Page 52 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

Richard studied him more closely. “How bad?”

“Next one is on Thursday.”

“Ah. Where are we headed this morning?”

“The saddler.”

Darcy climbed into the coach. Richard followed and settled opposite, then took one look at Darcy’s expression and laughed under his breath. “Poor devil.”

“I am not in want of your pity.”

“No. You are in want of rescue, but I have no intention of catching my aunt’s eye long enough to provide it.”

The coach lurched forward. Darcy watched the grey street roll past. “She asked me,” he said after a moment, “if there was anyone.”

He glanced back at his cousin in time to see the amusement disappear from Richard’s face. “And?”

“I said no.”

Richard nodded once. “But . . .”

“It was true, but only because I have made it true.”

Richard leaned back against the squabs. “Ah.”

Darcy tipped his head back to gaze at the roof of the coach. “I am not in humour for this.”

“No,” said Richard. “You are in humour for bolting out of the house and pretending that you require the saddler’s immediate counsel when it is too cold to ride.”

Darcy glared at his cousin.

Richard lifted both hands. “I commiserate. Truly. But you ought not have handed your mother the fowling piece. If you have told my aunt that there is no woman you have met whom you like, you cannot be astonished when she attempts to rectify the deficiency. It is what she does, Darcy.”

Darcy turned back to the window. The truth of it sat between them, extremely unwelcome and not at all improved by Richard’s having spoken it. “I know,” he said.

His cousin was quiet while the coach rattled through a turn. “You made it true,” he said at last. “That is a curious way to have put it.”

“It is the accurate way.”

“You were six weeks in Hertfordshire and came home a fortnight early. In December you told me there was no Hertfordshire question.” Richard stretched his legs across the coach. “Your mother asks whether there is anyone, and you answer no, but you tell me now that you did something to earn that no.” He tapped the window frame. “I may only be a soldier, Darcy, but I am not blind.”

“You have never been only a soldier.”

“No, but it is often beneficial to be thought so.”

They passed the length of a block without speaking.

“I shall not ask her name,” Richard said. “I have been introduced to two women from Hertfordshire, but I suppose you have met others.”

“Thank you.”

“But I must ask one thing.” The idleness had gone out of his voice. “Do you think my aunt knows?”

She knew that he had insulted Miss Elizabeth Bennet in Hertfordshire. What she did not know was that he also admired her. “No.”

“Then she will not have it from me.”

Darcy turned from the window, a thank you on his lips.