Page 1 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

CHAPTER 1

Elizabeth

Rain reached Elizabeth Bennet halfway to Netherfield.

It began as a fine mist, hardly worth turning back for. Within a quarter hour it had found the seam at her shoulder and darkened the blue wool of her shawl to something nearer navy. By the time Netherfield appeared beyond the elms, the road had given up being a road at all. It had become a succession of brown pools, each one determined to outdo the last.

Her elder sister, Jane, was ill. Mud could make no argument against that.

Elizabeth crossed the final field with her skirts gathered in one fist. Wind worried at the loose fringe of her shawl, tugging like an impatient child, and three strands gave way before she gained the gravel sweep. She did not stop to mourn them. The door opened before she reached it. A footman hurried down the steps, and behind him came Netherfield's master, Mr. Bingley, without a hat, as though the idea of fetching one had not occurred to him in the general alarm.

"Miss Elizabeth, you are soaked through. You should not have walked in this weather."

"I began in better weather. How is Jane?"

"The apothecary calls it a severe cold. Her fever rose in the night — she has asked for you twice."

That was enough. Elizabeth surrendered her wet shawl to the footman and followed Bingley inside, leaving a trail of small dark footprints across marble that had never expected such treatment.

Miss Bingley stood near the hall fire, her orange silk looking particularly warm by comparison. Elizabeth thought this an uncharitable observation and kept it anyway, tucked away for later enjoyment.

"Good heavens. You truly came on foot."

"Only the last three miles."

Mr. Hurst laughed from the doorway of the breakfast room, a short bark with no real humour in it. Mrs. Hurst examined Elizabeth's hem as if it might have arrived without its owner's permission. Bingley's guest, Mr. Darcy, stood by the library door with a folded newspaper he had stopped reading some time ago. His gaze travelled from Elizabeth's damp hair to her ruined half-boots and stopped, at last, on her face. The insult from the Meryton assembly came back with unwelcome accuracy. She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me. A woman ought not preserve insults like pressed flowers between the pages of a book. Some arrived already preserved, whether she wanted them or not.

He bowed. "Miss Elizabeth."

His voice carried no amusement at all. Elizabeth lifted her chin and held his gaze until the surprise of it passed clean through her.

"Mr. Darcy."

Bingley summoned the housekeeper, who arrived with a young maid trailing behind. "Sarah will take you to your sister. We have put another room at your disposal, if you will remain. You must remain. I will send to Longbourn at once."

"Thank you. I mean to stay while Jane needs me."

Bingley addressed the room at large, as though daring anyone to object. "She shall certainly stay."

Caroline arranged her expression by stages. It was a smile assembled one careful muscle at a time. "Naturally."

Sarah curtsied. She was perhaps four-and-twenty, with quick hands and a face that went blank whenever Caroline looked her way.

"This way, miss."

Elizabeth followed her upstairs, water still dripping from the hem of her gown with every step.

The sickroom held too much heat and too little air. It had the particular closeness of a room where a fire has been fought against a fever and neither side has yet won. Jane lay against a bank of pillows, her cheeks bright with it. Elizabeth forgot the hall, the mud, and Mr. Darcy's fixed attention all at once.

Jane's eyes opened. "Lizzy."

"I am here."

She sat and took Jane's hand. It was dry and far too hot, her fingers curling around Elizabeth's own. The apothecary had left draughts, instructions, and confidence in roughly equal measure. Elizabeth trusted the first two considerably more than the third.

Sarah crossed to the window. "The fire has been built high all morning, miss. Shall I lower it and open the sash a little?"

"Yes, please. The room is close."