pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 8

CHAPTER 8

The worst thing about being a master of the deadly arts, Kitty Bennet thought, was the wardrobe. Sparring gowns, battle gowns, executioner's gowns—it didn't matter. They were all dull dull dull!

A warrior's clothes had to be sleek, simple, functional; she understood that. No one wanted to trip over their own train just as they were about to disembowel an enemy, and there was no way to justify white kid gloves when armored gauntlets would be more apropos. Still, what would be so wrong with a little color? A little allure? A little lace trim or show of décolletage? She'd put flowers in her hair the second morning of the Battle of the Cotswolds, and you'd have thought she'd reported for duty in nothing but her petticoat, her father was so furious.

"If you want to keep these soldiers' respect," he'd growled, "you won't go prancing up and down the lines looking like an Alsatian milkmaid."

"I'd have thought the number of notches on my sword hilt would be enough to ensure respect."

"You have more kills than any one company here, it's true." Her father reached out, gently drew a daffodil from behind her ear, and then crumpled it, letting it fall to the blood-soaked ground. "Yet you'll always have more to prove, too."

So here she was, on her way to London—during the Season, even!—and rather than a fashionable spencer and a new shawl, she was draped in plain, shapeless, gray muslin with a katana hanging at her side. Just when she should be turning heads, she was instead dressed for removing them with as little fuss as possible.

To make matters even worse, she and her father were traveling by stagecoach rather than the family's own carriage. The convention of crossbow manufacturers to which they were going was being held in the tiny village of Wapping-on-the-Dunghill in Lincolnshire, Mr. Bennet had explained, and he had it on good authority that there remained no reliable liveries in the area with room for their horses. (It was only later, once they'd left Hertfordshire, that Mr. Bennet discovered he'd misread the convention invitation and their destination should be, instead, London.)

Not only was the coach cramped and crowded and stuffy, without even the ventilation to dispel the various smells generated by the other passengers, but each time a new spring flock of unmentionables staggered onto the road, all eyes turned to the Bennets. By the time they reached the city's Northern Guard Tower, Kitty and her father had put down no fewer than thirty dreadfuls. And they were thanked for it, yes, but always a little stiffly, sometimes even begrudgingly, as one might thank an unexpected guest for a gift one doesn't want. It had been decades since the first Englishman took up the deadly arts—and only slightly less since Kitty's namesake, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, became the first Englishwoman to follow in his footsteps—yet the citizenry as a whole still seemed to need convincing.

Even the handsome soldier who poked his head into the compartment to check for signs of the strange plague seemed to smirk when he saw her battle gown and sword, and as the coach rolled through the gate a moment later, Kitty began plotting ways to escape her father so that she might go shopping for real clothes in the fashionable boutiques of Four Central and Five East. She knew she wouldn't follow through on such plans, though. Not without Lydia there to give her strength ... and better bad ideas.

Not thirty minutes after arriving in town, Kitty and Mr. Bennet were leaving their baggage at an inn and heading off to see the very latest in crossbows. To Kitty's surprise, her father instructed her to take her throwing stars and nunchucks in addition to her katana, and he had upon him his sword cane, a brace of pistols, a stiletto, and an American tomahawk of which he'd grown especially fond.

"Really, Papa. I don't see the need for us to attend this convention of yours," Kitty said as they walked up a bustling, storefront-lined road. "You've got a dozen perfectly good crossbows at home, and bolts enough to win Agincourt all over again."