Page 16 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

Lydia looked from one to the other. Was Lady Morton suggesting that Lady Hesse wished for a match between Ashford and her daughter? Lydia would be happy to assist her in that endeavour, if it were true.

‘Ladies,’ Lady Phoebe chided.

‘You must forgive us,’ Lady Morton said to Lydia, reaching out to clasp her hands. ‘We have all known each other such a long time, we can be dreadfully rude.’

In appearance, she could not be more different to Lady Hesse, all curls and curves she was, and yet her words worked to make Lydia feel just as excluded. There was no breaking into ranks such as these, they seemed to be telling her, they had shared nurseries and schoolrooms long before they had parties and ballrooms. It was a good thing, then, that Lydia wanted no part of it. She waited, watching and listening for her next opportunity, but it was proving difficult. Conversation was in full flow as Lady Hesse relayed a few choice morsels of gossip.

‘… and then, it was revealed – the rubies had been false, all along!’ Lady Hesse concluded, delight on her face to speak of such misfortune. ‘Dupes!’

‘Oh, you ought to have suspected,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘If they were of such a size, her ears ought to have been on the floor from the weight.’

‘That is why you are needed in London, my lady,’ Lady Morton said, with a hand to Lady Phoebe’s arm. ‘Enough of this marital bliss – return to the trenches with us!’

Everyone laughed, as Lady Phoebe’s cheeks pinked.

‘La,’ Lydia said quickly, before conversation could move on, ‘you certainly have an eye for jewels, Lady Henley.’

She flicked her eyes pointedly to Lady Phoebe’s diamonds.

As conversational gambits went, Lydia was rather pleased with this. To concertina a vulgarity, an impertinent question, and a mistitling all into one sentence – why, it was rather impressive. Lady Phoebe certainly seemed impacted, putting an uncertain hand up to her necklace, opening her mouth, shutting it, and then looking appealingly towards Ashford for help.

‘Your necklace was a gift from Sir Waldo, I believe?’ Ashford said, as if Lydia had not said anything in the least unusual.

‘Diamonds for my diamond!’ Sir Waldo concurred, laying a large paw upon Lady Phoebe’s shoulder. ‘It belonged to a Sultan, you know, and is quite the largest of its kind in Europe.’

As if to verify this, Pip raised his quizzing glass and leant forward. The sudden sight of his eye, grotesquely magnified to ten times its usual size, had Lady Phoebe flinching backwards.

‘I have never seen diamonds so large,’ Lydia persevered, keeping one eye upon Ashford.

‘Yes, well it’s a little impractical, really,’ she said.

‘I won it myself at Seringapatam,’ Sir Waldo said, chest puffing out proudly.

‘Won?’ Pip said. ‘Or stole?’

There were sharp intakes of breath across the room.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Sir Waldo said, the smile slipping from his face.

‘You’ll have to forgive my brother!’ Lydia said, voice almost a yelp. There was impertinence, and then there was a criminal accusation. Pip could not very well aid her endeavours if he had been thrown from the house on the very first night. ‘He acts as a consult to Bow Street and forgets that we do not all share the Runner sense of humour.’

Since most of Pip’s ‘work’ occurred with Mr Simmons at various drinking locales – Pip returning in the early hours of the morning starry-eyed – consult was a rather grand interpretation, but she needed to say something to arrest Sir Waldo’s budding outrage.

‘A jest,’ Ashford confirmed quietly, and Lydia shot him a grateful smile before she could stop herself. Recollecting herself halfway through, she abruptly broadened it to a smile with teeth – Aunt Agatha’s second most crucial rule – and had the satisfaction of seeing Ashford’s eyes widen under her toothy beam. That was something, at least.

‘Thieves do walk among us,’ Pip explained, with the voice of One Who Has Faced the Darkness of the World. ‘As I know all too well.’

Sir Waldo began to chuckle. His brother followed his lead immediately, and Mr Brandon, too, was forcing a laugh even if confusion was still writ large upon his face.

‘I had no notion you were such an original, sir!’ Sir Waldo said, with a mighty slap to Pip’s back.

‘Nor did I,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘Did you, Ashford?’

Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but Lydia felt there was a glare under Lady Phoebe’s bright, bright smile, as she turned to her cousin.

‘No,’ Ashford said, his benign smile gone. ‘No, I did not.’

‘How interesting,’ Dacre said, with avuncular kindliness. ‘Have you been – ah – involved in anything we might have heard of?’