AW-KITTY AND THE COUNT 09-07-23 CH 2

Kitty slept fitfully that night, thinking of the count, his unexpected arrival and even more unexpected proposal. She half expected to see him arrive early the next morning but then remembered she never saw him before twilight.

Count Castelfiore arrived in the early evening, just as the sun sunk low in the sky. He cantered up the long drive on a black horse, looking every inch the horseman. Kitty who had been watching for him from her bedroom, saw him look up directly at her room. She stepped back.

In the salon, he made polite conversation with Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam for some time before asking if Kitty would like to take a turn in the gardens to view the twilight. Kitty was conscious of her sister and brother-in law's curious gazes following them as they left the room.

The count led her far away from the mansion, down the winding paths into the green leaves of the shrubbery.

'I hope here we are private, and no one will listen to our conversation,' he said.

'You said last night you wanted to marry me.'

'That is correct.' He smiled down at her. 'I adore you and want you for my own. I am very much hoping that you are pleased by this. Are you?'

'You haven't actually asked me to marry you.'

'The count made an impatient gesture. 'Will you marry me?'

In Italy, Kitty had daydreamed about such a moment but now that it had come, she hesitated.

'I don't know what you are.'

'I am the Count Castelfiore.'

'But what are you? You bit my wrist in Florence. Your eyes turned amber.' Her scar throbbed again.

'I am your saviour.'

'What do you mean?'

'I am here to save you. To stop you from dying.'

'What? But the doctors say that my health is much improved by my sojourn in Italy,' Kitty told him.

The count smiled but his dark eyes were soft and sad.

'Do you believe them?' he asked.

'Why should I not?' Kitty hunched her shoulders. She didn't wish to listen to people who doubted this good news.

The count caught her hand. His hand was cool, cooler than it should have been. 'Because Cara, it gives me no pleasure to tell you this but the improvement in your health is only temporary. Soon, the fever, the cough, the night sweats—.'

Kitty pulled away from him, appalled at his mention of such intimate matters. And how could he know of such things?

'Stop!'

He did not. 'The loss of appetite. It seems to me, Cara, that you are as belissima as ever, but you are thinner than you were before. Do you tire easily?'

'Not as much as before.'

'Cara Kitty, you have the disease that is called consumption in your language, and it will kill you within a year or so. You have had a reprieve, but it is only temporary. You will not make - how do you say in your language - old bones.'

'I don't believe you.' Kitty flung herself away from him.

The count strolled after her. 'You must. Because only I can save you.'

'Have you some miraculous cure?'

'Cure? No.' The count shook his head. 'But I can save you from death.'

'How?'

'I would turn you into a vampire.'

Kitty frowned in puzzlement. 'What's a vampire?'

He explained. 'A vampire is special, my love. He or she is immortal and does not need food or drink to survive.'

'How is that possible?' Kitty asked.

The count looked her straight in the eyes. 'A vampire survives by drinking a precious essence. The most precious essence of all.'

Kitty's thoughts flew back to the night in Milan and realisation dawned. He meant blood. Appalled, she cried out and ran away from him, out of the gardens, into the house and then up the long stairs to her bedroom. She didn't care what Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam thought about her abandoning a guest so abruptly.

Not long after, Elizabeth came to see her.

'The count told us you're feeling unwell. We were worried when you left him so precipitously. Shall I send for Doctor Scudamore?'

'I'm feeling a little better now, but I don't think I'll come down for dinner.'

'Very well.' But Elizabeth lingered to say, 'You do know that if you are worried about anything, you can tell me, Kitty. Do you wish Fitzwilliam to tell Count Castelfiore to stop calling?'

Kitty shook her head. But after Elizabeth left she wondered if she had done the right thing. But how could she tell Elizabeth that the count was a vampire?

Sometime later there was a knock on the door and a maid appeared with a little cold collation to tempt her appetite.

'The missus thought you might be hungry later on,' she explained.

Kitty was touched by Elizabeth's thoughtfulness.

That night, Kitty coughed violently into her handkerchief. Then she took a glass of water from the cabinet beside her bed and drank deeply before setting it back down again. The handkerchief had fluttered to the floor. Kitty picked it up. The white cloth had a red stain on it that had not been there before she coughed. Kitty stared at it. Blood. She had coughed up blood. At that moment, she knew beyond any doubt that the encouraging prognostications of the doctors were false. The count was correct. She had consumption and she would not make old bones. Kitty dropped the handkerchief and gazed into space, unseeing.

She would not make old bones unless she did as the count suggested. Unless she allowed him to drink all of her blood and she drank some of his and thus, become a vampire. Kitty shuddered. She didn't want to become a vampire, but she also didn't want to die so early without ever having been truly loved by a man. The count said he loved her, and she was in love with him. Kitty wrestled with the dilemma for hours.

Another fit of coughing wracked her frame. She grabbed the handkerchief. When the coughing at last subsided, there was another red stain.

When the count arrived in the late afternoon the next day, he took one look at Kitty's face and asked her if she wished to stroll around the gardens.

Elizabeth said, 'Don't go too far, Kitty. Keep where we can see you. We will be having tea soon. Otherwise, I'll have to send a servant to fetch you.' She smiled but it was a warning.

The count ignored Elizabeth's instructions. As soon as they were alone, he seized her hand and brought her to a stop. 'What is wrong, Cara?'

Kitty choked. 'I have realised I will not get better. You were right. I am going to die.'

'No, you will not die because I will not permit it. You will marry me; we will go to Italy, I will turn you and you will be immortal.'

Kitty bit her lip. 'But will Ilose my immortal soul?'

He shrugged. 'I don't know. I believe I still possess mine. I cannot believe that someone as pure as you would lose her soul.'

'Will it hurt?' Kitty whispered.

'Only for a moment,' he assured her. 'Do you love me?' he asked, looking into her eyes.

Kitty gazed back at his dark eyes. 'Yes,'

'Do you trust me?'

'Yes,' Kitty said without hesitation.

'Do you want to marry me and live forever?' He took her hands. 'The choice is yours to make.'

'Yes,' Kitty said again.

The count's face brightened. 'You have made me the happiest man in the world. I must go to your father and ask for his permission.'

He kissed her hands and left.

Mr Bennet was surprised by the count's request but granted permission. Mrs Bennet was elated even if it was foreign nobility.

A few days later, the count and Kitty discussed the implications of her becoming a vampire.

'You will never see your family again,' the count told her. 'I want to turn you as soon as we return to Italy.'

'Never see them again?' Kitty was dismayed.

'That is the price you must pay,' the count told her gently. 'And it would probably then be best to avoid England for some time, say ninety years or more.'

'But all my family would be dead by then.'

'Yes,' the count admitted. 'That would be the point.'

Kitty's eyes filled with tears. The count stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms.

'Don't cry, belissima, you will have a wonderful life I promise. Full of joy and beauty and laughter and love.'

Kitty put her head against his shoulder and sobbed. He patted him on the back and his cool lips touched her cheek.

'And Cara, I must insist that you start to call me "Riccardo", you should not address your future husband as Count.'

Jane and Charles and their brood came to visit not long after Kitty's engagement was announced.

The morning after their arrival, she invited Kitty to stroll around the garden. Jane held her youngest in her arms as they strolled. Kitty gazed down at the sleeping baby's face, sad that she would never know the joy of motherhood. The birds chirped in the bushes.

Jane began, 'Kitty, please do not take this amiss but I must ask you this. Are you completely sure you want to marry the count?'

Kitty looked at her in astonishment. 'Why would you say that?'

Jane hesitated. 'Forgive me but the count troubles me. I sense something dark about him. When we were in Florence..' She paused then went on, 'One night as we were leaving I believe I saw his eyes glowing amber.'

Kitty froze for a second then laughed shakily. 'Jane, that must have been a trick of the light. People's eyes cannot glow amber. It is impossible. I trust you haven't said anything to anyone else.'

Kitty felt instinctively that the count must not find out about Jane's suspicions.

'No,' said Jane. 'I wanted to talk to you first.'

Kitty sagged slightly with relief then rallied herself.

'Trust me I have never seen the count's eyes glowing.'

She hoped that was the end of the conversation, but Jane carried on. 'Nevertheless, you are going away with him to a foreign country, far from your friends and family who would be able to offer you help and support if there were any problems.'

She stopped and looked her sister in the eyes. 'You will be on your own, Kitty.'

'I know,' Kitty said, 'but I have complete confidence in the count. He loves me and I love him. We will be very happy together.'

'That's good to hear,' Jane said but she still looked troubled.

Her daughter woke up at this point and began to wail. Jane bent her head over the baby and began to rock her. In comforting her, the conversation was abandoned.

The wedding was held at the Bennets' parish church. Count Castelfiore had raised no objection to the wedding being performed according to the rites of the Church of England. This was thought most obliging of him. Only Kitty knew that it was a matter of complete indifference to the count.

'When you have lived as long as I have,' he told her, 'you are not fond of priests and churches. Especially, when they call you demon spawn. But if it means that we marry sooner, and I can take you away faster to your destiny then so be it.' He shrugged his expressive shoulders.

Kitty hesitated. 'It will not harm you to be in church?' she asked.

The count threw back his head and laughed. 'No, to be inside a church will not hurt me. A cross or holy water is a little unpleasant, but I understand that is not part of the Protestant wedding ceremony.'

All of Kitty's family attended apart from Lydia and her husband, George Wickham. Kitty was a little sad she would not see her younger sister and have a chance to bid her farewell before her departure for Italy. However, she knew that Lydia and George, would not have been welcome by the majority of her family. Kitty didn't wish for an embarrassing scene to mar this happy day.

The ceremony was soon over. Kitty thought she would never forget the scent of the flowers massed by the altar, nor the blues and greens that the stained-glass windows cast over their faces while they made their vows. Nor Riccardo's face lighting up as she came down the aisle. Nor the smiling faces of three of her sisters and their husbands, her parents, and their neighbours, as they made their way back through the pews to the church door. Then it was back to Pemberley for a wedding breakfast before they left for the long journey to Dover.

As they climbed into the coach, the last thing Kitty heard was her mother crowing triumphantly, 'And now I have all five daughters married!'