She frowned. “There is always Gretna Green.”
“Perhaps I will have that stern talk with your mother, after all,” he growled.
Elizabeth laughed. “And perhaps I will have to teach you what a joke is. You are so terribly serious about this! It sounds... a very specific deadline.”
He looked away. “A clause in my father's will. Or rather, in the trust that governs certain parts of the estate.”
“And you must marry to… inherit?”
“No. Ihaveinherited. But certain holdings—investments, trusts, even portions of my sister’s future—remain tied to oversight unless I fulfill the condition. Namely, marriage. By thirty.”
“How very novelistic.”
“I assure you, it is not.”
Her lips parted. “You are serious.”
He nodded once. “Painfully.”
“Does anyone else know about this?”
He looked at her sharply. “No. And I would like it to remain that way.”
She held up her hands. “I shall tell no one. Heaven help you if the Lady Milletts of the world learned of it.”
His expression was dark. “They would be measuring themselves for wedding clothes by morning.”
She smiled. “And preparing the nursery by noon.”
“Do not joke.”
“Oh, but I must. You will not believe how quickly gossip travels among bonneted hostesses with nothing better to do than organize picnic-based courtship rituals.”
He gave her a long, level look.
Elizabeth laughed, unrepentant. “So what happens if you do not pledge yourself to a bride by the eve of your thirtieth birthday? They chain you to a spinster and lock you in a drawing room until heirs are produced?”
“The oversight shifts to my uncle. Or, God forbid, to Lady Catherine.”
Miss Bennet made a face.
“Yes,” he muttered. “Exactly.”
“I do not even know who she is, but just the name, ‘Catherine’ evokes all sorts of misery. I suppose she spells it with a ‘C’, too, does she not? At least my sister has the decency to go by ‘Kitty.’”
Darcy grunted—almost a laugh, but not quite. “I expect evenyourimagination would fail in this case. No, the worst is that I would lose control of my sister’s dowry and any influence over her marital decisions. Her future would become a discussion between my aunt and the Earl of Matlock.”
That sobered her.
He picked at the seam of his glove. “She is eleven. Quiet. Brilliant. She deserves better than to be used as a pawn in a marriage negotiation for her elder brother. I will not allow it.”
Elizabeth regarded him for a moment, then sat up straighter. “So marry someone. It does not matter who, does it?”
He gave her a cold look.
“Eventually,” she clarified, waving a hand. “Not now. Obviously. But five and a half years? That is a century in social terms. For heaven’s sake, you were just bought for seven pounds, and I was not even trying. Had we a dozen more ladies here, you would have surely brought ten. I doubt you are suffering for prospects.”
“I do not intend to waste the next few years parading around for approval.”
