Page 75 of Homeless

He sat down on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. “It was far more than ‘some.’ What they were serving downstairs came out of a barrel and was slightly less rancid.”

Elizabeth took another long pull at the wineskin. “Ah, so you complain of coins flowing out of your purse like water through a sieve, but how much have you spent on drink for the pair of us tonight?”

He got his last boot off and stood up. “Apparently, not enough. Very well, madam. It is obvious you have something to say, and until you have said it, you will be flinging barbs at me the rest of the night. What is it?”

She stared back at him, but the words would not come. She could not even be sure what the words had been, only that she wished to be heard, must be heard, and now that she had a captive listener, nothing would dislodge from her mouth.

So, she drank instead.

Darcy set his hands on his waist and shook his head. “When you think of whatever crime you meant to lay at my feet, try not to wake me.” He crossed to the chair in the corner and began to untie his cravat.

“We should leave for England tomorrow,” she said. It came out slurred.

He turned round, his fingers still tugging at the cloth at his throat. “There is nothing I would like better, but I am ruined if I do. You said yourself that there seems a good chance the ledger entry is here. It only wants finding, and once found, I can have it presented to the treasury commissioner… wherever he is.”

“Ah, there it is! We will be searching for this man for weeks. Months, perhaps, marauding about this God-forsaken country like two witless wraiths who have not the good sense to know they are already dead.”

His face darkened. “What would you have me do? The note on Pemberley comes due by Michaelmas!”

“Go home!” she cried back. “Let me go home and do what I can for my uncle, while you marry your heiress and set her dowry against your debt!”

His shoulders seemed to grow wider, his stance stiffer. “Not even the daughter of an earl’s dowry could touch the half of it. I would need another loan, or an extension of my current one, and that is —”

“That is why you chose the daughter of Lord Marchwood.”

He blinked. “What can you know of any of that?”

She swallowed more wine. “Do you think me so wholly ignorant of the ton? Of finance? I have helped my uncle for two years. I know the names that keep coming up where matters of trade are concerned, where Spain is concerned, even. I know at least four trading houses that are beholden to him. I know he has interests in wool, and wine, and tobacco. And I know that if a man wished to be on favourable terms with a bank, it would help to be on favourable terms with Lord Marchwood.”

He shook his head. “You think you understand —”

“Oh, I know I do. Your father was a fool, so now, you must be prudent. Sell yourself, and convince some poor female who only sees your impressive height and striking features to sell herself as well, and you will have secured your fortune for generations. You have arranged it all rather neatly, have you not?”

He stalked closer. “I came to Spain to put the affair aright without necessitating any of that! I could have married any number of heiresses before now, and I did not. Good God, madam, how can you be so callous about the matter?”

She tipped the wineskin again, and this time, she tasted sediment. She was coming to the end of it. She coughed slightly. “Meanwhile, you leave a perfectly good ‘alternative scheme’ waiting for you in London with only the vague promise of your return. Enough to keep her from accepting other suitors, but not enough to assure her that you will put a ring on her finger. You, sir, are the one who is callous.”

He moved a little closer and put one hand on the bedpost. “How dare you?”

“How dare I speak the truth? I see now where Mr Bingley took his instruction. Was that what my sister was to him? A happy expedient against failure elsewhere? Or was he truly only amusing himself?”

Darcy’s face flashed in horror and fury. “He had every reason to believe she felt nothing for him!”

“Because you told him that!” she shot back. “Admit it. You were the one who suddenly left Meryton with no warning whatsoever and took the heart out of your friend, so that he left only a week later without ever hosting the ball he had promised to the neighbourhood. My sister cried for a month!”

His hand left the bedpost as if he meant to turn it into a raised fist against Heaven, then fell to the post again. “Madam… there were… reasons which I do not care to disclose…”

“The reason was your pride.”

He looked as if she had struck him full across the face. “You think pride was all of it?”

“What else could it be for a man who must always stand above everyone in the room, even when he has come near enough to breathe the same air?”

“That is not how I remember my time in Meryton.”

“Hah! Men are often delicate in the recollection of their own humiliations.”

“Then we are better matched than either of us deserves!”