Mr. Darcy's Bite by Mary Lydon Simonsen

overbearing, she provided her mistress with the sound advice necessary for someone who was about to step into the public arena that was London society, and Georgiana loved her dearly.
    â€œBut won’t that raise questions with Mrs. Brotherton about why I need a bath at this hour?”
    â€œNo, miss. Her son is a werewolf. He’s one of the grooms who works in the stables. That’s how she came to be here. She met Mr. Darcy at a gathering in Scotland, and Miss Darcy was in need of a new lady’s maid because the last one got booted, and rightly so.”
    â€œWhat if someone should see me coming out of Mr. Darcy’s bedroom? What would they think?”
    â€œThat’s not possible. No junior servants are allowed on this floor after the family has retired. If they even tried it, they’d be sent packing without a character and that would make it near impossible to get another job in service.”
    Lizzy nodded in understanding. Everything that happened at Pemberley was well thought out because any error might expose Mr. Darcy. Even though he was highly regarded by all his neighbors and tenants, no one could anticipate what another’s response would be to the revelation that he was a werewolf, especially considering the horrible stories that were told about them, including ones in which they attacked humans on sight and ate recently buried corpses. According to Anne, werewolves did everything they could to avoid humans and ate only freshly or recently killed meat.
    When Lizzy entered Mr. Darcy’s room, she saw that Mrs. Brotherton was waiting for her and that she had brought with her everything necessary to bathe a lady. She had little time to look around the room, but what little she did see of the furnishings, she liked, including the largest bed she had ever seen. Would she ever sleep in that bed, she wondered?
    Since both ladies had something in common—they both knew a werewolf—the two had a nice chat while Lizzy was bathing and having her hair washed. Knowing that there was no such thing as a “happy” werewolf story, Lizzy still found Mrs. Brotherton’s son’s narrative to be particularly sad.
    Teddy had been serving as a groom in the London townhouse of a wealthy merchant, who had decided to sell his business so that he might live the life of a country gentleman, and this man, so new to the gentry, decided that those of the genteel class traveled. Since Napoleon’s armies prevented him from going abroad, they went north to Scotland. While in the Highlands, the carriage stopped so that everyone could get out and stretch their legs and respond to calls of Nature.
    â€œQuite suddenly, a wolf came out from behind a boulder,” Mrs. Brotherton explained, “and was running right at Teddy’s master, so Teddy jumped in front of the wolf to protect him and fought him off with a whip, but not before he was bitten on the hand. It took about three months for the transformation to happen, but when it did, even though my son had saved his life, his master kicked him out the house. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Darcy, I do not know what we would have done.”
    Lizzy tried to reconcile all that she knew about Mr. Darcy with her first impression of him. To his family, he was beyond reproach, his servants and neighbors held him in the highest regard, and he had provided employment and a home for Teddy and his mother.
    To all who know him, he walks on water, so why was he so rude to me? Lizzy asked herself. According to the master of Pemberley, I was not handsome enough to tempt him to dance, I willfully misunderstood him, and I was guilty of the sin of pride in rejecting him. But now I come to Pemberley and find that he is regarded as St. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Derbyshire, patron saint of werewolves.
    Trying to dry Lizzy’s thick curls was a fool’s errand, and she said so to Mrs. Brotherton. Since there wasn’t enough time left before dawn to get