‘Did no one wonder why they had never seen you as a child?’

‘One of my Fitzwilliam cousins had a little boy of the right age and so he visited me from time. The servants and neighbours accepted him as Master Darcy, who had been born abroad and whose mother had sadly died in childbirth. His frequent absences were explained by extended visits to relatives, attendance at school, and then at university.’

‘Did no one notice you were the same man?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘The similarity has always been put down to a family resemblance and nothing more, particularly as the prevailing fashions have helped me to disguise my appearance. It has been usual for men to wear wigs until very recently, and a man in a dark wig that tumbles to his waist in a mass of curls will always look different to a man in a short powdered wig. And recently the fashion has been for no wig at all.’

‘I suppose a similar ruse is used to hide Georgiana’s agelessness?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘How difficult your life must have been,’ she said in sympathy.

‘It was not the greatest of my difficulties,’ he remarked. He glanced at her sheet of paper, which was as yet empty. ‘Will you tell Jane?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. I have always confided in her about everything, but this… I cannot decide. Does Bingley know?’

‘No.’

‘Will you tell him?’

‘Perhaps, in time, if you tell Jane.’

‘For now, I think I will not mention it. I will tell her that we have been travelling round Europe, but that we mean to be home soon, and leave anything else for another time.’


***

The blissful interlude could not last. They both knew they would have to face the world again and when the weather changed, with rain falling outside the window, they knew the time had come.

‘Annie said that you sent the retinue back to Venice,’ said Elizabeth as she looked out at the rain.

‘Yes,’ said Darcy. ‘It seemed the safest place for them at the time.’

‘Will we return to Venice on our way back home?’

‘No. We will travel home by sea, I think. It will be easier than going across the mountains so late in the year. Are you ready to go back to England?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, I think I am,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I would like to be at home for Christmas.’

And once back at Pemberley, she thought, she and Darcy would have to find a way to live, a way to bear the torment of his terrible curse.

‘Then I will start making the arrangements. I will have to leave you for a few hours; I must go to the bank in Rome and that is not a task I can give to anyone else, but I will be back as soon as I am able.’

He left the room and Elizabeth heard him giving instructions for his horse to be saddled.

The rain did not last for long, and Elizabeth decided to make the most of her last few days in Italy by walking on the beach. It was very different to the beaches in England. When she had visited the seaside with her family many years before, there had been a cold wind blowing and the other holidaymakers had gritted their teeth, determined to enjoy themselves. They had changed their clothes in bathing machines drawn up on the sand and then dipped themselves in the cold sea. Here there was no cold wind and the sea was warm. There were no bathing machines nor any sign of human endeavour, only the sand, the sea and the cliffs, and above them the sky.

The waves were small and playful, running in and rolling out with a swishing sound that mingled with the cry of the seagulls which wheeled overhead.

On a sudden impulse, she sat down and took off her shoes and stockings, then holding up her skirt she walked down to the water. The sand was hot and she hopped from foot to foot, sinking into the fine grains which enveloped her small white toes as she landed until she reached the firmer sand. It was dark and wet and better able to support her weight, and behind her she left perfect imprints of her well-shaped feet.

Her eyes wandered lazily over the pleasant landscape and followed a carriage that bowled along the wide road on top of the cliff. But when it stopped and turned down the narrow road that led down to the beach she began to feel apprehensive. She ran across the beach to take shelter in the lee of the cliffs and quickly dried her feet on her handkerchief then slipped them into her shoes. The noise of the carriage was growing louder, its wheels rasping and its horses whinnying, with every now and then an oath from the coachman as the way became more difficult for him to negotiate.

Then the noise stopped and she heard the sound of the carriage doors opening. She heard a voice she recognised and was startled to realise that it belonged to Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

‘Miss Bennet!’

Any attempt at concealment was useless. Lady Catherine had already seen her and so Elizabeth moved out of the shelter of the cliffs and faced Lady Catherine who, with Anne, was picking her way across the sand.

‘Miss Bennet! Where is my nephew? I must speak to him at once. It is a matter of great urgency. I have been to the lodge, but his servants were obstinate and they refused to tell me where he could be found.’

She was dressed, again, in black, as she had been in the Alps. Beside her, Anne was dressed in drab green, her pelisse hanging heavily around her thin form. They looked incongruous in such clothes on the beach.

‘He has gone out riding,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Do not prevaricate with me,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘Where is he?’

‘That I cannot say.’

‘You can say at least when you expect him back,’ returned Lady Catherine

‘Indeed I cannot,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Headstrong, obstinate girl!’ said Lady Catherine in an angry tone. ‘You must tell me at once.’

‘You have been betrayed,’ said Anne, doing with a few quiet words what her mother could not do with her angry tirade, and winning Elizabeth’s attention. ‘By Wickham.’

‘Wickham!’ exclaimed Elizabeth in astonishment.

‘Yes. George Wickham. We have just come from Paris. Mama had a fancy to stay there for a while after we left you in the Alps and we met George there.’

‘He was in his cups,’ said Lady Catherine, determined to have her share of the conversation.

‘And he was frightened,’ said Anne.

‘With good reason,’ declared her mother.

‘If Darcy finds out what he has done—’ said Anne.

‘Wickham seems born to be a thorn in his side,’ said Lady Catherine to Anne. ‘First attempting to elope with Georgiana, then running away with Miss Bennet’s sister, and now this.’

‘This is the worst of all,’ said Anne.

Lady Catherine nodded in agreement.

‘He has betrayed you to an ancient evil,’ she said to Elizabeth, ‘a thing old beyond imagining, a monster, a—’

‘Vampyre?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘You know?’ said Lady Catherine in surprise.

‘Yes, I do. But I did not know that Wickham had anything to do with it,’ said Elizabeth with a frown.

‘He quickly tired of your sister and left her in England whilst he resumed his debaucheries in Paris,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘He indulged in drink and women and cards, and in sympathetic company he bemoaned his fate. But one was listening who should not have been there, who should have been dead. He heard Wickham saying that he had married Darcy’s sister-in-law and knew then that Darcy must have married. The Ancient believes in the old ways, that every vampyre bride should be his on her wedding night, and he is determined to have you. He has a friend, a prince, who means to invite you to his villa. If you value your sanity, do not go.’

‘Your warning comes too late,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We have already been, and the Ancient has already tried to claim me.’

‘Impossible!’ said Lady Catherine. ‘If he had found you, you would never have escaped.’

‘But I did escape, with Darcy’s help.’

‘Darcy? But then that must mean…’ she said, giving Elizabeth a shrewd glance.

‘Yes, I know about Darcy,’ said Elizabeth boldly.

‘And you have not fled in disgust or despair?’ asked Lady Catherine in surprise.

‘As you see, I am still here.’

‘You surprise me. You have more courage than I thought,’ she said with grudging admiration. ‘But it will do you no good. You will succumb to fear or loathing in the end. When a mortal loves a vampyre, it is always the way.’

‘No, Mama,’ said Anne. ‘Papa never did.’

‘Your Papa was the exception,’ said Lady Catherine. Her expression softened. ‘He was exceptional in every way.’

‘I believe that Elizabeth is exceptional, too,’ said Anne, turning appraising eyes on Elizabeth.

‘She is nothing out of the ordinary,’ said Lady Catherine with a dismissive wave of her hand.

‘She captured Darcy, and that is something no one else has ever been able to do,’ said Anne.

Lady Catherine looked at Anne and said, ‘There may be something in what you say. But no matter, it is not important now. What matters is that you claim Darcy saved you from the Ancient. And yet that should not be. Now that the Ancient has reclaimed so much of his former strength, no one can withstand him.’

‘It was not easy,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But when he picked Darcy up by the throat, his hand began to burn. I believe it was because it closed round the cross.’

‘A cross could not hurt him,’ said Lady Catherine contemptuously. ‘A vampyre can only be hurt by something older than itself, and the Ancient was old when Christ was young. Besides, why would Darcy be wearing a cross? He would never wear such a thing.’

‘Because I gave it to him,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Because you…?’ asked Lady Catherine, stunned. Then, to Elizabeth’s astonishment, she smiled. ‘So that is how Darcy managed to defeat the Ancient. I was wrong about you, Miss Bennet—no, I will not call you by that name, I will call you by your true name, Mrs Darcy. You were meant to be together, I see that now, as Sir Lewis was meant to be with me. Instead of giving you my curse, I will give you my blessing.’ She lifted her veil and leant forward to kiss Elizabeth on the cheek. ‘He was not burnt by the cross, he was burnt by your gift: he was burnt by—’