Page 66 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

It had rained the whole of Tuesday. Steady, thorough, park-emptying rain, from first light until well after dark. He had planned to stroll in the park again in hopes of meeting them, but had not been too disappointed, for there would be other opportunities.

Now he was not so sure.

They came out of Brooks’s at eleven that evening, and George settled the question of what came next.

“My cellar is nearer than anyone’s,” he said, “and I have a very forgiving wife. Come along.”

In the Wickhams’ library, the fire had been kept up for them. A workbasket stood on the floor under the good lamp. A book lay face-down over the arm of the best chair, guarding its owner’s place—and Richard, who had been headed for that chair, spotted the book and took another.

George drew the stopper and held the decanter up to the lamp. “Em’s selection,” he said. “I take no credit and claim all the benefit.” He filled four glasses with ceremony and handed them round.

They arranged themselves near the fire. Milton removed his coat, which as far as Darcy knew, was unprecedented.

Richard stuck his feet out towards the flames. “No Bingley tonight?”

“He may be travelling to Yorkshire,” Darcy said. “I imagine he is preparing for the trip.”

Richard looked at him for a moment, expecting more information, but Darcy just turned his eyes to the fire. After a lengthy pause, Richard let it pass and took a sip of his wine.

George, meanwhile, was already halfway through a story Darcy had heard before. “—so there they are,” he was saying, “the two of them kneeling on the window seat at Brooks’s, a hundred guineas riding on the outcome, each man sworn on his honour to touch nothing. Folkes’s drop is fairly racing down the pane. And then Ponsonby looks up from the glass, very slowly, and says, ‘Folkes. Why is your side fogged?’”

“He had been breathing on it!” George paused to look at them each in turn. “Warming the pane and coaxing the drop along half an inch of window at a time. The wager was forfeit to Ponsonby on the spot, and Folkes has been calling it a misapplication of the rules ever since. After all, he had not touched anything.”

Milton laughed.

“Mark the date,” Richard said. “Milton laughed. Aloud. In company.”

“You are not company,” Milton said.

Richard glanced at George. “We are not?”

“Then what are we?” George asked.

Milton took a slow sip of port. “You are an affliction.”

Richard considered this, then nodded. “Family, then.”

Milton snorted softly. “Something of that sort.”

George laughed, and Richard looked entirely satisfied.

“Well,” he said, “I have been called worse by men I liked less.”

“That is because you know so many disreputable men,” Darcy said.

Richard raised his glass in acknowledgement. “Yes. I do try.”

Darcy kept any further comment to himself. George loved them all, but speaking before him was very much like writing a letter that would be read aloud to his mother, and just now that could prove dangerous.

“You were seen in conversation at your mother’s party,” George said. “Sustained conversation. Em requires particulars.”

Richard glanced at Darcy, who chose his words carefully. “Miss Finch is an intelligent woman.”

“Intelligent?” George looked round the room. “You may as well call the pastor. The last woman Darcy called intelligent—no, I am wrong. He has never called a woman intelligent.”

“I attempt not to call them anything at all if I can help it,” Darcy responded. “For my mother always hears of it.” He paused. “Is that not right, Wickham?”

They all laughed.