Page 9 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘Aunt Agatha doesn’t like me to investigate things at parties,’ Pip said. ‘Says people don’t like it.’

‘Yes,’ Lydia said. ‘Exactly, Pip.’

‘Oh ho,’ Pip said in sudden understanding. ‘Yes, with all those fancy coves in one house together, there’s bound to be a secret or two to uncover,’ he mused. ‘Stands to reason. That would impress Simmons, wouldn’t it?’

His chest puffed up at the mere thought and a sudden shard of guilt cut through Lydia’s enthusiasm.

‘This doesn’t have to involve you,’ she said. ‘I could make your excuses, find a reason for you to stay in London.’

‘If you’re in it,’ Pip said, ‘I am, too. Stands to reason.’

Lydia’s mood lifted in a great rush. All at once, everything that was dark and worrying became bright and hopeful once more, as if the sun had abruptly risen and rendered the world light again. She had been foolish to think, even for a moment, that today was the day Ashford ruined her life. Today was, as every day had been, simply another chance for her and Pip to eschew Uncle Edmund’s diktats, to dance around this pitfall as they had every other.

‘First,’ she said, ‘we need to visit Pantheon’s Bazaar today so I may purchase a new wardrobe.’

‘Tick!’ Pip asserted.

‘Then tomorrow we go to Kent, where I shall wear the wrong thing, and say the wrong thing, and do the wrong thing.’

‘Tick!’

‘And you shall investigate things.’

Pip gave a triumphant clap of his hands.

‘Tick!’

Lydia took in a rapturous breath of sweet, summer air. What a beautiful park. What a wonderful day.

‘If we can do all that,’ she said, ‘I shan’t need ten days to get rid of him. I shall do it in two!’

3

Tuesday – Nine days remaining

Ashford did not make mistakes. He may have been born to a great position and greater privileges, but the freedom to err was not amongst them. While gentlemen his age blundered for a pastime, Ashford did not. There was simply no need. For if one thought through every decision with reason and rationality, as he always did, then one’s life would always proceed on the proper and correct course, as his always had. There was no reason to believe his marriage would be any different.

Certainly, the process had not been without difficulties. From the outset, a great deal of carefulness was required, for he did not wish to raise in any maidenly heart expectations he could not fulfil. Then, there was the fact that so very many people were so very irritating: scores of the pompous, witless and eccentric littered the ballrooms of London and, as much as Ashford needed to marry, he would not do so at the cost of his sanity. One must have standards. Finally, the pièce de résistance: once he had waded through this trap-laden battleground to find several ladies he could imagine courting, his father had rejected every single one of them.

He had almost been driven mad with the frustration of it all. Then he had met Miss Hanworth.

‘She took me entirely by surprise,’ Ashford told his cousin in the East Drawing Room of Hawkscroft House, accepting a cup of tea from her butler with a smile of gratitude.

‘Oh, how wonderful,’ Lady Phoebe enthused, clapping her hands in approval. ‘You must tell me everything – quickly, before Waldo returns.’

Quitting London directly after proposing, Ashford had arrived at Hawkscroft House, the country home of his cousin, Lady Phoebe, and her adoring husband, yesterday evening. It was only now, however, the following afternoon, that he and his cousin had been able to speak properly for Sir Waldo clung to Phoebe’s side with the commitment of a lovelorn barnacle.

‘I saw quickly that she was exactly what I was looking for,’ Ashford said.

‘Love at first sight!’ Lady Phoebe interpolated breathlessly.

Ashford took a sip of tea rather than answer. One did not wish to lie, of course, but to correct the assumption felt unwise, too.

‘I’m not sure that’s how I would describe it,’ he said. This was at least true.

‘Have I embarrassed you?’ Lady Phoebe asked gleefully.

‘You needn’t be so delighted.’