Page 13 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘The yellow, tonight, Jane,’ Lydia declared as she entered her chambers.

‘I’m not sure the yellow is … suitable,’ Jane said. Although now fully aware of Lydia’s intentions to disgust Ashford, this dress was a step too far for the lady’s maid.

‘The yellow,’ Lydia affirmed, grimly.

‘Perhaps I could do something with it – take away the trimming, perhaps, there is so much of it …’

Jane, the daughter of a seamstress, could perform miracles with a needle and Lydia had no doubt she might be able to improve the dress if she set her mind to it. Alas, improvement was not on Lydia’s agenda.

‘It is absolutely perfect as it is.’

It was a gown of sickly yellow, cut in a style not seen in the ton for at least ten years past, and it might well have been designed to emphasize Lydia’s very worst qualities: the colour brought out h er sallowness of skin, the puff-capped sleeves broadened her shoulders, and the white feathered edging paid distinct homage to the goose.

It was sufficient to render any gentleman distinctly nauseous, and so shockingly unflattering as to give Ashford cause, surely, to regret the day he was born.

Jane looked her over and grimaced. ‘You do know the rest of the household thinks you quite mad? Elspeth – Lady Phoebe’s maid – tells me that Lady Phoebe has been ranting and storming about your outlandish behaviour in her bedchamber.’

Lydia gave a nod of grim satisfaction. ‘You might warn Elspeth that matters are about to become a great deal worse.’

Then, rigged out in the most unattractive ensemble known to man, Lydia sashayed down to the drawing room, head held high and proud.

Everyone turned to look at her and she had the satisfaction of watching their faces light with surprise.

Ashford, across the room from her, looked nothing less than aghast.

Stunning.

‘Good evening, Miss Hanworth!’ Lady Phoebe sang out, eyes upon the feathered trimming as if she could not help but look elsewhere. ‘What a – magnificent dress.’

‘It is so rare to see gowns of such a hue,’ Lady Hesse said, hiding her smirk behind a peach lace fan.

‘It reminds of one of that fruit … I forget the name,’ Sir Waldo said musingly.

‘Perhaps you mean a flower?’ Dacre interceded.

‘I meant what I said, brother,’ Sir Waldo said, rather more crossly than the situation warranted. ‘It was certainly a fruit, one I encountered upon my travels – you won’t be familiar.’

‘The mango?’ Hesse suggested.

‘Wrong colour entirely, sir.’ Sir Waldo wagged his finger. ‘It has an exterior skin of sorts.’

‘The pineapple?’

‘No, no, no.’

‘Perhaps we could move on to another subject,’ Lady Phoebe tried to cut in but to no avail.

‘It shall bother me all evening if I can’t think of it – what is it?’

‘The banana,’ Ashford supplied quietly.

Sir Waldo snapped his fingers. ‘You have it, my lord!’

Lydia looked to Ashford. ‘Is the banana an attractive fruit?’

Ashford, for the first time in her acquaintance, appeared lost for words.

‘I was told it is all the rage in France,’ she added. ‘ Très chic .’

‘Then doubtless we shall all be wearing yellows by the autumn,’ Lady Phoebe said, trying to hasten the conversation onward.

‘Wouldn’t suit you, darling,’ Sir Waldo said, shaking his head.

‘Not with all the jewels you like to wear,’ Lydia agreed. She gestured towards the diamond necklace once again sitting around Lady Phoebe’s neck – for why not repeat a prior gambit, when it had been so successful the first time? ‘I wonder you do not bruise from the weight of them.’

Across from her, Ashford closed his eyes briefly, as if asking for strength.

‘Yes, well …’

‘On occasion they do!’ Sir Waldo said, proudly. ‘Largest diamonds in Europe!’

Lady Phoebe gave up.

‘Dinner is served!’ she sang out, throwing an urgent glance towards Reeves who – face tightening in alarm – beat a hasty retreat toward the kitchen, as Lady Phoebe led the way a full fifteen minutes early.

‘Tonight, I shall seat you a little differently,’ Lady Phoebe suggested. ‘It will all get dreadfully boring if we are seated next to the same person each night, shouldn’t it? Miss Hanworth, you may move upwards; Ashford, do take your seat beside her.’

Lydia prepared herself for battle. When she and Pip had planned such moments as this, they had agreed she would restrict her faux pas to the verbal and fashionable, only.

Anything more than that and she would risk horrifying the company sufficiently that stories of her gross inelegance would follow her back to London.

But such soft techniques were no longer enough.

Feeling Ashford’s eyes upon her, she recklessly took a deep draught from her wine glass.

Let the gossip reach Aunt Agatha, she did not care – in this precise moment, she wanted nothing more than to make Ashford feel just as bad about himself as he had made her feel.

For what sort of gentleman described their betrothed in such a way?

Despite his words in Uncle Edmund’s study, he plainly cared not a jot for her.

When she had thought him led by sentiment, she could find some sympathy within herself for his bullheadedness, but now she perceived there was no such excuse.

Her poor first impression of him had been correct – nay, entirely too fair.

He was, in fact, nothing less than the most reprehensibly arrogant man she had ever encountered, and she must rid herself of all attachment to him with the utmost expediency.

Rounding her shoulders to a slovenly posture, and laying an elbow upon the table, Lydia reached for the jug rather than wait for a refill to be offered to her – tipsiness would be, she felt, helpful on all counts – except—

‘Ah, may I offer you some lemonade?’ Ashford said, sliding the jug away from her before she could reach it.

She looked up at him, narrowly. Had he done that on purpose? It was difficult to tell. His expression was almost entirely unreadable.

‘Yes, please.’

She waited for him to fill up her glass, and then reached for the soup tureen. There would be no waiting for the gentlemen to serve her this evening.

‘Ah, would you perhaps like some artichoke soup, as well?’ Ashford said, hastily seizing the ladle in hand before she could even touch it.

‘Ugh, no, thank you,’ Lydia said a little irritably. This was not going to work if he kept getting there first. ‘I hate artichokes.’

‘You do?’

‘They make me feel uncomfortable. Physically.’

Ashford cast her a sideways glance.

‘I see,’ was all he said. ‘Would you like—’

‘Uncomfortable,’ she said, with a vague explanatory gesture to her stomach. ‘In my … self.’

Ashford made a noncommittal noise that did not invite her to continue.

‘Sometimes, even it causes me to—’

‘You have my sympathies,’ Ashford interrupted.

Lydia shrugged. ‘ C’est la vie ,’ she said, with all the vim and flourish she could muster, and watched as Ashford’s hand clenched around his spoon.

Perfect.

As the serving concluded, the table turned as one, in a movement so ingrained it resembled a dance, the gentlemen to their right, the ladies to their left. Everyone except Lydia.

‘Miss Hesse,’ she called across the table. Miss Hesse paused, midway through turning to Lord Dacre. ‘Miss Hesse, did I see you at Captain von Prett’s lecture last month?’

A shiver of discomfort went round the table, as when a cat is rubbed the wrong way.

Miss Hesse opened her mouth, shut it, glanced to her mother, and then uncertainly back to Lydia.

When one dined informally, it was allowable to converse with persons on the opposite side of the table.

This was not informal dining, however, despite Lady Phoebe’s assurances otherwise.

‘I – yes,’ she said, at last. ‘Mama and I attended together.’

Miss Hesse tried to turn again to Dacre.

‘What did you think?’ Lydia persisted. and she could almost see the mental calculations passing across Miss Hesse’s mind: to ignore a direct question, rude, to speak across the table in such a way, ruder.

‘It – he – I …’ Miss Hesse stammered, so uneasy that Lydia had to steel herself against a pang of guilt.

‘Oh, isn’t he wonderful?’ Lady Phoebe sprang to assist. ‘Sir Waldo and I met him at Burlington House, and his descriptions of the Americas were just fascinating, weren’t they, Waldo?’

She sent the volley to the opposite end of the table.

‘Eh?’ Sir Waldo, slower upon the uptake, fumbled the return.

‘It was his lecture you found enlightening, was it?’ Ashford sprang to assist. ‘Not his face?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ Lady Phoebe said coyly.

There were murmurs of laughter around the table, and the tension Lydia had caused subsided. With Lady Phoebe and Ashford leading the charge, the informality of a group conversation was deemed more permissible.

‘Do I know this fellow?’ Dacre asked.

Lady Morton batted him playfully on the arm. ‘How have you not heard of him, Dacre?’

‘Oh, Dacre has always been behind the times,’ Sir Waldo said dismissively. ‘He’s a military chap, isn’t he?’

‘Originally,’ Lady Hesse said, ‘but now he’s a prodigious explorer.’

‘His writings have been in all the papers,’ Lady Phoebe said, ‘and he speaks wonderfully.’

‘All the ladies adore him,’ Mr Brandon explained in stage whisper.

‘I have not met him,’ Lady Morton said. ‘But I saw his portrait at the academy this spring – divine .’

‘He’s rather a foppish young cub, isn’t he?’ Hesse said with a dismissive flick of his head. His curls, so weighed down with grease, moved not an inch.

‘Displays little self-awareness,’ Pip intoned softly, opening his notebook.

‘Oh, the notebook has made it to dinner.’ Lady Phoebe’s smile grew more fixed. ‘How amusing.’

‘ Très dr?le ! ’ Lydia agreed, rolling each ‘r’ for as long as physically possible.

Beside her, Ashford took in a sharp inhale and turned his head abruptly toward her, and for one moment, Lydia thought she might have broken him, thought he might be about to snap at her, in full view of the entire table …

‘May I offer you a morsel of turbot?’ Ashford asked.

Was that it? Was he so lily-livered as to let her get away with such behaviour – a coward and a cad?

‘No,’ Lydia said, disappointed. ‘I do not eat any creature with scales.’

‘Are you feeling quite well?’ Ashford lowered his voice to encourage her to do the same. ‘You are acting a little strangely.’

Lydia pretended she had not heard him.

‘But Miss Hesse, what did you think of the talk?’ Lydia called across the table again – as little as she wanted to distress the poor girl, she could not allow her faux pas to be brushed past so easily.

‘Oh! I – I found it touching?’ Miss Hesse said, and Lydia was about to question her further when Mr Brandon jumped into the fray, beginning a bantering conversation about horseflesh with Lord Dacre.

Just as soon as that was concluding, Lydia readied herself again, but Lady Hesse picked up the reins, relaying the contents of a letter she had received just that morning from Lady Jersey.

No one was looking at Lydia, anymore. It was as if they had all decided, by silent though unanimous agreement, to block her out of conversation.

Lydia subsided back into her chair and – grumpily – picked up the wrong fork to cut up her chicken.

‘Lady Phoebe, I must ask,’ Lady Morton said, ‘are we to expect our surprise guest tonight? Last year’ – she turned to Pip in explanation – ‘Melville made a surprise entrance on the second evening – we were all beside ourselves!’

‘I thought Ashford would faint from excitement,’ Brandon said.

‘Something of an overstatement,’ Ashford muttered.

‘Embarrassed by emotion,’ Pip recited doggedly, making a note.

‘What does Ashford’s adoration of Melville say about him, then, Mr Hanworth?’ Mr Brandon said merrily. ‘Is he a murderer?’

‘I imagine it says I have excellent taste,’ Ashford said.

‘Oh, I quite agree,’ Miss Hesse said, eyes shining as she turned towards Ashford. ‘Melville is my absolute favourite poet.’

‘Mine too,’ Mr Brandon said hastily. ‘Ashford and I were equally excited.’

‘Yes, I seem to remember you weeping, did you not?’ Ashford said.

‘Do you?’

‘Girlish sobs,’ Ashford confirmed.

‘Girlish sobs.’ Pip’s pencil scratched at his notebook.

‘Wonderful,’ Mr Brandon muttered.

‘I do not feel shame for it,’ Ashford said. ‘Anyone who isn’t moved by such literature must surely lack a soul.’

‘I hate all poetry,’ Lydia announced belligerently, casting aside her lifelong adoration of the form without a thought.

‘All of it?’ Miss Hesse said, aghast.

‘A jest?’ Dacre suggested.

‘ Au contraire ,’ Lydia said and beside her Ashford flinched. ‘I think we are all beyond the age of nursery rhymes are we not?’ she continued.

‘Nonsense!’ Pip said supportively. ‘No need for it.’

‘The theatre is worse,’ Lydia added recklessly. ‘Why should one pay to be bored?’

Lady Morton let out a great peal of laughter. ‘Degenerates, the pair of you!’ she accused playfully.

And, well, now felt as good a moment as any to debut her new laugh.

It was a sound she had practised with Pip in the quiet of the grounds that afternoon.

After half an hour it had become a thing of such violently grating proportions that Lydia felt it must surely be the very first of its kind in the history of the whole world.

In its aftermath, no one seemed to know quite what to do. Ashford was staring at her, eyes wide, grip upon his fork so tight his knuckles were white.

‘Well,’ Sir Waldo said, into the silence, ‘this seems as good a time as any to make our announcement, my dear.’

‘Does it?’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘I am not sure …’

‘What announcement?’ Lady Hesse said.

‘I have received the most flattering offer,’ Sir Waldo said. ‘I have been asked, by His Majesty’s government, to fill the role of Governor of Mauritius.’

There was a ripple of excitement around the table.

‘By Jove!’ Mr Brandon exclaimed.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ Lady Morton said.

Lady Phoebe had frozen in her seat.

‘You kept that very quiet, Lady Phoebe, you humble thing!’ Lady Hesse said.

‘You did not mention …’ Ashford’s brow furrowed.

‘Waldo only told me yesterday,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘A marvellous surprise.’

‘When do you leave?’ Lady Morton asked.

‘Waldo ships out at month’s end,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘We have not decided when I will join him—’

‘We will both leave at month’s end,’ Waldo corrected. ‘I cannot be without you for a day, my love!’

Lady Hesse cooed her approval.

‘I believe this calls for a toast?’ Dacre said, raising his glass. ‘To the Governor!’

They held their glasses aloft.

‘Lawks!’ Lydia declared.