Posted on 2008-10-31
Author’s Note: P&P/Twilight crossover spoof. When the Netherfield gang attends the assembly in Meryton on the full moon, passions are released.
“Of course there is a full moon tonight,” said Bingley. “Assemblies are always held on the full moon.”
“Do not these provincials value their lives?” asked his sister Caroline, with a smirk. “It is so much harder to control one's innate desires when the moon shines with such passion.” She ran her hand down Darcy's sculpted chest as she spoke.
He removed her hand, gave it a languid squeeze, and smirked in turn. “I pride myself with the ability to keep my passions under good regulation.”
Louisa, who had just entered the room to hear that remark, tittered. “Not so Hurst! His desires always get the best of him.”
“Too much information,” said Bingley, covering his ears as his porcelain complexion took on an almost pinkish hue.
“I wasn't referring to any increase in our connubial bliss, brother,” she said, giggling all the more. “Just that you will have to hire a new parlour maid in the morning. The one you had found the job a terribly draining experience and will no longer be able to perform her duties.”
“I do hope he has dealt with the matter,” said Caroline. “I have ordered the coach already.”
“Not to worry,” said Hurst, strolling nonchalantly into the foyer, “Jeeves, the very soul of discretion, is digging a grave as we speak.”
“Do try and be more careful,” said Darcy. “All this moving from estate to estate is so tiresome.”
“And I have such hopes for the Meryton society,” added Bingley with a grin that showed his gleaming incisors to advantage. “Assemblies! Soirées! Grouse shooting! So much better than being cooped up in Pemberley day and night.”
“I will not hear a word against Pemberley,” said Caroline, in a shocked tone.
“But with the depletion of our herds of dear and cattle, the move was imperative,” said Darcy. “I detest chicken.”
The carriage then arrived, gleaming a bright silver in the moonlight, and whisked them away to the assembly hall. They arrived quite promptly, the result of extremely fast horses. As they entered the hall all eyes were drawn to them. This was not only because they were newcomers to the neighbourhood, but because of their incredibly perfect physical beauty. Imagine, if you would, Grecian statues brought to life and clothed in the finest Regency dress, and you still would not equal the sight that all those lucky provincials beheld.
That is not to say that there were not some beauties amongst the gathered throng. The Bennet girls were considered the loveliest young ladies in the county, especially Jane, a delicate English rose.
Bingley spied her immediately and begged an introduction from Sir William Lucas, the master of ceremonies, and soon had her on the dance floor.
Darcy danced with Caroline, and Louisa sat and fanned herself while Hurst made his way to the card room. After his dance, rather than seek out a partner from the bevy of young ladies casting him wishful glances, Darcy leaned against a shadowy wall and stared darkly out at the revellers.
“What can that man mean by coming to an assembly and standing about in that stupid fashion?” Elizabeth Bennet asked of her friend Charlotte.
Charlotte shrugged, unable to form a coherent thought with so much masculine beauty before her.
Elizabeth sighed and made her way to a chair. There were not many to be had, for men were scarce and ladies a plenty, seated three rows deep, all gazing towards the seemingly oblivious gentleman in anticipation. Elizabeth found a seat in a dimly lit corner, not too far from Mr Darcy, but out of his line of vision. She sat and contemplated him.
Certainly he was more handsome than any creature she had ever laid her eyes upon. Russet hair, chiseled features, skin the colour of alabaster, and a body rippling with firm muscles that no amount of fine tailoring could hide. His expression of supercilious disdain could not even mar his superlative looks. She felt her breath catch in her throat, and her heart race high in her chest, while her stomach did somersaults. Either she was about to throw up, and embarrass herself considerably, or she was in love. Unfortunately it was the former, and she hurriedly searched her reticule for a handkerchief in which to relieve herself.
At that moment, Bingley joined Darcy and urged him to dance.
“There are some uncommonly fragrant girls here tonight,” he said, encouragingly.
“Yours smells like a summer rose,” Darcy agreed, “But for the rest, I have never sensed odour so vile.”
“My partner has a sister, seated somewhat behind you, who smells very prettily too.”
Darcy turned his head. “Which do you mean?”
His eyes met Elizabeth's and she gasped as they changed from warm caramel, went through all the colours of the rainbow, and then darkened to such a fierce black so as to appear as deep pits that drew her into the very depths of his bottomless soul.
The sensation was so powerful that she felt the urge to spew again, and opened her reticule wide before leaning her head over it.
Darcy blanched, though it is hard to imagine a man could become any whiter than he already was, and turned back to face Bingley. “Intolerable, and about as far from tempting as a chicken. She is safe from me.”
Suddenly great wails erupted from the card room. “Dead, dead! All dead!”
Everybody rushed as one to the door and peered inside. A number of gentlemen were slumped about the room in a variety of unnatural postures, blue and bloodless, except for the distinctive holes upon their necks from which the slightest dribble of blood emerged.
Elizabeth took the opportunity to toss her offending handkerchief and reticule into a large ceramic vase, and sighed. There had been few enough gentlemen before. Now there were even less. Most unfortunate.
“What?” asked Hurst as his friends stared daggers at him on the carriage ride home. “A person can get quite tired of a diet consisting solely of game!”
“But it was so impolite of you not to share,” Louisa admonished.
“You almost spoiled the entire evening,” said Bingley. “Luckily some hound was blamed, but really you ought be more circumspect.”
“People,” reminded Darcy, “are to be avoided as sustenance. That is our prime mandate, remember?”
“Oh, you are such a stickler,” said Louisa. “A few gentlemen more or less can hardly matter in a society such as this.”
“Indeed,” said Caroline. “I hear tell that the militia will soon be in town, and the balance thus restored.”
Darcy stared at the ceiling. “Remember, we are British,” he said between clenched teeth. “We must strive to live in a civilised manner.”
Meanwhile, back at Longbourn, the Bennet girls and their mother had arrived home, hung up their bonnets and pelisses, and were now regaling Mr Bennet with the exciting events of the evening.
“So very handsome . . . imagine, two dances with Jane . . . Lizzy's weak stomach did her a disservice again . . . and very rich too . . . the finest manners . . . but it all came to an end much too soon!”
“Sprained ankles, I hope?” said Mr Bennet roguishly.
“Oh no papa!” cried Lydia. “A heap of dead bodies!”
“I have always said the lemonade tasted like poison.”
Kitty shook her head. “Not poison! They had been drained of blood!”
“Ah well, It could have been worse,” Mr Bennet mused. “The dancing could have gone on all night.”
That evening Lizzy lay in her bed, reliving those terrible moments at the assembly. No, not the sight of the lifeless corpses, but her inability to keep the contents of her stomach in place while under the torpid gaze of the superbly sculpted Mr Darcy. She would have to stop eating if he was going to remain in the district – anything to prevent the recurrence of such an embarrassing action.
Darcy as well was lying in bed, contemplating the evening. He had recovered from his disappointment in Mr Hurst's behaviour. He had even relented and allowed the other three off the tight rein he kept them on. Now they needed a new housekeeper, scullery maid, and under gardener as well. He had opted for hare, and now was wishing ethics to hell. What he would give for a long drink of warm blood, pumped into his system by the erratic heartbeats of a frightened damsel! Why had he ever grown a conscience? What made him think that vampires and humans could coexist in harmony? Where did he get such altruistic, new age, fingle-fangled ideas anyway? It was clearly the fault of his upbringing.
Well no more! Vampires were what they were, and no amount of do-goodery could change that!
And his first victim would be that girl with the upset stomach. He would be doing the rest of the world a favour by removing her from the gene pool. There was still a place for altruism, even in the unused heart of a vampire.
The next morning Lizzy did what she is best known for. She got up while the rising sun was still tinting the sky with brilliant colours and put on her walking shoes, tiptoed down the stairs, and slipped out the back door. Of course she hadn't dressed, not wishing to disturb Jane's beauty sleep, and was clothed in her chemise and a dressing gown of a surprisingly oriental design. As it was already November, she ought to have felt the cold of the frost-tinged morning, but she did not. Her blood was warm in her veins, and after a half hour of brisk walking, her cheeks were much flushed from the exercise.
Darcy arose early too. He was ravenous, which is hardly surprising – how much blood did one hare hold anyway? He decided to hunt before the sun rose too high in the sky, and people would be about. Though he only intended to hunt for wild game, or so he told himself as his reason had restored with the passing of night and the easing of the moon's influence, his steps took him to the meadows surrounding Longbourn. Not that he knew where that sickly Bennet girl resided. It was almost as if he were brought there by a force beyond his control. Which, in actual fact, he was. For who controls destiny? Darcy certainly didn't.
Darcy arrived at the secluded meadow quite rapidly - he was an inordinately fast walker - and pushed through the hedgerow to find himself in the middle of a stark field. And there was the planet that had drawn him, unsuspecting, into her orbit. She was hunched over a tussock, retching. Admittedly she had not eaten so it was only bile, but the stench of it travelled quickly to Darcy's superlatively sensitive nostrils.
She looked up and gasped. “Mr Darcy!”
The sun had risen apace, and now cast all its strength upon the open field, and the two persons standing openly upon it. And what Lizzy saw was a gentleman who appeared to be ablaze, he was glowing so. Light sparkled and glinted off him with the power of myriad fireworks exploding. She was completely dazzled and could do nothing more than try to catch her breath.
Darcy, for his part, was equally dazed. After all, if one is within a maelstrom of light, it is difficult to be unaffected. “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” His voice came out as a hoarse whisper, and even as he said her name he wondered that he knew it. But there was a power stronger than his own at work, and suddenly he could smell the very essence of her. Above the singed air, the bile, the lavender water the lady seemed always insistent to douse herself with, he smelled her living, flowing, lifeblood. It was metallic and tangy, and overwhelmed him with desire.
He walked towards her, all brilliance and dazzle, and took her in his arms. “I must have you – all of you – your complete essence. Please forgive me for what I am about to do, but I have never suffered as much in the coils of temptation as I do at this moment.”
Even as she melted into his arms sighing, she asked, “Is there not another way? Can you not give me eternal life?”
“I could,” he admitted. “But it's a dashed complex and painful procedure, plus immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. You're better off dead, I assure you.”
“But if I were changed to become as you are, is it not possible that I could be the most beautiful, most intelligent, most powerful of your kind and lead your coven of vampires to great things?'
He stopped for a moment, his hunger for her blood overpowering almost his reason. But not quite. “All the more reason to drain you and be done with you, my dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,” he said, and he sunk his teeth into her, savouring the seductive sensation of her silken blood slipping into his system, sustaining his soul. “You will forever be a part of me,” he whispered between swigs, “and that will have to suffice.”
Elizabeth gave herself up to the desperate delight of his closeness. His icy hot lips on her neck. The sweet pain of his teeth and they cut through flesh and found her vein. The heady bliss as light-headedness took hold, and she slipped deeper and deeper into the oblivion offered in his eyes that stayed open as he drank and changed in hue with her every breath, playing out colours unimaginable. And still, through all of this, he sparkled like a thousand stars. She had never envisioned death could be so sublime.
And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. She was all in a heap, blood trickling sluggishly from two punctures in her neck, while Darcy lay limp and lifeless in her arms, not a shimmer or glimmer left in him. No longer like marble, his skin was the colour of chalk, and just as crumbly. A silver stake, in the form of a cross, and smelling highly of garlic, was sunk deep into his back, piercing right through his heart.
She raised her head and stared up through tear soaked lashes at her sister Jane, standing exultant and a little crazed over her.
“That is the last of them!” Jane crowed. “First I did that horrid fat man, and then the two sisters, and then the smiley guy I had so much fun dancing with last night. I had to hunt this one down. At least I got him before he stole you from me!”
“Jane, Jane! How could you?” wailed Lizzy. “You spoiled everything.”
Jane leaned down, threw Darcy's disintegrating carcass off Lizzy, and pulled her to her feet. “We'll need a bandage on those nasty holes right away. Then I think a cup of tea would be nice.” She hefted Lizzy up into her arms and strolled back towards Longbourn, whistling as she went.
The End