Page 20 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘You did not say anything about a bite,’ Mr Brandon said. ‘One really has to be careful with bites, you know, Ashford.’

‘Nothing bit me!’

‘What did it look like, Miss Hanworth?’

‘Purple, with yellow spots,’ Lydia said.

She had not realized before today what a gifted improviser she was – truly, she ought to have had a career on the stage.

‘Foreign,’ Lady Hesse breathed in horror, fluttering her fan wildly. ‘We ought to call for a doctor.’

‘No!’ Ashford insisted.

‘A friend of mine was bitten by a snake, once,’ Mr Brandon said. ‘In France. Just came out of the grass – slam!’

He mimed a biting serpent.

‘Then what happened?’ Miss Hesse whispered.

‘He had to miss the races,’ Brandon said, heaving a grieved sigh. ‘Poor chap was devastated – a cautionary tale if ever I’ve heard one, Ashford.’

‘Is it?’ Ashford said. ‘Given it’s the wrong animal and the wrong country and nothing ever bit me in the first place?’

‘Would a doctor even be able to prescribe an antidote?’ Lady Hesse wondered.

‘If we can draw a picture of the fish, perhaps?’ Brandon said.

‘I can draw a picture,’ Lydia offered. ‘Pip, may I borrow your notebook?’

‘There was no fish!’ Ashford said explosively, rising to his feet and stepping away from the table. ‘I have not been bitten. I feel perfectly well.’

They all leant minutely back.

‘Right you are,’ Sir Waldo said soothingly. ‘Right you are.’

‘Aggressive temper,’ Pip intoned, writing in his notebook.

‘I shall take a turn of the gardens,’ Ashford said. He dug in his pocket for his snuffbox and took a pinch to each nostril.

‘Very calming,’ Lady Hesse approved.

‘Miss Hanworth,’ Ashford bit out, ‘would you care to accompany me?’

‘No thank you,’ Lydia said.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘I should like your company.’

There was nothing to be gained from allowing Ashford to voice whatever threats he was so clearly desperate to utter. Far better to let him marinate in this temper.

‘I intend to rest before dinner,’ Lydia said, affecting a little yawn. ‘I imagine it is going to be quite the eventful evening.’

As everyone else returned to their conversations, she held eye contact with Ashford for a moment longer, giving him just the tiniest little glint of a smile.

She hoped he understood this for the threat it was.

Lydia was able to successfully avoid Ashford until near dinner time – imagining, with not insubstantial enjoyment, that his temper must now be pickling his insides.

When the hour neared half past six, she dressed once again her yellow gown, for the only thing worse than wearing it once was, surely, to wear it upon two consecutive evenings.

As she left her room, Ashford appeared almost immediately, as if he had been lying in wait for her on the landing; his expression already stormy as he took her in.

‘I suppose this garb is one of your stratagems?’

‘You suppose correctly,’ she said, walking directly past him.

‘And your brother?’ he asked. ‘He is involved in this, I presume?’

‘You presume correctly.’

‘I knew it,’ he said, hurrying after her. ‘His bizarre behaviour – this investigating business …’

‘Oh, that’s all Pip,’ Lydia said, quickening her steps. ‘His eccentricity is entirely genuine.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said, keeping pace with her. ‘It can’t be.’

She threw him a sunny smile over her shoulder. ‘Would I lie?’

‘Your deception knows no bounds,’ he said darkly.

‘Not everything has been a lie,’ she said. ‘I do hate fish. That was true, you know.’

‘Oh well, thank goodness for that.’

‘Once,’ she said, tilting her head toward him confidentially, ‘my Aunt Agatha forced me to eat a whole plateful of fish pie and I was quite incomprehensibly sick.’

Ashford elected to ignore this.

‘Vomiting,’ she clarified.

‘Yes, thank you – and as reassured as I am—’

‘And I truly cannot sing, not in the least,’ she added. ‘That was not acting.’

‘My relief knows no bounds.’

They had reached the stairs. Lydia grasped her skirts – a few feathers puffed up into the air – and began to walk quickly down.

‘Truly, you ought to be thanking me,’ she said, ‘not berating me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pausing in outrage at the top. ‘Do you believe yourself to have done me some kind of favour?’

‘It was certainly for your benefit as well as mine,’ she said. ‘It is not easy, you know, standing up in front of everyone, singing in such a way, but I did it – for us both. You would be miserable married to me. Come now,’ she added, ‘you can’t dawdle there.’

‘As I am beginning to perceive,’ he said, stamping down the stairs towards her while she resumed her descent. ‘You must be the most accomplished liar that I have ever encountered.’

‘Oh, cease acting so injured,’ Lydia said impatiently, reaching the hallway at the bottom and turning towards the next set of doors. ‘You are far more deceitful than I.’

‘ What ?’

‘You pretend to be the perfect gentleman,’ she said, ‘whilst thinking everyone is below you.’

‘I do not think—’

‘You pretend to be polite and considerate and agreeable, whilst truly acting only according to your own interests.’

‘I am not—’

‘You maintain this perfect, pristine mask at all times,’ she stressed, ‘hiding who you really are—’

‘I am hiding nothing!’

Lydia’s temper was climbing, now.

‘You pretended to feel something for me,’ she said. ‘You proposed in such language as to suggest your sentiments had been caught. Saying you felt certain of me – letting my aunt call it “love at first sight”.’

‘I could not exactly correct her!’ Ashford said. ‘It would have been so rude!’

Lydia let out a disbelieving laugh. ‘Deception is more polite, is it?’

‘When have I deceived you?’

‘Oh, then I must be mistaken,’ she said. ‘You must have mentioned, in your proposal, that you only wished to marry me for my dowry. I must have simply forgotten.’

‘What are you—’

Lydia stopped in her tracks, wheeling round to face him.

‘I heard you,’ she said. ‘I heard you tell Sir Waldo that you had thought me unobjectionable and biddable, and my dowry considerable. I heard that the duchy needs capital, which I assume is the only reason you offered for me, whatever you said in your proposal.’ She jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘I heard it all.’

Ashford stared. ‘You were eavesdropping then , too? Is no private conversation safe?

‘I am glad I did,’ Lydia said. ‘It seems to be the only time you speak honestly. Were you ever going to tell me the duchy was in “dire straits”? Or was that a surprise you were saving for our wedding night?’

‘I – I did not—’ he broke off, pressing a hand onto the balustrade as if to steady himself.

‘Do you deny deception now?’ she demanded, with another jab for good measure.

He recoiled away. ‘It does not make me a villain to consider marriage a matter of business,’ he said defensively.

‘If it is business, then I must have missed the negotiation,’ she said. ‘You never said —’

‘One does not discuss such things with one’s bride,’ he said defensively. ‘It is not done!’

‘How terribly convenient.’

‘This is the way of the world!’ he protested hotly. ‘It is the entire purpose of the Season! It is why we were all there .’

‘It is not why I was there!’ Lydia said, so angry she felt she might cry from the frustration of it, and she turned to walk away from him, but Ashford seized her hand before she could.

‘Whatever our disagreement,’ he said urgently, pressing her fingers between his own, ‘we have to be sensible. Let us call a truce and speak properly.’

‘No.’

‘I cannot think properly with you behaving so wildly!’

‘That is rather the point.’

‘But if I could,’ Ashford continued, ‘I am sure there is a way we could both get what we want.’

‘I am already getting what I want,’ Lydia said doggedly, trying to pull her hand from his grasp.

‘You have not thought this through,’ Ashford said. ‘You have embarrassed me, I admit it. You may continue to do so, I am sure, but you will certainly harm your reputation in the process. Where will that leave you?’

Lydia did not answer. In the past few days she had, she could admit, pushed her behaviour far past the boundary of what caution ought to allow, but she could not de-escalate, could she? Not now when the great advantage of Ashford’s cluelessness had elapsed. She had to show strength.

‘What will it cost me,’ he said, ‘to cause you to cease this madness?’

Lydia lent towards him.

‘I thought you were poor?’ she said, voice so mean and soft she herself was shocked to hear it.

Ashford flinched.

‘I have been very clear about what I want,’ she said. ‘Jilt me, and I shall leave you alone. Do not and …’ Her voice trailed off meaningfully.

He looked at her, a muscle ticking in his jaw. ‘You ought not make an enemy of me,’ he said eventually.

He meant it, she could see that. Lydia raised her chin, heart beating fast.

‘Yes, well, as much as I do fear the apple pie bed and floorboard eggs,’ she said acidly, ‘make all the threats you will, my lord, but in truth, you have no leverage, no bargaining power. Any humiliations you might visit upon me only further my agenda. You may as well give in, now.’

‘Never,’ he said.

‘Then brace yourself,’ she said. ‘For I have much in store for you.’

She wrenched her arm away and turned towards the drawing room – Ashford hot on her heels.

‘I will see you regret this,’ he hissed, as they crossed the threshold.

‘What was that, my lord?’ Lydia asked loudly. ‘I could not quite hear?’

Under the enquiring eyes of Lady Phoebe, Ashford wilted.

‘I said I was looking forward to dinner,’ he said sulkily.

Lydia smirked. She had never felt more powerful.

Most of the party were gathered before the windows, admiring the golden sunset, and Lydia hastened over to their side, Ashford trailing petulantly behind.

‘I too am looking forward to dinner,’ Lady Phoebe agreed, with more than mere politeness. Her face was flushed with excitement, her smile wide. ‘But before then, I have a surprise for you all!’

She raised her voice to carry over the room, and everyone turned to regard her.

‘I am so delighted to announce,’ she said, ‘that we have an addition to our party, this evening, who will be joining us for the rest of the week.’

There were murmurs of interest from around the room. Lady Phoebe paused coquettishly, relishing the moment.

‘May I welcome my very great friend, Captain von Prett!’