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“No, not necessarily,” she said. “I need to see what they want and what they fear and what elements of them can be…” She cleared her throat. “Manipulated,” she finished in chagrin.

“So, your skill is not to bring two people together who would truly choose each other but to trick them into being together?”

Her lips parted.

“And that works? Your matches are ever so successful?” He was teasing her, but there was a sharpness underneath. He didn’t wait for an answer. “There. The Viscount of Thrane and Mr. Gibbs are men who might be the sort of men Miss Bingley is looking for. Shall I introduce you?”

“Please,” she said.

For the next hour, the colonel was as good as his word, introducing her to this man and that man, and Elizabeth asked her questions and made her observations, and the colonel watched it all, drinking it in with a certain kind of awe and interest.

He made a few comments here and there, in between introductions, saying it was deftly done the way she had steered all the men towards talk of marriage without making them feel trapped or defensive. He said he could see that she was good at getting people to open up to her.

When there were no other men to be met that the colonel thought could fit the proper criteria, they stopped to drink some wine and they were joined by Caroline herself, who would not look at the colonel, and who said that she would have left hours ago but that Mr. Hurst could not be pried from the whist tables.

“I am sorry I abandoned you,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes, you must not hold it against your friend,” said the colonel, smug. “She has been toiling away on your behalf this last hour, you see.”

“Now, now, Colonel Fitzwilliam, there is no need to discuss this now,” said Elizabeth.

“Is there not?” said the colonel, who was amused. “I thought the way of it was that you were a matchmaking team. Why, when you snared my cousin Mr. Darcy into your web in the first place, trying to match him to Miss Bingley, you discussed everything together, I’m sure.”

Caroline looked up at the colonel, her face going very red. “You… you have spoken of this.”

“I am ever so sorry,” said Elizabeth. “The colonel is rather easy to talk to. I didn’t mean to betray any confidences. Perhaps I ought to have kept my counsel.”

“Oh, please,” said the colonel. “I find it all rather impressive, I must say. It’s perhaps almost Machiavellian, but then I should have expected nothing less from the woman who has ruffled my mother’s feathers.

” He winked at Caroline. “When people say that females are the fairer and milder sex, I always say that no one who had ever observed my mother as much as I had would ever conclude such a thing.”

Caroline stiffened.

Elizabeth furrowed her brow.

The colonel went on, airily. “Now, I think I understand the way the scheming works between the two of you, and I have observed Mrs. Darcy at work for the past hour, and so let me summarize what I think might be your best options, Miss Bingley. The first is the Viscount of Thane, who I introduced you to first, if you’ll remember, Mrs. Darcy.

He’s not only got a title but he has two estates that produce reliable income.

Mrs. Darcy prodded quite quickly into his discussion of what he looks for in a wife, and I rather imagine she thinks that she could use his worry that he would be saddled with a spendthrift to nudge him towards Miss Bingley.

He would be satisfied with someone proper and demure, someone who would not draw too much attention to herself? ”

Elizabeth blinked. “Well, yes, sir, I thought something quite like that.”

“And then there is Mr. Madderly, who may not have a title, but is connected to the Duke of Buttres through his sister’s marriage.

He didn’t reveal to us himself that his first wife had run off with a footman and subsequently drowned herself and the babe the footman had gotten on her in a very widely talked-over scandal, but when I provided that information, I saw Mrs. Darcy’s chin tilt in such a way that I knew she was thinking exactly how she would use that leverage to convince him that Miss Bingley would be a faithful and very safe choice. ”

Caroline clasped her hands together in front of herself.

“How am I doing, Mrs. Darcy?” said the colonel, looking too pleased with himself by half. “Is this how you conduct your matchmaking?”

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “You are… rather observant, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”

“I am my mother’s son,” said the colonel.

“I know how these female games are played. But here it is, both of you. You may be quite good at spotting weaknesses in men, exploiting them momentarily in conversation, and prompting action in a moment, but neither of you are any good at all at making long-lasting matches .”

Elizabeth’s face jerked up.

“If you have had any luck with it thus far,” the colonel continued, “it is down to the fact that the two people in question already had a fancy for each other or that they simply find themselves trapped together after it is too late. I suspect that may be the case with the Hursts, though I am basing that on three moments of conversation with Mrs. Hurst.”

Elizabeth gasped. “I don’t believe the Hursts are unhappy!”

“Yes, but you don’t believe they’re in love either,” countered the colonel.

“I don’t think either of them wished for such a thing,” said Caroline with a shrug. “Mr. Hurst’s first love is cards and my sister is happy enough to have been safely settled. I have often said I would be happy with such a thing as well. Asking for love is asking rather a lot of a marriage.”

“Perhaps,” said the colonel with a shrug. “But tell Mrs. Darcy, Miss Bingley, tell her what she has so obviously missed, what is directly in front of her nose, about the two of us.”

Miss Bingley looked at him with a look of shock on her face, but it was a gratified shock, a shock of relief and gladness.

Elizabeth’s shoulders sagged. “Two dances,” she breathed.

“You claimed her first two dances. You seem to have noticed rather an excruciating amount of detail when it comes to Miss Bingley’s situation, her sister, her character, and everything about her.

You are quite an expert in Miss Bingley.

Everything I have said about her, you have pounced on, tucked away, and brought back out because you…

” She shook her head. “My matchmaking services are clearly not needed, are they?”

The colonel was grinning widely. He turned to Caroline. “May I call on you, Miss Bingley?”

Caroline sucked in an audible breath. “Oh.” She shook herself and then she was blushing and smiling. “Yes, of course. Yes, please.”

The colonel held out his hand. Caroline placed her hand in his, still blushing. He gave her fingers a quick squeeze, still smiling. “If you lovely ladies will excuse me?”

And then, with that, he was gone, leaving them both alone.

Elizabeth rubbed her forehead. “I am a terrible matchmaker,” she murmured.

Caroline gazed after him. “He was not simply being genial, then. He did have an especial interest in me,” she said, stunned.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “For all it is that it’s said that I understand people, apparently, sometimes, I really, really don’t. ”

ELIZABETH WAS EXHAUSTED at the end of the night. Though the ball was still in full swing, she and her husband left just after the midnight breakfast and traveled home.

She curled against him in the carriage, yawning, explaining to him everything that had happened. “I think I shall give up matchmaking entirely.”

“Caroline and the colonel?” said Mr. Darcy. “What an odd match that is.”

“Is it, though? Truly? I think they suit each other,” said Elizabeth, shutting her eyes as she burrowed into the warmth of her husband, into his unique and comforting smell.

“You barely know him,” Mr. Darcy said with a huff. “Though I suppose he did stay quite close to you all evening.”

She laughed into his chest. “You are jealous, Mr. Darcy. My husband is a very jealous man.”

He scoffed. “Jealous of Richard. Hardly.”

“You wish to deny it about yourself, but I see it. I see it within you.” She placed her hand on him, just under his cravat.

“You sound as if the thought pleases you.” He was gruff.

“Anyway, that is not my objection to the match, of course. It is only that I don’t like Miss Bingley, and I think my cousin could—” He broke off, considering.

“Perhaps you’re right. They may be rather well matched.

He would simply adore it, having someone hovering over him while he was trying to write a letter, talking about how fast he writes.

He would love to allow her to mend his pen. ”

Elizabeth let out a guffaw.

Mr. Darcy snickered. “Oh, dear, I didn’t mean it in that way.”

“Yes, please, the less we picture that, the better, I think,” exclaimed Elizabeth.

He settled into the carriage seat, tightening his grip around her. “I am not jealous, my love.”

“I know that,” she whispered.

“I am only… you are too good for me, and you don’t realize it, and someday, I live in terror that you will awaken and see that you could have had any man on earth, any of them, and you will be quite disappointed to only have me.”

She lifted her head, rather shocked. “Never!”

He searched her gaze.

“Never,” she said again, her voice low and firm. She kissed him.

He sighed into her mouth.

She tangled up her hand in his cravat and the kiss deepened.

When the carriage reached their destination, Mr. Darcy had to yell out for the driver to give them “but a moment,” whilst they put themselves together enough to disembark.

Giggling like children, they stole into the house, into his bedchamber, where he roared at his valet that his services would not be necessary, and they left a trail of the finery they had worn to the ball on the path to her husband’s bed.

He touched her with expert fingers, as if she were a treasured and valued instrument he had taken the time to learn with care, and she bowed up against him, bursting as he played her with careful skill, bringing her to a climax that was like the exaltation of sweet music.

When they were joined, she had that sensation again, the sensation of becoming one with him, as if they were more than the sum of their parts, as if together, they became something beautiful and whole, like a masterpiece of an orchestra.

It was only later that he was rueful, holding her in his arms, his finger tracing patterns on her bare shoulder. “I forgot,” he whispered. “I know you didn’t wish me to spill inside you.”

“Oh,” she whispered in realization. Then, she shrugged, rolling into him, kissing whatever bit of his bare skin she could find. “Well, I no longer have to find Caroline a husband. Perhaps I don’t mind. Perhaps I should rather like it if you got me with child.”

He stroked her features, tucking away a lock of her hair. “But you said you were not ready.”

“Only because I thought I would be too busy.”

“Don’t you have an entire society of London women to conquer as of yet? Don’t you have all of my aunt’s influence to undo?”

She sighed, thinking that over. “I don’t know if I do. I don’t know if I rightly care. The colonel said some things to me this evening. Some of them were a bit cutting, truly, but it made me realize that I have never wanted any of that.”

“Any of what?”

“All the ins and outs of manipulating one’s way into a position of, well, let’s call it what it is, power. It is not something I’ve ever truly desired.”

“But you’re quite good at it.”

Perhaps. Perhaps she was not. Perhaps it was only momentary bits of impulse she could manipulate.

It was as her husband had said to her the day after they were wed, that though she might have convinced him to propose to her sooner than he would have, changing his action in the moment, it would have happened anyway.

She could not manipulate the true motivations of a person.

It was a relief, actually. That was too much responsibility for another person to bear. She did not wish it. She never had.

“All I have ever dreamed of, truly,” said Elizabeth idly, “was for some rich and wealthy man to come and fall desperately in love with me and whisk me off to be his wife. And that has already happened.”

Her husband laughed. “Well, then what shall we occupy ourselves with?”

“I have told you. You must work very diligently on getting me with child. It may be an arduous and difficult task, but I think you may be up to it.”

He made a deep noise in his throat, one of approval. “Yes, yes, I think I could be convinced to undertake it.”

She lifted her face to be kissed and he surrendered readily to that temptation.