Page 11 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

“Amelia is the most moderate of my daughters,” Lady Macomber said warmly from across the table. “She is never carried away.”

Darcy could not help thinking that there would be, perhaps, particular moments in married life when a degree of enthusiasm might be preferable.

“I fear I cannot agree,” Richard said in a jovial voice from his place down the table. “I am carried away by nearly everything. Last Thursday I was carried away by a ham pie and nearly proposed marriage to the cook.”

A faint look of alarm crossed Miss Macomber’s face, as though she feared this might be the sort of conversation the Darcys often had at their dinner table.

Darcy’s mother looked disapproving, but Richard continued undeterred. “Alas, the cook refused me. She said my income was inadequate.”

His cousin’s jest was met with a small ripple of polite laughter. Lady Macomber first studied Richard, seemed to decide he had intended to be agreeable, and laughed along with the others.

Miss Macomber followed her.

Darcy had known all along, but was certain now: Miss Amelia Macomber would never do.

It was not that Miss Macomber lacked intelligence. As dinner progressed, he could discern she was perfectly capable of understanding most of the opinions in the room.

Unfortunately, she appeared equally determined to agree with them all.

The thought arrived from somewhere—unbidden and unwelcome—that he had once made an uncivil remark in a country assembly room, and the lady so addressed had laughed at him. She had not winced, not coloured, not appealed to her mother for her view on the subject. Laughed at him. It was that show of spirit, he realised, that had first intrigued him.

He set his knife down.

“Mr. Darcy?”

He returned his attention to Miss Macomber. “I beg your pardon. You were saying?”

“Only that the meal is very well prepared.”

“It is.”

“My mother asked me to mention, sir, that she had heard your sister plays.”

“She does.” He did not say, And do you play also, Miss Macomber, or are you waiting for your mother’s permission to decide?

He did not say it because he had been raised by Lady Anne Darcy, who had impressed upon him from earliest childhood that certain thoughts must never be spoken aloud if one wished to continue dining inside the house with respectable people.

It was too bad she had not been with him in Meryton.

The thought remained with him through the fish course, through the entrée, and well into the second remove, where it was joined by an increasing suspicion that Miss Macomber might require her mother’s guidance before expressing a preference regarding her opinion of potatoes.

“Do you care for potatoes, Miss Macomber?” Richard asked.

Darcy’s head came up sharply.

Miss Macomber looked towards Lady Macomber.

“I believe Amelia prefers them prepared with cream,” her mother supplied.

“Yes,” Miss Macomber said. “With cream.”

Darcy sipped his wine.

Richard gave Darcy the smallest possible nod, as though he had confirmed some essential piece of intelligence.

Milton coughed into his napkin.

The earl tapped his glass to have it refilled.