Page 105 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘Well, I shan’t, if you are going to be so damnably patronizing about it.’

‘And now you have sworn in front of a lady,’ she said sadly. ‘Not very gentlemanly at all.’

He chuffed a laugh. ‘What did you think?’ he said, raising the book again. ‘I should like to know.’

She flushed, without really knowing why.

‘I enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘I should like to read it again – but there is a long waiting list at the public library.’

She looked around the walls and walls of books about them.

‘If I had such a library as this,’ she said. ‘I would fill the shelves with all of my favourites.’

Ashford cleared his throat. ‘I have one, grander than this.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said. ‘Do you wish for some time to boast about it?’

She did not quite know why she was trying to antagonize him so determinedly. She had sought him out by choice, after all. Had left the comfort of her bed specifically because the draw of speaking with him – privately too – was too powerful to ignore. But now the earnest cast to his words and expression was making her so nervous her heart might beat out of her chest. But Ashford did not rise to the bite in her voice, merely regarding her in a measuring sort of way, as if he were deciding something.

He took in a deep breath, sat up straight and placed his book to the side. Lydia’s breath caught.

‘I have had occasion to think, this past day,’ he began, ‘and—’

He froze. Lydia did as well, for she had heard it, just as he had. The gentle scrape of oak on flagstones.

‘The door,’ Lydia whispered.

Someone else had entered the library.

They stared at one another for the briefest of moments: alone, in their nightclothes, in the dead of night. Were they to be caught in such an encounter … In one move, both leant forward to blow out their candles, plunging them into darkness. Ashford seized Lydia’s hand in his, pulling her to her feet and together they edged towards the walkway which ran down the middle of the room, bisecting the two lines of ten bookcases which separated them from the doorway. With the light of the corridor illuminating him from behind, they watched as the outline of a man turned to close the library door behind them.

‘Come now,’ Ashford whispered, and they dashed down the walkway as silently and quickly as they could, putting one, two, three, then four stacks between them, darting behind the fourth, pressing their backs against the bookshelves, trying to quieten their heavy breath. They listened, holding themselves very still, for footsteps. There were none. Had the person left, and they had simply missed the sound of the door this time? Or were they browsing the stacks closest to the door?

‘If they come this way,’ Ashford whispered, ‘I shall distract them while you hide again.’

He spoke so quietly that Lydia would have had no hope of hearing him had they not been standing so close together, had he not turned his head to whisper directly into her ear. She could hardly see him, even so, for the glow of the fire could not reach them any longer, and the moon, visible in the far window, caused more shadows than it did light. She could feel, though, the brush of his shoulder against hers every time he took in a breath, the warmth of his palm against hers. They were still clasping hands, she realized. She had never held a gentleman’s hand, without gloves to stand between them – and suddenly, she was thoroughly distracted from the unknown gentleman. Breathless for an entirely different reason.

‘What were you about to say?’ Lydia asked. ‘Before?’

She should remain quiet and still, she knew this – and yet, it felt abruptly important, now more than ever, that they finished their conversation, that Ashford voice whatever declaration had, surely, been on the tip of his tongue.

‘Sssh,’ he said. ‘Not now.’

‘I just—’

‘Quiet! We cannot risk discovery – it is nigh, we are entirely alone—’

‘Fact is,’ came a hoarse whisper from deeper within the stacks, ‘not entirely alone.’

Ashford and Lydia near jumped out of their skins. Wheeling around in the direction of the voice, they stared into the darkness, making out – for the first time – where the outline of another figure was tucked against the wall.

‘Pip?!’ Lydia whispered. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Nighttime wandering – suspicious,’ Pip whispered, nodding towards Ashford. ‘Slipped in through the servants’ stairs.’

‘You were following me?’ Ashford whispered, with nonetheless audible outrage. ‘The effrontery – it is beyond the pale!’

‘Is it?’ Pip hissed, in a rare flash of temper. ‘Since you appear to have scheduled an assignation with my sister – quite within the pale, I would say.’