Chapter 19
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 18
Life is so much easier when one is in love. Sure, there still are those excursions and having to talk to people to do her duty as baroness but Darcy has her knight, yes, yes, she knows, postulant, still, her knight, to send around. Although, sometimes she wants to make sure he really isn’t getting anywhere too close to all those girls in town.
By now she has learned to control her wolf form better, and there have to be more. Vampires are associated with all those other animals and she loves her night friends, why shouldn’t she be able to giggle together with her bat friends or be as soft as the owls at the edge of her estate’s gardens? That would mean she could be close by and maybe it would spare her embarrassing moments like when she got really worried about Arthur having been out in town for so long that she ended up running up to him as a wolf and nearly, nearly licked his face. That time she had to pretend she forgot herself again… she didn’t, but how embarrassing would that have been?
Of course, now Arthur is cautioning her if it could be much worse if she can fly and forgets herself. Not that he’s wrong but still, she wants him to help her figure this out. But throw her off a balcony? Arthur! One very indignant pout later she still ends up sitting on a balcony, but she definitely is not just letting the boys be that rude to her. But how can she do this?
Cautiously, she finds one of the bats that has taken to the habit of sleeping hidden in the curl of her locks, pets it and asks it how it is to fly? Oh, how she wishes she could talk to them. She’s sure they’d tell her such lovely stories, she’d much rather talk to them than to those humans she has to care for when really, she doesn’t care about them. Her night friends she cares about, the poor stray animals in town is who she cares for. The back of the house has transformed into a bit of a hospital because she just can’t bring it over her heart to not bring any injured animals she finds with her.
Awake now and the twilight promising its bounty, the bat takes off and Darcy makes a split second decision, races after it and jumps over the balcony’s railing, starts falling and screams. That brings Gregory running as fast as he can, pure panic obvious in how uncoordinated his jump and turning to his demon form is. It doesn’t work out, not only did he miscalculate the jump but he also finds his shoulders grabbed by claws and stares up at Darcy’s snout as she beats a pair of massive leathery wings, trying frantically how to figure out how to actually use the body, internally giggling when she feels like she’s waggling her arms but it works, it really works, she’s flying! And she caught Gregory in midair! With a loud chirp she gains altitude.
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Arthur arrives outside on the balcony just in time to see a huge shadow climbing up into the night sky, blocking out large sections of the stars.
He stares, because… is that Darcy?! She must be the size of… it’s hard to tell, but… a horse or something, with wings like the sails of a ship!
And also, he still doesn’t understand her, even if he likes her better now. He thought she was upset at the idea of using a balcony? He was going to make sure it was safe and Gregory was going to be on standby below to catch her if it went wrong and all… but she didn’t even let him explain, but then she jumped off of the balcony anyway?
It’s like with the fake fiance thing, he has no idea what he did wrong now.
But either way, the bat-turning thing seems to have worked, after all… Maybe worked a bit too well? But as long as they’re inside the wards… He finds himself smiling a bit, because she seems to be having fun, at least.
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Far, far too delighted, Darcy turns circles around the castle, has Gregory climb up to her back as Pretty and keeps chirping at the sheer joy that feeling the night air against her fur and face is. Swooping around the roof and corners she tries to land, ends up hanging upside down from her balcony, waves a wing at Arthur then manages to climb up after all, turns human again and keeps bouncing on her feet, clapping her hands before shooing Gregory to go tell Arthur all about it!
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Repeating that night after night for a few days Darcy finds she keeps staying up longer and longer, nights are just so much nicer and now she can circle overhead for a little bit when Gregory is in town for his nightly patrols but since he mostly stays on the streets she often circles back home, wanders endlessly through the gardens, tries to remember everything she read in her beloved “Fauna and Flora of the British Isles”, and makes friends with the local bunny warren, all of them!
But sketching her bunnies and trying to remember what the book says makes her melancholic, it reminds her so much of her papa, why is her papa not here? She sent him several letters, where on the continent is he? How far away is he? Does he even know what happened? Her letters to Uncle Jekyll must have arrived. She didn’t want her poor Uncle worried after she vanished. Even if none of her letters find Papa, once he comes back Uncle would tell him, of course he would. She wants her papa. With a sniffle she puts the sketches away and just holds one of the bunnies for a while before going to write Papa another letter, only to find a coach drawing up to the castle.
Oh no, and she’s not in a proper dress for receiving guests or listening to the latest request on the baroness, then the door of the cab opens and she doesn’t believe her eyes. Papa! Breaking into an all-out run even while the cab pulls away again she shouts at the top of her lungs for him, gets overwhelmed by her own emotions and her papa finds himself jumped by a large red wolf, showered with wolf kisses.
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It’s only because he was in the library rather than the lab that Arthur heard the cab approaching on the driveway and, with a feeling of dread, headed to the front door to see what was happening now.
That feeling of dread only intensifies when he witnesses Darcy’s greeting to the man who got out.
Gregory, of course, materialized as well when he caught something going on, and so Arthur can’t help but give him a very flat look when he whispers, sounding excited, that this must be Darcy’s father.
Because, really… who else would she shout ‘Papa’ at?!
And Arthur is afraid that they are in so much trouble now.
Of course, this day had to come eventually, didn’t it? They couldn’t just hide away in the castle forever. At some point, he knew they’d have to face the music, but as far as he’s concerned, he’d gladly have avoided it for another few months. Or years.
Darcy’s father is slim and dark-haired, and wearing a good, dark suit, and none of these things help Arthur’s confidence any.
The man looks proper and stern and very fatherly, and Arthur wonders how much protection his ‘scholar of the baroness’ and Gregory’s postulant-knight status are going to be if the man decides to take umbrage at them.
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“Rose petal, is that really you?” Dr. Seward fights with his own composure, this is his worst nightmare come true, his poor, sweet girl turned wolf, her dhampirism awakened. He doesn’t have a cure, he doesn’t know how hard it will be on her, he searched for so long, he doesn’t know if it is the curse every bit of hunter wisdom tells him. He’s seen their dhampirs, he’s hidden her from the hunters all her life, hidden her from vampires, too. Her mother had been so miserable, he still doesn’t know if it was the vampirism that cursed her, all he can hope is that he can still save his little girl.
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She turns human again, right where she is, hugs him but doesn’t move otherwise, she knows she shouldn’t have barreled him over either but, but, but, she missed him so terribly. It’s been so scary out here! But now he’s here, he’ll make everything better, he’s her papa, there is nothing her papa cannot do! For now he just softly pats her hair, clearly glad to see her again. He says that when he returned to the prison and heard from Jekyll that she went missing during that terrible outbreak without a trace he was besides himself, is she alright? But she sent so many letters!
That has him startle, and he says that neither he nor Jekyll received any, he had to track her down by the rumors of an heiress to the baroness of Whitby suddenly appearing out of nowhere.
Pouting, she finally gets up, holds on to his hand, then realises that Gregory and Arthur have been staring at them the whole time. Suddenly growing very shy because how is she even supposed to act now?! What is the right etiquette for this? She keeps looking back and forth between her papa and Gregory. Her knight takes that as reason to strut up as important as he can and offer his arm. Still shy and definitely not letting go of her papa’s hand (preferably ever) Darcy’s still takes Gregory’s arm and asks, far too demurely for a baroness, if they could all maybe go to the salon.
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Arthur is happy to lag behind, doing his best to be unobtrusive. He’s glad Gregory is taking on the social side as per usual, chatting away with every sign of confidence.
Though Arthur’s not sure what to make of that whole offering his arm business- he supposes it’s knightly? But he’s surprised Darcy doesn’t refuse. She really does seem to have grown more comfortable with Gregory, too.
For which Arthur is glad, it makes it feel more like they’re all in this together, like they’re friends, like there isn’t this uncomfortable divide in the group.
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Dr. Seward sees his own discomfort with the situation mirrored in one of the young men. Who are these two, who have been around his precious little rose petal? Have they done anything to her? Darcy finally manages to make official introductions but that helps little to lighten the atmosphere, neither does ‘Gregory’’s incessant talking about all the things he has done as her knight.
If all of that wasn’t surreal enough Dr. Seward finds the castle unaltered, memories from before Darcy’s birth oppressive in the walls he had hoped he would never have to see again. When Darcy confesses she found some of his old letters the pain of the loss of Lucy flares up for a moment, those letters must be from before the curse took her, before all those terrible events. And then his rose petal found them, this is even more uncomfortable. He could maybe deal with this if it was just her, but the discomfort of one of the young men continues to be readable even to him, and the other one is loud and ill-mannered. Social situations always are uncomfortable, but they are worse when they are personal.
When Darcy rushes to fetch the letters, Dr. Seward is about ready to walk after her but Gregory is faster, which has Dr. Seward worry for the worst, a young man of that nature walking after his naïve, sweet girl. They’re barely outside the door of the salon when Dr. Seward hears a murmur and a gasp from right outside in the corridor and the familiar sound of a lady fainting. In an instant, he is out of the room and bears down on Gregory holding Darcy’s still form. Taking her away from him, Dr. Seward brings her to the fainting couch back in the salon.
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Arthur feels thoroughly out of his depth, and he knows he’s being awkward, hovering around in the background- but with discomfort gnawing at his insides, he has no idea what to do about it.
He’d like to go and see if Darcy needs any healing for that fainting, whyever that happened- but that’d require him to get closer to Dr. Seward, and so he just hovers.
Luckily, it doesn’t take Darcy long to come around, as her eyes flutter open and she fixates on Gregory with a squeaked. “Yes? Yes!”