Page 81 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘Perhaps Ashford has the most terrible tantrums if his shirts are not exactly pristine,’ Lydia theorized, ‘and his coats not perfectly … tailored …’

She trailed off. She watched Jane’s hands fly over the garment in her lap, quicker than any seamstress she had ever known.

‘How long would it take to alter a gentleman’s riding dress?’ she wondered aloud.

At this, Jane paused in her sewing.

‘What an evil idea,’ she said.

‘Isn’t it?’ Lydia enthused.

19

That night, long after Jane had extinguished the candles and left for her own quarters, Lydia lay awake, her mind turning, turning, turning, too busy to allow for sleep. In London, if such insomnia struck her, she would light a candle and read until her eyelids were straining with the effort of staying awake. But there had been no space for books in her trunk – a good thing too, given her recent proclaimed illiteracy – and she was left defenceless, now. She wished it were appropriate for her to spend a few uninterrupted hours in Hawkscroft’s grand library. But to wander the halls, at nighttime, in her nightgown – it would be improper and foolish. She would simply have to wait for sleep to come, patient and restful …

Her bedroom door creaked as it closed behind her, loud in the hush of the house, and Lydia flinched to hear it. Hawkscroft, forbidding enough in the daylight hours, became almost frightening in total darkness. The fragile light of the taper candle sent long, flickering shadows ahead of her, turning the suits of armour from grand to ghoulish, the portraits upon the wall from smiling to sinister. She crept down the hallway, the flagstones very cold against her feet – she ought really to have worn slippers – and down the grand staircase.

She had to brace her shoulder against the oak to open the doors to the library. A single step inside however was reward enough for the effort, and as Lydia inhaled a lungful of old books and old wood, she felt a wave of calm wash over her. Her bare feet made no noise on the flagstones and though it was even darker here – the rows of bookcases did not allow her candlelight to travel far – it was no longer frightening. Lydia picked a book from each row she passed through, some old favourites, some titles she did not recognize and then wandered in search of the hearth, where she recollected there were several armchairs with vague pretensions to squishiness. Yes, there they were – a few wing-backed chairs, clustered around a fireplace that was still glowing. Perfect. Lydia rounded the chair, ready to collapse into it – until she realized, with a jolt of horror, that it was already occupied.

She let out a shriek of surprise, dropping several books with a loud thud as she leapt backwards, clutching at her taper. The figure in the chair gave their own shout of surprise, startling violently and knocking over their own candle.

‘Damnation!’

‘Ashford?’

‘Dear. God.’ Ashford said, releasing a hand from his chest to pat himself down as if he were expecting to find a bullet wound upon his person.

‘What on earth are you doing lurking in such a way?’ she demanded.

‘I do not lurk,’ he said, with more hauteur than she would have thought possible from a gentleman wearing sheepskin slippers and a woollen house robe.

‘You ought to make more noise when you walk,’ he muttered, mopping up the spilled wax from his sleeve. ‘I might have hurt you.’

‘What would you have done? Thrown your slippers at me?’

Ashford abandoned his mopping to glare at her.

‘Leave,’ he instructed. ‘I’m here to find some peace.’

Whatever calm Lydia had gathered in the past few minutes dissipated into irritation.

‘You have no right to order me around in such a way. Perhaps I am here to find peace, too.’

‘It is not proper for us to be here alone. We are in our nightclothes.’

‘As attractive as your dressing gown is,’ she said, ‘your virtue is perfectly safe, I assure you. If you are concerned, you may leave.’

She sat down mulishly in the seat opposite him.

‘Shrew,’ he said.

‘Clodpoll.’

‘Harpy.’

‘Bufflehead.’

Ashford paused. ‘Bufflehead?’ he asked, reluctantly curious.