Chapter 63
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 62
She can’t feel the mask right now, it must sit too well, or maybe it’s because she doesn’t see what she would have to play. Actually, she does, she has to keep telling her drac that no, she can’t go wolf and sniff at everything… much as she’d like to. But that’s about it; everything else is, oh, is how she always dreamed about it. With her papa there, and even better, Daddy and Arthur, too!
One of the skeletons draws her, well, it’s not a full skeleton, just a skull… And no, down! Yes, all those bones give her drac, and by that she definitely doesn’t mean herself, an itch to lick them, but no, they can’t do that. What she can do is ooh at the plaque explaining that’s a narwhal skull. And there’s a drawing of the full animal, with one tusk, not two like the skull. But still, it’s so huge, and the tusk is really pretty, like a unicorn. And she likes unicorns for being in fairy tales, and John is happy to build her fairy tales. But he doesn’t like fairy tales and she doesn’t want to be bad for him. But maybe she’s not bad if she asks him to have one of these in his pirate stories?
Suddenly having Daddy’s heavy hand in her hair after staring at the skull makes her squeak, then giggle because no, Daddy, she doesn’t want to go on a big expedition to hunt one. She knows she doesn’t swim so well, and yes, she saw that wink from him and it makes her smile, smile right through the mask. He still sees her drac, maybe if she’s really good for him she can be the support drac. That feels nicer than having to be the support woman. She thinks she could be better at that.
“It’s so long!” Arthur exclaims as they look at the narwhal skull- he’s read somewhere about them, maybe a newspaper or something? “Surely if it was from a unicorn it would be smaller?”
“Hannibal is big, too. Maybe unicorns are bigger than we think?” Darcy offers and is so terribly tempted to touch the exhibit.
“They would have to be really big, though? Like… like elephants?” He tilts his head. “…That would be kind of cool…”
Deciding that she’ll just lean in as far as she can and sniff, no guard can fault her for that, right, Darcy nods. “Would make them fit more with dragons.”
“…Now I really want to see a unicorn some day and find out,” Arthur admits.
Darcy’s no longer sure if she trusts fairy tales enough, maybe there’d be something bad about even unicorns… also, they definitely wouldn’t like her, so instead she focuses back on what she feels safer about. “If you let John hear that, you’ll get a story with unicorns at your next birthday party.”
Art snorts and elbows Jack that he’s not volunteering for being the virgin maid of that story, only to have Jack smirk back that Art certainly has none of those qualities.
Arthur tells Darcy that he doesn’t see any downsides to a story with unicorns for his birthday… Though maybe they could also have dragons, that would be fun!
With a giggle she nods, as if John could stop himself if they give him an excuse to go overboard, he’ll come up with some mighty quest for a dear mage, of the story, of course. She’s not very good at winking but she hopes her grin conveys the same thing.
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Oooh, now he can’t wait! Arthur grins back at her. And it strikes him that they’re talking about his next birthday, in a year- planning for it. Because he’ll probably be around for it, and not frozen to death or starved or arrested. He’ll still have a home in a year, with Darcy.
That makes him feel really warm, and… he hesitates, but Darcy sometimes hugs him, and he really feels like hugging her, so… he does, shyly. “Thank you for making it so I’ll have a fun birthday next year, too.”
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Putting her arms right back around him, she feels so happy that she can be good for him! “You’ll have to make it through Christmas and John’s and my birthday first.” With a giggle, she adds at the slight cough from Daddy: “Yes, and yours, too!”
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“You make it sound like that’d be a bad thing…” Arthur says with a chuckle, happy that his hug and thanks are well-received. “If they’re half as much fun as mine was, I look forward to them!”
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“I want them to be, you’re my brother-dear, the only one I have.” She dares squish him slightly, but then also remembers that they are out in public… not that her reputation has much space to fall lower but still, she knows that Arthur is shy and if people start being really mean to her, he’ll get flustered and she wants to spare him that. “Want to go finish with the other rooms?”
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“Yes, let’s!” Arthur agrees and lets go of her. After all, he doesn’t want to make a spectacle of themselves. And also, he wants to see what other interesting things they have here.
By the time they have thoroughly explored all the displays at the museum, Arthur’s feet are sore and he feels exhausted, his mind full of all the new information. But he doesn’t mind in the least, because it was really fun, and he finds himself happily chatting with Darcy in the carriage about everything they’ve seen. Art looks very pleased about their good mood. Arthur can’t really read Dr Seward, but he doesn’t seem to mind, anyway- he’s also a bit relaxed? Maybe?
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Seeing her papa so obviously happy and relaxed makes Darcy feel she’s good, makes her feel like the mask maybe isn’t so bad, maybe with Papa it isn’t even a mask, because it’s a bit selfish of her to think that she ever was the heroine with him. Her papa loves her mother, so obviously she’s his heroine and… and as long as Papa is happy, that’s the important part.
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It’s been far too damn long since Art could feel Jack be this unconcerned; this heavily leaned into him because he doesn’t feel the need to monitor both touch and their surroundings. It’s too bad that they have to leave at the latest tomorrow, Art could very much get used to the sound of them in the house. But then again, he’d rather have them at his estate where, between all the aberrations, nobody would bat an eyelash at the dhampir. They’d get that he learned better.
For right now, he’ll just keep dadding on his supposedly human sugar doll. Best he can with being hounded by letters it seems. There had to be something urgent on the hall table, who sent their damn calling card now? Huh? Addressed to Darcy? Who even knows she’s here? Still, he’s not going to just read her unexpected mail.
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Letter? For her? Darcy’s confused, but her first reaction is to hold it out to Arthur to sniff, for magic, of course.
Arthur takes the letter, confused- why is Darcy getting a letter here? Addressed in a very rough scrawl, too. He gives it a suspicious sniff, but it only smells like paper, so he shrugs and hands it back to Darcy, tells her he can’t detect anything unusual.
Opening it, Darcy quickly reads over the contents, goes first red, then white in the face and maybe, just maybe she can get into Gregory’s head, too, because this… this time it’s not her fault, she wasn’t that bad to deserve this… no, it’s not her fault! The fury… why is she angry again? But somehow… when she got through the door, already some of her previous mood had shifted, and now her drac is leaning towards the kitchen and her hands on the letter are shaking, so it’s only half mentally that she yells “Gregory Paul Cobb!”
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Arthur watches Darcy’s expression change in concern, because whatever it is, it’s clearly not good news- then flinches at her shout. …Gregory? It’s about Gregory? What’s he done now?
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Yes, her drac was right, of course her drac was right. She can feel it snarl behind the mask, in fact, once Gregory sticks his head into the hall. The carefree grin on his face makes the mask rattle right against her bone. It keeps rattling and rattling as she fights to keep it on, her drac gnashing at it from the inside while something in Gregory’s look is pressing it down; is making the seams bleed and cut into her until she’s not sure her face would come off with the mask if she’d drop it.
She’s good, she’s an obedient wife, she can’t be bad. No… no, obedient wives don’t make scenes, so she fights not to rip the letter clean in two as she balls her hand, and her voice strains to not roar, to not let her drac talk for her. No matter that there are red and purple frissons at the edge of her vision and the world smells wrong, smells of crystals and decay and she doesn’t know exactly what, but no, she can’t make a scene! That grin, that blasted grin, just like that blasted baron’s she duelled who also made her so riled up, so very riled up. No, she can’t make a scene! So she pushes the fury down, or tries to as she hisses at Gregory, she didn’t know her voice could do that. She… she has to talk to him. In private, please? Then she thinks better of it. “Arthur-dear, you too, please.”
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Arthur doesn’t know what’s going on, but Darcy looks like she’s only a moment from sprouting fangs at the very least, and she shouldn’t do that where Art’s staff might see, so he nods quickly and steps up to her. He looks at Gregory, but Gregory only looks confused and guileless, like he has no idea what’s going on. Well, he probably doesn’t.
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As Art watches Darcy march (there’s really no other word for it because it’s very different from the dragging she did earlier with Arthur) Gregory upstairs he winces and throws a look at Jack. Should they help?
“No, I rather think this is long overdue. Communication is important in relationships.” Realising the irony of that statement Jack sighs. “I know I am none to talk on that topic. I’m sorry.”
For a moment Art blinks in confusion, then he puts his arm around Jack with a smile. “Water under the bridge! Thanks for going out with me and the kids today! How tired are you from that much social? You know me old lazy bum, I could do with resting my feet and a snack. Ready to just curl up for a bit?”
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Jack is just not going to try to figure out the flurry of vague but intense emotions that gives him, so instead, he leans into his best friend and agrees. That would be lovely indeed, calmly reading while Art tinkers with something has long been one of the cornerstones of their friendship. Although it did take Jack a bit in the beginning to figure out a way to not mind the cuddling, but it makes Art happy, so he most certainly did put the effort in.
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Upstairs, Darcy just about manages not to slam the door behind her, lets go of Gregory’s hand only after she shoved him down into a chair, then pushes the letter at Arthur (get it out of her hand before she rips into it after all).
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Arthur takes the letter- cheap paper, looks like it was ripped out of a notebook or something- and flicks his eyes over the scrawl of words. Then he blinks, and reads them again, slower, to make sure he really didn’t misread. But, no, of course he didn’t.
It’s a blackmail attempt.
And he knows there’s some emotion starting to bubble and churn in his chest, but he can’t tell what it is yet and also, that’s not important right now, so he shoves it away to deal with later.
“…You paid for illegal gambling by cheque?” he demands.
Because apparently, that’s where Gregory was- at the pub, drinking and betting on the usual, but not exactly legal, blood sports. By cheque. So the less-than-legal people involved in these activities have his signature, and if Darcy doesn’t pay them what they want, they say they’re going to get it in the papers what her husband gets up to.
“It’s neat; I don’t even have to go to the bank!” Gregory grins in answer, still completely unperturbed, up to the moment that Darcy’s hand hits his shoulder.
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She’s just holding, just holding on, her voice a shrill whisper because otherwise she’ll scream so loud the neighbours would still hear it, otherwise she feels like she’ll… she’ll erupt into a red fog of fury in a very literal sense. Just holding, just holding and telling him that he can’t do that. Her reputation doesn’t matter, but he’s endangering her household! Endangering Arthur! Endangering John!
Just holding… that sound is just his clothing. That sense of wetness must be her clammy palm, nothing more.
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Unease breaks through Arthur’s attempt at calm because Darcy is so tense she seems to quiver, and… are her eyes glowing? That must be a trick of the light, right? And there’s a flicker of movement on the wall, and it’s… is her shadow growing? Surely not? Why does it look like there’s smoke rising from it?
He gets distracted from trying not to be creeped out by a dull, grinding noise, and… and why is there a dark patch spreading from where she has her hand on Gregory’s shoulder?
“Uh… Darcy?” he asks, and his voice comes out a bit higher than he intended it to.
Gregory, meanwhile… still looks puzzled, and grinning, like he doesn’t understand at all what’s wrong. And like there isn’t blood seeping out from under Darcy’s hand- her claws, maybe?
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She turns at his question and tries to ignore the purple flickers all around her vision, tries to ignore the all-encompassing fury, the sensation of her fangs, her far-too-large-seeming fangs pushing against her lips, making it hard for her to talk, and they don’t normally do that.
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“Um… you’re hurting him,” Arthur points out- no, Darcy’s eyes really are glowing, a soft purple, but it’s there. And also, there’s fangs poking out over her lips, and those look longer than usual. And also like maybe there’s more than just two of them.
Arthur considers whether he should be scared of her, but… it’s Darcy. She wouldn’t hurt him, and he gets why she would be upset and angry. This is really bad, after all.
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She is hurting Gregory? Good!
No! Her own thought startles her. No! That’s not good! What is she thinking?! She rips her hand away and stares at it, then at Gregory’s face. She doesn’t understand. There’s no pain on his face, just… just this cat grin, and why is she thinking of the baron again? He looks so… pleased with her reaction. And when she looks at him the fury spikes up again. She’s so angry! Angry angry angry!
NO!
Taking a step back that feels like her leg weighs more than all the oceans combined, she rips her gaze away from him, too. Forces her eyes shut, takes another step back, and another, goes by her nose and goes to her knees against Arthur’s legs to stick her face against him. To seek shelter in his smell. To stop the anger that’s… no, not her drac! Her poor drac! It’s hurting, the anger is like lances in its paws, crystal splinters pinning it in place. No, she has to stop being angry. She has to!
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Arthur very much isn’t sure what to do with Darcy kneeling next to him and her tucking her face into his waist, but, uh, well… if that’s what she needs?
So he looks instead to Gregory again, because… “Are you okay?” He still doesn’t know how exactly that blood stain happened, but it’s not small, it has to hurt! But Gregory looks perfectly pleased with himself, and laughs, and waves him off with an: “I’m okay, Artie!”
Which reminds him… “No, you’re not! I mean, maybe you are, physically, but you really can’t do that, you can’t put your name on paper when it’s not legal stuff!” He waves the note. “This is a blackmail attempt! Do you know how much trouble we could get in?”
Gregory’s grin changes, then, shows more teeth. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of them!”
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“What if they told somebody? Isn’t that how it goes in the stories? When you kill somebody who blackmails you, everything is revealed. That’s how it goes.” Darcy whimpers against Arthur’s side. She feels like she can think a bit clearer here, can just about see past the haze that makes her want to grin along, makes her want to help Gregory take care of the blackmailers. Yes, she wants… she needs to protect her household! But she needs to do it in a way that actually helps.
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“We need to find out who ‘they’ even are, first!” Arthur isn’t sure why he needs to point that out. “Unless you already know?” But Gregory just shrugs. Right, no, of course he doesn’t, that’s for Arthur to figure out…
Arthur takes a deep breath. Someone here needs to keep a clear head, and as usual, it’s him. “You’re right,” he says to Darcy, “we need to make sure that we have the evidence, and that we know who’s behind it, you can’t just run around killing people! That’ll draw even more attention! What if they have friends, connections?” He huffs out a big breath. “You know how this sort of thing works, Gregory! They could be part of a gang or a ring, and then things would only get worse! We have to… to figure out a smart way to deal with this.”
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Nodding against him, Darcy agrees, and she refuses to let Arthur do all of it, even if thinking feels so hard right now. “Maybe I could be a rat in the pub? Listen in and follow people? Can we find out if Gregory goes back and I check who is keeping an eye on him?”
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“I don’t know if that would work…” Arthur feels quite painfully that he’s not an expert on blackmail and how it’s usually done. “If they’ve delivered this, they might now keep their distance until they get their payment.” He looks at the instructions- for Darcy, alone, to take the money, a thousand pounds, to a bench in the park, where she’ll get more instructions.
He looks at the sheet of paper- handwriting, and it’s ripped out of something. “I wonder how this arrived? It looks a bit… improvised?” He tilts his head, thinks of something else, looks at Darcy. “…I don’t suppose you could turn wolf and smell who handled this and we identify them that way? I mean, as a start at least?”
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She likes that idea. She likes that idea a lot! “Of course I could!” Just about to go on, she whirls as she hears the creak of Gregory’s chair and his suggestion to go for a walk with his dog then. “No! You stay where Papa and Daddy can see you. You are… you are…” She knows what she wants to say, but it’s so wrong. She’s a good wife. Wife, not mother, and he’s her husband, but… he just never cares and never understand consequences, and he makes her so angry and this could be so bad for Arthur so no, no she isn’t bad, she’s protecting Arthur. “You are grounded until I say otherwise. Stay in your room!”
Ignoring the pout and protest, Darcy turns back to Arthur and tells him he doesn’t have to come along if he doesn’t want to, she’ll track the person down.
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Grounded? Arthur only has a vague notion of what that is, and he wonders whether Gregory is going to actually do as Darcy said, but… “No, you shouldn’t go alone! You don’t know that part of the city, you shouldn’t go alone.” Which is when it occurs to him that he’s making assumptions as to which part of the city Gregory was in, but those are confirmed when he asks and Gregory says that it was, indeed, Blaire’s. Arthur looks down at himself. “I’m too well dressed, though, I’ll stand out… but I guess if there’s a huge red ‘dog’ with me, we’ll stand out either way…”
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Darcy apologizes for that, then squares her shoulders and takes his hand. Daring Gregory to protest with a look, she leaves with Arthur, closes the door behind her for good measure, then smells the air to find her fathers. When she finds them, she blushes slightly. It’s so nice to see Papa relaxed, and he clearly is, legs up over Daddy’s lap on the sofa, deep in his book while Daddy is fiddling with some kind of mechanism she doesn’t recognize. Both of them look up, though, with a smile when she walks in and explains that um, her and Arthur have to see to something and could they make sure that Gregory doesn’t go missing meanwhile? He’s grounded.
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Grounded? Jack is trying very hard not to chuckle. He is fairly sure that would be seen as rude, although he isn’t sure he remembers any etiquette rule about what the correct response is to your daughter treating her brat of a husband the way he should be treated. Instead, he promises to keep Mr Cobb pinned down if necessary, and to please ask for any other help he and Art could provide.
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Arthur decides… he actually believes that, that they would help, and he decides to keep that in mind. Surely, having some adult and noble help with dealing with the blackmail could be handy. But first, he does want to figure out who actually is involved, at least one person. More information will mean they can plan better.
As they take their leave and make their way to the front door, Arthur considers how they’ll best get there- they can’t let the servants here in the house know what they’re up to, so the carriage is obviously out. But the park isn’t far away… He asks Darcy, quietly, if she has enough money on her for a cab.
She does, so he outlines his idea: They’ll go for a walk to Hyde Park, it’s not far away and that should be totally appropriate for them to do, and then she can change in the park and they can get a cab to Whitechapel from there.
They meet the head maid on the way to the door and she asks if there’s anything they need, of course, but she doesn’t seem too put out when they explain about the walk. In fact, she smiles and calls them “such robust young country people!” when they decline the carriage, and it doesn’t sound like she means it in an offensive way.
Darcy giggles that she doesn’t mind being a ‘robust young country lady’ as they head down the street.