Page 80 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

McKeever met his eyes steadily. "It was my duty, sir, nothing more. The extraordinary part of it was entirely Sarah's doing."

"It exceeded your ordinary duty by a considerable margin. I know the difference, even if you would rather I did not."

McKeever's composure held, outwardly, but Elizabeth noticed his hand press flat against his knee, just once, the way a man's hand moves when he is more moved than he intends to let on.

Elizabeth turned back to Sarah. "You chose to come to Pemberley, after your training was done. Do you still choose it, now that you have seen the whole of it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Not because you believe you must stay and finish arranging my marriage properly?"

Sarah's mouth curved. "That part is complete, ma'am."

"It was complete the moment we stood at that altar."

"I wanted to be certain."

Darcy made a small sound of protest that neither woman paid the slightest attention to.

"You may both be certain of it now," Elizabeth said. "There will be no further matchmaking involving anyone in this household without their full knowledge. None."

"That agreement includes Georgiana," Darcy added, with real feeling.

The speed of McKeever's agreement to that particular clause struck Elizabeth as faintly suspicious, but she chose, for the sake of her own peace of mind, not to pursue it any further today.

Darcy began, with visible relish, an inventory of prohibitions. No more records kept in books, no fabric used as signals, no path reports offered unasked. Sarah, quite reasonably, wanted to know whether she might still warn the housekeeper about an unsafe stretch of path in bad weather.

Elizabeth ended the interview there, before Darcy could work himself up to prohibiting the weather itself.

Sarah's completed training earned her higher wages, arranged properly through the housekeeper as it ought to be, along with an extra week of leave to visit her father. McKeever's ten years of faithful service brought him the raise long overdue him, and a silver watch from Darcy himself, with no inscription sentimental enough to embarrass either man in front of the other.

Both changes appeared in the household accounts as nothing more than ordinary advancement. It was the kind of thing any good servant might earn through years of honest work. No one else below stairs would be left wondering whether meddling in an employer's private affairs was the surer road to favour. The gifts acknowledged faithful service, plainly given. They did not purchase silence. Caroline's conduct remained a private matter because Bingley had chosen mercy of his own accord, and not because anyone had ever been paid a shilling to forget it.

When Sarah and McKeever finally left the morning room, they walked six careful paces apart, the very picture of two servants who had never once exchanged an unnecessary word. At the turn of the corridor, Sarah said something too low to catch. McKeever answered.

"They are discussing us," Darcy said.

"They have always discussed us. From the very beginning."

"I preferred not knowing that."

"You did not prefer it. You preferred being in command of it."

Darcy looked at her, caught out entirely. "You are right."

"Marriage has improved your speed at admitting things."

"Marriage has made delay expensive, in your household."

Elizabeth folded the blue list carefully and tucked it back inside the Cowper. "Shall we keep it?"

"As evidence."

"Against whom, precisely?"

"Everyone."

They went back into the library together. Rain moved steadily across the tall windows, gentler by far than the Netherfield storm had ever been. Elizabeth draped the blue shawl over the back of a chair and sat down beside her husband, close enough to feel the warmth of him along her whole side.