Page 64 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

The housekeeper waited in the breakfast room. Sarah stood beside her, pale and rigid as a poker.

"Miss Bingley accused Sarah of taking a shawl from the retiring room," Mrs. Nicholls said. "A footman saw blue fringe beneath Miss Bingley's wrap as she left that passage. Sarah reported the shawl missing before Miss Bingley ever made her accusation. I have both accounts. I require your decision, sir, since the accusation came from your own sister."

Bingley looked at Sarah for a long moment. "You keep your place. The accusation is false, and I will not hear it repeated. Mrs. Nicholls tells me she means to train you for higher duties. If that is what you want, you have my approval."

Sarah curtsied. "Thank you, sir."

"You also brought a private matter to Mr. Darcy's valet before you brought it to your own housekeeper."

"Yes, sir."

"That was wrong."

"Yes, sir."

"If anything like it happens again, you go to Mrs. Nicholls first. Do you understand me?"

"I will."

Bingley glanced at Darcy, then back to the maid, and his voice gentled. "You prevented a great deal of harm. I am grateful for that. It does not make the wrong road the right one."

Sarah's eyes went bright. "No, sir."

Mrs. Nicholls dismissed her, and Sarah left the room with steps that were almost, but not quite, steady.

"Was that fair?" Bingley asked, once she had gone.

"Yes."

"I hated every word of it."

"That may be exactly why it was fair."

McKeever was waiting in Darcy's dressing room when he came back upstairs, brush already in hand. He was far too composed for a man who had just watched his fellow conspirator survive a reckoning downstairs.

"Sarah remains?" he asked.

"She does. Mrs. Nicholls will train her as a lady's maid."

McKeever turned to the clothes press with the air of a man who had never once considered any other outcome. "Good."

"Your enthusiasm is alarming."

"I said one word, sir."

"You moved before you had finished the cuff."

McKeever looked down at Darcy's sleeve, where one button hung undone. "A grave lapse."

"You may recover."

The valet fastened it with the wounded dignity of a man performing surgery under insult. "And Miss Elizabeth?"

"Has consented to a courtship."

McKeever finished the second cuff with exaggerated care, betraying nothing whatsoever.

Darcy had hoped for more of a reaction than that. I want him to be glad for me. I want someone in this house to be openly, unreservedly glad. He knew it was unreasonable and wanted it anyway.