Page 119 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

Mrs. Gardiner’s glance passed between Darcy and her niece. It was quick, warm, and entirely too observant.

“Jane is in the sitting room,” she said. “Mr. Aldridge has brought her the second volume of something even more scandalous than Fielding. You are not to disturb them.”

“I would not dream of it.”

“No. I daresay you would not.” She shifted the child higher. “Sit down, then, and let Lizzy read you her father’s letter. It concerns you, although he does not yet know it.”

Miss Elizabeth looked at her aunt. “Does Papa’s letter concern every gentleman who calls?”

“Only the persistent ones. I shall have Jane’s gentleman read it after yours.”

Darcy sat.

The letter concerned Longbourn, which wanted its daughters back.

Miss Elizabeth read, “‘The house has grown too quiet, and a man cannot be expected to be clever without an understanding audience. I shall send the carriage the week after Easter. You are not to argue, as I have already told your mother you are coming home, and she is happy about it.’”

She lowered the letter.

“After Easter,” Darcy said.

There was no teasing in her expression now. “I have been very fortunate here,” she said. “But Longbourn is our home, and my father has recalled us to it.”

Darcy counted the weeks.

It was Friday, the sixth of March. Lent had put an end to balls and decreased the number of parties. There would be no dances, no at-homes, no dinners where he might sit three places away and watch her make some pompous gentleman laugh against his will.

There would be only calls in the Gardiners’ small parlour, perhaps an occasional play or concert, and a boy at the foot of the stairs demanding tribute. Four weeks, perhaps less, remained before a carriage came from Hertfordshire. He had promised to court her properly. He had meant to proceed slowly, but a slow courtship was apparently a luxury reserved for men who had not already wasted an entire winter.

“I did warn you I would be a very industrious caller,” he said.

Miss Elizabeth’s mouth curved. “You are already the tallest caller. Edward has said so, and Edward does not flatter.”

“Master Edward is a mercenary. He flatters whoever pays.” Darcy took her hand. “I should like to settle my position before the week after Easter arrives and finds me still guessing at passwords.”

Something crossed her face, too quickly for him to read.

He was glad of it. He preferred having something left to learn about the woman he hoped to marry. Even a lifetime of discovering new things about her would not be enough for him.

Miss Elizabeth refolded her father’s letter and placed it on the table between them, the direction facing upwards. “I look forward to receiving you, then.”

His mother was still doing nothing, and it was torturing her.

He found her on Monday in her sitting room. She sat at the writing table from which she had directed the winter’s parties, dinners, introductions, and marriages.

There was not a card or guest list before her. She was reading a volume of sermons.

Or, at least, she was holding one.

“Fitzwilliam.” She put it down with indecent haste. “Sit. Tell me something. Anything. I have spent four days improving my mind and discovered that it was quite improved enough already.”

“I came to thank you.”

“For what? I have done nothing.” She placed one hand upon the sermons. “And I have been magnificent at it.”

“You have.”

“I refused three invitations that were plainly attempts to make me useful. Though I did advise Lady Sefton about her second daughter, who was going to marry the wrong man if I did not.”