pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 3

CHAPTER 3

Lady Catherine de Bourgh didn't bother sending a reply to Elizabeth's letter. She simply sent herself.

Just three days after Elizabeth's note was dispatched—barely enough time for it to have reached her ladyship's estate in Kent—a chaise and four came charging up the drive toward Pemberley. Despite the swiftness of the carriage's arrival, there could be no doubt who was inside. The horses' armor-plated harnesses, the steely-eyed ninjas serving as coachmen, the distinctive rose-and-crossbones crest upon the doors—all announced the coming of Fitzwilliam Darcy's aunt. And Elizabeth Darcy's greatest enemy.

Elizabeth and Georgiana waited on the front steps as the carriage came to a halt and the ninjas went springing off in all directions. The black-clad assassins bounced around the nearest hedgerows and parapets, frightening the gardeners with their somersaults and back flips. Just a few years before, Elizabeth had killed a dozen such men not far from that very spot. It had been a week to the day after her wedding, and they'd been sent to kill her.

Once the ninjas were sure the area was secure, two of them rolled out a red carpet from the coach while a third placed a black stepstool under the door facing the house. When all was in readiness, the ninjas lined up along the carpet and lowered their heads and the one nearest the coach opened the door without looking at it. Only then did Lady Catherine de Bourgh deign to grace Pemberley with her presence.

An exceptionally tall woman, she had to stoop mightily to make her way through the carriage door. Once her feet touched the ground, she straightened to her full height—an act she performed with such grave, stately deliberation, it seemed (to Elizabeth, at least) to go on for minutes. When she was fully erect, Lady Catherine seemed to tower over the coach itself. Indeed, she projected the air of one who rose above everything and everyone, and she came gliding up the carpet as slowly, smoothly, and unstoppably as a windblown cloud. Her gaze never once strayed, remaining locked firmly on the door just beyond Elizabeth and Georgiana.

"Your ladyship," Elizabeth said as she approached, "I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you—"

"I would see him," Lady Catherine interrupted. She stopped in front of Elizabeth, but her cold gray eyes remained on the door. She in no way acknowledged her niece, who had committed the cardinal sin of accepting, and even embracing, her brother's low-born wife.

"Of course," Elizabeth said, leading the way inside.

"What is his condition?" Lady Catherine asked. She was looking at the top of the staircase now, and she kept her gaze there as they started up the steps.

"He has shown little improvement since the accident," Elizabeth said. "He remains extremely weak, and consciousness comes and goes. When he is sensible, he has great difficulty speaking."

"He seems to be plagued by horrible nightmares," Georgiana added, keeping her voice low to avoid being overheard by the genuflecting servants down in the foyer. "He sometimes struggles and cries out in his sleep."

"So," Lady Catherine said, "it has begun."

As they approached Darcy's bedchamber, she slipped nimbly around Elizabeth and darted through the door.

"I will speak to you in the drawing room," she said, whirling around to look Elizabeth in the eye at last. "Alone."

Then she firmly closed the door, leaving Elizabeth and Georgiana in the hall.

"She has not forgiven us," Georgiana said as they walked away.

"Forgiveness, I suspect, is one of the few things her ladyship is incapable of. As is mercy."