XV The Devil She Did Not Know #2
Elizabeth heard the numbers, and her eye went to the table.
Her uncle had gone still beside her. Blackwood and Sibley had offered settlements, too — she had not been quite so numb as to miss the numbers — but those were men acquiring what they wanted for a price they had calculated.
This was… she did not know what this was.
Five settlements. For five sisters he had never met, from a man none of them had ever heard of.
“There is a condition,” Mr Erskine said. “Both existing engagements must be dissolved before the marriage can proceed. The offer is void if either arrangement continues.”
Mrs Bennet’s silence collapsed at once. “Both — oh, but that is — Mr Erskine, if the Baron wishes my Elizabeth, what on earth does he want with Jane’s arrangement?
Sir Horace is a baronet, and the wedding is tomorrow.
There is no reason on earth why Jane should give up a baronet for a Scotch title no one has ever heard of—”
“Fanny.” Mr Gardiner’s voice was lower now and more tired.
Elizabeth did not turn to her mother. “Why does it require both?”
“The baron has his reasons. I am not privy to them.”
Elizabeth’s hands had gone very cold in her lap.
She did not look at her mother. She did not look at Jane.
She looked at Mr Erskine, and said, in a voice she had to make herself keep level, “Sir, my uncle has stood surety on both engagements. He has signed the marriage articles in each case. He has put his name to bonds — one for Sir Horace, one for Mr Sibley. If Jane and I both withdraw, neither gentleman will let it pass. Sir Horace will sue, and Mr Sibley will sue, and they will be entitled to. The bonds are forfeit at once. Each set of articles will be enforced separately. My uncle is a tradesman; he has the share of his warehouse, his credit, his investors, and four children. He cannot meet what one of them could claim against him, let alone both at once. We cannot accept the baron’s offer at the cost of our uncle’s ruin. ”
Mr Erskine inclined his head, and for the first time, something in his face very nearly softened.
“Miss Bennet, you ask the very question my client asked first, and it is why I called upon Mr Gardiner before I called upon you. His instruction was plain — no offer was to be put to you until your uncle’s exposure had been provided for in full.
Should both engagements be dissolved, both bonds Mr Gardiner has signed will be retired, and every sum either gentleman has laid out, with a compensation calculated to extinguish any further claim, will be paid out of my client’s estate by deeds of release acceptable in equity.
Each gentleman will be approached by parties of my client’s choosing and given consideration enough that a suit would not be in his interest. Neither will sue.
Mr Gardiner will hold the clearing deeds in his hand by the end of the week. ”
Her jaw fell slack. “All this for a woman your client has never met! Mr Erskine, I think this baron must be touched. Can he possibly be a rational man?”
“Quite rational, Miss. He named Mr Sibley the harder of the two and directed that his price be met in full, whatever it proved, with no haggling that might draw the matter into public view; Sir Horace is to be compensated well enough that he cannot credibly claim to have been wronged. Neither man is to suffer the appearance of having been jilted. And the offer was not to reach you until Mr Gardiner had satisfied himself, in private, that his family’s standing would not be the price of his nieces’ safety.
He has the figures and the draft instruments before him. He may speak to what he has seen.”
Every eye in the room turned to Mr Gardiner.
He cleared his throat once. He looked at his hands. Then he looked up at Elizabeth. “Lizzy, it has been thought through. Every part of it. I know not what this man wants with you, but he has been thorough, to say the least.”
Her eyes fell again to the document. Auchengray. She had never heard of it. And the figures! Her uncle was doing obvious arithmetic even as he tried to look away, and his face had the set proper to a man who had run the numbers and understood what they came to.
“The baron conducts this through his solicitor,” she said slowly. “Rather than meeting with us himself. Why?”
Mr Erskine folded his hands on the table.
“He suffered an injury some years ago. He does not receive visitors, and he does not travel. He has asked me to assure you that his affairs are entirely in order and his circumstances entirely sound.” He turned to the second page.
“The terms of the marriage itself reflect his circumstances.”
Elizabeth pulled the document towards her.
She read the first condition and looked up. “I am to travel to Scotland alone?”
“A maidservant will be provided by this firm to accompany you on the journey — a woman of good character. No other companions. No family.”
“No family? I am to go entirely alone to a house I have never seen, to marry a man I have never met, with no one from my own life present?”
“That is correct.”
She looked back at the page. She read the next condition, and something cold moved through her that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
“All interaction with the baron,” she said, “would take place in darkness.”
Mr Erskine cleared his throat.