Page 55 of Homeless

Elizabeth looked like she had just swallowed something vile, but then she pulled her lips into a smile he could only describe as dangerous, and turned back to the official. He lost track of the ensuing volley of speech.

Whatever she said, it worked better than his own impatience had. The clerk, who had answered Darcy in the disinterested, almost mocking voice kept for foreigners, warmed by some degrees under Elizabeth's assault of courtesy. After several smiles and what seemed like compliments about his strong jawline and uniform, he laughed at something she said and began to talk. He talked for a good while. Darcy caught perhaps one word in seven and disliked all seven.

“Well?” he asked when the man had finished and gone back to pretending they were not there.

“The Intendancy's records burned. Most of them.” Elizabeth was still looking at the clerk, though the clerk had done with her. “What did not burn was carried off by the French. Taken north, he says, with everything else either valuable or worthless, simply because it could be carried and perhaps used one day to learn how the Spanish resistance was being funded.”

“North to Vitoria, perhaps? They had a stronghold there.”

“He does not know. Or will not say.” She tipped her head and smiled coquettishly once more at the clerk when he happened to look up. “Only that what was not destroyed was seized with the rest of the province's business.”

“That is no answer. I need my claim recognised, and I need something that can be traced.”

“You need a great many things, Mr Darcy, and you will get precisely none of them by scowling at a man who earns nine reales a week and has buried two brothers. What you may get, if you contrive to be civil for the length of one more sentence, is a stamp.”

He sighed. “I am sure you mean to sound triumphant with that, but just now, I fail to understand what a stamp buys me.”

“Well, it will have a date on it, saying you came here and presented your business, and were sent on.” She held out her hand for the document without looking at him. “It is not nothing. It is a breadcrumb. You have lost the loaf, and now you must go about the country gathering crumbs and hope they add to a meal before the man in England forecloses on your kitchen. So? The bond, sir. He is more likely to give the stamp to me than to you. Unless you do not care for your kitchen, in which case…”

He did not give her the paper at once. “You have thought a great deal about my kitchen.”

“I think about very little else. It is a failing. Give me the paper.”

He gave it to her. She laid it on the clerk's table and said something short and rather direct. This time, he did not hear her say, “Por favor,” probably because she had charmed the man so thoroughly that she no longer had to. The clerk inked a seal, pressed it, scratched a date beside it, and pushed the paper back. Elizabeth rewarded the man with a smile that, in a ballroom in Hertfordshire two years ago, would have made Darcy’s knees turn to water.

“There,” she said when she returned to him. “Now you exist in Estella. Congratulations.”

He narrowed his eyes. “There is something you are not saying. What is it?”

She scoffed. “Mr Darcy, if I intended to cheat you, do you not suppose I could have done so two weeks ago and saved myself a rather unsavoury walk up the Ebro valley? Not to mention perhaps a hundred midge bites and having to kiss you in a market square.”

“You enjoyed that more than I did. Come, what is it? You have that look about you.”

“I have a great many looks. You will have to be specific.”

“The one that you used on Mr Collins when you had to dance with him at Netherfield. I recall it very clearly, and I recall pitying the poor fool who had run afoul of your good graces. What is it?”

“That,” said Elizabeth, steering him toward the door by the sleeve, “is simply my face.”

XXI

Balancing The Scales

The moneychanger's shop sat under a green roof off the market square. A sign dangled above it with the name “Aramburu.” It was still early in the day, and only a few men lingered outside, mostly some swatting flies and talking, none looking as though they were there on business.

“This does not bode well,” Darcy muttered.

Elizabeth slowed. “Why?”

“Señor Aramburu will either be annoyed by our early intrusion on his morning, or he will see my money as his only opportunity for profit today. Either way, he will do his best to cheat us.”

“What would it cost to linger here in Estella until his mood improves? I daresay you will lose less in the exchange now.”

Darcy scowled. “Let us get it over with.” She followed him inside, where there was, indeed, a bored-looking fellow dozing on a stool. His arms were crossed over his ample middle, and his chin sagged to his chest.

It was not merely a money-changer's shop. He appeared to have taken anything of value on trade, for his case and his shelves were filled with crosses, medallions, a gold watch or two, silver-framed spectacles, buckles, spoons, and even a few swords. Elizabeth doubted not that he had other weapons stowed out of sight.

Darcy cleared his throat and laid the doubloons on the cloth.