Page 27 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

Having called for a bath to be brought to her new bedchambers, Lydia spent a full hour that afternoon scrubbing herself from head to toe – then toe to head for good measure – with vigour sufficient to remove an entire layer of skin, as well as the last of the trout odour.

It was unfortunate that the same could not be done for her clothes, but true to Lady Phoebe’s word she had sent over a selection of evening gowns that Jane had spent the afternoon altering with Elspeth’s help.

Despite Lydia’s initial misgivings, they had swiftly taken Elspeth into their full confidence, and thus far she had had no cause to regret it. Indeed, Elspeth – so grateful for their assistance – had immediately offered to help in any way she could.

‘The thing to do,’ Pip mused, from where he was lounging upon the window seat, twirling his quizzing glass, ‘is to think thief.’

‘And how does one do that?’ Jane asked, without raising her head from her needle.

Pip considered the matter. ‘If you were a criminal …’

‘Which I am not !’ Elspeth piped up.

‘Which we are not,’ he agreed, ‘how would you sell a diamond necklace?’

‘You’d break it into pieces, would you not?

’ Lydia said, from her own position, at the dressing table.

Jane had fetched salt and pepper from the kitchen for her, and now Lydia was engrossed in mixing small amounts of each into Ashford’s snuff mixture.

Sufficient quantities that, upon inhale, were likely to cause one a shock, but not so much that one might immediately tell upon looking that it had been tampered with.

‘Far easier to dispose of it that way, without detection.’

‘You seem to know an awful lot about it …’ Pip said, turning his head slowly to regard her.

Lydia looked up, laughing. ‘Am I to be a suspect now?’

‘No stone unturned,’ Pip said. ‘Though it would pain me to send you to prison, Lydia.’

‘Oh, that’s all right then.’

‘Which rooms remain unsearched?’

‘Just Lord Dacre’s and Lord Ashford’s,’ Elspeth said. ‘There was nothing of note in all the rest.’

‘These will be our objectives tonight,’ Pip vowed, ‘while everyone is in the drawing room before dinner. Do you think you can keep everyone there, Lydia? We shall need a clear half hour.’

Lydia nodded her assent. ‘There,’ she said, regarding the snuffbox with satisfaction. ‘Done.’

‘As are we,’ Jane said, shaking out Lydia’s dress. ‘Will you try it on, Miss Lydia?’

An hour later, with dusk setting in outside, and the last alterations made, Lydia turned to view her reflection, smoothing her hands down her dress rather nervously.

It was a gown Lady Phoebe must have kept from her own maiden years, for the sarsnet was a paler blue than a married woman would ordinarily wear, draped over a petticoat slip of finest white satin and fastened with clasps of sapphire and pearl.

It was the finest, and certainly the most expensive, dress Lydia had ever worn, and she fancied she had never looked better either – and yet why was it, given all this finery, that she felt so much more vulnerable than she had in her yellow monstrosity?

But there was too much to do to be distracted by such insecurity now, and Lydia banished such thoughts from her mind.

She had a task to complete. She must replace the snuffbox in Ashford’s pocket and as soon as possible, too, for who knew whether they would be seated together at dinner.

Thus, for the first time since she had arrived at Hawkscroft, Lydia left her bedchambers early, dawdling slowly in the corridor, until he appeared.

‘Ashford,’ she said, as soon as he exited his room.

He gave a little start, turning, and then openly grimaced to see her.

‘Have you been lying in wait for me?’ he said. Then, in quite a different voice, and with a deepening frown, added: ‘A new gown? Is this for Captain von Prett’s benefit?’

‘It is certainly not for yours,’ she said.

‘Well …’ he paused. ‘The colour … becomes you.’

Lydia blinked. Was this to wrong-foot her? ‘Oh, well – thank you, I suppose I …’

What inarticulate demon had seized her tongue? She recalled her plan with an effort.

‘Ashford, I need to speak with you. Privately.’

Standing a good four feet apart, she had no chance of slipping the box back into his pocket. Some kind of tête à tête would be much easier – but Ashford had already turned to walk towards the stairs.

‘It will have to wait,’ he said. ‘Unlike you, I do mind being late.’

‘It shall not take above a minute,’ she said, hurrying to catch up. ‘It is important .’

She seized his arm, tugging at it entreatingly. He resisted for a moment, before sighing and allowing her to pull him into the second-floor parlour.

‘For someone who doesn’t wish to marry me,’ he said. ‘You certainly spend an awful amount of time trying to get me alone.’

He extracted his arm from her grip and moved a little further into the room, putting an entirely unhelpful amount of space between them. Rats . That wouldn’t do at all.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘What is it, that simply could not wait?’

‘Regarding Miss Hesse,’ she began (two birds, one stone), taking a step forward and trying not to look him over too obviously. Where exactly were his pockets?

‘No,’ he said.

It was obviously not in the plan for Lydia to become distracted, but it was impossible not to be, when he was being so maddeningly hypocritical.

‘Will you not consider paying your addresses to her? That way, you would still be engaged before your father comes home!’

‘I see, I see,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, there are just a few small matters you are forgetting.’

‘Which are?’

‘Miss Hesse?’ he said. ‘Her desires? Is any of this ringing a bell?’

‘As long as you purchase for her a pug she will not mind,’ she assured him.

‘Oh, well, now you have explained it to me in such a way,’ Ashford said, throwing his hands up in the air, ‘I shall immediately comply!’

‘Truly?’

‘ No ,’ he said. ‘What of Mr Brandon?’

Lydia bit her lip. ‘It’s obvious he carries a candle for her. But Lady Hesse appears to hold him in such low account – do you truly think she will approve the match?’

‘Perhaps not,’ Ashford said. ‘But poor friend I would be if I stood in his way. If that is all …?’

He moved towards the door. She sidestepped into his way.

‘I have not finished!’

‘I have!’

He made a bid for the door again. Quick as a flash, she kicked out the doorstop.

‘Don’t!’ Ashford jumped forward, but a second too late. The door closed with a resounding slam.

‘You ninny!’ he said. ‘This door jams in the heat. Were you not listening, during Reeves’ tour?’

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Was anyone ?’

Ashford reached around her to tug at the handle. It did not budge. He heaved at it. No movement.

‘Have you tried turning the handle and pulling at the same time?’ Lydia asked.

Ashford stepped back and gave sarcastic little wave. ‘By all means, try this magical technique.’

‘There is no need for that tone,’ she said, muscling him out of the way, and giving it a go herself.

It didn’t budge.

‘It’s stuck,’ she said.

Ashford reached round her and began pounding his fist on the door.

‘Stop making a hullabaloo,’ Lydia said crossly. ‘We don’t want people to find us.’

‘Don’t we?’

‘Not alone, behind a locked door – they’ll think you were after my virtue.’

‘Believe me, I want nothing less in the world than your virtue,’ Ashford muttered.

‘And then we’ll have to marry, which neither of us want in the slightest.’

Ashford let his hands drop. ‘It would appear dreadfully improper,’ he admitted. ‘Unless it is someone we could trust to remain discreet …’

‘If Pip were to pass by – or my lady’s maid,’ Lydia agreed. ‘Then we might attract their attention without concern.’

She laid her ear against the door, listening hard. But then, of course, Pip was not going to be walking down to dinner yet – by now, he would be trying to sneak into Dacre’s rooms, and she was meant to be keeping all the lords and ladies safely downstairs. She had to escape this room, and quickly.

‘This is utter nonsense.’ Ashford took an irritable turn about the room. ‘A pointless exercise.’

‘And do you have any bright ideas?’

Ashford paused, thinking, and then made his way over to the windows.

They were very large, beginning just above his knee and running right up into the ceiling.

Ashford unhinged the latch and pushed both panes open, and Lydia leant round him to stick her entire torso out – or at least she tried, but she had no more stuck out her head, when Ashford had looped a hasty arm about her waist and tugged her back.

‘Do you mind?’ she demanded. Distinctly flustered, she began slapping at his arms.

‘Do you have a death wish?’ he said tightening his hold. ‘We are three floors up!’

‘We are two,’ she said, hands pressing his chest away. Her heart had begun to beat rather quickly and she had the absurd fear he might be able to feel it. ‘I’m just looking .’

He relaxed his hold, though reluctantly, and Lydia briskly stepped out of his arms and leant out again, to review the distance between the window and the ground – glad to be away from him and his …

silly arms. She was correct – they were on the second floor, ten feet above the ground if her eye was correct – far enough that one could certainly not jump.

‘Perhaps we could tie some sheets together,’ she said, recollecting a plot from one of her favourite books. ‘In a rope of sorts, and one of us climb down.’

‘There are no linens in this room from which to make rope.’

She looked out once more, peering down to the long tresses of lilac flowers cascading down the walls below – wisteria, Sir Waldo had called it, boasting that the twining vines had been imported all the way from Canton.

‘I think this would hold a person,’ she said, giving the wooden trellis beneath the blooms an experimental tug.

‘You are not climbing out of the window,’ Ashford said, and he had his hands half held out again to prevent her.

‘Of course, I’m not,’ she said. ‘ I’m wearing satin.’