Chapter 75
Previously: The Rose of Whitby – Chapter 74
She can’t do anything, of course she can’t. She was bad. She deserves to be punished. Still, she feels ashamed that Arthur is seeing this. Now she’s being bad for him, too. And all she can do is whisper a ‘sorry’ at him as she fights not to cry from how helpless she feels. She tried avoiding this and it still happened and she made it worse by trying to do something. She should just have sat in her room waiting for her husband to come and see her misstep. Then it would only have been her who has to go through this. “Sorry,” she says again as Gregory carries her out the door, and doesn’t fight. Not now with the door closing behind them and not throughout the morning as she does penance.
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Arthur’s… not sure what just happened, but it gives him a sour feeling in his stomach and bad taste in his mouth. He fishes out his genet and hugs it to his chest while he looks at the closed door, happily cradles Katharina close when she climbs onto his lap and gives a demanding ‘mrow’. Her fur is growing in again, and it’s really soft. He likes thinking about that much more than about Gregory and Darcy, and what they might be doing, given how he carried her off and how Darcy looked embarrassed, and… no, he’s not going to think about any of that. It’s none of his business. He doesn’t want to know!
Still, he can’t quite shake the discomfort, the shivery feeling, all the way through getting dressed and ready for the day, and carrying Katharina to the kitchen for her breakfast, and when she’s done, he lets her out into the garden and follows her.
It’s just getting light, and winter fog hangs heavy around walls and shrubs and fences, makes everything damp and wet. Still, it smells clean, and Arthur takes a deep breath while he heads to the stables to say good morning to Hannibal and let him out. Not that the house doesn’t make sure Hannibal has food, too, or like Hannibal can’t open his own stall door and stroll out into the paddocks or onto the grounds whenever he pleases, but still. He’s his horse, it’s his responsibility to look after him, and also, a bit of moving around and fresh air and cuddles with his nightmare make Arthur feel better, more in balance again.
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John sees Arthur heading to the stables during his own morning routine, but elects to head right to the study after. He’s surprised when he doesn’t find Darcy there. Grumbling all the way to getting to the desk and taking the main chair rather than his normal spot, he can guess far too well why Darcy is late. She wouldn’t be late if she could help it.
She always beams at him when he joins her, it’s one of his favourite moments of the day. She makes him feel wanted and needed every fucking time. It makes the paperwork all worth it. Her being late just means she has to deal with that arse of a husband of hers, or worse, him and Llew, and fuck no, he’s not thinking any further that way or he’ll contemplate for the hundredth time if it’s really petty or if it’s justified contemplating murder. And he doesn’t want to be that kind of guy, either, but try as he might, his temper sparks every time he sees Gregory.
It’s only getting harder not to punch him. It’s so fucking hard not to visualise out in brilliant detail how it would feel and look to shatter that grin with his fist. No, fuck, calm down. He isn’t that guy. He is not his fucking father! With an effort he grabs the mail to distract himself, and will you fucking look at that.
He might not be able to punch Gregory right in the face, but how about punching him in the reputation? That letter’s from his order and asking for financial reports. Now that’s something John is going to have his fun with. He does all the finances for the barony anyway. He has the bank reports, the expenses, every last little bit of money Gregory is throwing around, because of course the dolt doesn’t realise that his order stipend still gets drawn from Darcy’s accounts. Oh, fuck yes, how is that for a noose?
~~~~
Arthur is out on the grounds with Hannibal when he hears the crunching of horse shoes coming up the drive. A long riding practise session has finally dispelled his unease from the morning, and he’s rather proud of himself that he’s now daring to leave the safety of the paddock, and they’ve started exploring the paths winding around the grounds at large. Arthur’s getting pretty comfortable with the walk and the canter, though trotting is still a nightmare (…no pun intended) and makes him feel like his feet are flapping all over the place.
Hannibal definitely enjoys the opportunity to spread his legs more, too, but he’s always looking after Arthur, slowing down when he feels him losing his rhythm and balance. Though he’s also started to do unexpected little side steps sometimes- teaching Arthur to pay attention and to readjust his seat if something changes. Really, Hannibal is the best horse and a great teacher. So Arthur dares to steer him over to the drive to see who’s coming.
It turns out to be Dr Seward, who returns Arthur’s greeting, and it would feel rude to just leave after that, so Arthur nudges Hannibal next to Dr Seward’s horse, which he probably rented in town. Hannibal makes him work for it a little, not quite turning the right way until Arthur has figured out how to put his weight and legs in the right place. Once he does, though, Hannibal falls in next to the other horse- which is looking decidedly nervous, ears flicking and nostrils wide.
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Having kept an eye on Arthur’s movements while manoeuvring the horse, Jack puts on a smile. He remembers his rose petal wanting him to be a good father figure for Arthur, so he tries to make the smile look as if he’d be smiling at her, although he doesn’t really feel it. No matter, a task set by her is a task to be honoured, ergo, he lauds Arthur’s improvements in how he handles his horse, much better than last time in London.
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Arthur blushes, and thanks him, but also allows that the horse in London was a regular horse- Hannibal is a lot more cooperative and understanding about teaching him.
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A good teacher is helpful, but Jack comments that he believes Arthur to be a diligent student. Sadly, he doesn’t have time to maybe help with a riding lesson, he is back to inform them of a longer absence. Face falling, Jack looks up at the castle for a very long moment before he sighs. “Rose petal is not going to like it, I am afraid. She has suffered for so long from my hunting trips without even knowing what they are, and now that she knows it can only be worse.”
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“Oh,” Arthur says, then asks: “Is it, um, going to be dangerous?” Because he still might be pretty intimidated by Dr Seward, but he’s also starting to kind of like him- he’s… reliable? And also, if something happened to him, it would be the absolutely worst for Darcy, and he doesn’t want her to ever have to go through that.
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“If Lucy had not brought some very pressing arguments for the benefits to bear, I would have vetoed us so much as attempting this mission. Alas, we cannot avoid it.” Noticing that his already nervous horse is getting bad signals from the way he’s bunching the reins, Jack makes a conscious effort to relax. It would appear he is feeling anxious if he is going by the physical markers thereof. “Rationally, I was aware that it was highly unlikely that our clumsy efforts two decades ago resulted in the actual demise of Lucy’s murderer, but now we have confirmation. The vampire I had hoped against logic would be dead, is indeed still out there.”
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Arthur feels his eyes widen. “…You’re going looking for a vampire that you’re already, uh, kind of on bad terms with?”
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“Better to anticipate the worst and try to prevent it than sit here waiting for him to hear about Darcy.” Jack hears his tone come out flatter and colder than he intended, and he doesn’t look at Arthur. Instead, his eyes are fixed on where he knows Darcy’s room is on the other side of the building, the one that once was Lucy’s room. The room she died in, the room the vampire must already have been in, so there is nothing preventing him from entering again and doing what vampires are likely to do with dhampirs.
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Arthur hesitates but nods- that does make tactical sense. “Um… so what are you going to do if you find him?”
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“Hopefully, have him and Lucy talk.” It still sounds like madness to Jack, but Lucy seemed convinced that she could do it, and Jack might be the one in the group they trust with logical decisions, but even Art had argued that Lucy is the one with the instincts, and she is a voivode. To the best of their limited understanding of vampire society, she should have a chance, if not a right, to talk to her sire about her place in her vampire House.
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“That’s an option? I mean, she’s a vampire, too, it’d be hard for him to kill her… right?” From what he knows, vampires are reeeeaaally hard to kill, so…
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“Hunters do not normally engage with voivodes, so we have far too little information. I do not like it, but I cannot come up with any better plan myself, so it is all we have for the moment.” Drawing up to the stables, Jack swings down and shakes his head, then fixes Arthur with his eyes. “Can I trust you to do your best to support Darcy no matter what comes?”
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Arthur nods strongly. “Of course!” He really doesn’t want to think about Dr Seward maybe not coming back from this mission- or Art. Art is nice. That makes him think of that vision Gregory talked about, which makes him shudder. But that was just a vision; they decided it had nothing to do with the future.
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It isn’t much, Jack doesn’t feel reassured or relieved by Arthur’s promise, but that has nothing to do with any shortcoming of Arthur’s, he reminds himself. And when he searches a bit deeper, no, there is some relief, if only in the knowledge that if the worst comes to pass, he does not have to rely on Mr Cobb to look after his rose petal. She has men around herself who actually have some merit, who she clearly counts as her friends, and that thought is reassuring.
His Ruby is a strong, young woman; she would pout at him for being so negative. He hopes he can present his case to her without too many tears. It is hard enough for him to leave. He could have sent a telegram, they are travelling light, he can’t bring Art’s heavy hunting case with him so there was no physical reason to come. He is only here to bring the message personally, to hug Darcy from her daddy, and maybe to cling a little bit to her for potentially one last time.
Then again… maybe he can do a bit more. Judging the time and checking with what he knows of Darcy’s habits, he tells Arthur to please go fetch John, he wants to teach them the basics of defending against a vampire should their enemy avoid them and go directly on the attack here.
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Arthur nods, because that certainly sounds useful. So he gets Hannibal taken care of quickly, and then heads off to look for John. Starting at the study, to see if John is still there or has already left for lunch.
But when he knocks on the door and sticks his head in, John looks up in surprise from the slew of papers strewn over the desk. His eyes fall on the clock on the wall, and he chuckles, asks if Arthur’s here to call him for lunch- he didn’t notice the time pass. Arthur tells him that, no, not yet- Dr Seward just arrived, and he offered to teach them a few basics of fighting against a vampire, because he’ll head off on a dangerous mission, he just arrived to tell Darcy about it.
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Now that’s a split right down the middle on his emotions. John could whoop at the idea of getting some fight training and he’s always glad when Jack comes over, it makes his girl so very happy, but fuck, coming over to tell Darcy about a dangerous mission, and that after she must be having a terrible morning. Fuck, he’s not sure how that’s going to go. Guess he’ll have to see if he can punch Gregory, after all, should he try to tease her about it. And one thing’s for fucking sure, she’s sleeping in his bed tonight. He’s not letting her deal with that alone!
For now, though, yes, fight training, learning to protect his girl better. He doesn’t notice at first that his hand went to his tattoo unthinkingly, but when he gets up he feels the fabric move under his fingers and starts to grin, yes, “Protector”, that’s him!
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Well, John looks certainly excited about it, so Arthur offers him a smile back. As they walk along the corridor, he asks: “Uh, maybe we should get Darcy, too? I mean… she’s our front-line fighter?”
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With a proud grin, John agrees that his girl sure packs a punch and she’ll be upset with them if they don’t tell her that her papa is back, Arthur knows how she is. Give him just a moment, he’ll go get her. If for nothing else than to get her away from Gregory (and Llew) if either of them is still fucking her morning over… ugh, bad formulation. His fucking brain always on being too good at imagining things. Fuck that!
After one bang on the door and a shouted warning at Gregory to better fucking be decent, John enters into Darcy’s room then flinches. Oops, he shouldn’t have made such a ruckus. Darcy is in bed, alone. And she looks terrible, even her hair seems drained, that’s not her normal vibrant red. It looks grey-tinged in the murk, but still colourful against her pale skin. Now, she’s always pale but somehow she looks sickly pale for once. He’s over at her side in a few long strides.
Did he wake her? She’s barely there, nuzzling weakly against his hand on her cheek. One quick check under the blanket that’s only half in place confirms it, there’s dried blood on her (and other things John isn’t thinking about). Why wouldn’t she get up and clean herself off? When the two of them play hard, she always chuckles that the house shouldn’t have to clean up after her. She is always so conscientious about not getting it on any of the linens.
And… ugh, he doesn’t want to but he checks again, bite pattern, claw mark, okay, those she probably liked but uh… would she… he’s not sure and he has to fight not to retch and tremble at the dried blood at the inside of her thighs. He knows Gregory is an arse but… that?
He has to violently shake his head not to storm off right this instant and get Arthur and Jack in on hunting the bastard down, pitchforks included if need be.
“Culver?” There’s a tremble to his voice, but it’s anger, not weakness, so fuck it, that’s okay. He wants to sound gentle with her, but it takes him shaking her slightly for her to open her eyes. She looks so fragile right now and the anger condenses itself into a tiny ball of anxiousness in his stomach. No… no, her eyes are purple, not blue, and not as glassy… not as glassy as… He has to shake his head violently again. No, he doesn’t want to remember that face! No… please.
But she answers, she’s not dead or dying, not in his arms, not again. Stop! He doesn’t want that memory, he can’t, no! His hand on her shoulder trembles and that wakes her up fully. Because of course it does. She always tries so hard for him. So fucking hard and he has to do the same for her. So with an effort, he punches up against the still rising fear and response to the unbidden memory and tries for a wobbly smile. “Hey culver, it’s nearly lunch time. And your papa is here. Can I help you wash up? You… you didn’t get out of bed, it looks like.”
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Her papa is here?! No… he can’t see her like this! The book said the white hair is what hunting dhampirs have. He fought so long to make sure she never is one! She can’t be bad like that for him! She tries to struggle up, but night, she’s still so exhausted. She must have fallen asleep eventually. Nearly lunch. It’s been hours since Gregory left. She couldn’t even drag herself out of bed after that. She was so drained. Too drained for tears.
What happened? She can’t remember, she probably doesn’t want to remember anyway.
Did John say wash up? Oh no, now she let him see her like this, another man’s touch all over her. Now she’s being bad for him as well. She’s so sorry. She’s being bad for everybody today. She didn’t mean to. She wants to be good. It’s all she wants. Really. The tears start rolling and she can’t even manage to hug herself into John, her arms won’t move. She’s so tired, her body is so tired, her heart is so… empty. She just feels hollow. All she can manage is sob if he could please hold her… protect her. Just for a little bit, she’ll get out of bed, she will, she promises.
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Fucking hell! Why isn’t he marching out there? Why the fuck isn’t he? Because he’s not her husband… he’s just the affair. Just the dolt who wants to protect her but can’t. He half-way doesn’t exist legally. He can’t go up against a baroness-consort. And much as he wants to punch Gregory, he’s only an aberration; he can’t fight that demon-enhanced arse. All he can do is hold Darcy. At least that he will always do, even if he’s powerless to do anything more. Well, he can do a little bit more, he can go back out there and learn how to fight a vampire maybe.
Re-joining Arthur out behind the house, all he says is that Darcy was still asleep when he checked, she’ll be out for lunch. She was eager to see her papa, he tells Jack. It’s the truth, even though he did end up having to carry her into the bath after all. But she insisted she could manage from there, so all he could do was respect her wishes and kiss her before going.
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Arthur is surprised to hear that Darcy was still asleep- but then, with the white hair-thing, she was up really early, for her, so maybe she decided to catch up on the hours she was missing there? He doesn’t mention that, though, since he doesn’t know if she wants anyone to know, if she figured out how to make it go away yet? Right, he kind of didn’t look further into that; he got all distracted with being uncomfortable… Now he feels bad about that, but it’s too late to do anything about it. So he decides that if her hair is still white, he’ll ask her if she still wants him to look into it, into how to maybe make it go away again quicker than it would naturally. For now, he concentrates on Dr Seward’s anti-vampire lessons.
Those seem to boil down to basically: lock the vampire up as best they can and run away.
The castle, Dr Seward says, is compromised already because this particular vampire has been invited into it before, and if there’s a way to un-invite a vampire, he doesn’t know it. In general, he advises them to not put too much stock into this invitation business. Vampires can break in uninvited, though they will be expelled after a few minutes. But the more powerful they are, the longer they can force their way in, and the more damage they can do in even a few minutes.
He has other advice, such as not meeting a vampire’s eyes, it might hamper some attempts at mind control. Staking won’t work unless they know the right wood, which they don’t, so they’re not to try it.
If a vampire loses enough blood, they will fall into an animalistic hunger response. They will attack anybody closest to them, which could gain them time if they have to. Dr Seward tells them to keep as many barricades between themselves and the vampire as possible at any time. If he assumes correctly, this specific voivode is knight leaning. He will be fast, but he most likely has few attacks over a distance, if any.
All of that sounds really like Arthur very much does not want to meet this vampire, ever. He does wonder, though, whether the invitation extends to the London house now that it’s connected to the castle. If they could flee there, maybe it would count as not invited? Maybe they could call the fey and ask them to break the connection. That would certainly be the quickest way to put distance between themselves and an attacking vampire.
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So much for him being able to do a little bit more, John thinks. This is all bullshit. The short and long of all that talk is: you are doomed. Great, just fucking great. Best he can hope is that his power would work on the vampire, and then everybody else gets to run away while he sacrifices himself, and he can just guess what Darcy would think of that plan. So no, he agrees with Arthur, best they can do is try to get to the London house and hope Llew is useful for once. Maybe rather Eluned, she has the contract with Darcy, she’d probably be inconvenienced if she has to find a new person to play meat-shield.
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Maybe the next time they see Eluned, they could ask her? Arthur offers. Being prepared for the eventuality would be good. And yes, surely it would be in her interest for them to survive and come back.
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To the best of Jack’s knowledge, fey hold to their contracts so it may be their best defence. And he understands the frustration, vampires are not easy to subdue at all. Hunters never attack voivodes. He would rather not engage with this one, either, but he has no choice. John still is obviously upset, obvious enough for him to notice, so maybe he could help out in a different way. It may not do much against a vampire, but he knows that his rose petal isn’t fast in getting out of bed, how about they take half an hour and he goes over some gun basics with John? He remembers right that he likes guns, right?
Arthur is obviously not terribly interested in guns, but also agrees that it would be good to know the basics of how they work, anyway, just in case.
Jack asks John to bring his favourite gun and an extra one for Arthur. When he sees him return with two shotguns, he nods. Large calibre, easy to load, depending on the kind of ammunition also a certain field of spray, those aspects are good for a beginner. But shotguns also are not that easy to handle if the user doesn’t know how to best hold them.
John, somewhat sheepishly, admits to figuring that much out by himself. He says he can handle the bird and buck shot, but he got a bruise when he fired his first slug.
Making sure to praise him for having gotten that far safely, Jack goes into the basic positions for shooting, how to stabilise the barrel so he can aim properly, and how to lean into the recoil, never away from it, firm hold and as tight against the body as possible. Also, count your shots. There is nothing louder than the boom when it should be a click and the click when it should be a boom. Respect your weapon; don’t aim at anything that you aren’t willing to destroy.
It’s not much, but for half an hour, Jack thinks he would have made his old military trainer proud.
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Arthur, of course, listens diligently and tries the gun as directed- but he does have to admit, he much prefers his magic. It feels a lot more under his control. It goes where he wants it to, these days, and it can’t go off accidentally.
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Still going through the things Jack showed him, by the time John gets back into the house, his mood has improved significantly. And then Darcy is there, waiting on him in his room, looking more like herself again and squeezing the hand that isn’t holding his shotgun steady, and going up on her toes to kiss him in a silent thank you. He knows that touch, she’s letting him know that he supported her and he loves that he knows those little signs. He also knows her well enough to shoo her onwards, her papa is that direction, she should go say hello to him, he won’t be staying long. That has her run off immediately, of course.