Page 3 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

Monday – Ten days remaining

‘You oughtn’t marry a fellow you don’t like,’ Pip said firmly. ‘Fact is: nonsense.’

As soon as Lydia could quit her aunt and uncle’s company, she had sent for her brother with utmost urgency.

Pip had come at once, without question, as Lydia had known he would.

Ever since a bout of influenza had felled both their parents and grandparents the year she turned ten and six, it had been she and Pip against the rest. While Pip, in his gentlemen’s lodgings might not be quite as ruled as Lydia was by Aunt Agatha and Uncle Edmund, he was still beholden to their guardianship.

Not half an hour after she had sent her missive to Duke Street, Pip appeared upon the doorstep and together they had crossed the cobbles of Piccadilly, eschewing Hyde Park – at this hour always thronging with barouches, curricles and strolling dandies – in favour of the quieter Green Park.

‘Although, Grandfather would have been pleased,’ Pip acknowledged.

Lydia’s stomach twinged. Grandfather would likely have cried with happiness to think of his granddaughter as a future duchess, and his instructions would certainly have aligned with Aunt Agatha’s.

On this matter, however, Lydia preferred to think of what her grandmother might have advised.

As romantic as Grandfather was ambitious, it was Grandmother who had regaled Lydia with stories of their own courtship, a Love at First Sight Affair followed by a madcap dash to the altar.

Caring little for the family fortune, she had valued kindness above all else and had – to her very last day – refused to allow status to alter one ounce of her character.

‘I will not marry someone I do not love,’ Lydia said, raising her chin resolutely, ‘not for anyone.’

The chilly, practical alliances made by her aunt and mother – trading independence for social advancement – did not in any way appeal to her.

Since Lydia had sufficient wealth and standing to be comfortable, the advantages of marriage, to her mind, lay solely in the heart.

Since girlhood she had clung to the dream of romance shown to her by her grandparents and thereafter in stories, novels, theatre.

If that was not to be fulfilled … Well, she was not foolish enough to believe a loveless arrangement would be any sort of consolation. She would, by far, rather remain unwed.

‘Might come to care for him,’ Pip said. ‘That’s what they say happens, anyway.’

‘How could I make such a gamble?’ Lydia said. ‘I hardly know him, and he certainly does not know me.’

Yet, somehow, Ashford had decided that she was the one for him. Had felt ‘certain’ of it from their very first meeting. Lydia shook her head to think of it. For far from Love at First Sight, for her, it had been Dislike at First Conversation.

It had occurred at the Alcot ball, just three weeks previous.

With Aunt Agatha distracted by their illustrious surroundings, Lydia had been able to escape her chaperonage for a moment.

She had heard their hosts kept a most magnificent library and was determined upon finding it.

For Lydia was just about sick of the Season, so bitterly disappointed had she been by almost every gentleman to whom she had been introduced.

Their flaws might be diverse, but each one displayed an identical condescension when speaking with her, acting as if their conversation alone were a grand favour.

Worse , beyond a cursory investigation of Lydia’s key attributes – dowry, family history, accomplishments – they appeared to be medically incapable of asking her a single question.

Perusing bookshelves was far more appealing than attempting to jostle a conversation out of whatever Mr Lacklustre Aunt Agatha might conjure up.

Lydia had taken a wrong turning, however, opening a door to find not the library, but a long, darkened corridor. She had taken only a few hesitant steps inside when the door at the other end opened, and two gentlemen began strolling towards her. Lydia froze.

‘His Grace did not approve the match?’ said one gentleman.

‘Another refusal,’ the other confirmed. ‘My father’s standards are quite ridiculous.’

It took Lydia only a moment to identify who was speaking.

The Hanworths might not receive vouchers to Almack’s, but they were invited to enough high society parties to make these voices recognizable: the Honourable Mr Brandon, who could be depended upon to cajole even the shyest young debutantes into conversation, and Lord Ashford, whose determined appearance at every ball in town had the ton twittering that he intended to take a wife.

Carefully, Lydia took a few steps backwards. To eavesdrop on a private conversation, between such persons as these, would not be wise. She could only hope that the dim light would prevent their noticing her and then exclaiming all over town that Miss Hanworth was a rotten lurker.

‘Such hypocrisy, Ashford,’ Mr Brandon said, amused. ‘Were you not the gentleman who deemed Miss Mablethorpe ‘hen-witted’?’

Lydia’s back was at the door now, her hand groping for the doorknob, but at this she paused, ears pricking.

Miss Mablethorpe was widely considered a diamond of the first water, and the gossip rags frequently identified her as the perfect match for Ashford.

Thus far, however, Ashford had kept them all guessing, spreading his attentions so impartially amongst the young ladies of the ton that no one of them was elevated above her contemporaries.

‘She didn’t know the name of our Prime Minister,’ Ashford said. ‘I hardly think that a high bar.’

Lydia’s hand fell away from the door, listening agog. She would not leave her post now for a hundred pounds.

‘Then what is wrong with Miss Callow?’ Brandon said. ‘She speaks three languages!’

‘Oh, I know,’ Ashford said. ‘She peppers conversation with enough “ Sacre bleu ”s to make everybody perfectly aware of that.’

‘Lady Evelina?’

‘Her family is deplorably eccentric.’

Lydia did not know what to think. On the one hand, such peremptory dismissal of ladies widely considered paragons, as if they were all Ashford’s to evaluate and find wanting …

Did it not display rather shocking superiority?

Yet on the other, was this not the same pickiness Aunt Agatha regularly berated Lydia for?

‘You must have thought Miss Spalding perfect, then, if you were considering courting her in seriousness.’

‘I did,’ Ashford said. ‘And Miss Dudley and – well. My father seems determined to reject any young lady of the ton I suggest.’

Brandon laughed.

‘Half of London’s ladies deemed unworthy by you,’ he said, ‘and the other half, by your father! There’s some irony in that predicament, isn’t there?’

‘You may well laugh,’ Ashford said. ‘But what am I to do? I cannot marry without his approval.’

‘Perhaps you ought to look outside the ton ,’ Brandon said. ‘Is it so important that she be high-born and accomplished and all that rot?’

Ashford was apparently so surprised by this suggestion that he halted his footsteps. ‘You propose I engage myself to some Cit’s daughter?’

Mr Brandon drew to a stop with him.

‘They are not all title-hunters hoping for a leg up in the world,’ he reasoned, as if this was some grand humanitarian concession. ‘You might consider it.’

‘Perhaps I would,’ Ashford said haughtily, ‘if such a person could conduct themselves properly. Do you truly think any woman from that class could make a serviceable duchess?’

Serviceable ? Whatever kinship Lydia had felt rising within her towards him halted abruptly.

It was all rather less fascinating when she was one of the ladies being peremptorily deemed wanting – a title-hunter, hoping for a leg up in the world?

Ashford and Mr Brandon were just the same as the rest of them, then.

Arrogance in the aristocracy was plainly as universal as their all-too-often enormous chins.

Wrapped up in her indignation, Lydia did not immediately notice that Ashford had turned away from Mr Brandon again, but when he began to continue along the corridor, she came back to herself with a start.

He was no longer strolling and his long gait was eating up the distance between them.

There was no time to flee without detection.

Thinking fast, Lydia gave the doorknob a wrench, threw it open, and took two hasty strides into the room, for all the world as if she had only just walked through it.

The plan worked in one sense. There was no sign, in Ashford’s face, that he suspected her of eavesdropping and yet, because Lydia had misjudged the length and speed of her steps versus his, she only narrowly avoided colliding directly into him and made an instinctive grab for his arm to prevent herself from toppling over.

‘Steady!’ Ashford barked, alarmed.

‘I am so sorry!’ Lydia gasped, flushing hard and withdrawing her hand. ‘I did not mean to …’

In hasty recollection of her manners, she dipped into a mortified curtsey.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ Mr Brandon said, drawing level with them. ‘My name’s Brandon.’

‘Oh – I’m Miss Hanworth?’ Lydia said.

‘Sounds awfully familiar,’ Mr Brandon said. ‘Perhaps I know a brother?’

‘Hanworth Wool,’ Ashford put in.

‘Oh!’ Mr Brandon said. ‘Oh – yes, of course.’

Lydia raised her chin, fighting against a wave of embarrassment. Why ought she be embarrassed? They all wore wool, didn’t they?

‘I’m sorry, I was just looking for – for …’ she said, tripping over her words and hating herself for it.

‘The ballroom, I should think?’ Mr Brandon said helpfully, seeming as cheery as Ashford was chilly, as fair as he was dark. ‘Perfect! Ashford, weren’t you just saying you need a partner for the waltz?’

‘Was I?’ Ashford said. ‘My wretched memory, but I do not recollect …’