Page 4 of The Matchmaker’s Mistake

“Everything is an inheritance in this family.” His mother’s smile was wry. “So you understand,” she continued, “why, when your closest friend has an unmarried sister⁠—”

“Bingley has always had an unmarried sister. When I first met him, he had two, in fact.”

She ignored his pique. “When that sister is accomplished, elegant, and perfectly suited by temperament and education to the kind of establishment you would provide, then yes, Fitzwilliam, I made a modest effort. I do not apologise for it. I do apologise for whatever I said to Miss Bingley, which was perhaps more encouraging than it ought to have been. That was careless of me. But the intention was sound.”

He was quiet a moment. What he said next required choosing his words with care. “Miss Bingley,” he said, “is indeed accomplished. But she also is the sort of woman who lays out her accomplishments before any potential suitor like the silver on her table and expects them to compliment her on the shine.”

His mother frowned.

“In all our time at Netherfield,” he said, “I did not hear her laugh once at anything she thought I would not find amusing. She had no preference that was not an echo of mine. She plays well, she speaks French, she draws designs for screens, she embroiders—and all of it is done with a sort of grim determination rather than any enjoyment.”

His mother was listening intently.

“My reservations,” he said, more quietly, “have nothing to do with her family’s connexion to trade. Both you and Father have always said the trading families would be the making of the country, and I am your son. I am not troubled by the origins of her fortune. Only by her.”

She regarded him for a long moment. “Very well,” she said at last, as though conceding a minor point in a larger argument, which Darcy suspected it was. “I had not understood her as you do.” She sighed. “Fitzwilliam, I only wish to⁠—”

“I know.” His interruption was gentle. “I know exactly what you wish. And I do not doubt that it is for the right reasons. What I should like is for you to allow me to find a wife in my own way, in my own time, without attempting to control the conditions.”

“Has it not occurred to you,” she said, measured and reasonable, “that the conditions sometimes require a small amount of planning?”

“It has occurred to me that you believe so.”

She pressed her lips together, refusing to smile, but she was amused even if she would not admit it.

He stood. “I should like to refresh myself and rest before dinner.”

“Of course.” She did not return to her correspondence. Instead, she waited as he crossed to the door, and when he was nearly through it she said, “Do you know, I had a charming letter from Lady Macomber last week.”

Darcy stopped with his hand on the doorframe. He turned.

She was looking directly at him. Not with a mother’s apology, but with a matchmaker’s clear, mild attention.

“Amelia has come out since you saw her last,” she said. “By all accounts, she has grown into a pretty, sensible young woman. Lady Macomber has recently brought her to town.” The pause that followed, he suspected, was entirely for his benefit. “I have invited them to dine on Monday.”

“I beg your pardon?” Had she heard nothing he had said?

“Only a small party, Fitzwilliam. Family. My brother and nephews, Georgiana of course, and the Macombers, and I thought perhaps the Hursts. Of course not Miss Bingley, who will be otherwise engaged. Lord Cavendish’s cousin is giving a card party that evening for which I shall procure her an invitation.”

“You intend to arrange Miss Bingley’s evening so that she will not be at your dinner?”

“It would be unkind to introduce you to Miss Macomber in her presence.”

“You are not even going to pretend you have listened to me?”

“Listening is not the same as accepting.” She held his gaze. “Monday is only the beginning, Fitzwilliam. I thought you ought to know.”

He opened his mouth. He closed it. There was, he realised, nothing he could say that would not make the situation worse. “I will excuse myself, if you please.”

“Of course, dear. We will speak more this evening.”

Once he entered his rooms and shut the door behind him, Darcy leaned back with his hand still on the knob.

It was a mercy, he reflected, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was safe in Hertfordshire, and a greater mercy still that his mother had no occasion to meet her. As long as that was the case, she could not fix her attention where it was dangerous to do so. Provided Darcy was in London and Miss Elizabeth remained in Hertfordshire, the matter would resolve itself through simple distance.

He had no notion how a man secured forgiveness from a woman he had insulted twice. But as he was unlikely ever to see her again, the question was, he supposed, academic.

He went to change for dinner.