Page 59 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

“Intelligent. Well-read. Kind.”

“Yes.”

The needle stopped. “You are agreeing with every word I say,” his mother said, “but you do not mean it.”

“I mean all of it. Miss Finch will make some man an excellent wife.”

“Some man.” His mother took up her thread again. “Did she say anything to displease you?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you say anything to displease her?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Yes, ‘in the main,’” his mother said. She drew the thread through twice. “I have matched dozens of couples, Fitzwilliam. Almost fifty, in fact, over the years. And yet I cannot interest my own son even in a wonderful young lady such as Miss Finch.” She was quiet a moment. “If she will not do, then there is some difficulty. Either it lies with you⁠—”

She paused, but Darcy did not respond.

“—or some piece of information I have is deficient, and I must search further afield.” The needle went in and came out again.

Darcy kept his eyes on the fire. Her information was deficient. He had not meant to lead her so far astray, but what he felt for Miss Elizabeth was private. His mother would point out that he had already ruined his chances, and she would encourage him—tirelessly—to move on.

But he did not wish to move on. He wished to meet Miss Elizabeth again in the park. He wanted to speak with her, perhaps improve himself in her eyes. To what end he could not say, or at least, could not admit. But seeing her in his house so often meant she was never far from his thoughts, and just now, his thoughts told him he was not ready to give her up.

“You are very quiet,” his mother said.

“I am considering how to agree again without giving further offence.”

“I am not offended, Fitzwilliam. I am puzzled.” She evidently meant to keep him here for a time, and so he sat again.

She drew her thread through the cloth and appeared to address her embroidery rather than him. “Almost fifty couples . . . I once found a wife for a man who kept snakes, for heaven’s sake.”

Darcy knew the man. “Mr. Poole keeps a single snake. He has an interest in zoology.”

“That is one more snake than most brides will tolerate.” She paused. “And yet.”

He waited for her to complete her thought, but she did not. Instead, she folded her work and set it back in the basket. Darcy had hoped to see defeat in her expression.

He did not.

“Well,” she said. “I have no one else to produce for you at present.”

At present. Which meant there would be a temporary cessation of activity, but not a surrender.

He would accept the reprieve. “Thank you, Mother,” he said. They both listened to the faint strains of Georgiana’s music for a moment before his mother spoke again.

“She hid from the Finches,” his mother said.

“She timed her escape well.”

“And her reappearance. She takes after her brother.” She placed her hands in her lap.

She was canvassing nothing new. “You will want me for Madame Catalani, I expect.”

“I want you wherever you are willing to be seen, for now. We need not attend.”

This was unusual, but Darcy would not deny he was relieved. He rose and was stepping over the threshold when his mother called to him.