After half of an hour,Sandra was riding across the lawn without stabilisers and Frank could no longer jog fast enough to keep up with her. Darcy had already decided to buy a bicycle for Elizabeth to ride with her, but he supposed he ought to learn as well. But he would not have Frank teach him.
There was only so much teasing a man of his age could handle.
He was uncertain who struggled more at dinner, the shy time traveller who was utterly confused by every topic, or the tired child who was no longer the centre of attention. When they finished eating, Georgiana offered to play with Sandra and then put her to bed while Gwen and Elizabeth looked at the paintings that needed cleaning.
“You got your daughter on a bike,” Frank said to him approvingly as they made their way to the library, beers in hand. His mother would be appalled at anyone drinking in the library. The house had closed at five, and with the staff also gone, Pemberley was entirely their own again. “Fatherhood achievement unlocked, my friend.”
It was a significant moment in a child’s life, he supposed. Like breeching a boy or taking a horse out of the paddock on your own. He was immensely proud of his fearless little girl. And he was grateful they had friends who loved them like family to share significant events with. Along with Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte Lucas and her teenaged daughter Mary, they had found their own family here.
Georgiana would leave and would never fit into this new family he had created. And, heaven forbid, she might go back home and accidentally do something that destroyed it. The ever-present fear surged and gripped his heart. What would he do if his sister went back on the equinox and all of a sudden Elizabeth and Sandra disappeared?
“Summer is the worst, Darcy,” Frank said while settling into a chair. “Far too long until football starts.”
Darcy forced a laugh, but was glad to be drawn back from dispiriting thoughts. Frank was a devoted Manchester United fan. He had learnt to appreciate his friend’s favourite game and had chosen a team to support, although supporting Frank’s team when they were “down the pub” with friends was a requirement.
Frank was slight, not nearly as tall as he was, and in his early fifties. He was amiable, but beneath that was what Elizabeth called “a backbone” she thought came from his military career. Curious phrase, but Darcy knew what it meant and agreed. Still, he was rather teasing, and rarely required anything more substantial from him than camaraderie. For a reserved man who had to hide where he spent the first twenty-eight years of his life, it suited him well.
“So this sister just appears out of thin air?” Frank asked sceptically. “Looking for an internship and finds a sister too?”
“Serendipity,” Darcy muttered, taking a drink.
“She don’t say much, not like Elizabeth and Sandra.”
“I don’t say much either.”
“You’re standoffish, but God help me if you disagree with me because then you don’t shut up. That new girl is timid. Is she hiding something?”
He did not want his sister to disrupt his life and make him miss all the things he left behind in the nineteenth century, but he certainly did not want her to come under scrutiny. “I think she’s just shy.”
Frank shrugged. “You know little about her except she has a few photos of Elizabeth’s father and she has musical talent. Kind of like you popping up in Bakewell out of the blue all those years ago, saying you were a student needing a place to live for the summer.”
Darcy exhaled. It was best to be silent and not acknowledge the similarities.
“Always thought there was something weird about that,” Frank mused. “Showing up and never talking about your past, not even after you came back a year later and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I inherited a mansion.’ I told Gwen you might’ve been a vampire.”
Darcy paused in bringing his drink to his lips. Was that the creature that crawled up a castle wall and drank blood or the sapient creature made in a science experiment? He read so many books written in the last two hundred years. There were seemingly thousands of popular culture references to keep straight. Whatever it was, he knew from his friend’s tone he was joking.
“You think I’m a vampire?” In conversations like these, Darcy found it best to give his finest dismissive glare and repeat the word or phrase that baffled him.
“Yeah, you had to reinvent yourself as your own descendant to hide the fact that you don’t age.” He gestured with his beer bottle to the room at large. “So you could keep the fancy house that was really yours to begin with.”
This was just too close to the truth. Darcy took a slow breath and levelled a stare at his friend. “Don’t vampires drink blood and kill people?”
Frank leant forward, engaged in his story. “No, see, you’re like the vampires in those girlie books and programmes Gwen likes. A poetic, tragic hero pining for a human lover to spend eternity with. You’re an immortal vampire who doesn’t drink blood, who has to reinvent himself every generation to hide you’re not ageing.”
He blinked once. “I think the Brufen I take if I ride for too long and the silver strands through my hair speak to my not being immortal.”
Frank shrugged and sighed. “Well, I guess you and the sister aren’t mysterious vampires. But I can tell you don’t much like her.”
This took him by surprise nearly as much as being called a vampire. “She’s my—she’s Elizabeth’s sister. Of course I like her.”
“Uh-huh.” Frank took a drink and threw him a disbelieving look. “You don’t like her, and you’re ticked off that your wife is all about her new sister.”
It was close enough to the truth as he could admit to.
“So Georgiana has the same deadbeat dad, but he never even sent money for her?” When Darcy agreed, Frank gave a dismissive shake of his head and cursed Mr Bennet.
“It’s a wonder Elizabeth turned out so well, emotionally neglected as she was,” Darcy said quietly. “Abandoned by her father, and encouraged to need no one by her bitter mother.”
