Page 53 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘No thank you,’ Lydia said.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘I should like your company.’

There was nothing to be gained from allowing Ashford to voice whatever threats he was so clearly desperate to utter. Far better to let him marinate in this temper.

‘I intend to rest before dinner,’ Lydia said, affecting a little yawn. ‘I imagine it is going to be quite the eventful evening.’

As everyone else returned to their conversations, she held eye contact with Ashford for a moment longer, giving him just the tiniest little glint of a smile.

She hoped he understood this for the threat it was.

Lydia was able to successfully avoid Ashford until near dinner time – imagining, with not insubstantial enjoyment, that his temper must now be pickling his insides. When the hour neared half past six, she dressed once again her yellow gown, for the only thing worse than wearing it once was, surely, to wear it upon two consecutive evenings.

As she left her room, Ashford appeared almost immediately, as if he had been lying in wait for her on the landing; his expression already stormy as he took her in.

‘I suppose this garb is one of your stratagems?’

‘You suppose correctly,’ she said, walking directly past him.

‘And your brother?’ he asked. ‘He is involved in this, I presume?’

‘You presume correctly.’

‘I knew it,’ he said, hurrying after her. ‘His bizarre behaviour – this investigating business …’

‘Oh, that’s all Pip,’ Lydia said, quickening her steps. ‘His eccentricity is entirely genuine.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said, keeping pace with her. ‘It can’t be.’

She threw him a sunny smile over her shoulder. ‘Would I lie?’

‘Your deception knows no bounds,’ he said darkly.

‘Not everything has been a lie,’ she said. ‘I do hate fish. That was true, you know.’

‘Oh well, thank goodness for that.’

‘Once,’ she said, tilting her head toward him confidentially, ‘my Aunt Agatha forced me to eat a whole plateful of fish pie and I was quite incomprehensibly sick.’

Ashford elected to ignore this.

‘Vomiting,’ she clarified.

‘Yes, thank you – and as reassured as I am—’

‘And I truly cannot sing, not in the least,’ she added. ‘That was not acting.’

‘My relief knows no bounds.’

They had reached the stairs. Lydia grasped her skirts – a few feathers puffed up into the air – and began to walk quickly down.

‘Truly, you ought to be thanking me,’ she said, ‘not berating me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pausing in outrage at the top. ‘Do you believe yourself to have done me some kind of favour?’

‘It was certainly for your benefit as well as mine,’ she said. ‘It is not easy, you know, standing up in front of everyone, singing in such a way, but I did it – for us both. You would be miserable married to me. Come now,’ she added, ‘you can’t dawdle there.’

‘As I am beginning to perceive,’ he said, stamping down the stairs towards her while she resumed her descent. ‘You must be the most accomplished liar that I have ever encountered.’