Page 23 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

Darcy felt this somewhere beneath his ribs. “Miss Elizabeth is also in town.”

His mother lifted her eyebrows. “I see. Well, I shall ensure Miss Elizabeth is not placed in your way at any gathering of mine.”

The fire shifted softly in the grate.

“However, to banish a young woman from my drawing room because my son, a gentleman, has behaved badly would be punishing the wrong person. You will therefore assist me by doing what courtesy requires and otherwise remaining at the opposite end of whatever room contains the Bennet sisters. You will not pursue Miss Elizabeth for conversation, clarification, or redemption. If she addresses you, you will answer briefly and like the gentleman I know you are. Only if she broaches what has passed between you should you offer your apologies. Otherwise, it would be best not to remind her.”

The arrangement, when reduced to essentials, appeared to consist chiefly of greeting Miss Elizabeth and then removing to the other side of a crowded drawing room while pretending that her presence produced no inconvenience to him whatsoever.

Darcy thought this resembled a highly civilized form of torture. What he said was “Very well.”

“Good.” His mother drew a breath. “I now understand the source of your agitation. Now, before I devote the remainder of the season to this project, I shall ask plainly: Is there anyone?”

Darcy thought of Gracechurch Street. Of Miss Elizabeth speaking with him, clearly growing impatient with his inability to hold up his end of a polite conversation.

He had insulted her before there was even an acquaintance. He had afterward attempted, twice, to solicit her hand for a dance, as though women commonly overlooked such insults. She had refused him both times.

Then, at the Netherfield ball, she had finally consented to stand up with him, and he had abandoned her before the end of the set.

It was difficult to imagine how he might have conducted himself any worse without actual criminality.

Perhaps he deserved every determined daughter of society his mother was undoubtedly planning to parade before him. Let Miss Bingley seize his arm. Let Miss Macomber smile at him over soup and refuse to reveal a single opinion while her mother happily provided them for her. Let half the unmarried women in London advance upon him in strategic formation. A man who left Miss Elizabeth Bennet standing alone on a dance floor could hardly claim to be misused.

The worst of it was that it had never been dislike.

Had he merely disliked Miss Elizabeth, the matter would have been simple. He could have avoided Gracechurch Street and her altogether. But he did not dislike her, not at all. She was clever, lively, and provokingly aware of the absurdities around her, including himself.

And beautiful. She was strikingly beautiful.

Unfortunately, he had opened their acquaintance by insulting her, continued it by perplexing her, and concluded it by deserting her at a ball. Hardly behaviour that would recommend his suit.

If he confessed his sentiments to his mother, her entire formidable matchmaking prowess would be brought to bear upon the problem. Before the week was out, she would have called upon the Gardiners, spoken with them and Miss Elizabeth, invited them to dine, mentioned that Darcy was interested, and congratulated herself on having done nothing in the least precipitate.

And Miss Elizabeth, who was not a woman to be ordered about or flattered into acquiescence, who already regarded him with little more than cool civility, would never forgive him. She was a woman who made her own decisions, and she would never decide to be with him.

No, he had thoroughly destroyed any chance he might have had with her.

Darcy looked at his mother. “No. There is no one.”

She held his eye. He did not look away. “Very well,” she said at last, and picked up her book. “Then you may go.”

Darcy rose, bowed, and went.

He walked down the stairs to his study and shut the door behind him. The fire had burned low; the candles the footman had lit during his conversation with Richard were guttering in their sockets. He fed the fire without ringing for a servant and used the box snuffer to trim the wicks himself.

His mother had neatly secured for him exactly the protection he would have asked from her if he could. There was no possibility of starting again with Miss Elizabeth. He had made certain of that when he abandoned her at the ball. He need not flinch every time Bingley accepted an invitation, nor dread an evening in her company.

But neither could he hope for one.

CHAPTER 6

Aunt Gardiner finished her breakfast, folded her napkin with decision, and announced, “Your uncle has business in Mayfair and I should like to walk in Hyde Park today. He shall let us down at Grosvenor Gate. There is firm gravel there, as you know, and the wind usually blows behind one instead of directly into one’s face.”

Within an hour of this pronouncement, Elizabeth was walking arm in arm with her aunt and Jane along the broad path next to the river. She tipped her face up towards the pale sun. It was a very fine morning.

She had slept little, risen early, and spent the greater part of the hours before breakfast thinking about Mr. Darcy. Why, she did not understand, for she did not like him, which was generally a sufficient motive not to think of a man unless he was standing before her.

But now the day was bright, the path was dry, and two of her favourite people were walking beside her. It helped her to remember that there were many things in the world that were not connected to Mr. Darcy.