Page 67 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

He forgot the open door. He forgot Wickham. He forgot, for one entire breath, the whole of Longbourn and everyone in it.

She coloured, but she did not retreat from it. "You have used my name for three days running. Fairness required an exchange eventually."

"Fairness has never been so generous to me before."

"Do not go poetic on me. McKeever will only recommend more Cowper."

She left him standing there. Darcy set one hand flat on the desk and waited for the room to stop tilting before he trusted himself to walk out of it.

At Netherfield that evening, McKeever presented a volume of Cowper alongside tomorrow's clothes for the call, as though this were a perfectly ordinary valet's duty and not an act of open sedition.

"Sarah suggested it," he said, entirely unbothered.

Darcy looked at the book. Then at his valet.

The servants, he reflected, had officially retired from matchmaking.

They had not retired far.

Darcy wrote to Georgiana after midnight, by candlelight, with the house gone quiet around him. He began with Wickham, because Georgiana had asked to know whether the full account became necessary. He told her that it had, that Elizabeth and Mr. Bennet had received it with discretion, and that precautions had been taken. He did not report Elizabeth's response as proof of his own good judgement. That felt too much like using her again, even in a letter meant only for his sister.

Then he tried to describe the courtship. The word looked far too formal on the page, flat and legal, and it contained none of Elizabeth's laughter, none of the charades, none of the particular warmth in her voice when she had said Georgiana's name after hearing the Ramsgate history. He tried another sentence. Crossed it out. Tried again.

McKeever came in with hot water and the unwanted volume of Cowper, setting both down without being asked.

"You are writing to Miss Darcy," he said.

"You know because I am sitting at the desk at one in the morning. A remarkable feat of deduction."

"You use the smaller paper for family, sir."

Darcy looked down at the sheets in front of him. McKeever was, infuriatingly, correct. "I mean to ask whether she will come to Netherfield with Mrs. Annesley."

"To meet Miss Elizabeth."

"Yes."

"She will come."

"You cannot possibly know that."

"No, sir."

Darcy set the pen down. "Does Sarah expect it?"

McKeever considered this with more gravity than the question required. "Sarah said Miss Darcy would wish to judge the lady who corrected her brother."

"Georgiana does not judge people."

"Then she will wish to meet her instead."

The correction was tactful and unnecessary, and Darcy let it go.

He returned to the letter and told Georgiana that Elizabeth's compassion had contained neither curiosity nor blame, and that she would never repeat a word of it. He added that no visit was required for his own sake. Georgiana might come when she chose, or not at all.

"Too many permissions," McKeever said, from over by the clothes press.

Darcy looked up. "Are you reading my letter?"