Page 42 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

The door opened below. A gentleman’s voice sounded in the hall, bright, eager, unmistakably pleased.

Aunt Gardiner smiled. “Shall we send for Jane?”

Elizabeth folded Mary’s letter carefully and rose.

“Yes,” she said. “Poor Jane must be rescued from the terrible uncertainty of whether Mr. Bingley is delighted to see her.”

Her aunt laughed, and Elizabeth went to fetch her sister. But even as she crossed the room, she was vexed to realise that her own uncertainty was not half so easily resolved.

CHAPTER 11

Dinner had been rather more pleasant than Darcy had expected. The food had been excellent, the wine better, and Sir Henry had proved capable of discussing hounds, tenants, and parliamentary idiocy without once requiring Darcy to admire his daughter. Mr. Gardiner was soon discussing taxes, a subject upon which Sir Henry was pleased to expound.

Richard stood at Darcy’s shoulder and said quietly, “You must be relieved.”

Darcy glanced at him. “By what?”

“That no one has attempted to marry you off this evening. You have been left alone to eat, drink, and discuss turnips.”

“I had not noticed.”

“No,” Richard said. “Of course not.”

The gentlemen rose at the proper time to rejoin the ladies, and Darcy entered the drawing room in excellent humour. It did not survive his entrance into the drawing room, however, for Lady Broward was waiting for him three steps inside the door.

“Mr. Darcy,” she said, taking possession of him, “you must come sit by Euphemia. She has been longing to ask you about Derbyshire.”

He looked towards the pianoforte. Occupied. Towards the card table. Full. Towards the far window. Barricaded by a fern of unnatural size. When had that been moved there?

A footman met his eye and immediately found the opposite wall of great interest.

There was nowhere else to go that would not have caused an incident, a circumstance of which Lady Broward was well aware. His mother, across the room, appeared . . . entertained.

Beside him, Richard took in Lady Broward, her daughter, and the little settee by the fire. “At least when a horse means to throw me,” he murmured, “it gives some warning.”

“One must always keep his wits about him and his path of retreat open,” Mr. Gardiner said. “Three steps is rather generous by London standards, Mr. Darcy.”

Richard’s mouth twitched. “I begin to understand why you prosper, Gardiner.”

They passed deeper into the room, still speaking.

Darcy watched them go with no little envy before he sat.

Lady Euphemia smiled. She was a brunette woman of thirty-five, widowed these five years and sufficiently secure in her fortune and position. She had no need of a husband, a fact Darcy might have found reassuring had she not closed the space between them the moment he sat down.

Across the room, his mother caught his eye. Her brows rose by the smallest degree.

Darcy knew that look.

It said that his mother was not the author of this particular pairing, but that she had offered him two agreeable young ladies of suitable age, fortune, and disposition, and he had declined to exert himself. Whatever befell him now was his own concern.

There were a number of men and women here this evening for whom his mother was facilitating matches. Cresswell was here, and several young ladies Darcy had only met this evening. The Browards had come because Lady Broward and his mother had been at school together, the Bingleys had come because Bingley wished to be anywhere Miss Bennet would be, and the Gardiners and Miss Elizabeth had come because his mother liked them. He did too. In fact the Gardiners were nearly the only people in the room for whom Darcy’s feelings were entirely uncomplicated.

“It is said,” Lady Euphemia observed, “that your harvest at Pemberley was poor this year.”

“Everyone’s harvest was poor this year.” And last year as well. Fortunately, his father had taught him not to rely solely on the tenant farms for income, and to save in years of plenty for the years that were lean.

Across the room, Miss Elizabeth turned at something her aunt said, and the candlelight shone briefly upon her face.