Page 23 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"I lived through a proposal yesterday. Correctness is my last remaining defence."

Jane stared. Sarah dropped the reel of blue silk with a small clatter that seemed very loud in the quiet room. Elizabeth had not meant to say it. The words had simply come, the way water finds the crack in a jug. Silence now would only make it worse.

She told Jane the essentials: the storm, the risk, Darcy's offer, her refusal, and his apology after. She did not repeat the look on his face when she had accused him of duty. That belonged to him, and she found she did not want to hand it over even to Jane. Jane listened without interruption, her hands still in her lap. Sarah retrieved the reel and pretended to inspect it for damage.

"Do you dislike him?" Jane asked, gently.

"Less than I did."

"That is not what I asked."

Elizabeth looked towards the rain-bright window. Below, Darcy crossed the lawn with Bingley, walking slowly to match his friend's shorter stride. Bingley talked with both hands, as he always did when enthusiasm outran his vocabulary. Darcy listened. Really listened, head tilted, the whole of his attention given over.

"I do not know him," she said, and was surprised to find it true.

"Then perhaps you should."

Sarah found sudden, urgent purpose in the workbasket.

"Do not encourage her."

"I did not speak, miss."

"You have become skilled at it."

That afternoon, the household gathered in the drawing room. Jane remained upstairs. Elizabeth had meant to stay with her, but Jane insisted she take an hour away from medicine and broth and her sister's determined cheerfulness.

Darcy stood near the window with Bingley. Caroline occupied the sofa and made no reference at all to the pavilion. Her silence was so polished it could only have been deliberate. Mrs. Hurst proposed cards. Hurst had already begun without her, cheerfully cheating at patience in the corner.

Elizabeth chose a book. She had read three pages when Darcy approached. Three pages she could not later have summarised to save her life. He sat near enough that she caught the scent of clean linen and, faintly, damp wool from the corridor, as though he had only just come in from somewhere colder.

"May I ask what you are reading?"

She showed him the spine. "A novel. I understand gentlemen disapprove of them when women are present, and borrow them the moment the women leave the room."

"I disapprove only of poor novels. Poor histories are equally dangerous and receive far better bindings, which seems unjust."

"Then we agree again, and McKeever will be pleased."

Darcy glanced towards the door, half-expecting, perhaps, to find his valet lurking there. He was not. "He takes little pleasure in agreements he did not personally arrange."

"Sarah claims they have retired from arranging things. Do you believe them?"

"I believe McKeever will obey the exact words I used. Nothing more, nothing less."

"That is not confidence."

"That is long acquaintance."

Elizabeth closed her book. "What did you say to Miss Bingley?"

"I asked her to repeat only the facts of the storm, and to stop treating your reputation as a subject for speculation. Bingley had already asked her the same, in gentler terms than I managed."

"She is his sister."

"She is responsible for what she says regardless."

The answer was severe — and fair, which made it harder to argue with than severity alone would have been.