Page 63 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"May I call you Elizabeth, when we are among family?"

The question made the name feel more intimate than its first use had. It was as though he were asking permission twice, once for the word and once for what the word meant.

"Yes."

"Then I will try not to abuse the privilege."

"I expect you to fail."

"You expect me to use your name too often?"

"I expect you to enjoy having asked properly far too much to stop yourself."

He did not deny it.

They went into Longbourn together. Mrs. Bennet had already begun discussing wedding clothes to no one in particular. Elizabeth corrected her, twice, without much hope of success. Darcy only listened, and said nothing, and looked, she thought, glancing sideways at him, entirely too pleased for a man being measured for a son-in-law's waistcoat he had not agreed to yet.

Courtship, she was discovering, was not the removal of uncertainty at all.

It was permission to examine it closely.

CHAPTER 14

Mr. Darcy

Earlier that morning, Caroline left Netherfield at ten. She descended in travelling dress, Louisa a pace behind her and an exhausted-looking Hurst bringing up the rear. No guest remained to witness the departure. Bingley had arranged that kindness on purpose, though Caroline received it as concealment rather than mercy.

"You will regret choosing strangers over family," she told him.

Bingley's face tightened in a way Darcy had never once seen it do. "Elizabeth was my guest. Darcy is my friend. You tried to use both of them."

"I tried to prevent a disgraceful connection."

"You tried to make one for yourself."

Louisa took Caroline's arm without a word. Hurst asked whether the post horses were ready, with the weary practicality of a man who wanted only to be in a moving carriage.

Caroline turned on Darcy. "You cannot mean to marry her."

"That decision belongs to Elizabeth and to me."

"Her mother will spend your money before the wedding breakfast is even cleared."

"Mrs. Bennet's enthusiasm is not a claim upon my accounts."

"Her sisters will ruin Georgiana."

The name ended whatever patience Darcy had left.

"Do not use my sister to excuse your conduct."

Caroline flinched. A real flinch. For one unguarded instant she looked less like an adversary than like a frightened woman who had mistaken ambition for something that might actually keep her safe. She is afraid. The thought came plainly, and with it something that might have been pity. It changed nothing about what came next.

Bingley handed her into the carriage without offering his hand for longer than courtesy required. Louisa followed. Hurst climbed in after them with a hamper and no farewell at all. The coach rolled away down the drive, and Darcy watched it go with the particular relief of a man setting down something heavy he had been carrying too long to notice the weight of.

At an upper window, Sarah stood with two other maids, watching the same departure. When she saw Darcy glance up, she stepped back out of sight, quick as a rabbit. Not quite quick enough.

"Mrs. Nicholls wishes to speak with you," Darcy told Bingley.