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“I am afraid to ask but can you give me an example?”

“Many. The most common was frequency of intercourse. Did I have any unnatural demands? I will not answer what that means at present. Did I have a mistress? Did I satisfy my wife?”

Elizabeth did not believe she had ever blushed so thoroughly.

“Please stop. We are going to have conversations about all this?”

“Yes. You are going to act like a new bride, able to answer questions such as this. I have made it sound like it is a certainty that they will be asked. And it is by no means certain that anyone will be so rude and intrusive. But you have told me many tales about your mother, and her sister, and there love of gossip. It is not much of a leap of your imagination to realise that they could act like this with old acquaintances.

“I want you armed and ready to deal with any attacks upon you. And as this Caroline Bingley showed, it will be verbal attacks more than physical ones. You missed the allusion a few minutes ago, but it is what I meant when I said you had the power. As my wife, and then as my widow, you will be rich. And money means you have power.”

Peter Napier reached into his waistcoat pocket and produced a small old fashioned ring. Elizabeth’s hand went to her mouth.

“This ring was that of my wife. It has sat in the safe here for more than 30 years. I can think of nothing better than for you to wear it. Miss Elizabeth, will you marry me?”

Elizabeth was surprised at the lack of panic within her. There was shock, utter amazement, but not panic. The level of candour about himself, the bluntness in his talks with her, they all suddenly made sense. And his comment about the lack of heirs was without doubt the most important element to this proposal. She was not depriving a cousin or nephew of an expected inheritance. He said that the estate and manor, as well as the title, were going to default to the Crown.

Even the discussion about married life, the secrets of the marriage bed, it was just more of the same. A combination of brutal candour yet driven by the need to protect her from any attacks. Despite her embarrassment, she saw the need for the marriage to be consummated. Or at least acknowledged to be consummated.

She looked at the small ring, a single pearl mounted on a band of pale gold. The ring he had given his long dead wife all those years ago.

From the outside this was hardly a romantic proposal but Elizabeth knew that it was. A lonely old man was saving her, changing her life forever, and sealing it by proposing with the ring of his first wife. She found her voice.

“May I call you Peter?”

She saw that he knew the answer before she said the words, as he nodded with a huge smile.

“Peter, thank you for this most unexpected of proposals. Yes, I will marry you.”

He slipped the ring on her finger. It was a fraction loose but it would suffice. Even the kiss was not awkward. A quick peck on the lips and she was an engaged woman.

--

Elizabeth lay in bed three nights later considering the frantic preparations. Very quickly she came to realise that there was no hyperbole when the Baron said he could drop dead in the next five hours. He really was living on borrowed time and there was an urgency to the arrangements.

She also got to see that he had been making arrangements almost since the day of the accident. The Baron’s lawyer had sent a man to Waltham Abbey, a town 15 miles to the southeast of Meryton. Close enough that her accent would be similar, but sufficiently far that there was no traffic between the two small towns. The trainee lawyer had gone to the church in the town and spun his tale to the curate. In return for a generous personal donation he had the name of a child named Elizabeth Harris, born the same year as Elizabeth Bennet but dead 12 years later. She had been on her way to Canada with the rest of her family and the ship had foundered. There was no grave.

Peter Napier had been blunt and candid with Elizabeth. He had used the phrase that Elizabeth Bennet was dead. He was proposing that she disappear from history. He would marry Miss Elizabeth Harris, an orphan, originally from Waltham Abbey. Upon her marriage she would be Elizabeth, Lady Napier. There was no trace of Elizabeth Bennet, even her clothes were gone, snatched from her grasp by a street urchin. It was a lot to consider.

In the meantime, a common licence was obtained at the Baron’s church. The vicar was ready to marry them within the week. That she was of age was essential to this process. It had been a consideration in the selection of her nom de plume. There was no need for consent. A dressmaker had been summoned and told she had three days to prepare a dress. It was not specified as a wedding dress to maintain secrecy. Her staff would be working day and night but money had talked and the dress would be ready.

What had surprised her was that the Baron had not told his own staff. Mrs. Williams had been sworn to secrecy. The Baron had once again revealed his cold hard demeanour when talking to her. There would be a bonus for keeping quiet. He did not say anything but it was clear that there would be consequences if she breathed a word. A quiet gulp was her only reaction before agreeing to keep quiet. There was to be no wedding breakfast, no notice until after the wedding. And rather than be disappointed, Elizabeth was grateful for his consideration. There would be endless scrutiny in the months and years ahead, there was no need for them, or her, to borrow trouble forward.

There were only going to be two witnesses to the wedding, Dr. Dumfries the Baron’s doctor, and Mr. Lawrence, the Baron’s lawyer. It was not the wedding that she and Jane had dreamed about as teenage girls, but then this was not the life that she had imagined either. Elizabeth was channelling her inner Charlotte Lucas. This was security, not the deepest love.

And yet she did love the man. Not in a romantic way and definitely not in a familial way, but in a deeply platonic way. Caroline Bingley was a vicious harpy and Elizabeth had no idea why she felt the need to ruin her life. But the corollary of that was Peter Napier was a good man, a true gentleman, and he did not need to save her. Yet he chose to. Even before his death, even before her wedding to the man, Elizabeth knew that when he passed she was going to mourn him deeply.

They were not going to have children, indeed it was unlikely that she would ever have children, but should such a miracle happen then her first born son was going to be named Peter.

The Baron had included her in all the conversations with both his lawyer and doctor. It had been another piece in her education. Lawrence started the explanations.

“Let me explain why we are doing this Miss Elizabeth.”

It was as if she had never been a Bennet. It was just never mentioned. She had an idle thought about the wedding ceremony.

“Situations such as this are quite common. The age gap between you and the Baron is quite extreme but it is not the largest I have heard of. It almost always involves the marriage of an older man to a younger woman. But such a situation similarly almost always causes issues. The classic example is the children of a first wife who are worried that they will be bilked out of an expected inheritance. I do not mean the connotations of the word, but fortunately these circumstances do not exist in this instance. Dr. Dumfries is going to sign an oath that Lord Napier is of sound mind. Again, there have been instances where a young woman has taken advantage of a confused older gentleman. But My Lord is utterly competent, and that will be attested to by the good doctor. Lord Napier has spent significant sums searching for an heir. You will be able to show those records to anyone who claims to be a previously unknown claimant.

“You are marrying him in good faith, he is a gentleman with complete control of his faculties, and we can prove that we have made extensive, and expensive, searches for an heir.”