“Now,” he started, “what is this all about? I can understand if you’re scared but remember I won’t press you into doing anything you don’t want to.”
Her cheeks flamed and she damned her gloves. How she would like to press her cold fingers to her cheeks and hide from those penetrating eyes. “I have a…a…request…a favour to ask of you before we say our vows.”
His eyes narrowed and he marched towards her. “You have nothing to barter with, Eliza. You cannot ask favours at the eleventh hour with nothing to give in return.”
“I could owe you a favour,” she offered before she’d had the time to consider her words more carefully.
His eyes narrowed even more until they were barely slits on either side of his face. His frown was fierce but Eliza’s need was stronger, much fiercer, than his anger could ever be.
“Other than your dowry, you have nothing I need nor want.”
“There will come a day when you might require something more of me, from me.”
“Blackmail?” he asked with a raised brow and a slight grin. “And on our wedding day. Is this how our life together is to be?”
Eliza slowly shook her head. Was he taunting her? “I don’t know what our life will be like or what the coming days hold. I don’t know you.”
“It must be a mighty favour if you are willing to give anything in return.”
She breathed deeply, rallied her courage. You can do this. “If something happens to me, I want you to promise you will take my brothers and sisters away from England. Put them on your ship and take them with you to the Americas.”
Relief flashed over his features but was soon replaced with suspicion. “And you? Where will you be?”
“I don’t know.” She looked away, felt more questions coming, questions she didn’t want to answer right now, maybe not ever.
Darius’s tone softened. “I told you, you are safe here with me. I won’t let anything happen to any of you.”
“You might not be able to stop it. Darius, if the magistrate comes…” She felt his presence at her side, his firm grip on her shoulders as he turned her to meet his gaze.
“You said he killed himself. The magistrate will believe you.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“Eliza, what are you not telling me?”
She straightened, firmed her resolve and pooled all of her strength and all of her conviction into her words. “Please, just promise me you will get them far away from here if the time comes.”
Darius sighed and raked both hands through his hair, tugging on the strands. She thought he would fight with her, argue or shake her, but in the end he nodded. “You have my word. But. If you feel danger is close, if it is a person you are scared of other than the magistrate, you have to tell me before it is too late. If there is another creditor coming to claim more than a debt owed, I will have your word that you will tell me so I can take care of it.”
“You are like a knight offering to slay my dragons.” And she didn’t deserve it.
“Don’t think of me as a hero here, Eliza. I will do what I must in a situation not of my own making. My protection comes at a price.”
“The dowry,” she said with a little nod. Of course he wasn’t doing any of this out of the goodness of his heart. She had to remember that. To hold on to it.
“The stakes are high in this game we play. Wickham might look like a fat and lazy prick but if driven to desperation, he could be dangerous. Then there are the unseen pitfalls as well.”
“I didn’t ask to play any of these games, with Wickham, with you. I only want to take care of my brothers and sisters and see them have some semblance of lives, the life I never got to have.”
“Did you have your heart set on balls and routs? On picnics in the park?”
She shook her head and turned to the window. Out there lay the snow, the great, towering pines, the possibilities that were robbed from her the night her mother perished only weeks after labouring hard with Ethan. “I told you I never had a hope or a dream to dance the night away in the arms of a gentleman but I want it for my sisters. I want Nathanial to find a good woman who can take care of him while he rebuilds what our father threw away. I want them to have opportunities.”
“And they will. Only two more months and your brother will be a duke. A duke of very little, but the title will carry. Perhaps then he can reach out to extended family members for help?”
She whirled to face him. “No. Never will we rely on anyone. Our supposed family members deserted us after our mother died. They will circle like starving vultures at the first sign of weakness.”
“So you truly have no one?”
Why did he have to look so surprised? Did he think with wealth and title came friends? “We have that much in common, you and I.”
He smiled, suddenly more jovial than the conversation warranted but it warmed her and Eliza found herself smiling back.
“That will have to do us then. Alone but together. A perfect match indeed.”
Eliza forced a chuckle to cover her sigh, glad the hardest part of the morning was over. Now that she had his word that Nathanial, Gabriella, Grace and Ethan would be protected, she could relax a fraction. Now, with their safety ensured in verbal agreement, she had to marry this stranger and hope he was her knight in shining armour come to her rescue.
If he was the dragon in her tale, she was in big trouble.
Chapter Twelve
It took less time to say his
