Chapter 21

Darcy paced the tasteful Persian rug that covered the floor of his private study, his blue eyes flickering towards the walls paneled with dark cherry and maple; his feet automatically carrying him around the stylish wing chairs that dotted the area in front of his dark oak desk. Mr. Bennet watched him pace, his green eyes- so like Elizabeth's- watching him intently.

"Are you going to answer my question, Mr. Darcy?" he asked a trace of amusement hidden in his tone.

Darcy stopped pacing abruptly, a small sigh breaking through his lips.

"I am afraid that you will have to be patient with me, Mr. Bennet," he said resignedly. "The question that you have posed to me brings up many… difficult memories."

"I understand this, Mr. Darcy. However, I am afraid that I cannot be too patient with you today as the lives of my daughters may depend on it."

Darcy looked at Bennet sharply, his eyes hardening.

"I thought that you had said that your daughters were fine, Mr. Bennet," he said tightly.

"For the moment, yes," Bennet sighed. "Although I cannot be sure how long that will last. As you are no doubt aware, my three eldest daughters have been caring for Mr. Bingley ever since his transformation a few months ago. Now, this is just a guess on my part, but I am quite sure that Mr. Wickham had something to do with this?"

Darcy nodded his expression stormy.

"And is it also correct that you came across this same vampire while he was in the company of Lydia, Kitty, and Elizabeth?"

Darcy nodded again, his eyes suddenly downcast.

"And yet you did not kill him?"

"Understand that I wanted to, Mr. Bennet," Darcy replied curtly. "For many years, it has been my dearest wish to see him die. However, due to… unavoidable circumstances, I have been unable to do so for as many years."

"And why is that, Mr. Darcy?" Bennet asked easily. He leaned over Darcy's desk, his fingers lacing together delicately. Ridiculously, Darcy felt like he was in a psychiatrist's office.

"Mr. Bennet, please understand that when I first met Mr. Wickham, he killed my father by turning my uncle into a vampire," Darcy said wearily. "Wickham also turned my mother two years ago shortly after Georgiana's birth, although I was unaware of vampires at that time of my life. When my uncle- or, the creature that my uncle had become, killed my father, he did so in front of me. The sight of my father's corpse enraged me, and I killed my uncle on the spot with one of my father's stakes. I was fifteen years old." Darcy paused, momentarily overcome by the memories. Bennet waited, his eyes softening slightly as he listened to Darcy's story.

"Wickham himself came later that night," Darcy continued heavily. "He had planned on hearing from my uncle if he succeeded, and when he did not return he assumed that my father had killed her as he had killed my mother. When he arrived in my father's study, he saw me crouched on the ground over my uncle's body, a bloody stake still clutched in my hand."

As he spoke the words, Darcy saw the images again as they flashed through his brain.

"Who are you?" the teenage Darcy asked Wickham warily, his blue eyes still rimmed with red from the tears he had shed.

Wickham cocked his head, staring intently at the boy before him. His eyes crinkled slightly as he smiled, revealing perfect teeth that sharpened into deadly points at the ends.

Darcy gasped and lunged at the vampire, the stake pointed out in front of him.

"Wickham defeated me easily when I tried to kill him," Darcy whispered. "He took away my weapon and bound me with the cord from the curtains in the study. Then he went to get Georgiana."

Bennet felt his breath catch as he remembered the golden-haired girl from before, the one who had seemed so concerned about the Bennet sisters. Darcy looked up at Bennet, his eyes pleading.

"She was only three," he croaked. "She was barely a child. Wickham offered me a deal: my life, for Georgiana's. She seemed so scared… she didn't even realize what had happened yet. I agreed.

"Wickham released me and bound Georgiana in my stead. He started to drink from me. I waited until he had taken enough of my blood to make me dizzy before I broke away. Vampires, especially Wickham, get very vulnerable when they are drinking blood, especially when they drink a lot. I managed to grab my stake and drive it into his shoulder before he could recover enough to escape. He left my house then and I took Georgiana away from there as quickly as I could. We lived with my cousin James, whose father had also been turned, until I was eighteen and old enough to legally inherit Pemberley from my father. All three of us have been training to defeat vampires since the death of my parents."

Darcy looked up at Bennet, finally meeting the man's eyes.

"I never told them about what Wickham did to me," he admitted softly. "I didn't want to burden them with my troubles."

"Troubles?" Bennet repeated sharply. "Surely he didn't turn you?"

"I wasn't as experienced as your daughters are at reversing the effects of vampire bites, Mr. Bennet," Darcy sighed. "I managed to halt the effects before they changed me into a vampire, although I avoided Georgiana and James for a week to make sure that I wouldn't go after their blood, and it was nearly a month before I could walk out into the sunlight again without experiencing discomfort.

"However, there were some effects that lasted longer, effects that I still have to live with. I cannot kill a vampire without feeling their pain; if I stake them, I feel their agony as the wood rips through them. I can bear with the pain in most circumstances, but with Wickham it is different. Because my bond to him was created through a physical exchange of blood, our connection would make the pain that I experience when I kill vampires unbearable, perhaps enough to kill me. Wickham is aware of the connection, and has been since my first attempt at killing him eight years ago. I was more successful in my attempts to kill him then, the stake nearly reached his heart when I drove it through his chest. However, the pain that I experienced nearly killed me along with him and allowed Wickham to escape once more. I was unconscious for nearly a fortnight before Georgiana and James were able to revive me.

"I have tried to maneuver things so that James could kill him (Georgiana has never killed before, and I don't intend to have her start now), but he was too inexperienced to even come close to Wickham before he disappeared. Later, when Wickham tried to change Georgiana last summer, James had another chance to kill him but failed. The next time I saw him was in the company of Miss Elizabeth and her sisters."

Bennet was silent for a long while after Darcy had finished, his eyes focusing on something far away. The silence stretched on as the two men struggled through images that neither of them wanted to have in their heads. Darcy broke the silence first.

"Mr. Bennet," he said finally, his voice still hoarse from his tale. "May I ask now why you came here to ask me these things?"

Bennet looked up, his green eyes abruptly sad.

"Mr. Darcy, I am sure that you remember my saying that I am not sure how long my daughters will remain safe. My daughter Elizabeth has been travelling across Hertfordshire since your departure, and I assume that she is doing this to search for Wickham and destroy him. My Lizzie never has been one to let a vampire go without attempting to kill it and I think that now, in the aftermath of Bingley's ball, she feels that it is her responsibility to destroy him. In asking you to repeat your history, I have been trying to find a weakness of Wickham's that would allow my daughters to kill him, yet I cannot find one. It makes me worry for Lizzie, and Jane and Mary too if she fails. Lizzie's sisters are not the type of people to let the murderer of their sister go."

Darcy's face paled and his eyes widened with fear.

"Mr. Bennet, you cannot allow your daughters to go after Wickham. He is too powerful for all three of them combined, much less Elizabeth by herself."

"I am fully aware of what the consequences could be, Mr. Darcy," Bennet said coolly. "I am also aware of your feelings for my daughter, however well you try to hide them."

Darcy's mouth fell open. He closed his lips once, than opened them again. No sound escaped his suddenly blocked throat. Bennet smirked slightly.

"I though so," he murmured. "I was wondering, Mr. Darcy, if you were intending on acting on these feelings?"

Darcy shook his head mutely, his eyes closing briefly as if he felt faint.

"I can't," he whispered. "If we were- My life is too dangerous to be shared with any woman. Miss Elizabeth deserves a normal life, one that is filled with peace and devoid of the dangers of vampires. I couldn't take that from her."

"You know as well as I do that my Lizzie will never have a normal, peaceful life, no matter how much you fight your feelings for her," Bennet retorted curtly. "If you think that treating her like any other woman would want to be treated, you do not know my daughter as much as I thought you did, and are therefore unfit to even think of marrying her."

Darcy gaped at Bennet once again. Marry? Elizabeth? He hadn't even thought of- had he?

"Mr. Darcy," Bennet sighed. "I really must go back to my home, whether you come with me or not, so I am afraid I only have time to say one last thing."

"And what is that, Mr. Bennet?" Darcy asked warily.

"I can only tell you this, Mr. Darcy: If you come with me and help my girls, you may die, or you may not. However, if you do not help them, I can assure you that my Jane, Mary, and Elizabeth will all die; and I will not be far behind them if they do."

The hired carriage lurched down the path away from Pemberley, its covered windows flashing in the light of the setting sun. The rust-red paint glistened like new against the shiny green leaves of the trees of Derbyshire. A single white dove flew over the carriage, as if to say farewell to the man travelling within. Mr. Bennet glanced out of the window to look at the ever shrinking figure of Mr. Darcy and his sister as they watched him leave from the steps of Pemberley and sighed.

"I really do wish I could have seen his library," he said regretfully. "I'm sure it would have been great."

A mile or so behind him, Darcy turned away from Bennet's retreating carriage and strode briskly into the mansion house.

"Fitzwilliam?"

Darcy turned at the sound of his sister's voice, his expression almost guilty. Georgiana cocked her head, her expression troubled.

"Fitzwilliam, are you really going to let Miss Elizabeth die?" she asked in a small voice.

Darcy couldn't help but smile slightly.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you were listening," he sighed.

"You should have told me about what happened with you and Wickham," was all she said in reply. There was a pause. "Well?" she prompted. "Are you really going to let them die?"

Darcy turned away and called into the nearly deserted entry hall.

"Mr. Woods."

"Yes, sir?" a young man dressed smartly in the Darcy livery walked quickly into the hall.

"Please have my horse ready for me as soon as possible," Darcy said shortly.

Georgiana grinned, her eyes shining with pride for her brother.

"You're going to have to tell James, you know," she reminded him good-naturedly. "He's been impatient to get back to Miss Mary ever since we left."

Darcy nodded formally and called another set of orders towards Woods as he left the hall. Once the servant was gone, he pulled his sister into a short hug and kissed her lightly on the forehead.

"I shall tell you once we arrive in Hertfordshire," he promised.

"Fitzwilliam?" Georgiana whispered, sounding suddenly very young. "Promise me that you will come back."

Darcy looked down at his younger sister, his eyes serious.

"I will not leave you alone, Georgiana," he promised.

"That's not the same thing," she murmured as he ran off towards the stable.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. All of the credit goes to the amazing Jane Austen. Thanks to all of the people who reviewed!