Page 34 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

The second group had better luck. Re-entering the room full of decisiveness, they collected several cushions and placed them in a line.

‘Props are surely not permitted?’ Sir Waldo muttered.

‘It is just a game, Waldo,’ Lady Phoebe reminded him.

Lord Hesse handed his mother over the row of cushions, followed by Dacre, who handed across Lady Phoebe.

‘A bridge?’

Lydia bit her tongue as Ashford joined them. However tempting it might be to return his insults, she would not demean herself by stooping to his level …

‘Bracket-face!’ The word burst out of her before she could stop them. Several people turned to stare at her, utterly scandalized, while behind them Ashford was fighting back a grin.

‘His expression,’ Lydia explained.

‘You are cold,’ Ashford advised.

‘Maggoty?’

‘Am I?’ Ashford asked, rather injured, and it was so ridiculous that Lydia could not help but laugh, this time, though she was still being regarded with alarm from all sides.

‘Simple words and concepts,’ Lady Phoebe trilled. ‘Think “rice”, “flour” and such.’

‘Don’t give it away, Phoebe,’ Sir Waldo said crossly.

The game swiftly descended into chaos after that, though Lydia and Ashford were not the only culprits.

Admittedly, their insults became increasingly creative whenever the other appeared on ‘stage’, though by the time Lydia was accusing Ashford of being a ‘muckworm’ he appeared to be more amused than offended by it.

Meanwhile, however, Sir Waldo’s competitive spirit was sliding into boorishness, as he turned his criticisms onto the performers, guessers and even Reeves.

‘These words are too difficult,’ Waldo berated the butler.

‘I think they are rather good,’ Dacre said.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Reeves said.

‘They are not!’

‘It is just a game , Waldo,’ Lady Phoebe reminded him, while everyone else began retreating from the conflict.

‘Do I want to know what a muckworm is?’ Ashford’s low voice startled Lydia, for she had not noticed his approach. ‘My instincts suggest it’s not flattering.’

‘Your instincts are correct,’ Lydia said, keeping her gaze elsewhere, while he took a seat next to her. She had returned to the small sofa and for a moment Ashford seemed to hesitate, perhaps realizing how small the space was and how closely they might be positioned together. ‘Finally.’

‘Captain von Prett, perhaps you wouldn’t mind reading your piece, after all?’ Lady Phoebe asked, returning to her chair, defeated.

‘Of course!’ Prett said, hastening over to the table, where he began rifling through his papers. ‘It is a tale of my perilous journey from the mountains of …’

‘Oh lord,’ muttered Ashford, his arm brushing Lydia’s as he passed a hand over his eyes. ‘I cannot listen to this.’

‘Coward.’

‘Yesterday that insult might have hurt me,’ he said, ‘but after “muckworm” I find it somewhat lacking.’

They sat quietly together for a few moments; Lydia trying most diligently to concentrate on her lacklustre embroidery rather than the warm press of his thigh against hers.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight and at almost the same moment the larger, louder clock from the village church could still be heard faintly through the windows.

It was too early. Pip and Jane would surely need more time.

‘Here we are!’ Prett said triumphantly. Ashford made to rise from his seat.

‘You must stay,’ she said, lifting her gaze from her embroidery and – finding their faces even closer than she had thought – flushing. This close, she could see a tiny ring of blue around the edge of his irises. There was a long pause while they assessed each other.

‘For someone who wishes not to marry me,’ he murmured at last, ‘you seem to spend an awful amount of time requesting my company.’

‘You flatter yourself.’ She broke eye contact, and resolutely turned back to her stitching.

‘Do I?’ he said. ‘There is nowhere I am free: you follow me into the library, you lock me in parlours. If you wish to spend time with me, Miss Hanworth, you need only say.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ Lydia said. ‘In fact, I should rather wish you at Jericho – off you pop there now.’

‘Shan’t,’ Ashford said cheerfully. ‘I have a good mind to listen to this talk after all – perhaps I might learn something.’

‘Perhaps you might,’ she said, with a savage jab of her needle. Ashford leant to peer over her shoulder, close enough now that a slight woodsy scent wafted towards her. It was rather pleasant. Did gentlemen wear perfume, she wondered, breathing it in, or was the scent all his own?

‘And what animal, pray, is this meant to be?’ Ashford said, regarding her embroidery hoop with some amusement.

‘A squirrel, of course,’ Lydia said loftily.

Ashford eyed it doubtfully. ‘I don’t think so. A deranged fox, perhaps?’

She jerked the hoop away, just as Prett approached the fireplace, notebook in hand.

The glow of the fading fire cast a warm glow across Prett’s face as he looked about the room, making eye contact with each one of them in turn – and as their gazes met, Lydia was reminded, forcibly, quite why she had been so taken with him in the first place.

‘This is only a first draft,’ he said, looking down to his pages. ‘So I must ask forgiveness for any clumsy wording.’

Lydia thought she could listen to him speak each night, quite happily, for the rest of their life.

She could picture them, in fact, as husband and wife, sharing a fireside much like this, taking it in turns to read aloud to one another.

She from whatever novel she was reading, he from whatever article he was writing. How wonderful that would be.

‘“The solitary midnight traveller, long wandering the labyrinth of hopelessness”,’ Prett began, in low portentous tones, ‘“approached the lonely dwelling—”’

‘Oh Christ,’ Ashford muttered, sinking down in his seat.

‘“The natives are not blessed with the comforts of our more temperate climes”,’ Prett said. ‘“Unacquainted with both spring and autumn, and yet a welcoming people …”’

‘They would not be if they knew the terms in which he is describing them,’ Ashford muttered.

‘Hush,’ Lydia whispered, her stitching set aside so she could better focus on the words.

They were far enough away from the rest of the party, and sitting at close enough quarters, that Ashford’s whispering would not be attended – but that was beside the point, for she wished to listen.

‘Imagine having someone to stay at your home, and afterwards they publish an article patronizing you in such a way,’ he said, body now entirely slouched down so that his head was resting against the back of the settle. ‘I’d be livid .’

Lydia shushed him again. Could she not have found any other way to secure his presence in the drawing room?

‘“Until the vivifying orb of the day …”’

‘What is a vivifying orb?’ Ashford whispered.

‘The sun,’ she whispered back. ‘Obviously.’

‘Then why not just say that?’

‘Because this is not a bedtime story.’

‘I wish it were,’ Ashford complained. ‘I should prefer that.’

Lydia ignored this, trying to concentrate.

‘Little Red Riding Hood, perhaps,’ Ashford whispered to her. ‘My mother used to do a marvellous job with the voices.’

‘Your mother read to you?’ Lydia asked, looking away from Prett with surprise.

‘Yes?’ He blinked up at her. ‘Why so shocked?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I would have supposed you to be handed off to a nurse after only a few hours.’

‘Well, you would be wrong,’ he said. ‘She read to me, just as yours did.’

‘Ours did not,’ Lydia corrected. ‘She and my father were hardly in the country, really.’

Not that they did so when they were at home, either.

There was a certain irony in it, truly, that Ashford’s parents had indulged in such tenderness, when hers had not – for it was Mr and Mrs Hanworth’s dogged pursuit of upper-class behaviour that had caused them to hand their children’s care almost entirely over to the various governesses and tutors who had tutored them in the deportment of the gentry.

‘You were fortunate,’ she said reflectively. ‘I did not think such affection common, in your set.’

‘I suppose not.’ Ashford’s voice was strange. ‘I am … sorry.’

‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ Lydia said, rather revolted. She did not wish for his pity . ‘Pip was an excellent storyteller.’

‘That does not surprise me,’ Ashford said.

‘Though,’ Lydia confided, ‘I am not certain he always kept to the script.’

Prett’s eyes flicked in their direction, and Lydia lowered her voice further, gaze back upon Prett but inclining a little toward Ashford so that he might still hear her.

‘When you were read Little Red Riding Hood,’ she asked, ‘did the grandma turn out to be colluding with the wolf all along?’

‘No,’ Ashford said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Though that sounds a great deal more exciting. Truly, Mr Hanworth is …’

Lydia whipped her head sharply round to regard him. ‘Yes?’

‘One of a kind,’ Ashford finished.

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he put up his hands in appeasement.

‘Is that acceptable?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I suppose it is.’

He gave a pleased little nod. ‘I do not at all recollect him behaving in such a way in London.’

‘He is more … curtailed in London,’ Lydia said. ‘My aunt and uncle keep him on a tight leash.’

‘Ah,’ Ashford said. ‘She is not pleased by his involvement with Bow Street, I take it?’

‘Not in the least.’ Lydia sighed. ‘It smells far too much of trade for them. He tried to bring Mr Simmons to dinner – his mentor, you know – and they almost had an apoplexy.’