Page 5 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"The plain one."

"Yes, sir."

The embroidered cravat remained on the table, untouched, as though it had feelings that might be hurt by relocation. Darcy put down his letter to his sister, Georgiana. "You are usually quicker than this."

"I am deciding whether the plain one has suffered damage."

"Has it?"

"No, sir."

McKeever removed it anyway. He inspected it near the lamp with theatrical care and returned it to the same place it had occupied a moment before. Ten years of service allowed a man many forms of insolence, provided he committed to none that could be named as such.

"You may speak," Darcy said.

"I have said nothing."

"That is the difficulty."

McKeever's face remained composed, a composure so total it was itself a kind of statement. "Miss Elizabeth arrived in weather that would have kept most gentlemen indoors."

Darcy looked back at the unfinished letter. He had written Georgiana's name twice in one sentence without noticing. "Her conduct was imprudent."

"It was."

"And devoted."

"Yes, sir."

There it was again. Agreement sharpened to a fine point and aimed, unmistakably, somewhere near Darcy's ribs.

Darcy rose and crossed to the window. Rain obscured the lawn in long grey sheets. He had watched Elizabeth approach across that same lawn not two hours before, head bent, one hand holding her skirts clear of the mud with a determination that had nothing genteel about it. When the wind seized her shawl, she caught it without breaking stride, without even looking, the way a person catches something they have caught a hundred times before. He had admired the action before he remembered he was supposed to condemn it. His hand found the curtain and rested there, forgotten.

"Miss Bennet's fever?" he asked.

"Mrs. Nicholls expects it to ease before morning. The apothecary will return at nine."

"Good." Darcy let the curtain fall.

"The volume of Cowper was delivered."

Darcy turned. "I told you to leave it in the sitting room."

"I did. Sarah selected a cheerful passage for the marker."

The book had not, strictly, been in his instructions. Not the choosing of a passage, at any rate. Darcy set the sander aside.

"Sarah?"

"The housemaid attending the ladies."

"I remember her."

McKeever adjusted a cuff that needed no adjustment whatsoever. "She has good judgement."

"About poetry?"

"Among other matters."