Page 13 of Mr. Darcy's Runaway Bride
“Indeed.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Though my situation is less desperate than yours. As a man, I have the luxury of simply refusing the match without severe consequence.”
“While I, as a woman, have no such privilege,” Elizabeth finished. “My choices are far more constrained.”
“What will you do now?” Mr Darcy asked, his expression grave once more.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I do not know.”
He wetted his lips, his jaw moving back and forth before he turned to her. “Miss Bennet, I am about to make a most unconventional suggestion. I ask that you do me the courtesy of listening to what I have to propose, before responding.”
Elizabeth regarded him warily. “What suggestion?”
“You require a husband who would allow you freedom to pursue your writing, who would not seek to constrain your intellect or independence.”
“Yes, but—”
“And I,” Mr Darcy continued, “require a wife who would satisfy family expectation without demanding the emotional intimacy I am not prepared to offer.”
Elizabeth stared at him, comprehension dawning. “Mr Darcy, are you suggesting—”
“A marriage of convenience that would benefit us both.”
The world seemed to tilt beneath her. Had this stranger, this man she had known for less than half an hour, just proposed marriage?
“You cannot mean it,” she said at last. “We are complete strangers.”
“True,” he acknowledged. “But consider our situation. You require immediate escape from an unwanted match and a place to call home. I require a wife who will expect neither love nor exclusive attention, who has her own interests to occupy her time.”
“But marriage?” Elizabeth shook her head in disbelief. “That is a lifelong commitment, Mr Darcy.”
“It need not be,” he replied. “We could agree to a term—a year, perhaps. At the end of that time, if either of us finds the arrangement unsatisfactory, we could seek an annulment.”
“On what grounds?”
“Non-consummation would be the simplest.”
Elizabeth inhaled sharply at his frank discussion of such intimate matters. “You suggest a marriage in name only.”
“I do.” Mr Darcy’s expression remained serious. “You would have your own chambers at my estate, complete freedom to write or engage in whatever pursuits you choose, and the protection of my name and fortune. In return, you would appear as my wife at such social functions as are necessary to satisfy propriety and otherwise live your life as you see fit.”
“Why would you do this?” she asked. “What benefit is there for you?”
“Peace,” he replied simply. “Freedom from the constant pressure to marry according to my family’s wishes. A year’s respite in which to determine my own path.”
To consider marriage to a man she had just met, based on nothing more than mutual convenience and desperation.
And yet, what alternative was there? Return to Jonathan Blackfriars and a life of suffocating constraint? Attempt to survive alone in a world that offered few opportunities to women of her class without family support?
“Where is your estate?” she asked, hardly believing she was considering his offer.
“Pemberley,” he replied. “In Derbyshire.”
Elizabeth started, could it be that this gentleman hailed from the very family her aunt had spoken of? “Derbyshire? My aunt, Mrs Gardiner, is from Lambton.”
“Lambton is but five miles from Pemberley,” Mr Darcy said. “You have connections in the area?”
“Only my aunt,” Elizabeth explained. “She speaks of it often, though I have never visited.”
A strange coincidence, that of all the gentlemen in London who might have approached her, she should encounter one with ties to her aunt’s childhood home.
