Page 74 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

"I know." Darcy considered promising pleasure in the prospect, and chose honesty instead. "I will prepare myself for Lydia."

"You will not punish Lizzy for seeing the faults she already sees perfectly well herself, nor demand she defend them to your satisfaction."

"No."

"You will be taking her from a house where laughter is common as breathing to one where it may frighten the servants half out of their wits."

"Pemberley's servants are resilient, sir."

"Your valet arranged your courtship for you. I should think they would have to be."

Darcy stared at him.

Mr. Bennet's expression turned frankly amused. "Lizzy showed me the reading list some weeks back. Two hands, two households, and a suspicious amount of interest in blue thread for a household that had none to spare. I am indolent, Mr. Darcy — not blind."

"McKeever and Sarah have been expressly forbidden to interfere."

"And how successful has that prohibition been, precisely?"

"They expanded into music."

"Then marriage may be your only remaining line of defence."

Darcy laughed. A real laugh, startled out of him, and unplanned, in the middle of what he had been certain was the most serious interview of his life.

Mr. Bennet folded the settlement closed. "You have my consent to ask her. The answer remains entirely hers to give."

"Entirely."

"If she refuses you, you will not go and drown yourself in my pond. It is shallow, the fish are opinionated, and the inconvenience to the household would be considerable."

"I will remember that, sir."

Darcy left the library with the papers locked in Mr. Bennet's desk and no certainty at all except permission. Permission, he was discovering, felt like everything and nowhere near enough at the same time. Elizabeth saw him through the garden door and said something to Jane. Jane went back into the house, collecting Bingley on the way past the window, and the two of them settled at the nearest pane, visible through the glass and doing a very poor job of pretending otherwise.

Darcy walked into the shrubbery.

Elizabeth wore the blue shawl.

The day had turned clear and cold, winter holding fast in the shade of the hedges, and she had wrapped the wool close around her shoulders against it. The repaired fringe lay bright against one gloved hand, catching what little sun there was.

"My father detained you," she said.

"He read the settlement."

Her brows rose. "There is a settlement."

"A proposed one." He made himself go slowly, though his pulse was doing nothing of the kind. "Your pin money and your jointure are secured to your own separate use, with trustees. There is provision made for children. You may have your own adviser review every line of it before you agree to anything at all."

"You prepared all of that before you had even asked me."

"Yes."

"Fitzwilliam." Something warm moved behind her eyes. "You are proposing to me by way of a legal document."

"I am attempting very hard not to."

Her smile, small and sudden, steadied him more than he had expected it to. They walked together to the far turn of the shrubbery. Jane and Bingley remained visible through the window behind them, and Mr. Bennet had taken up Jane's old post there too, a book held open in his hands that he was not reading a word of.