Page 4 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"Mrs. Nicholls assigned me until midnight. Another maid comes after."

"You have already worked the whole day."

"An unexpected guest makes for unexpected hours, miss."

There was no complaint in the sentence — but Elizabeth heard the fact beneath it all the same, plain as a bell.

"Do you want to become a lady's maid?"

Sarah looked down at the shirts in her hands. "I have the sewing for it. Mrs. Nicholls says I need better hairdressing and more French."

"Do you have French?"

"Enough to know when a label says lavender."

"That exceeds Lydia's practical vocabulary considerably."

Sarah's face brightened, unguarded for a moment. "A lady's maid travels. She may earn more. My father had a poor harvest last year."

The information placed the whole day differently in Elizabeth's mind. Sarah's eagerness was not some charming quality arranged for her comfort, a servant's pleasant disposition put on like a clean apron. It had wages behind it, and a father, and the memory of a poor field somewhere that mattered a great deal more than Cowper.

A knock came at the outer door. McKeever stood in the passage with a folded blanket over one arm, his coat still damp at the shoulders.

"Mrs. Nicholls sent word that the sickroom may cool once the fire is lowered."

Sarah took it. "Thank you."

"Has the apothecary left?"

"Ten minutes ago. He expects the fever to ease by morning."

McKeever's glance reached Elizabeth, who stood within sight of the door. He bowed, a precise, economical bow, the kind that had been practised for decades. "That is good news, miss."

"It is. Please thank Mr. Darcy for the poetry."

"I will."

He left without further conversation, though Elizabeth thought his exit carried a faint air of a man who had accomplished exactly what he had come to accomplish. Sarah laid the blanket over a chair.

"You and Mr. McKeever exchange a great deal of household information."

"A guest's valet must know whether his master will be needed below, miss."

"For Jane's fever?"

Sarah arranged one corner of the blanket with more attention than the fabric required. "Mr. Darcy asked."

There was the answer, offered plainly and without further embroidery. Elizabeth returned to the bedside before she could turn it into a question she was not quite ready to hear answered.

Rain and illness had altered the whole household's hours. Beneath the drawing rooms, people carried blankets, adjusted fires, and sent news along passages their employers seldom noticed existed. Elizabeth had entered Netherfield concerned only with Jane, thinking of nothing beyond the next hour and the next cool cloth.

The house, it seemed, had begun noticing her in return.

CHAPTER 2

Mr. Darcy

Darcy's valet, McKeever, laid out two cravats. One was plain. The other had a narrow embroidered edge that Darcy had worn exactly once, under protest, in his aunt's drawing room. McKeever, damn the man, knew it.