Steve Hockensmith - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - Dawn of the Dreadfuls

“I’m sure it can be arranged easily enough. It’s something of a tradition here, actually, inviting officers from visiting regiments to our country dances. Shows our support for the crown, I like to think. And it builds ties to the community that I’m sure you and the captain will find rewarding. So many great, ah, friendships have blossomed from such opportunities to associate socially.”

“You and your daughters will be attending?” Lt. Tindall asked, looking at Jane. He was so blinded by her beauty he didn’t seem to notice the look of horror on her face.

“Oh, yes, certainly!” Mrs. Bennet proclaimed. “Not the youngest, of course—such things are still years away for them. But Jane will be there, and our Lizzy will be having her coming out!”

“ Mamma ,” Elizabeth said. She couldn’t contradict her mother in front of a guest, of course, but neither could she sit idly by and let her make promises she couldn’t keep.

Though Mrs. Bennet had waged a campaign on Jane and Elizabeth’s behalf—sending pleading letters to Mrs. Goswick and enlisting their Aunt Philips to do the same—it had so far come to naught. Mrs. Goswick hadn’t even bothered to reply, and the one time Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips had gone round to make a call, they’d been told the lady was out. All day. Every day. Indefinitely. Yet Mrs. Bennet kept insisting that the “misunderstanding” would soon be put right.

Elizabeth tried to warn her mother away from the subject with an angry flash of the eyes, but it had the same effect as any other attempt she’d ever made at keeping her mother from talking: none at all.

“How many officers are in your regiment, Lieutenant? I shall see to it they all get a chance to dance with one of my fair daughters!”

“Mamma, please.”

It was Jane protesting this time, although she did it so quietly no one but Elizabeth seemed to hear.

“We are not a full regiment but just a company of one hundred,” Lt. Tindall said. “The only officers are the captain, myself, and a young ensign barely old enough to attend balls himself.”

“Oh. There are so few of you?” Mrs. Bennet marveled, sobered . . . for all of two seconds. “Well, that should make you very much in demand, Lieutenant. You’ll never get a second’s rest once the music starts!”

“Fortunately, I have just completed a month’s leave on my family estate in Oxfordshire, and I find myself refreshed and ready for any challenge.”

The lieutenant’s lips twisted to the side, signaling (in case his words hadn’t done so sufficiently) that he was being amusing. And, indeed, Mrs. Bennet seemed mightily amused. Or pleased, at any rate.

A huge grin had spread wide on her face the moment she heard the words “my family estate.”

“Oh, my girls will put that to the test, Lieutenant!” she cried with glee. “They shall! They truly shall!”

Jane’s gaze went so low it looked like she was searching for something that had fallen down her dress.

“I must admit,” Lt. Tindall said, “it pleases me to learn that your daughters have time for more la—” the young officer coughed, “traditional pursuits.”

Ladylike —clearly that was the word that had stuck in the man’s throat. Elizabeth felt a sudden, near-overpowering urge to stick her foot there, too.

“Oh, pay no mind to those toys,” Mrs. Bennet said, nodding at Jane’s katana. “My girls are as genteel and well bred as am I! La!”

The lieutenant was casting a rather dubious glance at Lydia and Kitty—a decapitated dreadful was proof their swords were no toys—when Jane found the strength to speak to the young man at last.

“Can one not be genteel and well bred and do one’s duty?” she said softly.

Lt. Tindall’s eyes—both as blue and, till then, distant as the sky—went dewy. “I’m sure some could.”

“How do you manage it, Lieutenant?” Jane asked.

From Elizabeth, the question would have sounded impudent. From her sister, however, it was the essence of sincerity.

“I endeavor to always remember who and what I do my duty for ,” Lt. Tindall answered solemnly.

Jane nodded. “It has been the same for me, Sir.”

Lt. Tindall just gaped at her a moment, obviously overcome with admiration. Without trying to—she never did—St. Jane had converted another worshipper.

The spell was broken by the tromp of heavy footsteps in the hall, and Master Hawksworth came bursting in. He scanned the room with a single jerk of the head, not lingering for so much as a second on the stranger in red. When he saw Elizabeth, he sucked in a gulp of air, close to but not quite a gasp, and took a step toward her.

“You are well then, Elizabeth Bennet?”

“You weren’t told?”

Elizabeth glanced at her sisters, confused.

Lydia shrugged. “We couldn’t find him.”

“I became separated from the others during the search,” Master Hawksworth said. “Where were you? What happened?”

“I fell in the forest, Master.”

Elizabeth wasn’t looking at Lt. Tindall, so she couldn’t see his eyebrows arch at her “Master.” Though she fancied she could feel the little breeze they stirred as they flew up his forehead.

“While attempting a Leaping Leopard,” she went on. “And there was a dreadful.”

Master Hawksworth had been breathing hard, as if out of breath. Now he froze.

“You slew it?”

“I fought it, but . . . no. It got the better of me. Fortunately, there was someone else there. He was armed with a pistol, and—”

“ Him ?”

The Master jerked his head at Lt. Tindall without bothering to look his way.

“No, Master. Another man. A doctor by the name of Keckilpenny.”

Master Hawksworth almost seemed to shrivel. His head hung a little lower, and his shoulders sagged. But then he quickly drew himself up to his full height and assumed what Elizabeth had come to think of as the Master Stance: chin up, arms crossed, legs spread wide.

“Fetch your katana and daggers and bring them to the dojo immediately, Elizabeth Bennet. You are obviously in need of special tutoring.”

“Yes, Master.”

“I killed a dreadful, Master!” Lydia crowed as Elizabeth rose to go.

“I helped!” Kitty protested.

“Oh, a little. But it was my idea.”

“All you said was ‘Let’s behead it.’ I’m the one who suggested ‘Satan’s Scissors’!”

“Oh, girls, girls, hush, please! I can’t stand to hear another word!” Mrs. Bennet wailed, fanning herself with a fresh hankie.

Everyone else ignored them.

“Don’t tell me you actually approve of all this?” Lt. Tindall said to Master Hawksworth. “Young ladies going about fighting with these strange, barbaric weapons?”

“I’ll tell you what I don’t approve of,” the Master grated out. “Failure.” He spun on his heel and started for the door, speaking over his shoulder to Elizabeth again. “Now come. After you’ve finished your dand-baithaks —a hundred should suffice—we will identify where you erred and ensure it never happens again.”

Elizabeth followed wearily, still aching from her fall and the fights with the dreadfuls and the walk to Meryton and back again. Yet despite it all, it was such sweet relief to escape the drawing room—and her mother and Lt. Tindall—she almost pitied her sisters.

MR. BENNET’S LIBRARY—his private sanctuary, his refuge from foolishness and chatter and, in short, Everyone Else—had never felt more crowded. The captain’s Limbs were, by necessity, big, burly men, being beasts of a very peculiar burden (and one which weighed no less than fifteen stone). Standing at attention bracketing the captain, they blocked off an entire bookcase.