Page 28 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

But where did that leave her? Even if he were not as bad as she had thought, she still did not love him, and that was what counted. But to continue to visit such humiliations upon him, knowing he did not deserve them … It did not make her feel a particularly good person.

‘Miss Hanworth! It is your turn!’

Some might consider lawn billiards a relaxed sport. Not Lady Phoebe.

‘Waldo is missing all the fun,’ Lady Phoebe fretted. ‘Ashford, will you fetch him? He’ll listen to you.’

If Ashford thought it strange that he was being used as an errand boy, he did not show it. ‘Brandon – I shall rescind my tutoring role to you.’

‘Right you are!’ Mr Brandon said, beaming at Miss Hesse.

‘There are others who might wish for a turn,’ Lady Hesse intervened quickly, as Pip and Lady Morton approached, their circuit of the gardens now complete.

‘Right you are,’ Mr Brandon subsided gloomily.

Lady Morton took up the mallet gamely enough, giving Pip a wink of farewell.

‘Can we speak?’ Lydia said quietly to her brother. ‘I am not at all sure what to do.’

‘Fret not, I am,’ Pip said, taking an evaluating glance around the group. ‘This is our moment.’

‘Our moment for what?’

‘For investigation,’ he said. ‘While everyone is occupied out here, I shall begin my search.’

‘Of the house?’ Lydia said, a little alarmed.

‘Stands to reason I’ll find some clues inside.’

Lydia bit her lip. This was her fault. She had encouraged this, but she ought to have predicted that Pip would get carried away.

‘Recollect no crime has actually been committed,’ Lydia felt beholden to remind him.

‘Yet,’ Pip said darkly. ‘But there’s bound to be something – I’ve never met such smoky fellows in all my life, and Simmons did say I have prodigious instinct for such things.’

Lydia did not doubt that Simmons had said such a thing, but just as a lady ought to feel some cynicism for compliments given by a gentleman trying to win her favour, so too did she think Simmons’ opinion on Pip’s investigative skills ought perhaps to be taken with a pinch of salt.

‘If you are discovered somewhere you ought not be,’ she reasoned, ‘they are quite likely to think you the smoky one. I do not think it wise.’

‘I shan’t be discovered,’ Pip said, ‘for you will be keeping watch.’

‘But I— Oh, very well.’

He was not likely to change his mind, and far better that she be there beside him, to defuse whatever scrape he might fall into, than he go alone.

Lydia tugged an ostrich feather from her head and held it up to the group. ‘Alas! My brother is going to escort me to change my hat!’

No one paid them any mind, for Miss Hesse had just managed to score a point and Mr Brandon raised both his hands in a whooping cheer.

‘Will you be able to hold the fort for our pair, Lord Hesse?’ Lydia asked. ‘I’m sorry to abandon you.’

‘Oh it doesn’t matter,’ Hesse said, raising his chin. ‘A child’s game, really – oh by Jove, good shot!’

He forgot his world-weary aloofness long enough to enthusiastically applaud Dacre’s sportsmanship, while Lydia and Pip made their way back toward the house, through the open French doors, across the drawing room, and down the long corridor that led to the grand staircase.

‘We shall pass directly by Sir Waldo’s study,’ Lydia warned Pip. If it would not have looked odd, they would have been better rounding the house and re-entering via the front door, so that they might climb the grand staircase directly, but no matter.

‘Fact is, just need to appear nonchalant,’ Pip said.