“How much?”
Darius shook his head and dropped his gaze. “It’s too much.”
“But the dowry would cover the debt? That would be the end of it?”
He scuffed his shoe on a patch of dirt emerging from the snow. “Not nearly.”
Eliza made a frustrated sound and jumped to her feet again. “You need to be more forthcoming. How am I to know what to do if I don’t have all of the information upfront? If I marry your employer to discharge this debt, how do I know there won’t be more to come? More demands? Will he hold it over my head for the rest of my life that I owe him more than I can ever repay?” What had she done? She’d tried to pre-empt an outcome and it had gone very, very badly.
“You won’t be marrying Montrose.”
That gave her pause, gave her hope. She stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
“The debt is no longer owed to Montrose. It is owed to me.”
“I still don’t understand. Speak plainly, please—I can handle the truth.”
“Since it was my father who started this farce, I repaid to the debt to Montrose from my own purse. Deklin is my friend as well as my employer. Any monies outstanding are now mine. Derbing gave me the house, my father is giving me the runaround and evidently your father was to give me you.”
“I am a person, not a commodity. I can’t be simply given to you.” Oh God. Oh God. The bottom fell out of her stomach and she battled to stay upright.
Darius shook his head, still unable to meet her eyes. “No, you can’t be given or sold. It has to be your decision but money owed is money owed, Eliza. I have a ship to rebuild, a house to repair and a life to return to in America. It took most all of the funds I had at my disposal to repay Deklin. I have not much left on which to live or feed my men.”
“But what of me? My brothers and sisters? If I marry you, what will become of them? My aunt and uncle are diabolical and cannot be left in charge as their guardians. I won’t have all of my hard work to save them come to nothing.” Her breaths came shallow and fast as her fists clenched in her skirts.
It would all be for nothing, all of it. Oh, what had she done?
“Eliza, calm yourself. This isn’t the end. Your siblings will be as safe as will you be.”
He reached out a hand to her shoulder but she shrugged him off and backed away like the frightened animal she was. She didn’t need his gentle touch or his warmth or his well-meaning assurances. “We’ll never be safe. My father has condemned us all to men like you who think you can trade girls like we are currency. I won’t stand for it. I’ll die before I sell my body, my soul or my future for my father’s mistakes.”
“You aren’t seeing how this could benefit all of us.”
Eliza stopped and scoffed rudely. “Benefit all of us? The only benefit is to you and the other greedy people in our lives. Why can’t you all just leave us be? Nathanial will come of age and we can sort the problems out by ourselves. Two months, it’s all we need.”
“You don’t have two months. Others will come to your door demanding money. You can’t hold them all at bay with tears and an empty rifle.”
“For as long as there is breath in my body and a choice in my hands, that is exactly what I will do. You can’t have me. You can’t have my sisters or what little we have left. If I could give you the dowry I would but not at the cost of leaving them—they need me.”
Darius stood and approached once again. “You don’t have to leave them. We can find a way to make this work.”
“No.” She was adamant. It was impossible. He might say now that they could make it work but there was no way. “You don’t even know me. For the sake of gold coins, you would attach yourself to a woman you don’t even know? I have scandal written in bold across my forehead. I have done things…things I wish I could take back and erase from my past, but I can’t. You don’t want me, Darius, and you couldn’t have me even if you did.”
The pride she forced to the surface came from only a drop that was left in her but she called on it like it was an ocean. When she turned to flee, there were no tears in her eyes, only determination. She had already done the most unthinkable thing a person could do to save her family; any actions that followed could never come close to comparing. Not ever.
*
Darius watched her go, a thousand words on his tongue but none she would hear. Even an idiot knew she wasn’t merely going to nod and accept her fate. Not in one day. But he didn’t have many left to wait. Without the money owed him by either Penfold or Wickham, his men would go hungry, his ship would go unrepaired and unseaworthy and he would go insane. So many rules, so many proprieties even here in the country, and even though he was a bastard, he had to follow every damned one of them. Each time he so much as drew breath, he had to remember the English way, on this soil, was the only way.
Eliza was completely wrong about one thing.
He did want her.
Yes, he needed to save her, to save her family, but he also wanted her like he hadn’t wanted a woman before in his life. When her eyes lit up and sparkled with fury, he yearned to take her in his arms and kiss her to silence, to put a
