Page 43 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

“My father was telling me, only this evening, of a new method of underdraining you have employed at Pemberley.”

“The method is neither new nor mine. I fear I cannot take credit for it.” Darcy looked at Lady Euphemia. “Your father is unusually well-informed.”

“My father is always well-informed,” Lady Euphemia said. She laughed prettily but did not pursue it.

While she spoke about some exhibition he had not attended, Darcy watched as his mother introduced Miss Elizabeth to Lord Broward. The man did not keep company with those he did not find intelligent, so his remaining with her after the introduction was a compliment.

Darcy was proud of her, though he reminded himself that her finer qualities had nothing to do with him. He could not see her face, but observed instead the line of her shoulder, her stillness when she was listening, the slight tilt of her head the moment before she chose to disagree.

“I have a cousin in Northamptonshire,” Lady Euphemia was saying, “who has lately let a portion of his estate to a tenant for a fixed sum. His brother declares the arrangement ruinous, since rents in the neighbourhood have risen handsomely; my cousin insists he is spared all trouble and hazard. I cannot make out which of them is right.”

“I should be unable to advise either gentleman, ma’am. I do not let portions of Pemberley.”

“You retain the management of the whole?”

“I do.”

“How very,” said Lady Euphemia, “diligent.”

There was a small pause, into which Darcy ought to have placed something civil.

He ought to have said I quite agree, madam, or any of the half-dozen polite responses that came naturally to him when he was not seething under his mother’s amused observation and listening to Miss Elizabeth enjoy another man’s conversation.

He said instead, “Diligence is less work, in the end. I find the alternative rather more inconvenient.”

“How so?”

“A leaseholder may be a very able farmer and still have naught but a tenant’s interest. Mine is the estate’s interest, and that sometimes requires more deliberate calculations.”

Lady Euphemia considered this. “Of course.”

It was the politest dismissal he had received that week.

Across the room Miss Elizabeth laughed.

It was a low laugh, startled out of her—he had heard it once at the assembly and again at Netherfield, and he had thought of it more often than he ought. Lord Broward looked pleased with himself and resumed speaking.

“Mr. Darcy?”

He turned his gaze back to the woman sitting next to him. “Forgive me, Lady Euphemia. I did not hear.”

“I asked whether you had been in town long this winter.”

“Since the end of November.”

“And do you find London much altered since you were last here?”

“London does not alter, madam. It only acquires more of the same.”

Lady Euphemia glanced across the crowded room. “That is not wit, I collect.”

“No.”

“A pity. I should have admired the effort.”

Darcy looked at her properly for the first time. There was a faint smile at the corner of her mouth.

He would wager a hundred pounds she knew perfectly well why he was distracted, though he could hope that she did not know by whom. Moreover, she did not appear to mind.