Page 65 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘How beautifully put,’ Lydia said.

‘Well, I hardly think you at risk of recognition here,’ Ashford dismissed – but he was proven wrong not five minutes later.

They had checked at a junction when three young ladies approached the carriage window in transports of excitement.

‘Excuse me, sir, but are you Captain von Prett?’ they asked.

‘Why yes, yes I am,’ Prett said, smiling in welcome and leaning almost his whole torso out of the carriage to greet them. ‘Driver – may we pause? How wonderful it is to meet you – my signature? Yes of course.’

‘Good God,’ Ashford muttered.

Lydia glared at him.

‘I think it a very charitable thing,’ she said. ‘To be so kind to strangers.’

‘Yes, that’s what motivates him,’ Ashford said, watching Prett accept kisses to his hands. ‘Charity.’

After a minute more of observing the scene, getting visibly crosser, Ashford grew so impatient that he abruptly slammed a hand up into the carriage roof causing the driver to set the horses to so quickly that Pip dropped his notebook and Prett almost fell out of the window.

‘I say, you might have given some warning!’ Lydia said indignantly.

‘It is all for the best,’ Prett said, tugging his coat back into position. ‘I do try to wrap up such encounters quickly, but it is difficult …’

Ashford let out a sceptical snort, and this time, Lydia did not stop herself. She threw a reprimanding elbow into his side.

‘Ow,! Ashford complained.

Prett’s eyes swivelled to him, enquiring.

‘Miss Hanworth has just elbowed me,’ Ashford explained, making a great show of rubbing his side. ‘Miss Hanworth, how have I displeased you?’

The captain’s brows shot up and Lydia flushed.

‘I did not mean to,’ she said at once. ‘The – ah – bumps in the road, you know.’

‘But it has been an entirely smooth journey,’ Ashford said. ‘Is this another one of your eccentric turns? Sporadic acts of violence?’

‘Goodness,’ Prett said.

‘I am not violent or eccentric,’ Lydia insisted.

‘We all have our faults,’ Prett said sympathetically.

‘I am not—’

‘There is no need to be ashamed,’ the Captain von Prett said. ‘To love oneself is a great act of bravery.’

‘That on your family crest, is it?’ Ashford said, his smugness fading into irritation.

Prett only smiled gently.

‘It would be jolly good if it was, I think,’ Lydia snapped. ‘Usually mottos are so frightfully boring.’

‘Yes, “persevere” and “persist” and all that rot,’ Pip agreed, looking up from his notebook.

‘What are yours, my lord?’ Captain von Prett asked.

‘“Honour always”,’ Ashford said.