Those Prevailing Happy Stars

A Mansfield Park & Stardust fanfiction

Chapter Six:

What Happened at Mr. Crawford's Inn

When Edmund had revealed his betrayal, his unworthiness all along of Fanny's faithful and unwavering regard, by using William's cross to locate them after they and the unicorn galloped out of sight, he had – and, here, Susan gave him some small credit, if a trifle grudgingly – attempted to wordlessly hand it over to its true owner, to remedy the situation.

Only Fanny, slack as a lifeless doll from her disappointment, had hesitated, while Tom – the sorry wastrel – had decidedly not. He had snatched the amber cross and slipped it into his own greatcoat pocket as if it were the last crumb of pastry on the last dessert service in an apocalypse-shattered England.

Did Edmund not realise, had been his brother's indignant protest, that no sooner would the Price sisters have such a tool in their keeping than they would lose them once again?

Edmund said he did not care about it now, he cared simply about doing what was right, and Susan – again forced to credit him – believed he really meant it. Or, at least, that he had convinced himself he meant it – for now – which was not entirely the same thing.

After all, his conviction might be real enough, but his voice was weak.

"It is," he said, with another fleeting – guilty – glance at the stars astride the unicorn, "Fanny's by right."

"And she shall have it returned to her after you've jolly well completed your errand here and presented her to your Miss Crawford." Tom sucked his teeth. "Shall she not?" He threw up his hands. "What great difference can a few days make to them?"

Susan had bristled at this, as much in reaction to Fanny's goggling meek and indifferent acceptance of Tom's speech, as at the exchange itself; then she seethed. So, with what great relief – what perfect happiness – had she found herself at the inn with the much more amiable Mr. Crawford!

There was a moment or two, truly, when she thought he meant to distinguish Fanny – supposed, even, she might be about to witness her first lessons in love – but her elder sister gave him no encouragement. She was still moping over Edmund, her eyes downcast to her untouched plate during the early dinner they'd all taken after the remainder of Rushworth's fermented grapes disappeared down Tom's gullet.

If I could but get my sister alone, thought Susan, a little desperately, I might tell her she has a chance with this superior gentleman – oh, but that would never do after all, for is Miss Crawford's brother, and Fanny can never love that family when she is convinced – as was I, rather, before meeting Mr. Crawford – Edmund esteems them so much better than they deserve! She can never forgive them for his excessive regard, I think, whether or not it is strictly fair.

And – objectively – Henry was much too high-spirited for someone serious and completive like Fanny, besides.

For herself, though stars age differently than humans, he was probably too old – and that was a little bit of a shame, but it was also all right. This did not particularly distress her. Susan was not seeking romance for herself. She wanted only his pleasant company to mask the taste of the Bertrams as her only travelling companions thus far, nothing more.

As an aside, it is perhaps worth noting here the reason Fanny's plate was untouched was not only her low spirits; Susan's was untouched as well, and when Tom scolded her for wasting good food, and – in a nicer tone – Rushworth joined in, she scornfully informed them stars did not eat food – they fed upon light and air.

"Fanny, you cannot deny," argued Tom, leaning forward and placing his elbows upon the table, "is eating something. Something very like food for one who does not eat it."

For she had indeed brought her food-laden silver fork to her mouth – at Henry and Edmund's joint murmured insistence – once or twice in the last two minutes.

A moment after Tom said this, however, and looked very superior as he did so, Fanny was to be seen retching – almost violently – under the table while Edmund patted her back and Henry, rising and snapping his fingers, called his man over to clean up the pile of grey-coloured sick by their feet.

Mortified, Fanny apologized profusely to both gentlemen; she was looking utterly miserable with shining tears in her eyes. She had not known food would make her ill; she had never had any before, although she had seen other people eat, and they – both the man she liked and the man she did not – had been so insistent it was good for her she had not been able to resist their doubled attack upon her resolve.

And, even after the incident today with the cross, Fanny would have done – very willingly – a great deal more for Edmund than eat something he set in front of her, if only he asked earnestly enough, if only he pressed her to do so.

He had so much more influence over her, already, than he himself was aware.

Susan arched an eyebrow at Tom, tilting her head.

"Yes, yes, point taken," said he, and turned his chair away to converse more easily with Mr. Rushworth, leaving her alone at last.

When all who were going to eat had eaten and most of the plates had been cleared away from the table, Henry clapped his hands together. "I have had an inspiration – as it is still light out, we might all adjourn to the lawn for dessert. There are targets set up for anyone who wishes to practice at archery, and other activities besides, time permitting. My uncle will be out there already, I expect. You've not yet met him."

Tom was enthusiastic, cheered by all this good food, comfort and merry company; Edmund was much less so, though still agreeable (the present coolness between himself and Fanny, until he could make himself forget – at least a little – again, quite dampened even the delight at meeting another relation of his beloved Miss Crawford), and Susan – however much she was loath to be in any agreement of opinion with Tom Bertram – felt she must express rather a great deal of pleasure in the suggestion to off-set the younger Bertram brother's overpowering gloominess and her own sister's demure lethargy.

Rushworth, after expressing some small surprise that there was a lawn on the other side of the inn's property – for he, like the others, had entered in by way of the forest-land and seen no cultivated lawn – and remarking it must be very fine indeed, though certainty it could not be equal to the grounds at Sotherton Court, and sighing – as a grieved little aside – over how very distressing it was to miss such a treat as a dessert service, opted to stay behind to finish off Fanny's uneaten meal.

"We are not all so delicate – so precious – in constitution and digestion," he laughed, "as our dear Miss Price – waste not, want not, eh?"

There was a strange hesitation – for the shortest of moments – on Mr. Crawford's part none of them were to understand until later – when it was, alas, too late, and Susan never forgave herself for not thinking – but then he agreed, in the most gentleman-like manner, Mr. Rushworth was most welcome to anything left upon the table.

More than a little scornful of him, and rather pitying Mr. Bertram's sister, Susan did not suppose, before this, Rushworth had ever missed out on a single crumb of cake when dining out in his entire life – he didn't look, and this was certain, at least, as if he had.

"Maddison," Mr. Crawford said next, rising, "you will accompany us."

Fanny gawked, as if stricken. "Maddison," she repeated, almost mournfully, her light eyes gone wide. It cannot be him. Not my pretty falcon friend.

"Miss Price." Henry's gaze on her was intense. "Is something the matter?"

She fought against a great trembling fit; the blood was drained from her face. "No, Mr. Crawford. No indeed." But she shifted closer to her sister and ignored – making as if she did not hear – his following offer to fetch her a shawl before they went out of doors.

When they arrived on the lawn, Tom removed his greatcoat (Susan instantly observed if there was any chance of stealing the cross from it; there was not) and began rolling up his shirtsleeves in eager expectation of archery. His face was crestfallen, however, as he took in how the others were all seating themselves in the growing shade. No one was joining him, it seemed. Mr. Crawford was introducing them to the Admiral, who looked appraisingly at the young, pretty faces of Fanny and Susan – and Tom personally couldn't think there was much pleasure to be had there, given how, presently, Susan was sour and Fanny sombre – and Edmund was accepting a small slice of cake.

Presumably Tom could practice archery on his own, but there was less fun in any sport, really, in his opinion, when one could not get a competitor. You couldn't call even the best outcome from one of those games winning. Not truly. He'd seen Edmund play at cards – and chess – against himself before, when no one else was willing, and wondered what was wrong – as something clearly was – with his brother, to be so placidly accepting of the fact the outcome did not matter, so contented to waste his time.

Biting his lower lip and spinning around upon his heels, Tom smirked and merrily accused the entire party of being too intimated by his superior skill with a bow and arrow.

Edmund was whispering with Fanny, and Henry with his uncle, so only Susan – bristling at his pride, his obvious arrogance – took the bait. She asked Maddison, rather pertly, for a bow and arrows of her own; she wished, she said, to join Mr. Bertram for a round of archery.

"I assure you, Mr. Bertram," she said, head tossed back as Crawford's man brought her a quiver and silently instructed her – by mostly unheeded, subtle gestures – on where to look for the line in the grass behind which she must place her feet, "any one of us might – however you mock us – be your equal. Even myself. I do not believe you are one-tenth the great marksman you boast of being."

Mr. Crawford happened to lift his head from where it was bent beside his uncle's for a moment, and Susan – seizing on this – here looked to him for back up in her emphatic statement.

He had only half heard her and covered himself by saying he made it a policy never to compete in anything against his guests, then resumed his conversation with the Admiral.

It was useless to apply to Fanny – it seemed she and Edmund were in the process of making up, because a faint silvery glow was surrounding her cheeks and hair and her expression was gone from grave to forgiving – so she elected to attempt her first go at archery unaided.

She – rather frantically – hoped it was much easier than it looked – Tom had gone first, and he was good – and that she had not set herself up to appear the fool.

Her loosed arrow flew wide of the mark, zipping past the horse pen in the distance. If the objective had been to trim – or even to skim – the grass, her aim might not have been considered too shoddy, but as the objective was – in fact – to hit the target, even she couldn't claim it wasn't altogether terrible.

Tom blinked at her coolly and rested his chin atop the tip of his bow. "Do try, if you think can manage it, not to kill my unicorn."

Cheeks turning a brilliant scarlet, she attempted to look away and pretended to busy herself with rearranging her arrows in the quiver Maddison had brought her.

Tom rested his bow against a shrubbery and took a step nearer to Susan. "I can show you how to do it right, adjust your arm, but" – and his smile here was utterly insufferable to her – "you would need to give me permission to touch you."

She was venomous. "Never. Don't you ever touch me. I shall never consent to you putting one unworthy finger on me." Casting the quiver away, she added, all but spitting, "I believe, sir, I am finished with archery." Finished forever. She would never be able to see an arrow again without thinking of his smug triumph. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's a look," laughed Tom, shaking his head. "I trust you aren't about to demand I'm never to look at you as well as never to touch you. A cat can look at a queen, you know."

"I'm not a queen," she snapped.

"And I'm not a cat." A shrug. "If you honestly wish to know why I was looking at you as I was, what my stare meant, I'll own to it – I was wondering what it would take to make a certain lucky star smile instead of frown."

"An address," she hissed, "from a gentleman who does not accost innocent ladies – whom he previously kidnapped – in the forest and pursue them when they attempt to escape him. And then steal from them."

"A gentleman like Mr. Crawford – that is what you were imagining, I suppose." His eyes were half closed, mouth twisting. "Your taste is not horrid, I can grant you that much, even if he is a mite undersized; he is five foot six, whatever the rest of you say about it. But if you ask me, he seems more interested in your sister."

"I would not grudge such a fact, even if it were true," she sniffed. "He is a better man than your brother."

In a flash, he had snaked out his hand, grasped her arm, and spun her to face him properly. "No one is a better man," he said slowly, almost darkly, "than my brother."

"Unhand me," she snarled through bared teeth. "Let me go this instant! What can you mean by this?"

"I had brain fever as a child," Tom told her, not compiling with her wish for immediate release, even as she threatened him and writhed and yanked in vain attempts to pull herself loose from his grasp. "D'you know Edmund insisted on travelling from Eton to Northamptonshire with me? That he stayed in my sickroom every day until midnight when our father had the servants pry him away from my side? And he was, then, just a boy himself – he is a year my junior. Mr. Crawford – I daresay – is in the top class of gentlemen, and he runs one bloody brilliant inn, but he is not, and never will be, better than my brother.

"My brother will be a wonderful parson someday, and Mr. Crawford may be the greatest of gentlemen, especially in your unforgiving eyes, but he could never equal having one's own personal priest. Are we quite clear?" His fingers began to loosen, then re-tightened themselves as he added, "And if you dare tell Edmund I told you this, give him the merest hint of my brotherly esteem..." He trailed off, losing steam; he had been running on bluster and warmth of feeling and now he was cooling down and thinking himself more than a little silly. "Well, I... I shall do something I haven't yet decided upon, but I promise you, Susan Price, you shan't like it."

And what was Edmund and Fanny's concurrent conversation like?

Something like this:

Fanny, dropping his gaze, "If you only told me, Edmund, you found William's cross – and still needed my help to secure Miss Crawford – I would have waited to return home and gone to Wall with you, voluntarily."

Poor Fanny – she meant this with all her heart, despite – at the same moment – also, paradoxically, holding the bitter opinion of being uncertain whether actually meeting Miss Crawford – having to stand before the sister of the odd Faerie gentleman she was uncertain of, and worse the would-be, but plainly unworthy, lover of her own beloved Edmund Bertram – was not the very worst thing she could think of.

To be murdered, even, mightn't be as great a trial as shaking the hand of that person.

But Edmund did not suspect her of thinking thusly; her goodness could leave no room in his remorseful soul for such a dramatic supposition. Moreover, he was deceived, at least a little, in his general estimate of just how much Fanny could have grown to love him in so short a time. Much more was he deceived in the nature of such a love. Although, to be sure, he might have had more sense, if he were not so blinded by his own desires, and thought – and realised, subsequently, he had fallen in love – into what he firmly believed to be a real, passionate, unbreakable kind of love – with Mary Crawford in a glance and pined after her for years, without even knowing her name; it was more than plausible for a pretty young woman – a lonely star – to have talked with him, hereafter have known something of him, found him the most agreeable man she'd ever heard of, and therefore harbour unrequited love on so short an acquaintance.

"Truly? Oh, dearest!" Edmund was utterly ashamed. "I did intend, I'll swear to it on anything you wish, to return it to you after – even as I was so hoping you would not use it and go away even then. That does not make it right, not upon any account, I know, but think of me, Fanny! I was desperate and was not yet fully acquainted – as I would be in a mere few hours – with your purer, your vastly superior good nature to my own." But this did not excuse his, once he had come to know her a little better, keeping the secret – never revealing the amber cross was in his possession.

He admitted to this, however, and she was forgiving. The returned glow Susan had witnessed occurred about here.

"I wish" – she met his eyes again, her renewed glimmer dimming slightly but still prevalent, and sighed – "I wish you had said something all the same. I wasn't able to tell you... I was not given to know there would be reason to tell you..."

"Tell me what?"

"The cross does not have endless power." She explained how, like the Babylon candle, there were only so many uses in it before it ceased to be magical any longer. In the end, once it was used up, it would be only a pretty ornament strung upon a broken length of ribbon, a keepsake from her brother – completely worthless except to herself and, perhaps, on a baser level, to anyone who valued the thin gold casing around the amber, which was real enough.

He had the decency to blanch. His lips parted, and he gawked apologetically. "Oh, dear, I never considered this – and Tom and I used it to reach you so... Good heavens, what a fool I have been!"

She nodded. "That is why the amber shines less now. When the glow is all gone, it will no longer work." Further, his using it to transport two people, both grown men, when its created purpose was to transport a star and a light companion in an emergency, had taken rather a severe drain on it. "There is enough," she felt the need to assure him, for he'd gone so sombre she couldn't bear his suffering, his guilt, "for Susan and myself to return to the sky yet, enough to make two trips there and back, even." With her fingertips gently spread out, she touched his arm. "Do not upset yourself too greatly."

His mouth twisted pensively. He shifted in his seat on the grass. "Bother." Gnawing on his lower lip, he mused, "I will have to let Tom know – he's one for playing with gadgets and things. And he has your cross in his pocket now. If he believes it has infinite uses, that it transports one endlessly without limitation, he may well use it to pop himself in and out of various rooms of this inn, simply as – to himself – a cheerful diversion."

And Mr. Crawford and his uncle?

Something like this:

The Admiral, glancing at Edmund and Fanny, observed her shine – then he looked at Susan, who if she shone at all it was an angry aura which only intensified whenever Tom addressed her or even looked at her for too long at a stretch – and he said to his nephew, "Yes, I see what you mean – it must be that one."

"There is a matter, regarding her," Henry whispered, "which troubles me, uncle."

"And what is that?"

"I cannot discern her character. I was never so long in company – so attentive – to any female creature in my whole life with so ill a result." Certainly, she had not shone as she did now when he was speaking to her. Indeed, he could hardly get her to speak to him at all. "Her looks say, 'I will not like you, I am determined not to like you.' Yet, for the short time she is with us, I say she shall."

The Admiral, for all he loved Henry, could not see the point in this discourse. Fanny's liking Henry – though he couldn't, either, comprehend why a woman, any woman, would not – was neither here nor there; it wouldn't have mattered in the least if their plan of putting her into a sedative state with the herbs mixed into her food had been a success (Mr. Rushworth would sleep soundly tonight, after his second meal, but that could be no use to them personally). Not that she wasn't already quite subdued; she struck Admiral Crawford as being – at least physically – indolent enough, and her leg was bad. The main objective of drugging her would have been to keep her heart from being frightened and spoiling – becoming small and hard – when they cut it out of her chest. The Crawford men knew a great deal more about stars than Edmund or Tom, to be sure, but they had – somehow, perhaps because fallen stars were so seldom in Faerie and they'd had such an easy time of it with the last one – never learned stars did not eat.

"I only want her to look kindly on me before the end," Henry explained. "I wish her to give me smiles as well as blushes – and I should like nothing better than to be sure those blushes were affectionate rather than prudish shame on my behalf – and to keep a chair for me in the common room before we retire for the evening and our task must be done. Oh, that her last thought – rather than one of misery and fear – could be of me, that she should think life without me was unhappy as opposed to knowing her own life must end... That should be all the felicity I ever desire."

"Well, I have my great crystal cleaver for the pretty little rib bones – you must keep that ruby dagger of yours at the ready."

With an involuntary sag of his shoulders, Henry nodded. Then he glanced over his shoulder – his sleeve was soaking wet! His man's hands had shaken and spilled – what was luckily only – water on him.

"Maddison," he snapped, perhaps more irritable at having to kill Fanny before he could puzzle her out and have his proper fun than strictly at his man's mishap – Maddison, after all, had made much stupider mistakes before. "Whatever has gotten into you?"

"Apologies. My arms are sometimes numb for hours after they've changed from wings, sir," he said quietly. "T'was peens and neddles, Master Crawford, and I was being uncertain of their exact proximity to you."

But his eyes looked to Fanny – saw the same shining scene as the Admiral – and filled with tears. He wished he could be a falcon then – they do not cry exactly the same as humans, and it is easier to hide your emotions when you are a bird and everyone else around you is not one.

After falling asleep in his room, Edmund found himself having the most remarkable lucid dream of his entire life.

The walls faded away and the bed became a pile of velvety green leaves covered in hard cold dew which felt so real he shivered (despite knowing perfectly well, and never doubting, there was a roaring fire in the grate only a few feet away, really). The ceiling painted with hard-faced, large-eyed knights in grey armour seated on black horses with long lances pointed out, ready for a joust, vanished; overhead were, instead, sheets of stars in a black sky all looking down attentively upon the earth.

The brightest of these seemed to fly down – sort of materializing – so that he stood in front of Edmund, and he was so awestruck by the tall, translucent blonde man before him he would have taken him for an angel – a sign or portent relating to his plans for ordination, perhaps – rather than another landed star, if he did not have a face so very like Fanny's and Susan's.

"Edmund! Edmund!"

He blinked stupidly. "Yes?"

"You mustn't sleep now; you have to help her!" The star's face flushed in distress and became almost solid in appearance for a second. "She's in danger."

"W-who?" His head felt like it was full of sloshing wet sand. "I don't understand – what's happened?"

"My sister – Fanny – she's in danger."

"You're William," he realised. He wondered, briefly, if he was upset about his keeping the amber cross. "You and Fanny possess the same nose in profile."

"Yes." His voice seemed to have a far-away echo to it.

"But you're deeply mistaken – Fanny is in no danger." Edmund smiled reassuringly. "She's asleep in the next room." In his mind, despite the fact he should have known better, he imagined her resting as soundly as Mr. Rushworth had been when they'd found him slumped in his chair after returning to the common room. He looked, puzzled, about the glade in which he seemed to be standing. "Well, that is, it's a room when I'm awake."

"Stars never sleep at night – she is not asleep – and she's not safe, either. She can never be safe here – no star is." William appeared to try to grab Edmund's arm and shake him, not cruelly but with intent to get his attention more fixedly, except his hand went right through him. He was not really here, of course. His growing agitation was apparent. "The Crawfords will kill her – they want her heart for its magical properties; it can restore the Admiral's dwindling youth for years to come under the right circumstances."

No, Edmund was adamant no one with the last name Crawford – not one of his beloved Crawfords, a name as dear to him as his own – would harm a hair on Fanny's head.

"This isn't the first time!" cried William, his clear eyes flashing silvery blue. "Susan and Fanny are not my only sisters in the Price constellation." He checked himself. "They weren't always, I mean."

"But what are you saying? I don't understand."

"I had another sister – Mary – she fell as Fanny and Susan did, only her fall was years ago." He was shaking with emotion, his body flashing in and out of view in the false glen. "The Crawfords tricked her; they said they would help her find her way back home, then they killed her. The Admiral ate her heart and his nephew – the brother of the woman you love – helped him. He has tasted her heart as well; he finished it only recently. This is a trap!"

Edmund was promptly sick; he was not particularly surprised, either, when – after the dream faded at last and the room was a room again – there was a very real pile of chunky bile upon the floor, in the same place as it was in the outdoor glade of his dream, and he nearly slipped in it in his hurry to get to Fanny's rescue. The burn in his mouth, the taste of sick, was too real – beyond even the false sensation of shivering when there was no cold – to have been only imagined.

"Please," rasped William, and his arms were placed as if they were trying to grasp Edmund's and squeeze. "You need to save her – don't let them murder another one of my sisters – take her and Susan away from this evil place! By any means necessary. Now, go – run."

The violent scene which greeted Edmund when he had thrust himself against the – unexpectedly locked – door to Fanny's room and forced his way inside, was something from the ugliest of nightmares, the manner of thing so dreadful a person's mind makes haste to soften it upon waking for their own sanity.

Fanny was pressed with her back against the wall, the – rather flimsy – front of her nightgown torn jaggedly from the collar all the way to her waist and while it was obvious she was trying to scream, to cry out, Henry Crawford's hand over her mouth was preventing this.

If William had not told him what was going on – if he had not understood her heart was their objective – Edmund might have thought...almost...this was a very different kind of attack.

The mere look of it was far, far beyond all sense of human decency.

"Keep her calm," hissed the Admiral, drawing his crystal cleaver. It made a sound like a wineglass when a wet fingertip is applied to the rim as it dragged along the surface of the end-table. "Your only task here is to prevent her from spoiling herself."

"I'm trying," Henry insisted, over his shoulder, his glance so quick he did not see Edmund – momentarily frozen with horror and disgust – in the doorway. (Somehow, caught up and tense as they were, they had either not heard the bang as the door broke open, or else they had mistaken it for a thunderclap, as Henry had deliberately used his wind magic to call up a loud thunderstorm outside so that if she did manage to shout, it would be harder for anyone to hear.) "Shh," he said to Fanny. "Relax. Look at me. Look into my eyes – it shall be over soon, and I promise you it will not hurt. It's all right." But she wouldn't relax, nor would she stop trying to twist her face away and get her mouth free of his clamped hand.

"Move your arm," was the Admiral's next demand to his nephew. "I need a clean go at her chest. Even the heart of a badly frightened star – though nothing to one shining and golden – is better than none at all."

"Ouch!" Henry's hand was drawn back, involuntarily, because Fanny had succeeded – after many failed attempts – in biting him; it was barely a nip, certainly it did not break the skin, but it surprised him into letting go for a moment.

Too weakened to scream now she could, barely able to breathe, Fanny sobbed and cried, her eyes flitting to the Admiral, "Please – please don't do this."

It was the please – the gentleness and pitifulness of it – which shot Edmund back into his senses; he lunged for the Admiral with almost no thought to the great sparkling cleaver in his hand.

Truly, even if Admiral Crawford had stabbed him, he would likely not have cared a wit then, if only he could have been certain of saving Fanny from this monstrous attack at the same moment as being cut.

"Edmund!" croaked Fanny, and – poor thing, such dreadful timing – she began to shine, to fairly twinkle with relief.

The resulting fight – beyond uneven – would have been over in a few moments, and Edmund would have been either killed or – for Mary Crawford's sake, since Henry hadn't forgotten about that – subdued, if not for three factors in his favour.

Firstly, Maddison had been waiting for his chance to – if not stop this – get away; he did not wish to see Fanny die. And when he realised Edmund meant to rescue her and had not been immediately halted in his attempt by Henry's magic – strained as it was with keeping the storm outside going – he lost his head, threw all caution to the wind, and proceed to help Mr. Bertram. He placed himself between Henry and Fanny, even dared to take the side of what had been a brittle decorative bedpost before he snapped it clean off, and swipe at the Admiral's shins with it.

Second, the pain from the unexpected blow to the shins coupled with his surprise at Fanny's increased glow after how dismally dim she'd become in her fear distracted the Admiral (who gazed at her restored brilliance greedily) enough he did not slice Edmund's arm off with the crystal cleaver or succeed in stabbing him in the side.

He missed.

Third, and best of all, Tom and Susan – drawn by the noise – came running into the room and – with much scrambling – and crying and ducking and rolling and confusion – the four of them managed to huddle together under a lowered, vaulted part of the ceiling.

"Fanny," wailed Susan, reaching over Tom to try and take her sister's shaking hand.

She tried to say she was all right, though it was not actually true. Her lips trembled, however, preventing her from getting the well-meant lie past them.

It seemed, to all present, that they were quite trapped, except for one small thing...

Susan was in a dressing-gown, but Tom was still dressed for the day – he had been sitting up by his fire, inexplicably (although, perhaps some ill-boding air had come down the chimney flue to his corner room and prevented his getting comfortable) chilled, with his greatcoat – and even boots – still on, when he heard the commotion, even above the noise of the thunderstorm outside.

And, because of this, he had Fanny's amber cross on his person.

"Cling to me tightly, stand as straight as you can under the beams, and think of home!" shouted Tom, as well as he could above the roar and confusion.

In the split second before they vanished – before they could think themselves safe – the Admiral seemed to realise what was happening, to be aware there was no preventing it and his prize was lost, and – without the smallest hesitance – took out his rage on Maddison, by whirling with the crystal cleaver and taking off his head.

Susan shrieked and – despite herself – buried her face in Tom's chest, her blue eyes clinched shut.

Fanny ought to have looked away, and indeed – before she and the others were gone – she went dramatically pale in a manner even her own life being in danger had not inspired, but her eyes locked – full of sad reproach – with Henry Crawford's.

Maddison was his man, his responsibility, certainly it was he who had enchanted him as well, and he had let him die – he had let his uncle kill him.

And for nothing worse than trying to save a defenceless woman who had befriended him, liked him very much, in his other form!

For shame!

He was startled by the hardness, the queer severity, of her expression – the sudden lack of fear and increase in abject revolution.

Even as his uncle ranted and raved, loosing volleys of choice oaths that would make most gentle-bred ears burn, gesturing angrily in the direction of the vanished stars and Bertram brothers, even as a spreading pool of Maddison's sticky crimson blood seeped across the hardwood floor, all Henry could make himself do was gawk uselessly at the place she'd stood and exclaim, again and again, "Why did she look at me so? Did you see how she looked at me?"

A/N: Reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.