Page 40 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

That night, Lydia did not even try to fall asleep.

She merely lay there, waiting, until the clock had struck midnight and she fancied that the whole house must be asleep.

Then, she rose, threw on a nightgown and slippers, lit a taper, and padded downstairs towards the library.

If she had been asked how she knew that he would be there, she could not have answered satisfactorily.

Call it intuition, a hunch, or even just a hope – she felt certain he would be there.

And he was, seated in a winged-back chair observing the fire, a single taper candle on the table. This time he looked up at her without surprise and indicated the seat opposite with a wave of his hand, as if he had expected her just as much as she had expected him.

She sat, putting her candle down, then busied herself with angling her head to look at the title of his book rather than meet his eyes.

‘Have you read it?’ he asked, holding it up so she could better read its spine.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A long time ago.’

‘And … what did you think?’ he asked.

Lydia raised her eyebrows. ‘Another question. Are you trying to get to know me, my lord?’

‘Well, I shan’t, if you are going to be so damnably patronizing about it.’

‘And now you have sworn in front of a lady,’ she said sadly. ‘Not very gentlemanly at all.’

He chuffed a laugh. ‘What did you think?’ he said, raising the book again. ‘I should like to know.’

She flushed, without really knowing why.

‘I enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘I should like to read it again – but there is a long waiting list at the public library.’

She looked around the walls and walls of books about them.

‘If I had such a library as this,’ she said. ‘I would fill the shelves with all of my favourites.’

Ashford cleared his throat. ‘I have one, grander than this.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘Do you wish for some time to boast about it?’

She did not quite know why she was trying to antagonize him so determinedly.

She had sought him out by choice, after all.

Had left the comfort of her bed specifically because the draw of speaking with him – privately too – was too powerful to ignore.

But now the earnest cast to his words and expression was making her so nervous her heart might beat out of her chest. But Ashford did not rise to the bite in her voice, merely regarding her in a measuring sort of way, as if he were deciding something.

He took in a deep breath, sat up straight and placed his book to the side. Lydia’s breath caught.

‘I have had occasion to think, this past day,’ he began, ‘and—’

He froze. Lydia did as well, for she had heard it, just as he had. The gentle scrape of oak on flagstones.

‘The door,’ Lydia whispered.

Someone else had entered the library.

They stared at one another for the briefest of moments: alone, in their nightclothes, in the dead of night.

Were they to be caught in such an encounter …

In one move, both leant forward to blow out their candles, plunging them into darkness.

Ashford seized Lydia’s hand in his, pulling her to her feet and together they edged towards the walkway which ran down the middle of the room, bisecting the two lines of ten bookcases which separated them from the doorway.

With the light of the corridor illuminating him from behind, they watched as the outline of a man turned to close the library door behind them.

‘Come now,’ Ashford whispered, and they dashed down the walkway as silently and quickly as they could, putting one, two, three, then four stacks between them, darting behind the fourth, pressing their backs against the bookshelves, trying to quieten their heavy breath.

They listened, holding themselves very still, for footsteps.

There were none. Had the person left, and they had simply missed the sound of the door this time?

Or were they browsing the stacks closest to the door?

‘If they come this way,’ Ashford whispered, ‘I shall distract them while you hide again.’

He spoke so quietly that Lydia would have had no hope of hearing him had they not been standing so close together, had he not turned his head to whisper directly into her ear.

She could hardly see him, even so, for the glow of the fire could not reach them any longer, and the moon, visible in the far window, caused more shadows than it did light.

She could feel, though, the brush of his shoulder against hers every time he took in a breath, the warmth of his palm against hers.

They were still clasping hands, she realized.

She had never held a gentleman’s hand, without gloves to stand between them – and suddenly, she was thoroughly distracted from the unknown gentleman.

Breathless for an entirely different reason.

‘What were you about to say?’ Lydia asked. ‘Before?’

She should remain quiet and still, she knew this – and yet, it felt abruptly important, now more than ever, that they finished their conversation, that Ashford voice whatever declaration had, surely, been on the tip of his tongue.

‘Sssh,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

‘I just—’

‘Quiet! We cannot risk discovery – it is nigh, we are entirely alone—’

‘Fact is,’ came a hoarse whisper from deeper within the stacks, ‘not entirely alone.’

Ashford and Lydia near jumped out of their skins. Wheeling around in the direction of the voice, they stared into the darkness, making out – for the first time – where the outline of another figure was tucked against the wall.

‘Pip?!’ Lydia whispered. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Nighttime wandering – suspicious,’ Pip whispered, nodding towards Ashford. ‘Slipped in through the servants’ stairs.’

‘You were following me?’ Ashford whispered, with nonetheless audible outrage. ‘The effrontery – it is beyond the pale!’

‘Is it?’ Pip hissed, in a rare flash of temper. ‘Since you appear to have scheduled an assignation with my sister – quite within the pale, I would say.’

Ashford’s outrage converted instantaneously to contrition, and he dropped Lydia’s hand as if it were scalding. Lydia fought the urge to grab for it again.

‘We can explain,’ Ashford whispered, holding out his hands in supplication.

‘Hush,’ Lydia hissed.

At last, she could hear the sound of footsteps moving through the room, could see the flicker of a taper candle on the floor heading towards the fireplace.

They fell silent, turning to peer through the shelves as children playing hide and seek.

A moment later the person came into view: a man making his way cautiously toward the fireplace, casting looks left and right as if he was as afraid of detection as they.

The taper held beneath his chin cast such strange shadows across his face that Lydia did not recognize him until the light of the smouldering fire provided further illumination. Reeves.

Beside her, she could feel the tension in Ashford’s frame relax, and she understood why – Reeves was sensible and discreet.

Even if he did discover them, whatever his private views, he might be trusted to remain silent.

But no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the sound of the library door could be heard again; they all tensed, nerves renewed.

All save for Reeves, who looked up, expectant but unafraid.

The sound of hurried steps, less careful, less stealthy than Reeves’ had been, and then the new figure was revealed: tall, wide, unmistakeably bearish in frame.

Lydia’s heart leapt into her throat. Sir Waldo would surely not take kindly to his butler making use of the library at nighttime, nor to catching the three of them out of bed at such an hour.

But then the firelight revealed the whiskerless face, and Lydia could relax again. For it was not Sir Waldo, but the infinitely preferable Lord Dacre.

‘Oh ho ,’ Pip whispered.

Dacre paused, a few steps away from Reeves. He did not look surprised to see him. Lydia frowned, trying to see more of their expressions from between the stacks.

The gentlemen gazed at one another for a moment, then Reeves extended an invitatory hand. Dacre took two quick strides towards him and drew him into a close embrace.

Lydia felt her eyes widen. Beside her, Pip shifted on his feet. Oh .

‘What a week ,’ Reeves said, when at last they parted.

‘I should be very glad for it to be over,’ Dacre agreed, ‘if it did not also mean leaving you.’

‘How long before you might visit again?’ Reeves spoke into Dacre’s neck, voice muffled but still audible.

‘I do not know,’ Dacre said. ‘I might concoct some excuse about helping Waldo and Phoebe pack up the house, but …’

‘It has been a year of sneaking around,’ Reeves said. ‘Barely satisfied by whatever visits, moments and scraps we can find.’

A year? Directly under Waldo and Phoebe’s noses?

‘I know.’ Dacre sounded tired and pained.

This, more even than the embrace, made Lydia feel abruptly uncomfortable with their eavesdropping – they should not be witnessing such emotion, only revealed under the assumption of privacy.

She cast her eyes to the ground, determinedly, but she could not do the same with her ears.

‘We must consider our approach.’ When freed from the trappings of deference, it was far easier to hear the military in Reeves’ voice. ‘Before, I could not leave Lady Phoebe, but now … Are you in need of a new butler?’

She heard the whisper of Dacre shaking his head. ‘Waldo would be suspicious.’

‘Is it not worth taking the chance?’ Reeves entreated.

‘Not when it is your life endangered,’ Dacre said, in tones fiercer than any Lydia had heard him use. ‘My title and standing protect me, but you have no such shield. We have discussed this.’

‘We have,’ Reeves agreed, ‘but … I do not think I can be satisfied with scraps any longer, Dacre – caution bedamned.’

‘A few nights ago, you were the one instructing me to be more careful. What has caused this change?’