Page 90 of The Lost Prophecy

Charlotte entered behind Mr Hurst.

Her eyes moved from the corpse to the stake and to the blood before finding Mr Collins. He was beside Mr Wickham, staring at his own hands as they began to shake.

Charlotte went to him.

“Are you injured?” She caught his wrist, examined his palm, and then took his hand between both of hers. Her fingers paused for the briefest instant before they closed over his. Mr Collins’s skin was warm. Too warm. His pulse beat wildly under her hands.

“I have killed him.” Mr Collins continued staring at Mr Wickham. “I drove the stick into his chest.”

“Yes.” Charlotte guided him away from the body. “You must sit down.”

“I intended only to protect my cousin.”

“You did.”

“He became old.”

Mr Hurst opened his mouth.

Charlotte turned to him, lifting a finger in warning. “Do not.”

He closed it again.

She brought Mr Collins to one of the chairs, tested its stability, and pressed him into it. He sat without invoking his dignity, his patroness, or the proper respect owed to a clergyman. He wiped one hand against his coat, saw the blood left on the fabric, and stopped.

“Lady Catherine did not prepare me for this.”

Mr Hurst surveyed Mr Wickham’s remains. “No education is ever complete.”

Charlotte gave him a warning glance but permitted the observation to stand.

Mr Darcy moved nearer at last, avoiding the corpse and the dark stain spreading through the carpet. He stopped three feet from Elizabeth, close enough to assure himself that she was whole but not close enough to touch her without permission.

“You are certain that he did not reach you?”

“The bowl reached him first.”

Mr Darcy’s eyes descended to the silver vessel pressing itself against her skirts. “It was locked in my chamber.”

“That never stopped it before.”

Fletcher moved behind Mr Wickham’s body and opened the service door wider. “I discovered the chair outside your chamber overturned and the door standing open shortly after Miss Elizabeth left the ballroom. I had intended to retrieve it before it entered the public rooms.”

“It found a less public one,” Mr Hurst observed.

The valet gave no indication that he had heard.

Mr Darcy returned his gaze to Elizabeth. “What did he do?”

“He attempted to compel Mr Collins, who left and then returned. He offered me the transformation and claimed you intended to secure my consent through affection. When I refused, he attempted to compel me. After that failed, he threatened to convert me by force so that I would no longer be the True Blood.”

“Did he state the intention clearly?”

“He told me that once I carried his blood, I would belong to him.”

Mr Collins raised his head from the chair. “He exposed his teeth and advanced towards her. Miss Elizabeth had placed a chair between them. He would have reached her if the bowl had not interfered.”

Mr Darcy’s expression became remote, governed by an authority older than the house around them. “I felt him exert compulsion through the bond between creator and creation. The bond broke when he died.”