Page 22 of Homeless

“Mr Darcy, if your sources of intelligence want mourning, have the goodness to mourn them later. Just now, I need an answer large enough to travel on.”

The wine, and the sleeplessness, and the shock of her here, of all places, and the whole edifice of what he had believed of her pulled down between breakfast and noon — none of it sharpened his judgement. Judgement pointed one way, regardless.

“What do you propose for… after?” he asked. “After your uncle is freed, my own business resolved one way or another… what then?”

Twin chocolate brows arched softly. “I had not got that far, but I suppose we would go our separate ways with no one the wiser.”

He scoffed and let his arms fall. “Go our separate ways! I do not know how it has escaped you, but marriage is rather more than a fortnight’s commitment. I require —”

“An heir? I would not have supposed otherwise, but you will have to look to some other woman to obtain one. If we do this, we marry here. A Spanish rite, a Spanish register. Words no soul in England will ever hear spoken, and a paper that will be conveniently lost or burned the moment my uncle is freed and your bond is honoured.”

He blinked. “Then… you propose this to be a fake marriage? A fraud?”

“‘Fraud’ is such an unfriendly word. I prefer ‘utilitarian.’ I do not want to be married to you any more than you do to me, but do you see any alternative before us?”

“I —” He shook his head. “What?”

“Come, Mr Darcy, we know almost nothing of each other apart from the fact that we hardly got on back when we were acquainted. I do not suppose two years has improved either of our characters so far as to make us agreeable to a lifetime with someone we hardly found worth the trouble of pleasantry. And do not think I am offering any ‘services’ beyond my grasp of the language, sir.”

His face fell cold, and that trickle of blood that had begun to race in his veins clotted somewhere under his spleen. “In… indeed, Miss Bennet. But so long as we are in Spain, we would be lodging as husband and wife. Perhaps travelling God knows where before it is over, perhaps seen by our fellow countrymen. Given that we encountered each other here, it is not impossible that we might be recognised by someone else. You have weighed what that means?”

“More carefully than you have. I am the one who must say it aloud to a customs officer who would otherwise be turning me out of the country. I am the one who must trust your honour not to… well.” She stopped. “I should, perhaps, ask one thing before any priest is troubled. Are you free? Free in law, I mean — no wife, no betrothal, no banns crying your name across an English parish?”

He might have lied.

It would have been simpler. After all, she just told him she did not care, and he should not, either. He could not afford to care. He had the answer to half his financial woes waiting for him to return to England and formalise his declaration, and she need not know any of it, for this matter would be behind them long before the cost came due.

But he was a fool, and his face gave him away before any words could be uttered.

“There is some commitment, is there not?” she asked. “Are you already married?” She made a quick inspection of his left hand, not even bothering to hide the direction of her gaze.

“At this hour, I am entirely free, but I had meant to alter that when Spain was behind me. There is an understanding waiting for me at home. Or there was, before this morning made a pauper of me, and I hope to Heaven there still is, so I may not have to clean dust bins for a living when I return to England.”

“Ah, an heiress! My congratulations, Mr Darcy. Fear not, I have no designs upon your future, only upon your name, and I mean to give it back unmarked. You are quite safe on that score.”

To be handed his liberty before he had surrendered it, and handed it so briskly, landed nearer to insult than to relief. “I did not ask to be made safe.”

“No.” She was looking at the floor between them. “You asked for none of this. Neither did I.”

“What would you have of me, beyond the use of my name?”

“Your visible protection. Your purse, so much of it as can be recovered. Once we are returned to England, my uncle’s trading house will see you made whole, and you may be assured that I will keep an account to the penny. In exchange for your willingness to fund my survival, I inquire, negotiate, flatter, threaten, interpret, and do whatever I may to help us both recover what was lost. I supply the tongue and… forgive me, Mr Darcy, but the wits to survive those who would cheat you, and you supply what wants height, and money, and a face that discourages liberties.”

“A brute’s office.”

“A highly ornamented one.”

He very nearly smiled. She did not.

“Suppose I refuse?”

“Then this afternoon, I will discover whether Tudela holds a priest reckless enough to marry me to a stranger with a cart, a mule, and no conscience. I would rather not. Most of the alternatives appear diseased.”

The picture put an end to refusal where it stood. He would be hanged before he watched her give her hand to a muleteer who smelled of stale spirits and was missing half his teeth. “You fight unfairly, Miss Bennet.”

“I fight with what is within reach.”

“Very well, Miss Bennet. If this is the only road left open, I will walk it with you.”