Page 132 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

Her next words were spoken quickly. “I wrote to your mother a fortnight ago and asked whether Mary might move from Gracechurch to Mount Street in the spring.” She did not lift her head. “I did not ask Mary if I might, and now I feel guilty about it.”

Darcy said nothing for a moment. If he spoke before he brought himself under regulation he would laugh, and Elizabeth might have taken it badly. She was still hiding her face in his chest.

“Elizabeth.” He put his hands on either side of her face and gradually tipped it up to his. “You wrote to the most formidable matchmaker in London and asked her to take your sister up?”

She closed her eyes. “That is not what I did.”

He kissed her nose. “That is precisely what you did.”

Her voice was not perfectly steady. “I only wished Mary to be somewhere she would be asked what she would like in a husband. No one ever has, you know. And now that your mother has promised to ask permission before she promotes a match, I am sure Mary can be persuaded. I would have had her with us, but frankly, your mother and Georgiana are better for her just now. You and I are often . . . absorbed in other activities.”

Darcy bent his head and kissed her again, for as much as he admired the woman Miss Mary Bennet had become, he did not want anyone else in their house just now.

“We must go down,” Elizabeth said.

“We must.” He did not move.

“Fitzwilliam.”

“One minute more,” Darcy whispered in her ear.

When they returned to the saloon, they entered by separate doors, which had been Elizabeth’s notion. Most of the guests did not notice, but those who did were not fooled for a moment.

Em looked up from the card table the instant Darcy appeared. Her gaze moved to where Elizabeth was arriving without him, lingered upon his wife’s heightened colour, and came back to Darcy. Then she looked down at her cards and said nothing, for which he was grateful.

Her husband was not possessed of the same restraint. He caught Darcy’s eye across the room, vastly entertained by this evidence of Darcy’s reserve breaking into pieces when it came to his wife. Darcy glared at him. Wickham only smiled the wider, and then, with remarkable consideration, bent to whisper something in Em’s ear. She smiled, made her excuses, and then the Wickhams made an exit of their own.

Darcy took a glass of wine he did not want and observed the room.

Mr. Cresswell stood near the fire with his new wife while she described their parsonage to a small group of women. He had been the first man produced for Elizabeth in the autumn of the year eleven, to no effect whatever. His mother had produced him again in April for a Miss Ellice of Bath, who accepted him inside six weeks.

Darcy continued his silent count. Lady Euphemia in the corner with her Scottish peer. Colonel Marsden, newly engaged. Young Jacobsen, who had sworn through three seasons that he was indifferent to matrimony and had proposed to Miss Dell within a fortnight of meeting her.

He stopped somewhere past fifteen. Fifteen couples he could pick out without having to move a single step, all of whom owed their marriages to his mother. And more, too, for as far as the ton was concerned, his mother had succeeded in marrying off every eligible young man in her own family in one season.

All she had needed to do, the gossips said, was take some time and put her mind to it.

His mother’s reputation as the ton’s most illustrious matchmaker had never been more secure.

Only Darcy knew that his mother had made two matches, not three. But he was content to let the rumours persist. He and Elizabeth had the match they had both wanted, and that was what mattered.

Next season would be Georgiana’s come out, though even his mother had said his sister ought to take her time. Darcy planned to hold her to that.

He spied his wife across the room beside his mother. Elizabeth had recovered her composure, though not entirely. She held her fan a little too high and would not look in his direction. His mother, who missed nothing, glanced from Elizabeth to Darcy and appeared pleased by whatever conclusion she had drawn. He did not mind, for he was pleased too.

Beyond them, Miss Bennet—Miss Mary Bennet—was arguing with a grave young clergyman from Derbyshire. He had offered some mild opinion Darcy could not hear. Mary had disagreed, and he seemed to be attempting to qualify his position. He was now leaning towards her with considerable animation, while Mary argued on with evident enjoyment. He was not certain Mary Bennet would require his mother’s help after all, for she was more like Elizabeth than he’d believed.

He wandered over to join his wife just in time to hear his mother speak.

“There he is,” his mother said.

Darcy heard the brightness in her voice and knew at once she was not speaking of him. He followed where his mother was directing her words. There, at the far end of the saloon, his uncle Matlock was standing beside the fire with a glass in his hand. He had spent the whole of the previous season avoiding his sister’s attempts to improve the marital prospects of her family, and had likely considered himself especially fortunate when she turned her attention from Darcy to his sons. Evidently, he still believed himself safe.

Darcy addressed his mother. “No.”

She turned to him, all innocence. “I beg your pardon?”

“You promised me you would not attempt to match anyone without their agreement.”