Chapter 7
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 6
Darcy doesn’t have anything to say to Llew when he dares to show his face again, and she thinks what’s written in the letter sounds gross but that has the boys if anything more eager to go look into it. And by boys she means Gregory, who runs off to play detective while Arthur decides he’ll do research, like a proper man would (not his declaration, but it’s what Darcy thinks). Wait, the heroine can help with that, can’t she?
At first she’s shy when she joins him at the table with some books but she’s so much more comfortable with only him around instead of everybody that soon enough it’s no longer awkward to actually talk to him. Talking to a man, she feels so daring! When his stomach growls in the middle of a sentence as the time moves past lunch, he looks instantly embarrassed but she, after a moment of staring, has a giggling fit before getting him to the kitchen. She’s been a horrible hostess!
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Arthur has his misgivings about Gregory going outside the wards, to this Newholm place, but… well, it’s not like he can stop him, and he supposes they do need more information.
And, well, being alone in the library with Darcy isn’t actually that bad. Though he’s not sure what to do with the giggling. He supposes it’s a girl thing.
And she doesn’t seem to think that having a growling stomach is very ungentlemanly, so…
Of course, neither of them know how to cook- Arthur can make tea and fix himself a sandwich, but Gregory’s the one who fried some eggs or something when they were fortunate enough to have any. Not that he’s telling Darcy that. And not like any upper class people should know how to cook- right? He thinks that’s what they have servants for, at least he’s never read of an upper class person cooking in any story.
Not that his attempt at making at least tea is successful, because the range won’t light. The door to the fuel compartment won’t open, and when he tries to light the wood he can see through the ventilation slits with dropping a match inside… it won’t catch.
Thankfully, the house spirit is happy to indulge them, opens the pantry door with a pointed creak, and makes appear whatever they request even when they get experimental on trying out things as they occur to them. And maybe not exactly in the approved way of putting a meal together.
It’s surprisingly fun.
He’s still relieved when Gregory returns a few hours later.
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He reports that the people in Newholm are definitely really scared, he could feel it! And they’re having guards patrolling around the edges of the village. He didn’t see any monsters (Arthur almost thinks he looks disappointed at that) but they definitely have to go and help these people!
Arthur isn’t too keen on that, but apparently, that’s now their job, so he agrees- then wonders how they’ll get there, interrogates Gregory about how far it is. Too far for walking, it turns out, and Arthur’s pretty sure that out here in the countryside, there aren’t cabs you can call if you need to go somewhere further away (and have money.)
Gregory thinks that obviously, nobles ride horses, and they’re nobles now, so they should have horses!
Arthur could point out that neither of them could ride, and that they aren’t actually nobles, but… it’s a magic castle, so maybe there are horses? He feels a frisson of excitement at that and agrees to go check it out.
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Darcy feels left out of that discussion, the boys, and this time that includes Arthur (how is that fair after they got along so well earlier?!), are sticking their heads together and Gregory is all excited but doesn’t say much that’s understandable. Fine! If they don’t want to include their hostess then she might just as well retire. Where’s her cat?
“Here, Pretty, Pretty, Pretty!”
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At Darcy calling for her cat, Gregory grins at Arthur and takes off with him to “look for the stables” and then promptly turns cat and dashes off to circle around once they’re out of sight. Arthur looks after him with some misgivings- Darcy doesn’t really like him, and he’s lying to her, isn’t he? And also, being carried around by her and sneaking into her bedroom? He resolves to talk to Gregory about it at the next opportunity.
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Darcy finds her cat running up eagerly from the opposite direction the boys left in. So well behaved for a cat! That earns him a pretty pink bow, for a pretty kitty.
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Arthur does indeed find a stable, and it does have horses! They are sleek and black, just how you’d imagine horses in a storybook, rather than the ordinary cab horses he’s used to from London, with their shaggy coats and worn-out bodies. These look like the glossy noble horses he’s seen a few times at a distance when he’s ventured further towards the city centre.
They let him pet their velvety noses, and their stables are clean, and Arthur hopes the house spirit is looking after them well, because much as he wishes he did, he actually has no idea how to care for horses.
Or how to ride one.
He swallows at the idea of having to get up so high, on something so large, but he’s imagined what it would be like so often, remembers his childhood fantasies of being a daring adventurer and explorer with his loyal steed… He can’t help feel excited about getting to try it out, either.
For now, though, he says good-bye to the horses and wishes them a good night, and heads back inside. He’s not sure what to do with himself, because since Gregory didn’t bring back any information on what that monster could be, how is he supposed to research it? And he and Darcy already read everything there is on where Newholm is located and the surroundings- it’s not like there was much.
So he decides to head back to that cellar room he found. Having his own little hide-out sounds better than ever.
To his surprise, when he arrives, the room is clean, dust and cobwebs gone as if they’d never been, there is a candle burning on the table and gaslights at the wall. And best of all, there’s books on the shelves- books on magic!
And of course he’s not very good at actually doing magic, but he still loves reading and learning about it, so he thanks the house spirit and settles in.
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The next morning, Darcy finds herself humming as she brushes her hair out and keeps brushing and brushing, it feels nice. She can smell herself and for a bit she gets lost in the sensations, somehow, there isn’t much she feels upset about right now. There’s a knock on her door and she still doesn’t really care. It’s Arthur’s servant, offering her breakfast in her room and she has absolutely no idea why but she accepts, worse, accepts as a ‘dear’ slips out. But that’s okay, he’s just a servant, and she can smell him, too.
She got to say that he smells nicer than breakfast. Anyway, she has more important things to do, be a good hostess! Yes, that’s what she’s doing when she tracks Arthur down (she could swear she smelled him down the corridor) and tries to be helpful. She may be a bit clumsy today, there is the occasional stumble getting her closer to him, blush shielded with her fan, her fan that she doesn’t notice she’s wiggling coquettishly at him. All she knows is that she needs to be closer, just a little bit closer to that smell.
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Darcy is acting very strangely, Arthur thinks- the way she looks at him makes him uncomfortable, and so he does his best to ignore it and pretend he doesn’t notice anything. And he’s definitely not even going to look up whether her fan-waving means anything- if it does, he doesn’t want to know. Gregory’s grin at the way Darcy is leaning towards Arthur doesn’t help with his efforts not to think about it, but Arthur stubbornly focuses on his reading, and keeping the conversation normal and safe and not weird. Which works well enough until Darcy walks off in obvious frustration. They can hear her footsteps moving down the corridor, in the direction of the kitchen, despite the fact that Arthur thinks she may be trying (and failing) to do it quietly.
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Darcy sneaks back to the kitchen as well as she can despite it not even having been two hours since breakfast. Maybe she’s having a growth spurt? She doesn’t get to her second breakfast because Gregory follows her and confronts her that she needs blood.
There’s no way she’s going to accept that! Least of all from him, she doesn’t like him! All her nice attitude from earlier is gone when she feels her emotions broil up again, her words a hiss as she turns and storms out the kitchen door into the garden. He’s not letting her get away, she ignores him as he runs after her, wants to keep running but finds her feet won’t move when the most delicious smell fills her nostrils, she got to have some of that, she’s so hungry. No! No! No! No! She won’t accept it! She growls at him again having cut himself and holding out a finger to her! No!
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Llew had been observing from a window and having a grand time, but decides at that point that this could get very bad, very quickly, so he fetches Arthur. By the time they are back at the window Darcy is sitting on the ground, rocking and screaming at Gregory to leave her alone, to go away! Fighting against the worse and worse urge to get to his blood she’s biting down on her own hand, easily draws blood as her fangs pierce her skin. The taste of it makes her howl and forcefully push Gregory away. She tries to run away, he interposes himself faster than humanly possible, telling her it’s okay, he doesn’t see her as a monster, he just worries she might hurt Arthur. That has her fury at him boil over and she hisses, fangs still out. “How would you know? You’re a monster yourself!”
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Arthur sees Gregory flinch at the words- and of course, the constant doubts niggling at his mind return: Is he faking that? Or does the fact that he flinches prove that he is who he says he is?
But that is hardly the most important thing here- Darcy clearly being hungry and refusing to deal with her dhampir requirements is the important thing. And he’d rather not see her get so hungry that she attacks anyone.
So, sure, when Llew suggests a “local specialty” of blood cakes, Arthur doesn’t mind donating to it. Thankfully, the house spirit can do the actual “making” of them, and the cut doesn’t stay around long, either. He doesn’t know as much about healing magic as he would like to, he’s only started to learn whatever he could since… since Gregory, and he’s not very good at magic, after all, but it’s not that big a cut, just a few inches.
Platter in hand, he approaches carefully- more for worry of her getting even more upset and refusing than her biting him at this point.
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Darcy can smell him, and the cakes, long before she can see him. By the time he’s close enough she is viewing the world through the blur of frustrated tears and has long stopped shrieking at Gregory. It doesn’t help anyway. But there is Arthur and he’s offering something that smells oh so lovely, then she notices the way he looks at her cautiously. Seeing that fear makes her anger fade, she’s scared at her own reactions, she doesn’t need to have Arthur confirm that she feels not quite herself.
She’s embarrassed and close to full tears and just wants to be alone so she makes herself take the platter, thanks him, then runs off into the maze after all.
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Arthur stops Gregory from following Darcy- well, until Gregory turns into his cat form- which only increases Arthur’s misgivings about the duplicity of that. But… well, Gregory’s the one who knows how people work, the one with even empathy power now, while Arthur finds people unpredictable, their motives impossible to decipher. So probably Gregory does know better.