Jane Austen: Blood Persuasion (15 page)

Another pause for silent discussion on the other side of the table.

Jane continued, as if unaware of their conversation, “I fear the worst may happen if the common people in this village live in fear. We may expect riots and worse.”

“That would be unfortunate indeed,” Duval said.

“Oh, I do not think you are in danger of losing your heads,” Jane said. “Not yet.”

Small signs—the clench of Duval’s fist next to his wineglass, an exchange of glances between Luke and Cassandra, and Margaret’s sharp intake of breath—showed that her comment had hit its mark. The Damned had good reason to fear the guillotine, after so many of their number had been destroyed in France, and it had seemed during the 1797 invasion that the same could happen here.

Dear, dear. That is a remark in extremely poor taste, even from one who rode the tumbril herself. Nicely done, ma’am.

Jane waited, enjoying Luke’s scowl. She had no doubt he played devil’s advocate among the four. How soon would it be before he declared his true allegiance? She had no doubt the bond between William and him would prevail, despite his flirtation with Duval and the rest. As for a bond between the two of them . . . but he was silent.

“I suppose you wish to speak of the disposition of
les Sales,
” Duval said. “We are ladies and gentlemen; we pose no threat.”

“Of course not, sir! But they are your things.” She wrinkled her nose in ladylike disgust.

“I have not turned them away as others have done. I have offered them hospitality.”

“Indeed, sir. Yet I see none of them here.”

“They’re in the barn,” Luke said. “Beg your pardon, Duval. Did I speak out of turn?”

“In the barn! As though they were animals! Do they need blankets or nourishing soup? Maybe my sister and I and other gentlewomen of the village can assist them.”

“I assure you that will not be necessary,” Duval said, but a gleam in his eye acknowledged Jane’s teasing, and she liked him better for it.

“Why not formally invite them into your household, sir?”

“They are shamed,” Duval said. “They have been cast out for disagreeing with their peers. Some wish only for an end, but most wish for punishment.”

“But to be kept in a barn! Could you not take them on as servants for a specific period, as has been done in our former colonies, until their honor is restored?”

“A form of indentured servitude?” Duval said.

“Why not? You are all extraordinarily fond of claiming your descent from princes. What greater disgrace than to become a commoner? Unless that seems too cruel, I suppose.” She gave a bright smile. “Since they are Damned, how worse could their existence be? Arrangements could be made, I am sure, for dining in the servants’ hall.”

Again the other side of the table fell silent. Jane stifled a yawn—a genuine one, for it was late—and thought longingly of her bed.

I think of you in your bed, too.

Oh, hold your tongue.

As for your tongue—

Sir! You forget yourself.

Surely the others at the table must be aware of her heated face and the acceleration of her pulse. She hoped they would think it merely the excitement of the negotiation.

“Miss Austen.” Duval stood and offered his hand. “We are prepared to accept your terms. I shall write William a letter stating our intentions.”

“I am most pleased to hear it, sir.” She took his hand, grateful that she wore gloves, troubled but determined not to show it. She had only Duval’s word; was not that enough? But why should he agree so easily?

“Will you take some more wine, or some fruit, Miss Austen?”

“No thank you, sir. I should return home.”

Luke crossed the room to her side. “I’ll keep Miss Austen company until her carriage arrives, if that’s agreeable, Duval.”

With the exchange of bows and courtesies, the others left, leaving Jane and Luke alone. Rather than look at him, she kept her gaze on the pyramid of fruit, imagining her family’s cries of delight if they were to receive such bounty, the careful planning of preserves and pies and fools.

“Well?” he said.

“That seemed altogether too easy, but I am most grateful for your assistance.”

“Grateful!” He plucked a peach from the artful arrangement, and fruit fell and rolled onto the dark surface of the table. “It is not gratitude I want from you, Jane Austen.”

Chapter 15

“W
hat do you want from me, Luke?” She hoped her carriage would arrive soon and looked toward the doorway, wondering who would stop her if she ran from him.

“You won’t run. It’s not in your nature. And the carriage will come only if I call for it.”

She retrieved a nectarine that rolled toward the edge of the table and placed it back onto the stand. He was in her mind, where she had allowed him to roam, and she made a conscious effort to think of something that would be of no interest to him. Quilting, that was good; the painstaking piecing and arranging of scraps of fabric, her needle dipping in and out of the seam with small, neat stitches, the growth of the quilt day by day, week by week . . .

“Enough!”

“No, sir, I am the one who should call for a halt to this. Why are you so angry?” Her canines ached. Desire tugged and pulled between them to her dismay. She should not, could not succumb to him.

“I am not angry.” He shook his head like a creature surfacing in water, as though to clear his thoughts. The peach was still in his hand, and he gazed at it in apparent surprise. “Shall we sit?”

She took her seat again. He sat close, not close enough to touch, but near enough for her to pick up his scent. He raised the peach to his lips—he was
en sanglant,
unashamed, open to her—and bit into it. A little juice spilled on his lip and glistened at the side of his mouth.

She clenched her fists, willing herself not to lean forward and lick the gleaming drop. Instead she removed her gloves and took a peach along with the small knife that lay still on the china stand. The fruit in the palm of her hand, she cut into the yielding flesh, revealing its rich, hidden depths, easing out a crescent-shaped sliver from the dark, serrated pit. The taste was vivid, strong—never before had she so appreciated the Damned’s theory of food as a sensual experience—a wild sweetness that spoke of summer and hazy, long, golden days. She took another piece.

Luke tossed his peach pit onto the china dish, where it lay with a few shreds of pulp attached to it in a small pool of juice. “I burn for you, Jane.”

There was no denying it; he would read her mind. “And I for you. But there is no future in this.”

“Your metamorphosis is so close. You feel it, do you not? Let me assist you.” He took her hand in his, stroking the palm of her hand. “It is inevitable.”

She snatched her hand back. “No. I must resist and resist you also. William and I have a bargain, that if I wager peace, he shall do nothing to hasten my metamorphosis and I shall pray that my human state remain unaltered.”

“William said that? Consider you may be in too deep for his promises to carry any weight.”

“I am already in too deep with you.” She’d said it and blundered on, “I wish it were not so. All these years, Luke, I would so often think I saw you across a room or on a street, while I learned how to be mortal once more and earned my family’s forgiveness.”

“Their forgiveness! For the sacrifices you made!” He shook his head. “And I thought you’d be happy. I hoped you would be so. I expected you to be married and with a flock of children by now: that you’d have the only thing I could not give you.”

“No. The only children I have are my books.”

“So you write, still.”

“Finally, yes. It has not been easy. I have felt that I was never sufficiently cured, and the ability to write again, and the desire to do so, took some years. And there were other indications that I was not completely mortal: when, for instance, I—” She stopped, blushing.

He looked at her with keen interest. “When you what?”

“It is nothing,” she muttered in embarrassment. “I have never been able to speak of it.”

“But you can now. Go on.”

“Promise you will not laugh.”

He laid a hand on his heart. “I promise.”

“I received a proposal of marriage a few years after we—after our liaison—from a neighbor’s son. He was a little younger than me, but it was a very good match for he was to inherit considerable property. My father was pleased, as were all my family.”

“My congratulations,” Luke said. “And what happened?”

“I broke off the engagement the next morning. You see . . . after I accepted the proposal, we were alone, and we . . .”

“Became amorous?”

“Precisely.”

“You dined from him?” Luke gazed at her in astonishment.

“Oh, heavens, no. I was not
en sanglant
or anything of the sort. But it seemed only natural to . . . to bite his neck.”

“I believe it is something mortals may do in the throes of passion.” Luke, despite his promise, seemed to be having trouble keeping a straight face.

“Well, how was I to know? Besides, I wasn’t in the throes of passion, as you so elegantly put it. I have only—” She stopped in embarrassment, unwilling to admit that she had experienced those throes only with Luke. Besides, doubtless he knew that already. “He seemed most alarmed, although I did not bite him very hard. He started to question me on my morals, and I was incensed that he should doubt me.”

“Oh, of course. Fornication with the Damned does not count at all, as many respectable women could tell you.”

“It is not amusing. It was mortifying for me, and naturally I had to end the engagement. His sisters, once my good friends, would not speak to me for some time after, and both families were very much disappointed. And I could not tell anyone, not even Cassandra.”

“My dear Jane.”

The heat in his eyes made her pull her gloves back on, yet she found herself doing so slowly, watching his face as she eased the kidskin over her bare wrists and arms, smoothing the soft surface to cling to her skin. He was
en sanglant
still, as beautiful as she had remembered for so long.

He stood. “I’ll send for the carriage for you. I shall tolerate no rival, Jane.”

“You mean Raphael? No, we both take good care of our souls. It is not to be.”

“Ha. Not to be? Indeed.” He was
en sanglant
again and his fierce lust flared around them. God help them all—only God would not, of course—if ever he and Raphael encountered each other while he felt this way. Raphael’s carefully guarded state would inevitably change, and she would become responsible in part for his Damnation.

“And by the by, did Duval instruct you to engage me in bawdy talk to distract me during such serious negotiations?”

“You underestimate him, my dear. He is far more subtle than that. That was entirely my own doing.”

“Call the carriage,” she said, her breath short. “William has tried to trick me into a metamorphosis: I trust you do not do the same.”

He walked to the door and spoke to the footman who stood outside and sauntered back toward her; she saw the intent in his eyes, but she would not retreat from him.

“Stay with me, Jane.”

“No. William expects me.”

“I meant for eternity, my dear Jane, not for the evening, as pleasant as that would be.”

“I regret it is impossible.”

“Ah, back to William, like the obedient fledgling you never were. Yes, you have changed indeed.”

She stood with her back to the table, gripping the polished wood with her hand.

He took her hand and lifted it, peeling the glove down and over her elbow, pausing to view the blue veins at the crook of her arm; veins that lifted and swelled as her canines ached.

“Ah, you’re so close,” he murmured. “Your skin is like satin, Jane. I’d clothe you in satin, if I clothed you at all. I’d break strands of pearls to see them roll on your skin and warm. You smell like summer fruit, my love, ripe and sweet, and your heart beats so fast. Let me, Jane. I’ll bite here, just a little.” His breath scorched the skin of her arm. “You remember how it felt? That shock, and you can’t decide whether it’s pain or a wonderful violation, and then the tug and the shiver as you lose yourself.” His lips trailed down her arm, following the slide of the kid glove, pausing again at the wrist. “Or here? Yes, here where your pulse is strongest, and all anyone will see is that I kiss your wrist, but you and I, we both know it’s more. A close observer might wonder at the brightness of your eyes, and the way your lips part . . .”

He took her parted lips with his, fierce, sweet, and she was falling into his darkness and dazzle and glamour, as her canines scraped against his.

Oh God help me!
It was only partly blasphemy. She drew back and smacked him with her fan, without much grace, on his ear.

“Ouch!” He stared at her, outrage warring with amusement, openly
en sanglant
.

“You’re still quite the seducer.” She gathered her disarranged gown around her shoulders.

“And you’re still quite the prude.” He smiled. “I love you, Jane Austen, and I’ve had years to perfect my seduction techniques, but it’s rarely I’ve told any woman I loved her. And so my declaration of love is blunt and straightforward, for I can say it no other way.”

She curtsied and looked him up and down, brazen and knowing. “It has been a pleasure to have this chat with you, Mr. Venning. No, do not stir yourself, for I see you are hardly fit to be seen. I wish you a good night, sir.”

She left the room, as breathless as though she had run a mile, and collected her wits in the darkness of the hall, cool after the candle-filled dining room. He loved her still, but her elation faded already. Nothing could come of it. She must forget him and continue with her life, as gray and drab as that now appeared.

A footman emerged from a side door as the carriage approached, and Jane gave him a friendly nod as he opened the front door.

Raphael bowed and lowered the steps to the carriage.

“You stink of him,” he said. His lips curled back into a snarl.

“Mind your own business, sir,” Jane said.

“I’ll ride outside.”

She nodded and stepped into the carriage, and the snap of the ostrich feathers on her headdress against the doorway sent her into a fit of giggles.

He slammed the door shut on the train of her gown.

“A
nd so?” William said. “I see you’ve toyed with Luke—or was it Raphael?—or both? But never mind. Were you successful?”

She walked to the fireplace in the book-lined room at the rear of the house that William had appropriated as his own, and where she had been invited upon her arrival.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He agreed, but I do not trust him.”

She told him briefly of the meeting and the terms they had agreed upon, including the servitude for
les Sales
. William raised his eyebrows at that and whistled softly to himself. “That’s punishment indeed. Some may choose destruction instead.”

“It is an unkind situation. I pity them, for all they would kill me.”

“I doubt you’d let creatures such as them injure you, even in your half-formed state.” He paced, arms folded. “And you shook hands upon it?”

“Yes.”

“You were gloved? He did not ask you to remove your glove?”

“No. Is that significant?”

“Maybe.” He stared into the fireplace and kicked the logs.

“He said he will write to you tomorrow,” Jane said. “It was all too easy.”

“Doubtless he plans more mischief, yet you did more than we could. And Luke? What of him? Ah, don’t look at me like that; I have no wish to become involved in your romantic tangles. Do you not weary of breaking each other’s hearts? All I mean is, will he return?”

“He didn’t say,” Jane said. She tried not to think of the ardent light in Luke’s eyes; now she felt tired once more and longed for her bed. William, however, was cheerful and energetic.

“Well, we will see. What will you now, Jane? Do you wish to return to your cottage, or will you accept a bed here tonight?”

“I’d best change my gown and go home. I’ll write to my brother Edward tomorrow, and he’ll send letters of introduction so you may meet the well-connected families of the county. And I suggest you have some sort of celebration with a roasted ox and much ale for the village, and they’ll love you for it. So this is an end to it.” She moved to the doorway.

“Don’t be sad, Jane.”

“But I am sad. You are my Creator and that cannot be changed. I shall never forget you, William. When I write, sometimes I stop and think,
I am writing about William,
or
He would say such a thing
.”

“And Luke also?”

“Oh, yes. But as you say, we’ve broken each other’s hearts already, and there will be nothing more between us. There cannot be if I wish to save my soul.”

As she walked to the door, he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I have said I will let you go, and I shall keep my word. But allow me this: I must show there is peace between our houses by hosting a ball, and I must ask that the Austen household attend. You are my landlord’s family, after all. Will you do it for me, Jane? We’ll dance and drink wine and that will be an end to it, all politeness and civility?”

“Very well. I see it is my duty.”

“I, too, have duties, and one is that I must tell you, in the little time that is left while we still talk so, that those who have taken the Cure often suffer, their lives shortened. I do not ask you to reconsider, merely to be aware that it is so.”

“It means only that I must use my time wisely, and God’s will shall be done.” Blasphemous enough to talk of God with the Damned; even more blasphemous to say it in his arms, for he had gathered her in a chaste, tender embrace.

“Go,” he said, and tears shone in his eyes. “We’ll doubtless pass each other in the village—and, oh yes, I’ll see you in church—and we’ll be perfectly correct. I’ll ask after my landlord, your brother Mr. Edward Knight, and we’ll talk about the weather. I keep my bargain; I release you.”

T
he next morning Jane came downstairs late, bracing herself for well-meaning comments on her poor looks and the deep shadows beneath her eyes. She had missed her early morning solitude with her writing desk and the pianoforte, and therefore her household duty of preparing breakfast. Doubtless there would be grumbling and complaints about her lying abed and neglecting her small share of the housekeeping. The dining room was deserted, but she followed the tumult of female voices to the kitchen.