Chapter 96
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 95
Crossing his arms, John gives Darcy a long look as she mumbles and isn’t sure what to say until she eeps out a ‘maybe?’. Okay, this needs drastic measures. John tells Arthur to hold his ears shut, then asks Darcy outright if she had a terrible urge to jump the guy. While she descends into furious blushing, John just rolls his eyes, (that kind of stuff he can deal with, holding dhampir urges against her would be as sensible as being jealous of Jack,) and taps Arthur’s shoulder to take his hands down again. “Definitely related.”
~~~~
Arthur feels a bit dizzy at John’s confirmation, tries to keep his breathing from speeding up too much. “But… but I was sitting there all night talking with him! He was… nice?” His voice sounds too high and strangled in his ears.
~~~~
With a grunt John shrugs. “Some assholes are nice when it benefits them.” He doesn’t add that he knows because his father is one of those. How else do you get away with a wife with bruises for so long?
~~~~
Darcy, meanwhile, tilts her head because her interest is somewhere else. “So you think he’s safe for Quincy?”
~~~~
“…That’s the thing that doesn’t make much sense,” Arthur says to John, to continue the previous topic. “What benefit would there have been in talking to me? We sat in a corner and talked about languages and where he’s from and stuff. If he was up to something and didn’t want to give himself away… why would he tell me he’s from Wallachia? Maybe he made me tell him all about us and then made me forget?” He shudders at the thought- being made to betray his friends, his family… He looks at Darcy. “But… but, yeah, if he’s… if he is that Vlad the Impaler, and Quincy’s father, then… I don’t know about ‘safe’. He obviously doesn’t want Quincy dead right now if that’s who he is, but we don’t know what else he might be planning and whether it’d be in Quincy’s interest. But also…” He bites his lip. “But also, that means it wasn’t him who came to the town house. Unless he made me forget, he was there all night.”
~~~~
“Which means he isn’t my nice vampire… Ergo, it could still have been him with Harker. Uh… do say, Quincy really doesn’t like Harker, right? Maybe he did it for him?” As Darcy wonders about that she admits to herself that that sounds plausible, she wants to protect Quincy badly, maybe that’s a drac thing, maybe his father also has a protective drac. Or maybe… maybe it’s revenge for twenty years ago? She can come up with a number of things that might make Harker a target if she really thinks about it. “Oh, maybe he sat in the corner there with you because it gave him an alibi to stay in the room with Quincy!”
~~~~
“…Maybe,” Arthur agrees. “I mean, I doubt it’s a coincidence that he’s working at the same theatre as his secret dhampir son. But… but if he did do it for him…” He ducks his head, but makes himself continue: “Why would he do something so awful to Mrs Harker? Do you think… do you think he’s sorry or something?” He wrinkles his nose a little in confusion. “Because according to the stories, if he’s that guy, he was… really bad. Like, impaling people left and right when it suited him or they annoyed him. Not just in war, but also civilians. And even animals. But, um, on the other hand… all the stories I could find translated were written by people who didn’t like him much, I think. So… I really don’t know what to think?”
~~~~
“He smells way too nice to do that to animals!” Darcy scoffs, but then lets her arms sink down. “I wish my mother was here. She could talk to her friend and make it better, if there’s something to make better.”
~~~~
“Yeah. Got to say, she seems real put together for just having lost her husband. Unhappy marriage? Wouldn’t be the first one.” Not that John wants to go so far as to say that some husbands deserve what happened to Harker… Then again, no, he totally wants to go that far when he thinks of his own father. Fuck that guy.
~~~~
Arthur shudders at the memory. “Still an extremely awful way to kill someone… I don’t think I’d wish that on anyone, no matter what they did… I mean, I suppose unless they were torturing other people and animals like that for fun. Then it’d be fair. But, um… if that was him with Mr Harker, that doesn’t explain that perfume smell in the office that you noticed?”
While Darcy agrees, John lifts an eyebrow. “Perfume? Did she sneeze? She hates that stuff.”
Arthur gives him a confused look, then glances at Darcy. “I thought you liked the smell? Didn’t you say you liked it?”
~~~~
“My drac really did. Made it all happy and kind of like… like it wanted to run up to somebody.” She knows that sounds weird to somebody who doesn’t have a drac, but John doesn’t even pause before he reaches over and pinches her ear lovingly, like he would with her real self, too. He is always so good for her drac, she wants to love him so badly! She wonders how that would feel, but then focuses on his words.
“So it’s the association, not the smell. Probably the, let me guess, guy’s smell under the perfume?”
~~~~
Now Arthur is curious as to Darcy’s answer. Her drac wanted to run up to somebody? The somebody she smelled, presumably?
~~~~
With his fingers still on her ear, John can notice the warmth of her blood flowing into it, she’s blushing and he doesn’t think she notices. And it’s not the kind of embarrassed blush from before when he asked about that Basarab guy. No, her smile is different. He narrows his eyes at her and hates what he’s seeing, because it reminds him of the way she looks at the fucking molly.
~~~~
For several long moments, Darcy doesn’t answer, grasping inside since she can’t remember, but she can feel her heart beating harder, her drac running all over the place searching, and she can feel a deep sense of longing. Finally, she speaks up: “Maybe I know the person, but I can’t place the smell.”
“Because you can’t remember ever meeting that person?” Arthur ventures.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t like him.” Still trying to see which way her drac is running, Darcy pouts distractedly. Maybe if she looks closely enough, she’ll notice a direction? She really hopes so.
~~~~
Fuck, his girl is obviously not really listening. John can see that she’s paying more attention inwards than outwards to the discussion, that guy did a number on her drac, and he’s not sure he’s okay with that, so he leans over to Arthur and whispers as low as he can: “She’s acting a bit obsessed with him, isn’t she?”
“…Maybe?” Arthur murmurs back. “I mean, I don’t have a drac, I don’t know how reliable it is… but I don’t like it. There’s too much room for manipulation, I think…”
“She’s my girl, but that drac of hers can be like a puppy. Definitely could get manipulated.” John feels like a traitor for saying that, it’s her soul, and he loves her soul and he loves the kind of puppy love she can have even for him, but it does not make him feel reassured that she wouldn’t fall for a vampire. Especially one who might promise her things John can’t give her and Gregory is fucking up with her. Fuck… Gregory. Where even is the arse? And if that vampire can read minds, he knows what a fucked up marriage Darcy has. If staking husbands is that guy’s MO… now John wonders if he should just lean back and watch for a little bit.
~~~~
“So what do we do?” Arthur asks; feels jittery with urgency that has nowhere to go. “Fuck, I wish we could contact Dr Seward and Art and Lucy- they’re hunting after this man, aren’t they? And they have no idea he’s right here!”
“She’d listen to her papa, too,” is John’s assessment before he leans back again, because Darcy seems done hunting after invisible things in the room and honestly, John has no fucking clue what to do about this whole clusterfuck, either. Is he supposed to walk up to the vampire and tell him to go fuck himself? Should he do it nicely? Not really valid strategies when your adversary apparently is known for staking people and might have an accomplice, because Arthur said that… wait. If Arthur was talking to the stake guy and Darcy remembers that smell, but doesn’t remember the person with the perfume… “Arthur, there really might be two. But we have no idea if they work together or not. You were talking with one while the other visited Darcy. That… Oh fuck, or he moves fast enough to get from talking to you to the town house before you made it back in the cab. Lucy’s fucking fast, too.”
~~~~
Arthur nods. “Good point. So we don’t even know if there’s one or two, but either way… I don’t like it. Someone is violent enough to stake Harker. Someone wants attention, wants us to know that there’s a vampire involved. And we don’t know why. It’s got to be some kind of set up, because if it weren’t, then the vampire would just leave no trace. With making people forget, clearly he could. So he wants something. Something other than a bit of blood before he moves on. I really don’t like that.”
~~~~
Darcy volunteers to talk to Mrs Harker, maybe she can learn anything more there, maybe she can learn that Arthur is worrying for nothing. She really hopes so, she wants to go say hello to her grandsire so badly now. As she told Papa before he left: That man’s family! And now even more so, because he’s Quincy’s family! And that reminds her that she should check in on Quincy, too. Harker was so mean to him in the will, and she knows that Quincy won’t want her to take care of him, but maybe he’ll let her listen to him while he huffs?
When she finds him over in Arthur’s house helping his mother set up in the main bedroom, she can’t help the chuckle at seeing little Lucy Jr study the book case Arthur always pretends doesn’t exist. Remembering that Quincy said she likes numbers, she inquires with Mrs Harker if it would be okay to take her downstairs to change the flowers on the graves, there are dates on them. Lucy perks up and declares that’s more fun than the books.
~~~~
Quincy meanwhile pulls a face. Graves? Not that he puts most anything past this neighbourhood but still, bad past on Arthur apparently.
His mother on the other hand condones Darcy’s request and turns to Quincy, kisses his forehead as a thank you for the help, then tells him that she knows he’s probably starting to feel cooped up, he can go and tell his Divine what he wants, the castle must have a nice and tall roof.
She knows him too well, yes, he rather very much wants to rage at the sky about the audacity Harker had even in his will. This bloody grey world never misses a chance to try to push him down, but it won’t! His mother clearly has a secret admirer, a loaded one. He’s proud of her, and also very relieved that he doesn’t need to become the provider in the family after all. He wasn’t ready for that. He’s not sure he ever wants to be, he’s a healer, not a conventional man to be chained down to providing for anybody but himself. So yes, he runs back through the magical door, (that’s his life now he supposes,) and up the stairs to his new room.
~~~~
Downstairs, Darcy kneels at the graves and pulls the old flowers down, asks the house for new ones and, after a moment of hesitation, asks Lucy Jr if she knows how to braid flower crowns. She doesn’t, but once she realises that there is a mathematical rhythm to how to make them, she’s eager to learn and engrossed with the task. Four crowns end up decorating the graves rather than the two Darcy normally leaves.
Noticing Mrs Harker looking on as she gets up, Darcy blushes, but the older woman nods and thanks her. After she set up her daughter in the small living room with a colouring book, Mrs Harker walks to the kitchen and glares at the appearing food until it vanishes again. She declares that she will make food for her children herself, would Darcy like to help? Has Jack taught her how to cook?
Darcy has to admit that she doesn’t really know, where she grew up her papa couldn’t teach her, but she would love to learn. She wants to be good for her family.
Mrs Harker agrees that that is a woman’s duty. Into the short silence that follows, Darcy asks shyly if duty is all it is. Does… does Mrs Harker love Quincy? Despite, sorry, despite him coming from rape? Does it ever stop hurting?
With a lifted eyebrow at that question, Mrs Harker puts the kitchen knife down and turns to her. “He is my son and I love him with my full motherly heart. I love both my children, no matter who their fathers are. We women might have duties, but, child, never let anybody tell you that is all we are good for. I expected better from Jack.”
That drives a blush into Darcy’s cheeks and she vehemently shakes her head. No, no, her papa isn’t like that! Her papa… well, he’s the perfect man, really.
She pauses, because Mrs Harker snorted at that and puts a hand on her hip. “Do I need to tell Lucy to get jealous? But maybe you are right; he did get my Lucy to have a child with him.”
Looking down at her hands where she still tries to help with peeling some potatoes, although she hopes it’s okay that there’s going to be blood on them since she keeps cutting herself, Darcy sighs. “I didn’t see my mother until a few weeks ago. Lucy left him, left me for so long, but they still love each other. It’s so nice to see, like in a proper story. I just, I got in the way.”
“Hush, child, don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs Harker admonishes. “I know Lucy, I’ve known her from when she was younger than you are now, and she always was scared of having children. She tried, she tried for Jack, she tried for you. Trying is all you can ask, and there is strength in knowing what is best or what is right even if it hurts.” Mrs Harker takes Darcy’s hands in hers and shows her how to properly use the peeling knife.
Darcy isn’t sure what to say or how to feel. Is this what it’s like to have a mother? It… doesn’t really feel different to having a papa she thinks. He’d do the same, wouldn’t he? And it’s okay to just try? Does that make sense? “Did it hurt? Does it hurt to have children? I… I can’t and I feel less for it?” She blushes at having admitted to that, but she hasn’t really had a mother figure to talk to and she feels awkward about latching on to Mrs Harker like that, but… she’s Quincy’s mother and she feels about Quincy like she feels about nobody else and she doesn’t really know why, so maybe she needs a mother to explain it?
“Hurt in other ways than the obvious, I suspect. Although, I don’t really remember any bad things about giving birth to them. But yes, having children is a sacrifice, it does hurt. You give up your old dreams and make a whole new set of dreams. Their dreams. It is a duty and a joy. I will always protect them. And don’t you think that Lucy isn’t protecting you. There is a lot more to being a mother than pushing them out of your body. Believe me, those first nine months are probably the easiest part, if the one that leads to the most nausea.” With a chuckle, Mrs Harker leans in close and winks at Darcy. “I should have known that Quincy would be a molly by the time I tried suckling him. Never a fan of breasts, that one.”
Darcy turns about three shades of red and squeaks loudly. Okay, maybe now she sees why her mother is friends with Mrs Harker! Was… was all that stern behaviour put on in front of Mr Harker? Or is this her way of dealing with the loss of Mr Harker? Does she want to make herself feel better? Darcy realises she doesn’t know how to console her, or if she should, and that makes her unsure again.
Laughing, Mrs Harker tells her that she squeaks about as adorable as her mother, but it’s been a long time since she saw Lucy this flustered, that’s sweet childhood memories right there. “Thank you, child. And if you want to be a mother, let me teach you.”
Maybe Darcy should say something, she was supposed to get information out of Mrs Harker, but the offer… this could mean she could be better for John and, um, she wants Quincy’s mother to like her, so she nods, shyly but with a smile.
She ends up helping in the kitchen. The first full meal she ever helped with! And Mrs Harker, um, sorry, Mina, is proud of her, laughs again when Darcy turns promptly red at that. Darcy knows how to set a table though, garnering only more praise. And somehow, after the shared lunch, she gets to help tutoring Lucy Jr and after that Mina and her settle in for something Darcy didn’t even know she would like.
Of course, Darcy knows how to embroider, it’s one of those ladylike crafts her papa thought fitting for her to learn, but now she’s sitting here with another woman and they are talking about what it means to be a woman, about wifely duties, motherly duties, and Darcy realises only again why her mother is friends with this woman. Mina has opinions, strong ones even, and while Darcy doesn’t dare say all the things she’s been wondering about her own marriage, maybe… maybe it is okay to wonder. Maybe she should talk to her own mother when she’s back.
Also about that vampire, because, um, she’s not asking directly, but the way Mina is talking, Darcy isn’t entirely convinced any more that Quincy, um, well, that Mina wouldn’t be the kind of woman to be enterprising and opportunistic. And maybe that’s Darcy’s bias speaking, but… one would need to not like men to shove Basarab out of bed…
By the time it’s past tea and really kind of time for Darcy to get back to the castle, she didn’t really finish with her baroness work after all, she feels reluctant to do it. This was… well, Quincy called them hanging out ‘girl time’ and Darcy thinks that maybe this was ‘woman time’ and she feels a lot better for it. More like maybe she can have some power over her life after all.
Making extra sure that Mina (that still makes her giggle but they talked like two grownups, so it must be alright,) doesn’t want to come over to have dinner with everybody, she promises to keep checking in with them. She’s the first to arrive in the dining room and that just feels off. Walking upstairs, she can hear Arthur and John in the study. Two more flights of stairs bring her to Quincy’s room, but he’s not there.
She’s not sure why that gives her a pang of worry… until she realises that her drac is leaning not towards London. Gregory is back. She doesn’t want to, she really doesn’t want to, but that hot feeling in her chest makes her protective of Quincy so she dares reach out in her mind to Gregory (also because she worries what Arthur might unwittingly walk into).
The answer she gets back makes her hackles stand up and, yes, that’s a growl as she feels her own ears aching from the sound of her drac’s teeth screeching against the inside of her mask, suddenly back on. It better be back on because she asked for one thing.
One single blasted thing!
And not even that Gregory can grant her! He can’t even answer her nicely. He can’t even reassure her that at the very least he’s thinking about his best friend, even if he ignores her wishes. That he would cheat on her, that he would not involve her, she isn’t really surprised by. But teasing her right back that he can’t draw any curtains because they didn’t even make it inside? What if Arthur had gone out riding?
The sound of her drac’s teeth against the mask grows louder in her ears, the scraping and the clack when they hit the crack Quincy put into the mask. No. No. If she gives in to that anger, that sense of losing control, of not being able to hold on to anything but fury, to that cold prickle of crystals pushing into her flesh, she doesn’t trust herself to not hurt somebody she might regret hurting.
No, no, she’s an obedient wife. She just tried to learn how to be a better woman. A good woman, a caring woman, the model of a wife and mother.
Calm. Down, drac. You have to be good for Quincy, who really is the one suffering right now, not her. She can’t even protect him right now.
She has to be good for John. If she loses it, he has no home.
She has to be good for Arthur, if she loses it, he has no home… and maybe no best friend.
Calm. Calm. Be hurt. Not angry.
So instead, she marches herself into the kitchen and asks the house for, no, please, not the finished meal. She wants to try to actually make something for her household. A cook book would help, though. Yes, thank you. And a note to Arthur and John that she’ll be ready soon. Yes, yes, she can do this. She can slash the meat on the cutting board; she can direct her anger into the work, into trying to be better.
~~~~
Despite, or maybe because of, his worries, Arthur doesn’t mind at all that the rest of the day passes in a more quiet and ordinary way. He and John were just about to get back to work when Arthur’s stomach growled, loudly. That made John chuckle, and both of them realize that they’d missed lunch, so they went to eat that in companionable silence. At least Arthur thinks it was companionable.
After a check on the animals in the hospital to give out cuddles and attention, they return back to work, and are just thinking of calling it a day when a note appears on John’s desk. Arthur interprets John’s grunt on reading it as surprise, and feels that himself when John tells him it’s from Darcy, telling them that she’ll have dinner ready soon. That sounds… kind of like she’s making dinner? Because the house would just have it ready in an instant. That’s new, but alright. Arthur shares a shrug with John, and then returns to finish up with one more piece of barony work.