A few weeks later, Spain

Don Juan had put on a proper charm offensive with Valencia's family lately. In the long term, he was aware, it didn't really matter... but time alone with her had been frightfully hard to come by the closer they drew to their wedding day, which meant he wasn't at all sure how much longer he'd be here before he had a chance to break things off with her. In the meantime, life was more pleasant for him if he could be on passably good terms the people who were always hovering around them, so he'd done his best to ingratiate himself. He'd found out her mother's favorite baked good and brought one with him every time he came to call on her. It hadn't earned him any more time alone with her yet, but it had earned him a much warmer reception. He'd taught one of her younger sisters the steps of a dance she hadn't learned yet. He'd practiced a particular hunting story at pubs until he felt confident telling it to her father, and he'd laughed at all the appropriate intervals. He was making progress on all fronts — except on the one that mattered most, of having a minute to talk to her alone.

He was sitting on the sofa in their parlor now, with Valencia across from him and a whole cadre of family members perched on the other side of the room. Still within earshot, he thought, though their primary purpose was probably to raise the alarm should he dare to move to her sofa. He was beginning to think he'd have to orchestrate an opportunity to talk to her privately, but he had no idea how to do so. He was lost in contemplation of this when Valencia asked him a question — he hadn't caught all of it, but something to do with the wedding and his family.

"Oh, no, don't worry about that," he assured her. "My family won't be coming."

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All trust in both Don Juan and herself to keep themselves restrained had been broken by their stunt down the hill. She was rarely left alone long enough to relieve herself at functions, never mind have a stolen moment with her soon to be husband. They had an aunt or grandmother or sister or someone poised and ready to follow her whenever she left a room. And - worst of all - they even had her younger sister, Josefina, sleeping in her bed alongside her.

There would be no more kisses, no more hand holding, nothing to bring her chastity - or the family's reputation - into question before the wedding.

Thankfully, she had the preparations to distract herself from how much she longed to kiss him once more. They'd begun to receive the wedding invitations back last week and, much to her continued chagrin, there was still no mention of his family's attendance. It went against her culture for him to be wed without the support of his family. His parents were meant to be there, his siblings, the whole host of them. What was a wedding if not the blending of families?

"Of course they are coming," Valencia insisted. That he was so nonchalant about it bewildered her. "It is your wedding as well, they ought to be here. Your mother at the very least."

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His mother was the last person he wanted showing up in Spain at the moment. Well, maybe not last — that award probably went to Mr. Yaxley, followed by someone in law enforcement ready to arrest him for something — but she was certainly up there.

"No," he said, trying for both firm and gentle. He wanted to convey that it wasn't a matter of debate, without coming across like he was angry with her for bringing it up (what did it matter what she planned, anyway? He supposed his family's exclusion might save her a handful of galleons when it came to paying for dinner plates no one would use). "They don't — hm. Aprovar?" he guessed. He didn't know the word for approve (but his guess ended up being close enough she could likely follow his meaning). "Of me," he hastened to add. "I'm sure they would approve of you."

They hadn't approved of him running Mrs. Yaxley, at any rate; he could only imagine they wouldn't approve of him willfully ruining another innocent young lady.

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Behind her, the whispers began. Valencia could feel them as though they were the wind breezing about the room. His family — his family — didn't approve of him, of this wedding, of the enormity of uniting two families. The sort of atrocities Valencia would have had to commit to encourage her family's abandonment were extreme, sometimes bordering on insane. For him to have reached this level with them — to have lost their support entirely — it was unfathomable.

Valencia blinked at him and subtly pinched the inside of her wrist. A nightmare, this had to be some sort of wicked, stress induced nightmare. "You're sure they would, does that mean they don't yet know of me?" She hissed. The wedding was so soon — too soon — for something as drastic as this to derail it now.

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Don Juan's eyes widened at her question. He hadn't really grasped the full implications of what he'd said when he'd said it (per usual, honestly) but now he didn't know how to walk it back. He didn't want to just lie to her face, and even if he tried he wasn't sure he could keep up a believable lie in a foreign language. On the other hand, how on earth could he explain having agreed to marry someone and not having told his family about it? There was no reasonable explanation, except for the truth — that he had no intention of actually marrying her. Merlin, he couldn't tell her the truth now. She'd slap him, he was sure — he deserved it — and he didn't relish the idea of having an audience of every woman in her family when it happened. Or of having to get past her brother to make his way out of the house.

"Oh," he said, entirely stuck. "Uh..."

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His stunned silence did nothing to soothe the whispers now sounding like roars in Valencia's ears. It wasn't often that she questioned her choice in him — there were perhaps three singular instances that raised doubts in her mind — but this had her staring at him as if she had never known him at all. He wrote to his mother every so often, he'd told her that in passing during their brief visits. How could he have forgotten to mention their wedding?

Valencia stared at him expectantly, her sealed lips the only thing containing the inferno of anger she felt pooling in her chest.

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She was furious. She was containing it well, but he could tell in the way her hands had gotten tense and the expectant arch of her brow. Fuck. He really didn't want this to boil over into a full-blown argument in their parlor. He especially didn't want this to turn into the conversation, the one he'd been trying to get her alone for. Not here, not now. He had to say something that would calm her down. Even if it was... a slight exaggeration of the truth.

"Mi amor," he began, tone beseeching; a fairly transparent plea for her sympathy. "My poor Spanish. I said 'would,' I did not mean 'would.' I meant — I forget the word," (he did not forget the word, but he felt it would help sell this particular story a little more not to come up with it too readily). "Will," he said, in English. "My family will adore you. When they know you. My family, when you meet, they love you." Was it laying it on a bit thick to have entirely forgone the future tense in this last phrase? Maybe; he could only pray it was working.

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Would and will, two entirely different words - words that Valencia was fairly confident Don Juan knew. He had been in Spain for months now, and in that time he had written such fluent and elegant letters to her in Spanish, fully immersed himself in the country, and agreed to marry her. Don Juan wasn't stupid enough to have forgotten the difference between will and would, was he? Valencia wasn't foolish enough to have fallen in love with a disgraced idiot, was she?

"Did you tell your mother?" Valencia asked plainly in English, her accent thick but words clear enough to be understood by him. She was still fuming, still ready to scream at him with the indignity of being kept a secret.

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Slight exaggerations of the truth — or outright lies, apparently. There was no dodging that question, and he certainly wasn't going to tell her the whole story of how he'd gotten into this predicament in the first place. Maybe if he spoke very quickly, in English, she'd miss enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Of course." Nope. "She is hesitant. They don't trust me to make my own decisions. They never have, really. But I can't go my whole life without deciding anything for fear of what they might think. I don't need their approval to know how I feel. And my parents are poets," he continued, rising from the sofa. "They will never stand in the way of love. The moment they see us together I'm sure their doubts will evaporate in an instant. And if I could take you to Ireland to meet them this very hour, I would. But I cannot make them come to the wedding. Not as things stand currently."

Merlin, he hoped she didn't understand a word of that. He hoped his tone conveyed the lie well enough without any of the incriminating details.

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The English words were pouring out of him too quickly for her to keep up. He had informed his mother, but she was refusing to see them wed then. Again, she wondered what sort of man she was marrying that he had encouraged such distrust from his family. The very same family that birthed, housed, and loved him throughout the entirety of his life.

Don Juan was standing now, something every person in the parlor was now keenly aware of for Valencia could feel their eyes on her back. Few of her relatives spoke any English, and those that did weren't fluent enough (or present currently) to have followed all that he said. "Sit down." Valencia commanded lowly, her anger still hot and pulsing but less likely to explode.

"You will take me to Ireland after we are married." She then pushed, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Immediately after. They are to be my family, too. I will not be kept hidden like a shameful secret. And I wish to write to her, you will send my letter with yours."

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Ultimatums, excellent. Were all women like this? Ana had gotten this way, too — again on the subject of his family. Maybe it was just a thing to do with families? Elfrieda had never insisted on meeting his, for obvious reasons, so it had never come up. Why did everyone get touchy about wanting to meet his mother?

In any case, it seemed there was light at the end of the tunnel. She'd said she wanted to sent a letter with his, so he could ensure it was never sent. But in any case he'd need to handle this quickly — lest she get anxious for a response and decide to write again, on her own.

He took a knee on the floor in front of her. "Beauty like yours could never be hidden away," he said placatingly. Then, in English but much more slowly and quietly, he continued, "I could not wait for their approval, so strong are my feelings for you."

Hopefully flattery would get him back into her good graces. He was never going to get a second alone for her if her family doubted him — and if she doubted him, they certainly would too.

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Already, her cynical widowed aunt was rising from her seat behind them to interrupt this scene. Don Juan hadn't listened, nor did he appear to have any sense left to him if he was kneeling this close to her. Valencia supposed she ought to have been flattered by his insistence and compliments, but she just felt exhausted by it.

"Family is important." She quietly reminded him. That he was so quick to shirk his own didn't sit well with her. "It is ... it is everything." She floundered while looking for the right words in English to get her point across, the translating a soothing distraction from all the questions raised. "Please, do not ... forget this."

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Ugh, he'd thought getting onto his knees in front of her and declaring his sentiment would have earned him some credit. He'd hoped someone would clutch their chest and swoon over how romantic it all was. Instead he seemed to have gained not an inch of traction with the hovering family across the room, and only a begrudging tolerance from Valencia herself. What did women want, if not to be told they were the most important thing in the world?

"You are everything," he countered — in Spanish for the benefit of their audience. "I will do as you say."

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