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Beatrice, as she always did, defended herself against pain by speaking something near it but cutting enough to be taken for wit. She'd always known that Hero would wed young, but she'd hoped for more time. Beatrice had no lands or fortune to draw a husband in spite of her sharp tongue. "Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry 'Heigh-ho for a husband!'" she murmured.
Would she go with Hero to her new household or would she be left behind? Which would be harder to bear? Either way, she dwindled. Claudio might not want his wife's spinster cousin, and while Beatrice trusted in her uncle's affection, that affection was a narrow room with a locked door. The keys were a husband, a convent, and death. Any of those might lead to equally narrow spaces, narrower even.
She thought she was unobserved, so she let a flicker of that show in her face.
"Lady Beatrice," Don Pedro said, "I will get you one." He smiled at her as if he saw her dilemma entire.
Perhaps he did, but she feared the solutions he might suggest. If he commanded, any of his company would wed the ugliest crone in Messina, but Beatrice doubted Don Pedro could command that the union be happy. "I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace ne’er a brother like you?" He looked kind and more gentle than she expected from a man of his rank. "Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them."
Beatrice froze because, of all the traps into which her tongue might lead her, that forwardness was one she should have avoided. Men of his rank made concubines of women of hers.
Don Pedro studied her for a moment, and she expected him to snub her or to sneer. Instead, he said, in all seriousness, "Will you have me, lady? One priest may make two weddings."
No matter which answer she gave, she would be wrong, so she hesitated. "I am not born to that, your Grace." It was all she could do not to turn to see if anyone had overheard. Her uncle would rebuke her for saying 'no' and never forgive her for achieving a higher place this day than Hero's. "I beseech your Grace pardon me."
His expression remained open and serene. "In the briefest moment were there need." His eyes met hers, and he stepped closer. "My heart is not engaged, so it may be a jest an you wish it."
Beatrice shook her head minutely, but she wasn't sure if she meant to refuse the proposal or to refuse the possibility of not taking it seriously. She looked at her hands and wondered what marks the work of a princess left on a woman's hands. Would a princess ever burn a finger putting out a candle? Or-- "Your Grace is too costly; I am made for working days." Her words were tentative.
"I offer no false dice." He didn't move. "And I do not ask your full heart. A portion of affection, trust, and good intention will do."
Beatrice nodded as she accepted that he wasn't asking more from her than he offered. She shifted sideways on the bench where she was seated so that there was room enough for a second person. She held her breath for a moment. If he sat--
If he sat, more eyes than hers would note it. The quiet conversation would become undeniable by either of them.
He tilted his head toward the bench and raised his eyebrows.
She raised her chin in something like a challenge then nodded. Once he was seated, once it was too late, she said, "I fear you may repent. I offer true, but my words too often burst the dam of my lips. In a larger court than this, we might all drown in the flood." She had already told him that she'd given her heart once and to whom.
"'Twill make a different scandal than my brother does." His lips twitched in a smile that she had to call mischievous.
Beatrice considered the bitter anger in Don John's every word and movement. She sighed. "I suppose I must take that, too." She felt Don Pedro laugh more than she heard it.
"He will by no means be pleased," he told her.
She wondered if Don Pedro meant by the marriage or by Beatrice. She nodded as if she understood.
"My brother will not say it plain," Don Pedro said, "but Benedick will. Are you prepared to stand against his disapproval?" He said it as if Benedick's disapproval might mean more than sharp words. "I will not exile him from any place he claims."
Beatrice needed only a moment to realize that Don Pedro wasn't only worried about how Benedick's feelings might affect her. "He gave up claim on me to follow you," she said. She shifted an inch further away from Don Pedro. "I would not steal that from him. It would be a bitter, blighted victory." She looked down at her hands.
Don Pedro turned to look at her. "I wondered if you knew."
She hadn't, but she should have guessed.
"I didn't," he said very softly. "I can't-- I have no right to give him back to you, but I can give myself instead. Might answer well for all."
Not a soul would believe her if she shouted it from the rooftops, and she would not repay such a gesture with spite. "You needn't," she told him.
"I know." He didn't look at her. "But I must, eventually, wed someone. I'd rather wit and compassion than--" He waved a hand to indicate riches and alliances. "--and you are here, now, and available. I have a very small window of choice."
"And I the merest second to accept or deny all you carry." Beatrice thought about Benedick and his likely anger. She thought about Don Pedro's possible responses and her own certain vulnerability. "Any hurt from this will be shared as if we were mirrors turned toward each other, so my answer must wait upon his." She made her face still and serious. "Better to dwindle than turn us all to ash."
"He knows I must wed."
She let her expression harden for a moment as she wondered how much that knowledge honed the edges of Benedick's opinions on marriage. "You cannot give me to him, either. I am not a puppy or a colt. Give me and he wants me not, and-- Again ash. Once tied, only death can sever. Ask him. He might rather you chose a blossom that will bend, such a one as has no claws and can only stand where she is planted."
"That would also be misery shared," Don Pedro told her. He shook his head. "I think we should suit." He stood. "Will ask him and then your uncle."
Beatrice didn't think Don Pedro was wrong that Benedick would prefer her to almost any other option, so she thought it likely that Benedick would assent. Beatrice just also knew that, if not consulted about the decision, Benedick would lash out at her.
"You were a good wife for any man, my lady. 'Tis their grief that I asked first." Don Pedro touched her arm, just the barest brush of his fingers on her skin. "Your uncle will not say no to a small and private service. We'll be wed before God by your uncle's priest and with such witnesses as you wish. The sound and fury will come in Aragon when I present my wife to my court, but it will settle."