The young man paused then, and when he spoke again his voice was so soft it sounded almost tender.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the girls said.

“Yes, what?” Hawksworth prompted them gently.

“Yes, Master,” Elizabeth said.

The Master nodded and almost—almost—smiled.

“Good,” he said. And then suddenly he was spinning on his heel and stabbing at Kitty with an outstretched arm and a pointing finger, and everything mild or kindly or human about him was lost behind a mask of raw contempt. “YOU! Jump through the ceiling and catch me a swallow!”

Kitty blinked at him. “Ummm . . . Papa hasn’t taught us how to do that yet . . . Master.”

“I did not ask what Papa has taught you,” Master Hawksworth snapped back. “I told you to jump—and you did not.” He pointed at the floor now. “Fifty dand-baithaks.”

“Dandy-whats? Uhhh . . . Father hasn’t taught us about those, either.”

Master Hawksworth threw a quick, cold glare at Mr. Bennet, then shrugged off his coat and began unbuttoning his vest.

“Then I must demonstrate.”

His vest joined his coat on the floor. When he began untying his cravat, Elizabeth could actually feel the burn of the blush on her cheeks. For a moment, it looked as though he meant to take off his shirt, as well. He was merely loosening it, though, giving his broad chest room to do its work.

When he was ready, he threw himself facedown. Then he pushed up with his arms, and his body lifted, all his weight suspended on his palms and toes.

“One,” he said.

He lowered himself until his nose touched the floor, then pushed up again.

“Two.”

And so it went, all the way to fifty. It took him no more than half a minute.

He stood up again and looked at Kitty.

“Now you.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Kitty stretched out on the floor and attempted her first dand-baithak. Her arms shook under the strain of her weight, and by the time she could say “One” her face was as red as a beet.

“YOU!” Master Hawksworth barked, pointing at Mary this time. “Jump through the ceiling and catch me a swallow.”

It had always been one of Mary’s pleasures to learn from the mistakes of others, and this she tried to do again. She promptly got to her feet, stretched her arms out toward the ceiling, and hopped straight up with all her might.

Her feet made it all of four inches off the ground.

“I’m sorry, Master Hawksworth,” she said. “I missed.”

Master Hawksworth nodded. “But you did as I said without question.”

Mary smiled primly and began to sit down.

“And you failed!” Master Hawksworth snapped. “Fifty dand-baithaks.”

“But—”

“Sixty!”

“But—”

“Seventy!”

“But—”

“Eighty!”

Mary finally learned from her own mistake and got down on the floor.

“Master Hawksworth,” Lydia said, “before you ask, I can’t jump through the ceiling and catch you a swallow, either.”

“So I would assume.”

The Master stalked over to one of the weapons racks, pulled down a dagger, and held it out toward Lydia.

“You will kill that,” he jerked his head at a fly buzzing around where the daffodils used to be, “then skin it before it hits the ground.”

“You want me to skin a fly?”

“A novitiate never questions the master’s orders! Fifty dand-baithaks!”

Lydia stretched out beside her huffing, puffing sisters.

Elizabeth saw where all this was heading: Within a minute, Jane was doing dand-baithaks, too, for though she attacked the fly without question, she missed it with every slice of the knife.

Then it was Elizabeth’s turn.

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-IIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” she cried, lunging at the fly.

It weaved under her first swipe. It danced around her second.

The third—to Elizabeth’s own amazement—sent it dropping to the floor. Dead.

“Not bad, Elizabeth Bennet,” the Master said. Yet his eyes said something more: When Elizabeth looked his way, she found him peering at her with what looked like naked—almost awestruck—fascination.

Master Hawksworth knelt down to inspect the fly lying before her.

“As at the lake, your zeal does you credit,” he said, his tone warming for a moment before freezing back into brittle ice. “A pity your skills do not. This fly has not been skinned—it has merely lost a wing.” He stood up with one hand held out. “Fifty dand-baithaks.”

Elizabeth gave him back the dagger and went to the floor at his feet.

“You look displeased, Oscar Bennet,” she heard Master Hawksworth say over her own panting and the roar of blood rushing in her ears. (The dand-baithaks were even more difficult than they looked.) “Do you wish to complain? If so, go ahead. I grant you dispensation this once.”

“Yes, I am displeased,” Mr. Bennet said. “It pains me to see my daughters so roughly treated.” Elizabeth caught the faint, familiar sound of one of her father’s sighs. “But no . . . I will not complain. We have been weak. I have been weak. I pray you will help us find our strength before it is too late.”

“I do, as well, Oscar Bennet. I do, as well. Now—there is a beetle in that corner. Behead it!”

Elizabeth heard the ka-chunk of a blade striking wood and holding fast. Then Master Hawksworth grunted.

“Not bad. You haven’t lost your old skills entirely, I see. But I told you to behead the beetle, not cut it in two.”

“Fifty dand-baithaks, Master?”

“For you, Oscar Bennet?” the young man said. “One hundred.”

OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS, the Bennet girls learned many new stances and moves and, along with their father, sparred with many new weapons.

There were, as a consequence, many, many mistakes and accidents—and many, many, many dand-baithaks.

Lydia titters when the Master squats, legs bent into a U, for “the Sumo Position”? Fifty dand-baithaks.

Mary accidentally knocks Kitty silly with her nunchucks? Fifty dand-baithaks.

Kitty un-accidentally knocks Mary silly with her nunchucks? Fifty dand-baithaks. For Mary again. For not dodging fast enough.

Mr. Bennet raises an eyebrow at Mary’s punishment? One hundred dand-baithaks and five laps around the grounds.

Jane quickly proved the most graceful disciple, and Mr. Bennet, of course, the most accomplished—so much so that Master Hawksworth frequently had him run his daughters through their drills while he stood back nodding gravely. Yet Elizabeth, with her piercing warrior’s cry and eagerness to try any maneuver or weapon, no matter the difficulty or danger, was without doubt the most ardent student in the dojo. Though why that should be even she couldn’t say.

Certainly, the Master never spoke of it. He rarely spoke of anything except how this is done right or this was done wrong or how many dand-baithaks were needed to make amends for one’s unworthiness. All the Bennets truly knew of him had to be sucked out as a leech draws blood—and there was, of course, but one leech for the job.

“A lovely English spring we’re having, is it not?” Mrs. Bennet said over dinner the day after Master Hawksworth’s arrival.

The Master didn’t even look up from his food, which he’d insisted on preparing himself. Not that it required much in the way of preparation: It was simply white rice and (to the obvious disgust of all, save Mr. Bennet) raw fish.

Up to then, Master Hawksworth had declared English cooking to be “bricks in a warrior’s stomach where fire out to be,” and at mealtimes he’d remained in the dojo to eat alone. Eventually, however, he’d been coaxed inside easily enough. All Elizabeth had to say was, “It would be an honor if you joined us this evening, Master,” and in he came.