Page 69 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"I have no doubt Sarah will discover a reason to be nearby."

Mrs. Bennet had already moved on to planning the later dinner in her head. She granted the smaller call only because she had decided, in private, to treat it as reconnaissance.

On Tuesday, Bingley's carriage collected Jane and Elizabeth. Jane sat opposite with the particular glow of a woman keeping a happiness entirely to herself. Bingley had asked her to meet him in Longbourn's shrubbery that very morning, with Mr. Bennet reading beside the window and Elizabeth walking within careful, unobtrusive sight. No proposal had been made yet. Everyone involved knew perfectly well that one was coming.

"Are you nervous?" Jane asked.

"About Miss Darcy?"

"About meeting the person Mr. Darcy loves best in the world."

Elizabeth adjusted her glove, buying herself a second to answer. "That is an alarming way to put it."

"It is true, though."

"Then yes. I am nervous." She pressed her palms flat against the seat cushion, as if that would keep the rest of her steady too.

"She is nervous as well."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"Mr. Bingley told me."

"Mr. Bingley tells you everything."

Jane's smile went soft. "Nearly everything."

The carriage reached Netherfield. A footman opened the door, and Sarah waited in the hall beside Mrs. Nicholls, wearing now the sharper, more formal cap of a maid in training.

"Welcome back, miss," Sarah said.

Her eyes went straight to Elizabeth's shoulders. The blue shawl had stayed behind at Longbourn today, and something like relief crossed Sarah's face before discipline caught up and smoothed it away.

"The south path is dry," Sarah said, without prompting.

Elizabeth looked at her.

"No recommendation implied, miss."

"I am glad to see your training includes such fine restraint."

Mrs. Nicholls's expression eased by exactly one degree. The tiniest concession, but a real one. Darcy came through from the drawing room to greet them, Jane first and then Elizabeth, and the intimacy of his Christian name sat between them, waiting for a privacy that company would not grant it yet.

"Georgiana is with Mrs. Annesley," he said. "She has changed her mind about the pianoforte twice already."

"About playing it, or about entering the room where it lives?"

"Both."

"Then we will begin with neither."

Georgiana stood near the drawing-room fire, tall for sixteen, fair-haired, and wishing with her whole heart to become part of the wallpaper. Mrs. Annesley sat nearby with a kind, watchful patience. Bingley circled the room offering tea to everyone in reach and nearly handed Jane an empty cup before catching himself. Darcy made the introductions.

Georgiana curtsied. "Miss Elizabeth. My brother has written of you."

Darcy went very still, the way a man goes still when he has been caught at something.

"Has he?" Elizabeth asked, delighted despite herself.