle lilt, "that you are speaking of all or nothing when a compromise could easily be reached. The Reverend Mr. c.u.mmings has his sacred duties to think of, and it does him credit that he takes them so seriously. Yet if he would consent to do as my father and Captain Cannon ask just once-simply in the way of a trial, without necessarily following through to the admittedly gruesome conclusion they seek-then we will know whether this course of action is truly warranted. If Papa and the captain are mistaken, we will quickly know, and the matter can be laid to rest permanently... so to speak. And it should be made clear to Mr. c.u.mmings that arrangements have been made to ensure that, whatever we do, privacy and dignity will be maintained as much as possible and, of course, that the vicar himself isn't just welcome to observe these proceedings but is respectfully entreated to oversee them."

Her conciliatory tone, her well-chosen words, her obvious good sense, and, above all, her generous spirit-they worked a spell on Mr. c.u.mmings that he couldn't resist. By the time she was through, not only was his frown gone, he was smiling upon her pleasantly, utterly pacified.

Mr. Bennet, meanwhile, beamed with a pride tinged with regret. For all his efforts to turn Jane into a warrior, peacemaking clearly suited her better. She'd certainly done a better job of it than the baron had with all his bl.u.s.ter, and even he paused to appreciate her sweetness and sagacity-before being distracted by her decolletage as she rose to go.

The party left the vicarage to see her suggestion through. Once outside, they collected Ensign Pratt's men, who were leaning against the stone wall that ran along the road, smoking pipes and grumbling amongst themselves.

"Pick up that gear and fall in!" the ensign roared. (Or tried to. It came out more like a mewl.) "Snap to it, now! Hut hut!"

The soldiers hopped up and grabbed the poles and rolled canvas and bags of tent pegs Lord Lumpley and the Bennets had brought from Netherfield Park. Yet one pile, the baron noticed, went untouched until all the other items had been claimed.

Only the slowest and unluckiest men ended up with the shovels.

"Come on!" the ensign yipped. "Look alive, look alive!"

Once Pratt had lined up his squad, the whole group-the soldiers, the Bennets, the vicar, and (because he'd been too slow thinking up a way to get out of it) the baron-turned and headed toward the cemetery.

CHAPTER 25.

DR. KECKILPENNY did a few more spins-"This is the way, I'm sure of it. Then again..."-before Elizabeth could ask him where exactly he was trying to lead her.

"That little lake on the estate." He turned toward Lord Lumpley's manor house, then whirled round toward the forest, then back to the house, then back to the trees. "You know the one. Where the girl zombie came out of the water."