Chapter 35
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 34
Darcy shows the Harkers to one of the bedrooms on the first floor and then leaves to figure out what Gregory got up to.
She finds him downstairs, not the cellar, all the way through the fey door and down those winding stairs into the nexus, where he is using the open area of the meadow to train away from human eyes. The sight of him moving in demon form is interesting, but then she gets close enough to smell him and has to hide behind her fan to hide the very-much-not-a-blush on her face, that redness to her cheeks has different reasons. Him rushing over at her squeak does the opposite of calming her down and she all but stumbles backwards, fangs extending instantly, always that terrible sense of need at smelling him, that must be what desire and longing always is described as. She quickly tells him to get cleaned up for dinner with the Harkers and flees back to her room, more than happy to just hide from all these guests and her own body for a few moments, she’ll be a married woman soon, she can hold out, right?
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Arthur meets Gregory on his way to the dining room. Surprised, he asks him where he’s been, and does he know the Harkers are still here for dinner?
Gregory confirms that he does- Darcy told him, she came to get him, he was training in the nexus.
Arthur blinks- training in the nexus? Why would…?
“Uh… why would you go train in the nexus while the Harkers are here…? Is that why you left?”
Gregory looks surprised- then assures Arthur that, no, no, he was worried about Darcy alone with a vampire (Arthur gives a quick look around but there’s no sign of Mr Harker, and he can hear an uninterrupted murmur of voices from the dining room ahead) so he went to follow invisibly as Pretty. But they were just talking, so he left to go train where the Harkers wouldn’t see him.
That doesn’t tell Arthur why Gregory didn’t return to the conversation and entertaining the guests like you’re supposed to, but they’re getting ever closer to the dining room and where they might be overheard, so he drops it, instead asks where Darcy is.
Gregory says he thinks she’s already gone ahead to dinner, since he took a quick swim to wash up in the pond downstairs.
As it turns out, Darcy is not, in fact, already in the dining room when they enter. The Harkers and Dr Seward are, though, and Darcy joins them only a few moments later, apologizes for keeping them waiting.
Dinner is, thankfully, uneventful. Arthur minds his cutlery and elbows and which way he’s passing the dishes, and manages some polite conversation about how much nicer it is out here in the summer than in London. Dr Seward contributes something about the state of the rose gardens of the castle, of all things, and there’s even a brief moment when talk turns to books they’ve read and Arthur almost enjoys himself for a bit.
Still, he’s very glad when dinner concludes, and Mr Harker turns down Dr Seward’s offer of an after-dinner glass of something to drink (Arthur could be wrong, but he doesn’t think Dr Seward was terribly sincere in offering it), and so Dr Seward heads off to ‘have the carriage readied’ to take the Harkers back to the train station.
Ten minutes later, everyone says very polite good-byes (except Gregory, he sounds more genuinely cheerful than any of the rest of them) and then the hooves of the horses and the wheels are crunching down the drive way and Arthur breathes a sigh of relief.
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Once back in his own room, Seward allows himself his own sigh of relief. Jonathan is still as much of an irrational bore as ever. The glances at Darcy, just about still polite, had Seward’s fingers twitch all through dinner. The man might be a problem. The same way he was a problem for Lucy. It was him who brought this entire curse down on them. Him and his hysteria. Seward really has more than enough to plan to keep his rose petal safe. He cannot rely on Art being on the continent forever. Eventually, he will hear about the new Lady Rossmore and Seward isn’t sure what he’ll do then. Can he solve the potential crisis? Does he have the resources it takes?
Just about to start planning for yet another eventuality, the catastrophe that it would be if Jonathan and Art team up and whip each other into a frenzy, again, there’s a sound at his window. It nearly sounds like a knock. But that would be preposterous, he is on the second floor. There it is again, followed by… rose petal’s giggle? Now he does look up and to the window, only to drop his pen and jump out of his chair.
Yes, that is rose petal and his rose. His wife. The love of his life. The woman he’s been fretting over for two decades. Still looking like the day she cried blood tears and left him and their baby. She looks unsure. He can read it. Yes, he can still read her expression and that alone is enough to make his heart hammer. There are so few people in the world he ever is sure with. Really, there are only three people in the world and he thought he lost her. Lost her when he won rose petal, when he thought they would carve out a family for themselves despite the curse that had befallen her.
He saved her. He lied to everybody. He killed for her. And then she left. He prides himself on his logical mind. He knew that it would be dangerous. He knew that he probably would have better chances of hiding their daughter. He knew that if there really was a curse attached to being a vampire or a dhampir, then Lucy should not be close to their child. Still, she left and took his heart with her. He had to regrow it by watching their child grow. He nursed his heart with nursing their daughter.
And now, they both are looking at him. He’s struck by how similar they are. Both appearing so fragile, so small and delicate. He knows it is a lie with both of them. Lucy’s smile is like looking at the sun with unshielded eyes, Darcy’s smile is like that same sun burning through a magnifying glass. He has both their smiles on him and no man could withstand it. He prides himself in being a man of science, but somewhere deep down in him something cries out with a deep urge to be close to them, to hold them both and let their souls drift over his. To have their touch crush the long years of worry and loneliness out of him.
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Jackie crosses the distance to the window in two long strides and throws it open, is about to speak when Lucy cups his face with both hands to pull him against her for a kiss overdue by far too many years. She missed him! He’s grown old without her. He’s no longer in his early twenties how she remembers him. She sees the silver at his temples, the lines around his eyes… but those eyes still sit in a sharp face. Those eyes that still make her shudder, so intense when he finally dares to actually look at somebody. Really look at you and dissect you down to your mind and soul.
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Darcy blushes furiously, right where she is clinging to the wall. She… she supposes she is happy? But still, that’s her papa, kissing somebody! She thought she’d show off that her mother taught her how to walk up walls properly. He’s always so proud of her, but all of a sudden she feels as if she shouldn’t be here and that isn’t a feeling she ever had about her papa. He’s her papa. He belongs to her! But somehow, that jealousy feels different than the one she had earlier about Lucy and Gregory. That’s probably how it’s supposed to be.
She’s about to slink off when the kissing sound is loud for a moment longer, but then her papa’s voice sounds so proud, so happy when he tells Lucy how much it means to him to see her with their daughter. Their amazing daughter. He hasn’t forgotten her now that her mother is back? Turning to look again, her papa looks so… young. Like she remembers him from when she was little. Less tired. And that makes it all better. She doesn’t know what to do with a mother. She doesn’t know how it is to share Papa but he looks so very happy and that’s what she wants.
So she does a twirl on the wall, giggles for him, while her mother walks right inside his room and leans into him. Makes him give her a side glance by pointing out that his wife and daughter look the same age but then he doesn’t get flustered… he smirks! Papa doesn’t smirk with other people! That… that must mean he really loves her. And isn’t that exactly like in the stories? They haven’t seen each other in so long and she makes the years fall off him and makes him smile like he doesn’t smile often and he makes her kiss him right away. Her parents are like a couple in a story and that makes Darcy giggle again before she takes the window and closes it. She knows how the story goes, there will be lots more kissing but that’s okay. This has to be her parents’ happily ever after and there is space in that for a daughter, that’s how the stories go. She can hear about that later.
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Lucy shares many kisses with Jackie, but they also talk about things long past and people of the past, and how that past might rear its head, and now it isn’t them not seeing eye to eye about a child, now they have a young woman to protect together. Lucy might not make for a good mother, but she can hear the love in Jackie’s voice, and more, she can hear the pain he doesn’t even hear himself at him already planning what he might have to do. Maybe, just maybe, this time she can save him, and save another person, too.
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The next afternoon, Arthur finds himself being introduced to Darcy’s mother properly- as Darcy’s dearest soon-to-be brother-in-law, which… yes, he does like that idea. Not that he and Gregory are actually related in any way, but… he likes that this perspective makes him family with Darcy, too. That feels right. Not that it isn’t still strange to think of Gregory as marrying someone, but he and Darcy certainly seem excited for it.
Darcy also makes it very clear to her mother that Arthur is very important to her, which makes Lucy promise not to eat him. She says it in a joking way, but he appreciates the promise all the same. And then she asks him to promise to also not burn her down, apparently Darcy said that he was a really impressive mage. Of course, that makes Arthur blush, and he has no idea what to say to that- he’d never call himself ‘impressive’, and he doubts his little bit of fire would really be enough to stop a vampire, but contradicting Darcy also feels kind of rude. But then the conversation moves on to the wedding preparations, and he can’t say he entirely minds having help with those, even if Lucy’s easy, flirty demeanour makes him feel off-balance and unsure. Well, and there’s the fact that she asks him whether her husband talked to him, and when he gives her a confused look and shakes his head, she asks him if he wouldn’t mind healing him a bit, they might have gotten a little carried away with their reunion- and she winks.
Arthur really really doesn’t want to know anything more, in fact, he wishes he could forget any and all implications that wink just made, and so he hastily agrees to the healing so they can get back to the subject of the wedding planning.
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After thanking Arthur for all the help with the difficult work, Darcy decides she procrastinated long enough, she still needs to make up for having been rude to Llew. She knows she has to invite him to the wedding, even if she doesn’t want to. But they live in the fey castle, and she knows from her books how important hospitality is to fey. So she walks downstairs, all the way downstairs, again marvels at the underground forest, at the beautiful trees, but also the strange feelings she always has when she’s down here. Not that the fey like her down here, they tend to usher her back upstairs as fast as they can. Well, privacy Darcy understands and she would prefer for this to be over quickly soon, too. Once she has found Llew, she holds out the box she picked up in her study, but then stammers, this is worse than she thought, she can’t stand him, but she needs to do this, maybe she’ll feel better once that is through.
She apologizes for having been rude, and here, she made this for him.