Page 26 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

“You would be very welcome.”

Aunt Gardiner produced her card; Mr. Wickham accepted it, and then they parted amicably. Mr. Wickham bowed to each lady in turn; Miss Darcy stood up straight and said, “I hope I shall see you all again,” then turned bright pink and looked at her boots.

They moved off along the gravel in the direction of Grosvenor Gate, the footman falling in three paces behind.

Aunt Gardiner took Jane’s arm, and Elizabeth stepped to her sister’s other side.

“Well,” Aunt Gardiner said. “That was a piece of luck worth braving the weather for. I had not expected to meet with another Darcy here in the park.”

“Miss Darcy was not at all what I had imagined,” said Jane.

“What had you imagined, dearest?” asked Aunt Gardiner.

“I do not know, precisely. Miss Bingley wrote that her brother was courting Miss Darcy, or that he wished to. But I begin to think that Miss Bingley’s letter revealed more about her desires than anyone else’s.” She glanced at Elizabeth who was feeling very smug. “Yes, you need not say it—you told me as much, Lizzy. I ought to have listened.”

Elizabeth, who had not enjoyed the satisfaction of being correct in her sister’s hearing very often of late, only nodded her head. “I wish you had, if only to spare yourself the distress the letter caused.”

“I only hope Miss Darcy will not be distressed should she ever hear of it,” Jane said.

“We need not spend our time concerned for Miss Darcy,” Elizabeth said. “For she has a mother who is the daughter of an earl and the sister of one. Not to mention Mr. Darcy as her brother and protector.”

Aunt Gardiner agreed. “And evidently Mr. Wickham as well. I shall be pleased to visit with him if he does come, for any connection to Lambton is precious to me.”

“What was he like as a boy, Aunt?”

Aunt Gardiner considered the question. “Bright-eyed and mischievous. He used to sing in the Lambton church choir and was uncommonly good at it. The vicar would not allow him any solo parts, however, because he often made up his own melodies. And he was a great favourite at Pemberley. I remember an afternoon when my father took me up to call upon old Mr. Wickham, and Master George was studying English grammar. He was perhaps ten.”

“Was he attached to it?” Elizabeth asked.

“To English grammar?”

“No,” Elizabeth replied with a little laugh. “To Pemberley.”

“I do not see how anyone could not be, once having seen it.”

They walked a few more paces.

“I did hear he had been in some trouble as a young man,” Aunt Gardiner said, “but he appears to have righted himself.”

“Mr. Darcy and Lady Anne clearly trust him to walk in the park with Miss Darcy,” Jane said.

“Indeed. And his father was greatly liked and deeply respected,” Aunt Gardiner said. “When my own father died—I was nineteen then—he came down to Buxton Place to help my mother. He stayed all day, making many of the arrangements at my mother’s direction, because he had known my father as a good man.”

“Mr. Wickham seems nearly a family member of the Darcys,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, if I recall, Mr. Darcy’s father did pay for his schooling, including university. And I shall never forget that while Mr. Wickham came to assist us that Mr. Darcy allowed him the time to do so. They were both of them excellent men.”

Jane, who had been silent for the past several exchanges in her quiet, gathering way, said, “Mr. Wickham was very kind to Miss Darcy. Perhaps he is like his father.”

Aunt Gardiner patted Jane’s hand approvingly. They turned at the boathouse and started back the way they had come.

CHAPTER 7

Lady Honoria Lansdowne was twenty-five, fair-haired, and possessed of a sort of vigorous sociability.

By the time she had completed a lengthy explanation of the differences between Roman and Greek attitudes towards friendship, Darcy grudgingly admired her understanding. It was not long, however, before Lady Honoria began to admire herself with sufficient enthusiasm for them both, and his approval became unnecessary.

Across the table, his mother caught his eye and smiled.