Page 139 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘This should explain matters satisfactorily,’ he said. ‘For your aunt and uncle.’

She took it from him, noticing instantly its thickness. There were several sheets enclosed, at least.

‘They seem to have received a great deal more explanation than I did,’ she noted.

Ashford bowed, but did not answer. ‘Farewell, Miss Hanworth. It has been …’

‘A pleasure?’ she suggested.

The smallest of smiles twisted his lips for a moment.

‘Something along those lines.’

When the carriage began to move, the urge to look back was almost overwhelming, but she forced herself to resist it, setting her jaw and staring determinedly ahead.

Jane reached out to touch Lydia upon the arm.

‘It will be all right,’ she said softly. ‘At least you are free now.’

‘Yes,’ Lydia agreed. ‘Yes, how – how marvellous.’

For he had achieved her goal, yes, but … it did not feel anything close to what she had thought it would.

Nothing about him had been what she had thought. He might have given her what she had wanted – but instead it felt as though something had been taken from her.

‘I wish we had never come here,’ Lydia said, as they drew out of Hawkscroft’s gates. ‘I wish none of this had happened.’

A sob rose in her throat, and she squashed it ruthlessly down.

‘Bound to feel blue-devilled,’ Pip encouraged. ‘Feel better in a bit, I should think.’

Lydia let out a strangled laugh. She hoped he was right. She did not think she could carry this feeling with her for long, for it felt a physical weight within her – from which there could be no distraction.

There were more blows in store, that day. Ashford’s billet was read by Uncle Edmund as soon as they arrived at Berkley Square, and though Lydia was given to understand it excused her entirely, it was not enough. She was still to be sent to Aunt Mildred.

The majority of her schemes – the social gaffes, the singing – had not, in fact, reached her aunt and uncle (the benefit of the slower summer months meaning that gossip did not travel as fast or as far as it might usually), but most unfortunately Aunt Agatha’s cousin, Miss Slater, had spotted Lydia leaving the inn where she had changed into her puce travelling address on that very first day.

Thus, though Ashford’s letter had been reportedly extremely apologetic, claiming all the blame for himself, the travelling dress was sufficient for Aunt Agatha and Uncle Edmund to announce their intention to remove to Brighton for the rest of the summer – so as, they declared, to wait out the resulting scandal, when it came – and banish Lydia to the north and Aunt Mildred.

Lydia did not protest, watching her baggage piled onto the chaise. There was a certain inevitability about it, truly, that after all she had done to hold onto her agency, all of the fight and effort and perseverance, it simply amounted to the same conclusion in the end.

In all of it, there was only one consolation to be had.

‘A good thing I pack lightly, isn’t it,’ Pip said, sauntering up to the carriage, quizzing glass around his neck, and a small suitcase swinging in his hands. ‘Not much room left.’

‘You aren’t – you aren’t coming, too?’

‘Course I am,’ he said. ‘Pretty shabby of me, if I didn’t.’

‘Pip …’ Lydia swallowed around a lump in her throat. ‘It is so kind of you. But truly – I shall be all right by myself.’

She could not allow him to make such a sacrifice for her. She could not.

‘Fact is,’ Pip said, ‘wherever you are, I am too. Stands to reason.’

Lydia had yet to shed a tear over any of the events over the past ten days, feeling that to do so would be to open herself fully to the whirl of emotion inside of her. But now she could not help the tears springing to her eyes.

‘What about Mr Simmons? You have been away so long already.’