Page 39 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

The atmosphere was strange that evening. Not subdued, for that would have been natural after such an afternoon. Instead, the party maintained a continuous patter of almost incomprehensible merriment that Lydia found profoundly unsettling.

Lady Phoebe and Sir Waldo led the way, as ever: Sir Waldo’s brash cheer entirely restored as if nothing had occurred to upset it in the first place, and Lady Phoebe’s frequent trills of loud laughter communicated quite clearly to all that she would rather not dwell.

The rest were perfectly willing to comply, laughing and chattering, eating and drinking, generally brushing the afternoon’s events firmly under the rug.

But for the first evening since Lydia’s arrival, she remained quiet.

She had never seen such a grand display of falsity in her life, and the overall impression was entirely depressing.

She caught Ashford’s eye across the table and, without quite knowing why, gave a little grimace – not, as it had been in days past, to communicate rampant dislike, but rather solidarity.

For he alone – aside from Pip, who was taking furious minutes in his notebook – was not participating in the false cheer.

Even Prett, for all his chatter about authenticity, was happy enough to pretend nothing had gone on.

To her surprise, Ashford had neither returned Sir Waldo’s grins nor laughed at his jests.

He did not aid Lady Phoebe in maintaining an easy flow of polite conversation, as he had worked hard to do when it was Lydia upsetting the status quo – merely observed proceedings with sharp eyes and a set jaw.

It was all very discombobulating.

After dinner, they retired to the drawing room, and Lady Phoebe, with new heights of effervescence, began corralling as many people as possible into a kind of choir, while Prett demonstrated his mastery of Himalayan throat singing.

‘It sits deeper in the chest,’ he explained to anyone who would listen. ‘One projects from the diaphragm as so … ’

‘Lovely!’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘Do you think you could do it to the tune of “The Jolly Young Waterman”?’

Lydia’s eyes travelled over to where Ashford stood by one of the great windows.

Though the hour was late, the sun was just only setting, and the fading light had turned the rolling lawns of Hawkscroft pink.

After a moment – feeling unaccountably nervous and hating herself for it – she crossed the room to stand next to him, following his gaze out into the gardens.

‘You do not wish to join them?’ she asked quietly.

He shook his head. Behind them, Sir Waldo launched raucously into the first verse.

‘Has he … apologized?’

There was no need to clarify to whom she was referring.

‘No, of course not,’ Ashford said. ‘To do so would be to admit something untoward occurred – if anything, he probably expects me to apologize to him.’

‘How can he?’ Lydia said. ‘After he behaved so?’

Ashford lifted his shoulders in a tiny shrug. ‘I perhaps could have handled the whole with a little more elegance. I was not thinking.’

‘Well, I think it suits you,’ Lydia said. ‘Not thinking.’

She kept her gaze resolutely fixed upon the lawns as she said it, yet still felt it when he turned his head to look down at her.

‘Does it?’

‘I think was … admirable, what you did,’ she said, maintaining a light tone by sheer force of will; somehow, she felt quite as exposed as if she had been cut open.

‘Was that a compliment?’ Ashford put his hand to his chest in a mockery so much gentler than all others they had hitherto shared that she found herself blushing.

‘Well, you need not be so smug about it,’ she said tartly, reaching for irritation as an armour.

‘As I live and breathe,’ Ashford marvelled. ‘Well, that is kind – but I do not deserve such abject admiration—’

‘Would we call it abject?’

‘—for in truth I acted more in defence of Waldo than the animal.’

‘You did?’ Lydia said, looking quickly up at him.

‘I saw you about to dismount from Bumper,’ he said, with the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. ‘And thought I had best intervene first, for who knows what you would have done to him.’

‘Did you know he had a temper?’

Ashford shrugged. ‘Not beyond mere crotchetiness. Though we do not know each other that well.’

‘He is married to your cousin,’ Lydia objected.

‘They married so quickly,’ Ashford said. ‘You have never seen such a courtship: gifts, letters. You know, he sent her two hundred freesias, the night after they met?’

‘That story is true?’

‘Yes,’ Ashford said. ‘My uncle was furious – he sneezed for days – but approved the match, of course, and then … They disappeared here.’

‘Really?’ Lydia said, surprised. From the little she had seen of Lady Phoebe, this week, she would have supposed her to be very sociable.

‘There are house parties, of course, and Christmas celebrations, but mostly they are alone in marital bliss.’

Lydia raised her brows at the faint edge of rancour in his voice.

‘I do not mean to sound bitter,’ Ashford said quickly. ‘I just – I have missed her, this past year.’

‘And now she will be leaving the country,’ Lydia said.

She turned back to face the room, eyes travelling to where Sir Waldo, von Prett and Lady Phoebe were singing together by the piano.

Ashford followed suit. Despite Sir Waldo’s teasing the day prior, Lady Phoebe had a lovely voice, which harmonized rather beautifully with his.

One might struggle to find a couple more visibly in love.

The sight should have prompted a jealous sigh from Lydia, but she found herself frowning instead.

‘So long as she is happy,’ Ashford said. ‘That is what matters …’

He did not sound certain.

‘ Is she happy?’ she asked. ‘She seems so cheerful, but how can she be, after what has occurred today? And if she can hide disquiet after something like that …’

What else might she be hiding, under her unflappable cheer and beautiful smile?

‘You underestimate our powers of repression,’ Ashford said lightly. ‘Our family is famous for it.’

‘Ashford,’ Lydia said reprovingly, ‘pray, be serious.’

‘I am being serious. One can never tell, with Phoebe,’ he said. ‘She is like my mother in that way.’

‘Oh?’ she said, as casually as she was able, feeling that any wrong word would break the moment entirely.

‘She can be absolutely beside herself,’ he said, ‘and still look as though she is having the time of her life rather than put anyone out by showing it.’

He fell silent. Lydia waited a beat before speaking.

‘You know,’ Lydia said. ‘My grandmother met her – your mother, I mean. When she was a small child.’

Ashford turned to look at Lydia, his expression unreadable.

‘When Grandmother became a lady’s maid for Lady Selby,’ Lydia said, ‘all the Daubneys came to visit. They were quite the handful, apparently, but very sweet – your mother laughed a great deal.’

‘Yes,’ Ashford said. ‘She did that.’ He looked back to the window. ‘We all did, once.’

Once … ‘Did His Grace have to … harden his heart, afterwards?’ she guessed. Perhaps that was the source of Ashford’s dogged adherence to duty, inherited from a father striving for order in the face of grief.

Ashford gave a soft snort. ‘No, certainly not. He follows his heart resolutely, to this day. He is something of a family outlier, in that sense.’

Lydia’s forehead wrinkled. ‘You do not say that as if it is a good thing.’

Ashford hunched one shoulder. ‘I just think it striking how often his heart leads him away from tasks he would rather not fulfil.’

He seemed rather surprised by the bitterness in his own voice. Unbidden, Lydia’s arm reached out to him, as if to reassure, until the song, finishing with a resounding crescendo of voices, stayed her hand. Prett’s throat singing the last note heard.

‘Famous playing, Miss Hesse!’ Brandon said, clapping his hands together, as Prett’s final note at last concluded in a long throaty warble. ‘Come, Ashford, let us sing a duet!’

Lydia – who had previously felt only liking for Brandon – would have readily wished him to the devil in that moment.

‘No thank you,’ Ashford said promptly.

‘Oh, do be a good sport,’ Brandon said, taking a few bounding steps toward him.

‘Does he mean to capture me?’ Ashford asked Lydia, eyeing Brandon’s outstretched arms with some misgiving.

‘It appears so,’ Lydia said, edging out of the way.

‘Recollect I am the faster runner, Brandon,’ Ashford said.

‘That is such a lie!’

‘I wonder if I might take the opportunity,’ Prett declared, ‘since it is our last night together before the Grand Masquerade, to distribute a few little gifts?’

‘Gifts!’ Lady Morton clapped her hands with delight.

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have,’ Lady Phoebe said.

‘Nonsense!’ Prett said, ‘I must say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for such a wonderful visit.’

‘Brace yourself, Brandon,’ Ashford murmured, recognizing the little brown bag at the same moment Lydia did.

‘Would you believe there was a shop selling miniatures in town,’ Prett was saying, ‘which had two of my portraits in stock?’

‘You shouldn’t have!’ Sir Waldo said, accepting one of the miniatures.

‘This one, my lord, was dubbed “The Grecian Profile”,’ Captain von Prett said, handing it over to Ashford.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ Ashford said, in quite a different tone.

‘What,’ Mr Brandon said, voice low enough that only Ashford and Lydia could hear him, ‘am I meant to do with this?’

‘I think,’ Ashford said, ‘that one … carries it around. Or I have seen persons display them on their mantelpiece.’

‘Does he truly think I will display this?’ Mr Brandon muttered.

‘It takes a great deal of skill to paint such a thing,’ Lydia said, primly. ‘You must admire the Grecian Profile.’

‘I do not,’ Ashford said, ‘and cannot, admire the Grecian Profile.’

Across the room, Lady Morton was in loud transports about her own miniature, declaring her intention of wearing it about her neck.

Ashford and Brandon began to snort with laughter.

‘Neither of you have brought gifts for everyone,’ Lydia hissed at them.

‘Well, now, how can you be sure?’ Brandon said. ‘I might have done.’

‘Just yesterday, in fact,’ Ashford said, ‘Brandon began embroidering his face onto some handkerchiefs.’

Mr Brandon nodded gravely. ‘So that every time you blow your nose, you may think of me.’

Lydia lost the battle with her own self-control.

She began snorting herself, just as Lady Morton, by accident, upset the box of miniatures, so that the remaining three fell onto the floor.

Quick as a flash, Brutus had picked one up and run off with it.

There was laughter all round as Lady Morton and Captain von Prett gave chase, Brutus leading them on a merry dance around the pianoforte.

In the end, it was Miss Hesse who scooped the thief up, and managed to wrest the miniature from his mouth.

‘He has quite mangled your face,’ she told Captain von Prett apologetically.

‘Oh, there’s an idea,’ Mr Brandon whispered to Ashford. ‘Here, smuggle him mine too.’

Prett could not quite maintain his usual air of relaxed abstraction as he regarded the remains of his miniature. ‘Oh, you … naughty thing,’ he said, bopping Brutus on the nose with a finger. Miss Hesse took a wary step backwards.

‘You know dogs,’ Lady Morton said airily, ‘so mischievous.’

‘My Flossie was the same,’ Prett said, and Lydia waited for Miss Hesse to melt, as she always did when the animal was mentioned.

‘I thought she was named Cassie?’ Miss Hesse frowned.

‘Oh yes, Cassie,’ he said. ‘My wretched memory.’

Miss Hesse’s frown deepened. ‘You do not remember her name?’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Prett said.

‘She followed you for a hundred miles.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Prett said rather impatiently. ‘But really – Flossie—’

‘Cassie,’ Miss Hesse corrected.

‘Indeed, Cassie – was more a metaphor than anything else, for the trust I had lost in my fellow man. That is the point I wish audiences to take from it.’

The glowing eyes Miss Hesse usually pointed in Prett’s direction were absent. Instead, she surveyed him as if she were seeing him clearly for the first time and did not like it a jot.

‘A dog,’ Miss Hesse said, with a disapproving sniff that was suddenly reminiscent of her mother, ‘is not a metaphor.’

‘I wish this portrait were a metaphor,’ Mr Brandon said mournfully, looking down at his miniature, entirely unaware that his greatest competition had just been vanquished.

As had Lydia’s, of course. But as she waited to feel something, relief or triumph or gladness, that Miss Hesse was no longer to be vying for Prett’s attentions, she felt … nothing.

Lydia looked to Prett, standing there – looking so very handsome with that infamous cowlick – and felt nothing. Ashford had been right. Prett was not who she wanted, at all.