Page 34 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

“You are—” He stopped and met her gaze. “You have been provided for, I hope. That is to say—I trust the punch—” He did not finish whatever he had meant to say about the punch, which was just as well, for she doubted it had been going anywhere meaningful.

Mr. Darcy looked at her for a moment. Then he glanced to his left where his mother was standing. Why he had done so, she could not say, but when he looked back at her, he sighed. “Forgive me. I am keeping you from your friends.”

This was a curious statement, because just now she was standing alone. Mr. Darcy was not keeping her from anything at all, yet he removed himself from her vicinity with a haste that was almost impolite.

Elizabeth looked across the room.

Mr. Darcy was soon at the far end of it once more, his back three-quarters turned, listening to another gentleman. He had bowed to their party when the butler announced them, but other than that one accidental meeting near the punch, he had not come near her.

There was no slight in his inattention. He had paid every civility required of him and was now attending to his other guests, exactly as a host should.

Lady Anne had asked after Elizabeth’s family in such a way as to make her questions difficult to evade. She had expertly drawn from Elizabeth that she was not being called upon by any gentleman. Then she had almost immediately introduced Elizabeth to an earnest clergyman with a comfortable living who had come to Darcy House tonight on the strength of a private hint from his hostess.

And in all that time, the gentleman of the house had been studiously engaged with other people.

Elizabeth thought this might be the oddest, most perplexing evening party she had ever attended.

She set her glass down and went to find Jane.

Supper was announced soon afterward. Elizabeth found herself placed between an elderly Mr. Hollingsworth, who had opinions about every parish in London, and a Mrs. Standish, who appeared to possess few opinions of her own but was a kind listener. Mr. Cresswell was across the table and a seat removed, neither too far for civility nor too near to seem presumptuous. It seemed, Elizabeth observed, an arrangement calibrated to the half inch. She was both amused by and admiring of it.

Farther down on the same side of the table, Jane and Mr. Bingley were so taken with each other that the courses came and went without their seeming to notice.

Their happiness should have been enough to occupy her, yet Elizabeth found her eyes drawn, against every better judgement, to the gentleman who seemed determined not to see her at all.

A man who had once stood across a country drawing room and looked at her with a steadiness she had felt at twenty feet was now, a month later in his mother’s own house, evidently unable to glance down half the length of his own dinner table.

Then, just as the meat course was being cleared away, his eyes did meet hers—but then his attention was back at the lady on his left before Elizabeth even could be certain it had happened.

Elizabeth had her answer. She had not been wanted here.

It seemed clear enough. Lady Anne was a kind woman, but she had spoken to Elizabeth primarily to keep her out of Mr. Darcy’s way. He was willing to assist Mr. Bingley in his pursuit of Jane, and that was something Elizabeth could not help but be grateful for. But she had been invited here only because Jane had been.

Elizabeth could not mind it overmuch. She had told Mr. Cresswell she was here for her sister’s benefit, and that much was true. But she admitted to herself that there had been some foolish part of her that had been encouraged by Aunt Gardiner’s quiet hints, that had entertained the unlikely notion that Mr. Darcy was not quite so disapproving of her as he had shown himself to be in Hertfordshire. His behaviour this evening, however, had extinguished any such hope.

He had not sought her out, had not joined any group she stood in or even listened to her from a few steps away, had not engaged her in debate, had said nothing to her, in fact, beyond a handful of strangled words when he stumbled upon her near the punch. Very well. She would do him the same courtesy. For the remainder of the evening, she would not look at him either.

CHAPTER 9

By the time his mother’s guests had all departed, Darcy was certain that he had behaved exactly as a gentleman should. There was no reason at all for him to remain awake considering the matter.

By half past four, he was not certain at all.

What unsettled him was not the things he had done, for he had done very little. It was the things he had not.

When the Gardiners and the Bennet sisters were announced, he bowed to them from where he stood, with all the formality expected of a gentleman acquaintance and not one degree more. He had then retreated to the card tables at the far end of the drawing room, where he had remained for almost the rest of the evening. He had not, beyond that first bow and the barest of civilities, said anything to Miss Elizabeth, except for those few moments at the punch bowl, when he had crossed the room with his eyes fixed firmly on his feet, and had looked up only when it was too late to avoid finding her there.

That had been his promise to his mother. To remain at the opposite end of whatever room contained the Bennet sisters. Not to pursue Miss Elizabeth for conversation, clarification, or redemption. If she addressed him, to keep his answers brief and gentlemanly.

He had welcomed the arrangement. It was the only way he could endure a London winter in which Bingley’s interest in Miss Bennet would so often bring him into Miss Elizabeth’s presence.

He had instead attended to other things. He stood with Richard, who had decided to take on the challenge of charming the elderly, cantankerous Lady Trevelyan. He had listened as Mr. Hollingsworth asked him repeatedly for changes at the parish living at Curbar, which was not in Darcy’s gift. He had also nodded along to Sir Henry’s outrage over the alarming direction of Mr. Nash’s plans for Marylebone Park.

He had very studiously not attended to Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

He had, however, watched Miss Bingley address her when Miss Elizabeth entered the room. They had exchanged a brief conversation, and Miss Bingley had lost her smug composure for some seconds before recovering. He had also noticed his mother smile at Miss Elizabeth in the way she smiled at people she liked.

Then he had become aware that Mr. Cresswell of Maplehurst was standing by the fire, apparently waiting for something. Darcy had viewed the introduction and pretended not to be bothered by it.