“You!” she cried involuntarily, pulling her hand away and wiping it fiercely on her skirt. She jumped behind a chair. It would not offer her any protection from a mage, but it was all she had. Her heart pounded with terror.
“Miss Bennet, I assure you that I intend you no harm,” said the earl. “I am looking forward to knowing you better.”
The colonel said, “It is true. He will not hurt you.”
Elizabeth stared at the colonel in disbelieving horror. “I trusted you. I trusted both of you. I could have let your aunt die instead of taking the risk of exposing myself. I believed you when you claimed not to support using binding spells on women, but that was not true, was it?Neither of you could perform a binding spell, so you sent for someone who could. And I trusted you!”
Darcy looked stricken, as well he might. Had he thought she would never learn the truth? And she had told him Pepper’s secret as well. What a fool she had been! And now she would pay the price.
Colonel Fitzwilliam came up beside her. “I did not deceive you. I assure you my father can be trusted. I only told him about you because I knew he would want to hear your story.”
Lord Matlock wore an air of saintly patience. “This is all a misunderstanding. I give you my word as a gentleman that I will not perform a binding spell on you. I never do them. I find them unnecessary. My own daughter has magic, and she is unbound.”
Elizabeth felt trapped. “But you put one on your niece! I recognize your touch. Tell me, was Miss de Bourgh once able to speak in complete sentences? Did she always become lost halfway through a thought? Did she know how to have an everyday conversation before you made her into half a person?”
The colonel was shaking his head. “Anne is not under a binding spell. That is the way she has always been.”
Darcy said slowly, “Miss Bennet was correct about Lady Catherine’s powers. If she says Anne is under a binding spell, I have to wonder if that may be true as well. I do not know who might have performed it –”
The earl held up a hand to silence him. “You are correct, Miss Bennet. I congratulate you on your perceptiveness. The binding spell on my niece is of my making, but it was because of an extraordinarily dangerous situation, quite unlike your own, and there was no other choice short of imprisonment. I did it with the utmost reluctance.”
“It is always with the utmost reluctance, is it not? I would rather die than be bound.” Desperate, Elizabeth glanced from side to side. Escape was impossible, but she had to try. She darted around them, butbefore she could reach the door, an invisible net halted her in her tracks. She struggled against it with all her strength, but it made no difference.
Darcy cried, “Let her go, I implore you! This is not the way –”
A blur of white fur flew across the room. Lord Matlock gave a roar of pain. “Get this thing off me!”
The invisible bindings holding her slipped away. Elizabeth fled.
“DARCY, HELP ME HERE!” Richard called as he tried to pry off the white cat wrapped around his father’s head. Lord Matlock’s hands flailed at Pepper, but with the cat’s body across his face, he could not see to use his magic – no doubt why Pepper had chosen to attack him there.
Darcy tore his eyes away from the sight of Elizabeth racing across the lawn away from Rosings. He made a perfunctory effort to grasp Pepper’s flying paws. After all, if a shape-changing fay cat was determined to attack his uncle, Darcy doubted anything could be done but to wait for her to stop of her own accord. Richard certainly seemed to be finding the cat’s strength unusual.
“Dammit, Richard!” his uncle swore.
“The more you fight to pull her off, the harder she will dig in her claws,” said Darcy. “Let her go and she will likely run off.” He surreptitiously opened the window behind him.
“Worth a try,” Richard grumbled, releasing Pepper’s fur.
“Ow!” cried Lord Matlock.
But Pepper had taken Darcy’s hint and leapt off. She ran straight for the window, as if aware of what he had done, and jumped out.
“I’ll have that cat shot!” snarled Lord Matlock, blood running down his face from multiple scratches.
“No need,” said Darcy. “She may not have survived that fall.” He leaned his head out the window to watch a white raven winging its way inthe direction Elizabeth had fled.
Lord Matlock mopped at his scratches with his handkerchief. He growled at the bloody evidence on the white linen. “That animal should never have been allowed inside this house!”
“Pepper is usually quite friendly,” Darcy said. “She must have thought you were threatening Miss Bennet. She is very protective of her.”
“She is as mad as her mistress! Richard, you did not warn me the girl was a lunatic.”
Richard shrugged. “She has always been perfectly calm until now. She is terrified of binding spells, though.”
“Justifiably so,” said Darcy coldly. “It was a misunderstanding, but I can see why she would misinterpret your intentions. If you give her a little time, she will be able to discuss it rationally.” He had never spoken this way to Lord Matlock before. Now that Elizabeth was safe, he could give way to the simmering anger. How dare his uncle bind Anne and then have the gall to try to force Darcy to marry her?
Richard poured a glass of port from the decanter on the sideboard and handed it to his disgruntled father. “Did you truly put Cousin Anne under a binding spell?”
