Page 14 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

His mother awaited him in the drawing room. “Given your comment in defence of Richard, I believe I know, but please tell me what you are thinking.”

Darcy smiled a little at his mother’s pique. “She is everything you said she would be.”

“And?”

“And she will not do, Mother, as you knew well before the soup was cleared.”

There was both a look of resignation and humour in her gaze. “I had thought not,” she said. “But one must begin somewhere.”

Darcy had remained polite for three hours on the strength of good breeding alone. After he sat wearily by his mother, he asked, “You were running an experiment, and I was the subject?”

“Not at all. I was making a start.”

“By bringing a young woman to dine so I could have a look at her?”

“By bringing her and her family here to have a look at you.” She sighed and her expression gentled. “But yes, also so that we could have a look at them. I did not see it. From either of you.”

He looked at her. “And what, precisely, were you hoping to see?”

“Compatibility. Or interest, at the least.”

“And what did you observe instead?”

“Civility. Conversation about unimportant matters that went nowhere in particular. Mutual endurance.” Her mouth curved slightly. “The poor girl has been managed into mediocrity. Still, there was not nothing. I can find someone for her.”

Not until the girl learned to speak for herself. “You are alarmingly confident.”

She turned her wedding ring once. “Lord Ashby’s second son takes orders in the spring. An excellent living, a mild temper, and reasonably attractive. It would give her six months to gain confidence, and it would separate her from her mother by two counties.”

Darcy looked at her. “You are selecting a husband for a young lady you dismissed before she had finished her soup?”

“I dismissed her for you, Fitzwilliam. There is someone for everyone.”

“If you were not sure of her, whyever did you invite her?”

“I will not deny I was hoping she would do for you. But she was invited because I matched her sisters and her mother asked for my assistance.” She patted his hand and rose. “Consider Miss Macomber your notice. We shall carry on.”

He left it there, too tired to fight his mother on her own ground. Instead, he said good night and went up.

In his own room, with the fire built high against the December cold and his valet dismissed, he stood for a long while at the window.

A long winter, his Uncle Matlock had said.

He dreaded it. Two hours of eating, thirty minutes of port, another thirty of music with a young woman who had been taught to be the sort of wife who would never trouble her husband.

The problem was that Darcy had found that he rather liked trouble. At least, he liked the particular variety of trouble that he had encountered in Hertfordshire.

The next day passed quietly. He breakfasted with his mother and Georgiana, then shut himself in his study and attacked his correspondence, answering letters, reviewing estate accounts, and settling tenant matters with such diligence that he almost succeeded in forgetting Miss Macomber and her alarming inability to profess an opinion.

Almost.

Unfortunately, his mind, once irritated, was apt to seek relief, and by ten, Darcy had caught himself imagining a woman who would answer a question directly and honestly the first time it was asked. By eleven she had acquired dark, intelligent eyes and several exceedingly pert opinions.

He was still at his desk at noon, attending to a matter of roof repairs for a few tenants, when Hewitt announced Bingley.

His friend came in with a hasty greeting and information. “Darcy, you will not believe it. Miss Bennet is in town.”

Darcy set down his pen. “In town?” he said.