Page 6 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘She didn’t know the name of our Prime Minister,’ Ashford said. ‘I hardly think that a high bar.’

Lydia’s hand fell away from the door, listening agog. She would not leave her post now for a hundred pounds.

‘Then what is wrong with Miss Callow?’ Brandon said. ‘She speaks three languages!’

‘Oh, I know,’ Ashford said. ‘She peppers conversation with enough “Sacre bleu”s to make everybody perfectly aware of that.’

‘Lady Evelina?’

‘Her family is deplorably eccentric.’

Lydia did not know what to think. On the one hand, such peremptory dismissal of ladies widely considered paragons, as if they were all Ashford’s to evaluate and find wanting … Did it not display rather shocking superiority? Yet on the other, was this not the same pickiness Aunt Agatha regularly berated Lydia for?

‘You must have thought Miss Spalding perfect, then, if you were considering courting her in seriousness.’

‘I did,’ Ashford said. ‘And Miss Dudley and – well. My father seems determined to reject any young lady of the ton I suggest.’

Brandon laughed.

‘Half of London’s ladies deemed unworthy by you,’ he said, ‘and the other half, by your father! There’s some irony in that predicament, isn’t there?’

‘You may well laugh,’ Ashford said. ‘But what am I to do? I cannot marry without his approval.’

‘Perhaps you ought to look outside the ton,’ Brandon said. ‘Is it so important that she be high-born and accomplished and all that rot?’

Ashford was apparently so surprised by this suggestion that he halted his footsteps. ‘You propose I engage myself to some Cit’s daughter?’

Mr Brandon drew to a stop with him.

‘They are not all title-hunters hoping for a leg up in the world,’ he reasoned, as if this was some grand humanitarian concession. ‘You might consider it.’

‘Perhaps I would,’ Ashford said haughtily, ‘if such a person could conduct themselves properly. Do you truly think any woman from that class could make a serviceable duchess?’

Serviceable? Whatever kinship Lydia had felt rising within her towards him halted abruptly. It was all rather less fascinating when she was one of the ladies being peremptorily deemed wanting – a title-hunter, hoping for a leg up in the world? Ashford and Mr Brandon were just the same as the rest of them, then. Arrogance in the aristocracy was plainly as universal as their all-too-often enormous chins.

Wrapped up in her indignation, Lydia did not immediately notice that Ashford had turned away from Mr Brandon again, but when he began to continue along the corridor, she came back to herself with a start. He was no longer strolling and his long gait was eating up the distance between them. There was no time to flee without detection. Thinking fast, Lydia gave the doorknob a wrench, threw it open, and took two hasty strides into the room, for all the world as if she had only just walked through it.

The plan worked in one sense. There was no sign, in Ashford’s face, that he suspected her of eavesdropping and yet, because Lydia had misjudged the length and speed of her steps versus his, she only narrowly avoided colliding directly into him and made an instinctive grab for his arm to prevent herself from toppling over.

‘Steady!’ Ashford barked, alarmed.

‘I am so sorry!’ Lydia gasped, flushing hard and withdrawing her hand. ‘I did not mean to …’

In hasty recollection of her manners, she dipped into a mortified curtsey.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ Mr Brandon said, drawing level with them. ‘My name’s Brandon.’

‘Oh – I’m Miss Hanworth?’ Lydia said.

‘Sounds awfully familiar,’ Mr Brandon said. ‘Perhaps I know a brother?’

‘Hanworth Wool,’ Ashford put in.

‘Oh!’ Mr Brandon said. ‘Oh – yes, of course.’

Lydia raised her chin, fighting against a wave of embarrassment. Why ought she be embarrassed? They all wore wool, didn’t they?

‘I’m sorry, I was just looking for – for …’ she said, tripping over her words and hating herself for it.