Page 91 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘These words are too difficult,’ Waldo berated the butler.

‘I think they are rather good,’ Dacre said.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Reeves said.

‘They are not!’

‘It is just a game, Waldo,’ Lady Phoebe reminded him, while everyone else began retreating from the conflict.

‘Do I want to know what a muckworm is?’ Ashford’s low voice startled Lydia, for she had not noticed his approach. ‘My instincts suggest it’s not flattering.’

‘Your instincts are correct,’ Lydia said, keeping her gaze elsewhere, while he took a seat next to her. She had returned to the small sofa and for a moment Ashford seemed to hesitate, perhaps realizing how small the space was and how closely they might be positioned together. ‘Finally.’

‘Captain von Prett, perhaps you wouldn’t mind reading your piece, after all?’ Lady Phoebe asked, returning to her chair, defeated.

‘Of course!’ Prett said, hastening over to the table, where he began rifling through his papers. ‘It is a tale of my perilous journey from the mountains of …’

‘Oh lord,’ muttered Ashford, his arm brushing Lydia’s as he passed a hand over his eyes. ‘I cannot listen to this.’

‘Coward.’

‘Yesterday that insult might have hurt me,’ he said, ‘but after “muckworm” I find it somewhat lacking.’

They sat quietly together for a few moments; Lydia trying most diligently to concentrate on her lacklustre embroidery rather than the warm press of his thigh against hers. The clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight and at almost the same moment the larger, louder clock from the village church could still be heard faintly through the windows. It was too early. Pip and Jane would surely need more time.

‘Here we are!’ Prett said triumphantly. Ashford made to rise from his seat.

‘You must stay,’ she said, lifting her gaze from her embroidery and – finding their faces even closer than she had thought – flushing. This close, she could see a tiny ring of blue around the edge of his irises. There was a long pause while they assessed each other.

‘For someone who wishes not to marry me,’ he murmured at last, ‘you seem to spend an awful amount of time requesting my company.’

‘You flatter yourself.’ She broke eye contact, and resolutely turned back to her stitching.

‘Do I?’ he said. ‘There is nowhere I am free: you follow me into the library, you lock me in parlours. If you wish to spend time with me, Miss Hanworth, you need only say.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ Lydia said. ‘In fact, I should rather wish you at Jericho – off you pop there now.’

‘Shan’t,’ Ashford said cheerfully. ‘I have a good mind to listen to this talk after all – perhaps I might learn something.’

‘Perhaps you might,’ she said, with a savage jab of her needle. Ashford leant to peer over her shoulder, close enough now that a slight woodsy scent wafted towards her. It was rather pleasant. Did gentlemen wear perfume, she wondered, breathing it in, or was the scent all his own?

‘And what animal, pray, is this meant to be?’ Ashford said, regarding her embroidery hoop with some amusement.

‘A squirrel, of course,’ Lydia said loftily.

Ashford eyed it doubtfully. ‘I don’t think so. A deranged fox, perhaps?’

She jerked the hoop away, just as Prett approached the fireplace, notebook in hand. The glow of the fading fire cast a warm glow across Prett’s face as he looked about the room, making eye contact with each one of them in turn – and as their gazes met, Lydia was reminded, forcibly, quite why she had been so taken with him in the first place.

‘This is only a first draft,’ he said, looking down to his pages. ‘So I must ask forgiveness for any clumsy wording.’

Lydia thought she could listen to him speak each night, quite happily, for the rest of their life. She could picture them, in fact, as husband and wife, sharing a fireside much like this, taking it in turns to read aloud to one another. She from whatever novel she was reading, he from whatever article he was writing. How wonderful that would be.

‘“The solitary midnight traveller, long wandering the labyrinth of hopelessness”,’ Prett began, in low portentous tones, ‘“approached the lonely dwelling—”’

‘Oh Christ,’ Ashford muttered, sinking down in his seat.

‘“The natives are not blessed with the comforts of our more temperate climes”,’ Prett said. ‘“Unacquainted with both spring and autumn, and yet a welcoming people …”’