Page 92 of How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days

‘They would not be if they knew the terms in which he is describing them,’ Ashford muttered.

‘Hush,’ Lydia whispered, her stitching set aside so she could better focus on the words.

They were far enough away from the rest of the party, and sitting at close enough quarters, that Ashford’s whispering would not be attended – but that was beside the point, for she wished to listen.

‘Imagine having someone to stay at your home, and afterwards they publish an article patronizing you in such a way,’ he said, body now entirely slouched down so that his head was resting against the back of the settle. ‘I’d be livid.’

Lydia shushed him again. Could she not have found any other way to secure his presence in the drawing room?

‘“Until the vivifying orb of the day …”’

‘What is a vivifying orb?’ Ashford whispered.

‘The sun,’ she whispered back. ‘Obviously.’

‘Then why not just say that?’

‘Because this is not a bedtime story.’

‘I wish it were,’ Ashford complained. ‘I should prefer that.’

Lydia ignored this, trying to concentrate.

‘Little Red Riding Hood, perhaps,’ Ashford whispered to her. ‘My mother used to do a marvellous job with the voices.’

‘Your mother read to you?’ Lydia asked, looking away from Prett with surprise.

‘Yes?’ He blinked up at her. ‘Why so shocked?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I would have supposed you to be handed off to a nurse after only a few hours.’

‘Well, you would be wrong,’ he said. ‘She read to me, just as yours did.’

‘Ours did not,’ Lydia corrected. ‘She and my father were hardly in the country, really.’

Not that they did so when they were at home, either. There was a certain irony in it, truly, that Ashford’s parents had indulged in such tenderness, when hers had not – for it was Mr and Mrs Hanworth’s dogged pursuit of upper-class behaviour that had caused them to hand their children’s care almost entirely over to the various governesses and tutors who had tutored them in the deportment of the gentry.

‘You were fortunate,’ she said reflectively. ‘I did not think such affection common, in your set.’

‘I suppose not.’ Ashford’s voice was strange. ‘I am … sorry.’

‘There’s no need to be sorry,’ Lydia said, rather revolted. She did not wish for his pity. ‘Pip was an excellent storyteller.’

‘That does not surprise me,’ Ashford said.

‘Though,’ Lydia confided, ‘I am not certain he always kept to the script.’

Prett’s eyes flicked in their direction, and Lydia lowered her voice further, gaze back upon Prett but inclining a little toward Ashford so that he might still hear her.

‘When you were read Little Red Riding Hood,’ she asked, ‘did the grandma turn out to be colluding with the wolf all along?’

‘No,’ Ashford said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Though that sounds a great deal more exciting. Truly, Mr Hanworth is …’

Lydia whipped her head sharply round to regard him. ‘Yes?’

‘One of a kind,’ Ashford finished.

She narrowed her eyes at him, and he put up his hands in appeasement.