Page 31 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

Jane looked her over and grimaced. ‘You do know the rest of the household thinks you quite mad? Elspeth – Lady Phoebe’s maid – tells me that Lady Phoebe has been ranting and storming about your outlandish behaviour in her bedchamber.’

Lydia gave a nod of grim satisfaction. ‘You might warn Elspeth that matters are about to become a great deal worse.’

Then, rigged out in the most unattractive ensemble known to man, Lydia sashayed down to the drawing room, head held high and proud. Everyone turned to look at her and she had the satisfaction of watching their faces light with surprise. Ashford, across the room from her, looked nothing less than aghast.

Stunning.

‘Good evening, Miss Hanworth!’ Lady Phoebe sang out, eyes upon the feathered trimming as if she could not help but look elsewhere. ‘What a – magnificent dress.’

‘It is so rare to see gowns of such a hue,’ Lady Hesse said, hiding her smirk behind a peach lace fan.

‘It reminds of one of that fruit … I forget the name,’ Sir Waldo said musingly.

‘Perhaps you mean a flower?’ Dacre interceded.

‘I meant what I said, brother,’ Sir Waldo said, rather more crossly than the situation warranted. ‘It was certainly a fruit, one I encountered upon my travels – you won’t be familiar.’

‘The mango?’ Hesse suggested.

‘Wrong colour entirely, sir.’ Sir Waldo wagged his finger. ‘It has an exterior skin of sorts.’

‘The pineapple?’

‘No, no, no.’

‘Perhaps we could move on to another subject,’ Lady Phoebe tried to cut in but to no avail.

‘It shall bother me all evening if I can’t think of it – what is it?’

‘The banana,’ Ashford supplied quietly.

Sir Waldo snapped his fingers. ‘You have it, my lord!’

Lydia looked to Ashford. ‘Is the banana an attractive fruit?’

Ashford, for the first time in her acquaintance, appeared lost for words.

‘I was told it is all the rage in France,’ she added. ‘Très chic.’

‘Then doubtless we shall all be wearing yellows by the autumn,’ Lady Phoebe said, trying to hasten the conversation onward.

‘Wouldn’t suit you, darling,’ Sir Waldo said, shaking his head.

‘Not with all the jewels you like to wear,’ Lydia agreed. She gestured towards the diamond necklace once again sitting around Lady Phoebe’s neck – for why not repeat a prior gambit, when it had been so successful the first time? ‘I wonder you do not bruise from the weight of them.’

Across from her, Ashford closed his eyes briefly, as if asking for strength.

‘Yes, well …’

‘On occasion they do!’ Sir Waldo said, proudly. ‘Largest diamonds in Europe!’

Lady Phoebe gave up.

‘Dinner is served!’ she sang out, throwing an urgent glance towards Reeves who – face tightening in alarm – beat a hasty retreat toward the kitchen, as Lady Phoebe led the way a full fifteen minutes early.

‘Tonight, I shall seat you a little differently,’ Lady Phoebe suggested. ‘It will all get dreadfully boring if we are seated next to the same person each night, shouldn’t it? Miss Hanworth, you may move upwards; Ashford, do take your seat beside her.’

Lydia prepared herself for battle. When she and Pip had planned such moments as this, they had agreed she would restrict her faux pas to the verbal and fashionable, only. Anything more than that and she would risk horrifying the company sufficiently that stories of her gross inelegance would follow her back to London. But such soft techniques were no longer enough. Feeling Ashford’s eyes upon her, she recklessly took a deep draught from her wine glass. Let the gossip reach Aunt Agatha, she did not care – in this precise moment, she wanted nothing more than to make Ashford feel just as bad about himself as he had made her feel.