Page 119 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

Lady Phoebe’s eyes filled with tears.

‘I need it,’ she said. ‘The money it will bring me will buy a whole new life.’

‘But you wanted to marry him,’ Ashford said. ‘You wanted this.’

‘I thought I did,’ she said. ‘It was such a whirlwind. You remember. The gifts, the letters, the flowers. No one had ever treated me in such a way before, with such devotion, but now …’

‘Now?’ Ashford prompted.

‘I did not know it would be like this,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘He wants to be with me, always. He did not wish me to attend the Season, but even when I am here, he needs to know where I am, always. If I leave the house, he tells the footmen not to let me out of their sight – he asks them, afterwards, where I have been, who I have visited.’

She paused, marshalling herself. Ashford opened his mouth to speak, but Lydia placed a hand upon his arm to forestall him.

‘He thought me so perfect, at the beginning,’ she said. ‘And now, if I do not live up to his ideal, even for a moment, he lets me know I have disappointed him. When he is happy, life is good,’ she said. ‘When he is not …’

‘Has he hurt you?’ Ashford said sharply.

‘Not physically,’ Lady Phoebe. ‘Not yet – I don’t know, if he ever will, but I … cannot, anymore, cope with it. I am so tired of trying to be everything he wants.’

Lydia stood very still. It felt as if one wrong movement would frighten the truth away, somehow; would have Lady Phoebe pinning a smile back on her face and pretending all was well, again.

‘Do you know,’ Lady Phoebe said, giving a strange little laugh, ‘I do not even like freesias?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Ashford asked, his voice breaking. ‘I would have helped you.’

‘I know you would.’ Lady Phoebe dashed across her face. ‘You would have taken it on yourself, as you always have done, for the family – but what could you have done? I belong to him, Ashford.’

‘I would have removed you from this house,’ Ashford said. ‘Spoken to him – ordered him that he could never—’

‘I would still have had to go back,’ she said. ‘Eventually. It is not as if you would support my divorcing him, would you?’

Ashford paused, lips parted. Divorces were almost unheard of amongst the aristocracy, granted in the rarest and most salacious circumstances – with the shame following your family for evermore.

A bitter smile curled Lady Phoebe’s lips ‘That’s a rather harder question to answer, isn’t it?’

‘I will speak to him,’ Ashford said. ‘You don’t need to do anything drastic. There will be another way.’

‘He will not let me go.’ She shook her head, sadly. ‘He will fight and make scenes and cause a thousand scandals rather than let me go.’

‘You would spend your life running, instead?’

‘With the diamonds, I shall have enough to flee, properly. I took the necklace to be valued in Chippenham last week, and it is worth more than you can imagine.’

‘Of course,’ Lydia murmured, as much to herself as to the others. ‘It went missing the same night Waldo announced you were leaving.’

Lady Phoebe turned to her, frowning. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘Elspeth noticed,’ Lydia explained. ‘She feared she might be accused of its theft.’

‘And she came to you for assistance?’

‘To Pip, actually. He has been searching for it, but—’

Ashford interrupted her with an impatient slash of his hand through the air. ‘And then what? You can hardly take such an item to a pawn shop, Phoebe – you would be discovered at once.’

‘In England, yes,’ Lady Phoebe said. ‘But I shall not be here. I have saved enough pin money to get to France, and once there I shall organize it to be broken up and sold.’ She looked back to Lydia. ‘I was going to leave a note, explaining everything. Elspeth would never have been in danger.’

Ashford combed a hand through his hair, agitation not in the least appeased by this explanation. ‘Where will you stay?’