pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 15

CHAPTER 15

Kitty Bennet had studied under four masters in her life. Her father and a young man named Geoffrey Hawksworth had introduced her to the deadly arts. Master Liu of Shaolin had deepened her understanding and broadened her skills through years of grueling training in China. Yet it was her fourth master—her final and yet also her first—whom she found herself most indebted to now.

Kitty was drawing upon all the lessons she'd learned during her years as an acolyte to her sister Lydia.

Bunny MacFarquhar and his dandified friends were gathered around her as their toadies wrestled away the dreadful that had cleared Hyde Park just minutes before. And Kitty was doing all that Master Lydia would have done in her place.

When the men made bad jokes, she laughed.

When they gave her long, leering looks, she simpered and bit her thumbnail.

When they made disparaging remarks about her father and the comical way he'd run screaming from the unmentionable, she said, "Oh, you're beastly!" in a tone that added, "And I just adore beastly boys!"

To her own dismay, it worked. With no dagger-dangling bandoliers or scabbarded katana or dowdy battle gown to hold her back, she could actually charm these wild young London bucks. Or Avis Shevington could, at any rate. In fact, it became obvious quite quickly that Avis Shevington could have a lot more fun than Kitty Bennet ever did.

Kitty had only ten minutes in Avis's skin, however. Then the soldiers began moving in from the guard towers, and Bunny called for a hasty retreat before their most excellent joke could be ruined by those twin spoilsports: responsibility and consequence.

"I do hope I shall be seeing you tomorrow at Ascot," Bunny said as he scooped up his rabbit, Brummell, and got ready to run.

"You can bet on it," Kitty told him, "and count on a better return on your investment than the races will bring!"

"Ho!" Bunny guffawed, and off he went, in the company of his little troop, scampering into the trees.

Kitty turned and walked back to the barouche from which Lizzy and her father had watched her impromptu debut into London society.

"Well, it would seem we're off to the races. La!"

"Indeed," Lizzy said. "Well done, Kitty."

Kitty climbed up and settled herself beside Mr. Bennet.

"It was my pleasure. Truly! Why, I'm half-tempted to stay Avis Shevington forever. Who would miss boring old Kitty Bennet anyway?"

This, of course, was a hint for her father and sister to exclaim, "We would! Never change, dear Kitty!"

They missed their cue. Instead, strangely enough, it was only Nezu who seemed to note the comment at all. He glanced back from the driver's seat with a quizzical look upon his face. But, just as he opened his mouth to speak, there was a thundering of hoofbeats and the crash of something tearing through brush.

A black ambulance was bursting out of the thicket nearby, and from the hoots and giggles coming from inside it was clear who the passengers were.

"Let us follow young master MacFarquhar's party," Mr. Bennet said. "I don't think answering a lot of questions would serve us any better than it would them."

At a word from Nezu, the coachman snapped the reins, and the carriage darted off before the soldiers could reach them. A moment later, they were following the ambulance as it streaked through the easternmost gate onto the streets of Section Two Central. Bunny apparently noticed who was behind them, for Brummell appeared at the ambulance's barred back window and (with the help of an unseen hand) waved one of his floppy paws at them.