pride And prejudice And zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls

chapter 12

EACH NIGHT, as had long been their custom, Jane and Elizabeth ended the day before the mirror in Jane's room, talking and brushing each other's hair. The only difference after nearly a week of training in the deadly arts was that now they were dressing each other's wounds, as well.

That morning, their instruction under Master Hawksworth had reached a new stage. The girls weren't merely practicing anymore. They were fighting—not just each other, but their father, too. Which meant they'd done a lot of losing, and losing a sparring match with a mace or a practice sword or even bare hands is bruising work.

Elizabeth winced as Jane ran the comb over a spot where her father had rapped her with his bo staff. "A little tap," he'd called it at the time, "to remind you to keep your guard up." When she'd wobbled and feigned light-headedness, luring Mr. Bennet in for a (missed) lunge, she didn't just get the usual "Not bad" from the Master, who watched the matches, arms crossed, in a corner. She actually saw a hint of satisfaction crack the granite hardness of the young man's face.

"Ow!"

Jane's comb had caught on the dressings wrapped round her head.

"I'm sorry, Lizzy. Why don't we stop?" Jane moaned, settling onto her bed. "I feel as though my arms are about to fall off, anyhow."

"It's all right. It hardly matters if I have a tangle or two, does it? It's not as though Mrs. Goswick will be dropping by." Elizabeth smiled at her sister in the mirror. "Though I almost wish she would. I might not be able to beat you or Father, but I'd love the chance to spar with her. She'd come out of it with more than one 'little tap' to bandage, I'd wager."

"Lizzy, you must learn to be more forgiving," Jane said gravely. Yet she seemed to savor the image, and a moment later she returned her sister's smile—to Elizabeth's relief.

Master Hawksworth's resistance to the ball had been a disappointment, but it lacked the sting of a slight. So Mrs. Goswick's un vitation (as Elizabeth had dubbed it) had hurt Jane far more deeply. It had been four days since they'd received the lady's letter, and with each Elizabeth had tried a new tack with her brooding, wounded sister.

The first: enfolding arms and soft, soothing words.

The second: bitter recriminations and seething.

The third: refusing to speak of it.

The fourth: laughing about it.

This last had proved by far the most effective. She might have tried it first, only it had taken her all those days to be able to laugh again. She'd been in no hurry to marry, despite her mother's shoves toward the altar, yet to know that now a respectable marriage was forever denied her—that she and her sisters were, thanks to their father, outcasts—seemed to dry up every smile inside her. She'd been shocked to awaken that morning ready to make light of it all.

"It's not true, though," Jane said, and her smile turned sly in a way that was rare for her. "That it doesn't matter what you look like anymore, I mean. Someone notices."

"Et tu, Jane?" Elizabeth gasped in mock exasperation. "For Lydia and Kitty to indulge in such fantasies hardly surprises me: They need some outlet now that they have no coming-out balls or suitors to look forward to. But you—?"

Jane shook her head. "It is no fantasy. Master Hawksworth looks at you in a way he doesn't look at the rest of us."

"If he does, it is merely because he thinks me a promising student."

"I agree." Jane cocked a delicate eyebrow. "But promising what, I think, would be a fair question."

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Elizabeth laughed. "Salaciousness doesn't suit you."