And as for riding astride — well, even if that been on offer to Lydia, she was terrified of horses and had never learned to ride, so that particular wish would remain Lady Archwood’s alone. In fact, Lydia considered, Lady Archwood’s devotion to horses was the only thing she really knew about her. “I have heard you are an accomplished equestrienne,” she volunteered, for lack of any other conversation ideas.
Lady Archwood smiled at her as if Lydia had said exactly the right thing. She had a tremendous smile, almost too wide to be pretty, but it lit up her entire face. Her vividness made the fashionable pallor of Lydia’s skin seem very dull indeed, at least to Lydia. “There is nothing I prefer to a good horse,” Lady Archwood declared. “I adore them above all things. Indeed, Lord Archwood believes I prefer them to him. That is why he bought my two favorite horses and brought them back to England.” She smiled as if thinking of her horses, and Lydia could only smile back obediently.
But inside, her heart was sinking a little, and her foolish plans to become Lady Archwood’s favorite, and thusly capture the heart of Peregrin Fawkes, became a little more, well, foolish. It would be difficult to become the countess’s intimate if the lady was truly as a horse-mad as the gossips claimed. And the same must be said about Mr. Fawkes: if he cared only for horses, as Lady Archwood did, how would she ever interest him? Lydia didn’t know what she found more terrifying about horses — their great stamping hooves or their snapping yellow teeth — but the thought of either was enough to send her into shivers. And after what had happened tonight in the road — she thought she could cheerfully go through life never seeing another horse.
The countess was peering at her; Lydia realized that after every statement the countess had made, Lydia had allowed for rather unusual silences. This wasn’t going well at all. “I am sure the earl was only funning with you,” she managed.
“He may be,” the countess replied with something very like a grin, evidently prepared to forgive Lydia’s odd conversational skills. “But he knew I wouldn’t be willing to leave my mare behind, at the very least. I thought once I had lost her forever; of course I wouldn’t leave her behind in Ireland! You ought to see her; she is a beauty.” Lady Archwood gave herself to her thoughts for a moment, possibly picturing her mare, which Lydia supposed was probably very pretty with the exception of her dangerous teeth and hooves, and then the countess remarked very suddenly: “I suppose you are looking for a husband.”
Lydia opened her mouth and then shut it again. Behind her, the door-handle rattled and there was a collective ooooh of disappointment. “Perhaps we should…?” She turned her head towards the door.
“Not yet, I cannot bear to see that crush again yet,” Lady Archwood said dismissively. “Let them go look for husbands for a few minutes more while we chat. You, my dear, are a beauty.” She fixed a crafty gaze on Lydia’s startled face. “Take my advice, girl, wait for the right man and then fight for him. I was so unhappy when I thought I’d lost William, I forgot that I could fight for him. Luckily, he wasn’t so faint-hearted. Have you got crowds of beaux trailing your every step? You look as though you might.”
“I have had a few,” Lydia confessed. “Not so many as I used to. I am very boring, I suppose. And the only gentleman I wish would take notice of me, why, he doesn’t know my name.” She felt nervous about her confession, but surely Lady Archwood couldn’t intimate from so few details that she was hopelessly in love with Mr. Fawkes.
“Oh, that can’t be! You’re the perfect English rose. All peaches and cream. All right, you can’t be roses and peaches, I don’t think, but you take my point. You look just as you should, and your family is spotless. You’ll just have to find him and make him see you; the rest should be simple. Or so I am told; I admit I am not so experienced in society match-making, and I find it quite fascinating. Like looking for the best stallion for a young mare.” She looked Lydia up and down, as assessing as a horse trader. “I do not see how he could look at you and fail to lose his heart at once.”
Lady Archwood’s careless compliment washed over Lydia like a warm bath. “Oh, I assure he has not lost his heart at the sight of me,” she sighed. “Only tonight, he quite rescued me from a dangerous horse and he had not the least notion of who I was — and he did not ask, either.” She hoped, rather belatedly, that Peregrin Fawkes had not related to Lady Archwood how a reckless coachman had nearly run over an absent-minded young lady just in front of the townhouse.
It seemed he had not; Lady Archwood brought her slender brows together in a frown. “How on earth did that happen?”
Quite committed now, Lydia plowed ahead with her tale. “I had just been helped from our carriage,” she related, eyes cast upon the reflections of the retiring room in the dark windows. “I stopped at the foot of the stairs — I thought I had left my fan on the seat — I turned back without looking, and a new carriage was already pulling up. I was right under one of the horses, I could see his great yellow teeth —” Lydia shivered at the thought of that monstrous animal. “I was foolish, you see — I went right into the street without looking. Then a hand came around my waist and pulled me away, plucked me right out from under the horse’s nose. He set me down with a footman and then went to scold the coachman — but I fear it was my fault, not the coachman’s.”
“And that was the gentleman you admire,” Lady Archwood said, sounding every bit the young woman that she was. Lydia remembered that she was only a few years older than herself. “He is the one that saved you! Why my dear, that is positively romantic. And I do not often think about romance.”
“But he paid me no mind,” Lydia explained. She didn’t mention the way his eyes had sparked at her, or how his arms had tightened; that didn’t seem like polite conversation. “If he did see me, he certainly did not lose his heart. He likely only thought I was too foolish to be allowed to walk around by myself.”
“Well, he may be right,” Lady Archwood suggested, rather unhelpfully Lydia thought. “You did walk under a carriage.”
And all for nothing, Lydia wanted to say. In a novel he would have swept her up in his arms and fallen instantly in love; he would have pledged to protect her forever, and if their families objected, then he would carry her away to Gretna Green and then they would live in genteel poverty until a spinster aunt died and left them a fortune.
Or they’d live at Tivington Abbey with the Archwoods, as Fawkes did himself when they were not in London, by all reports she had heard.
“You’re a bit given to day-dreaming,” the countess observed. “I can see exactly how you came to such a disaster.”
Lydia felt her cheeks color again, but she plowed on. “I would have thought,” she said, a trifle petulantly, “That he would at least see my face as he saved me from grave peril. And seek me out in the ballroom to ask for an introduction.”
Lady Archwood studied her for a moment. “You have all the warning signs of a girl given to romance,” she sighed eventually.
“Warning signs, my lady?”
The countess stood instead of answering, shaking the creases from her skirts before shrugging the damage away. “Come. Walk with me before supper, won’t you? I would like to know you better. It’s a shame this whole Season has passed by without our making an acquaintance!” She held out a gloved hand, and Lydia was struck by the lack of adornment — save a filligree-and-pearl wedding-ring, the countess wore no other bracelets or jewels. What an odd sort of countess, indeed!
She reached out and took her hand, feeling Lady Archwood’s fingers close over hers with a surprising strength, and allowed herself to be led across the retiring room, head held as high as the countess’s when they brushed past the astonished girls waiting outside the locked door.
CHAPTER TWO
Lady Katherine Dean came into Lydia’s bedchamber just as Lydia’s maid was setting a silver-backed hairbrush down on the dressing-table. One look from the hard-faced mistress of the house sent the girl into a flurry of supplicating nods and will-that-be-alls, so th
at Lydia could only take pity and release her for the night. She herself was not eager to dissect the evening with her ambitious mama, but that was no reason to keep Mary when the girl plainly longed to escape. None of it was Mary’s fault, after all. And no one wanted to spend any more time in Lady Katherine’s company than necessary, Lydia least of all, but one could not choose one’s mama.
Lydia glanced wearily at the arched mahogany clock on the mantle — it was well after three o’clock in the morning, and her feet ached from a night in dancing-shoes. But now she would have to be sharp and stay one step ahead of her mother, or the game she had entered into with Lady Archwood and Mr. Fawkes would be all for nothing. She lifted her jaw, settled her cap more securely over her wavy pale hair, and met her mother’s coldly assessing gaze in the looking-glass before her.
There was a moment of quiet, each woman determined not to be the first to speak. But Lady Katherine was older; perhaps the late hour was more trying to her than she cared to admit, and so she spoke first.
“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” A disarmingly simple question, designed to put her daughter at enough ease to answer honestly.
But Lydia knew her mother’s games. Enjoyment was measured in the attentions of eligible gentlemen, not by forging connections with renegade countesses. This late-night audience was not about her pleasure in the evening; it was about her mother’s displeasure with her behavior at the party.
Lydia pretended anyway. “It was a delightful party,” she gushed. “I am only sorry Lady Archwood goes to the country so soon. Here it is only May, and yet she returns! She misses so much by leaving, and her house is lovely. I might have anticipated many visits back there.” And meet gentlemen of title and fortune there, she might have added for her mother, but she could only hope that would be inferred. She really did not want to say it aloud when she cared so little for any of the titles or fortunes she might become acquainted with. Only Peregrin Fawkes would do for her now.
“You saw quite a lot of Lady Archwood,” Lady Katherine stated, her flat voice toneless and impossible to read. “I was surprised. I did not know you were so well acquainted.”
So her mother had weighed the benefits of growing intimate with a countess of great fortune against that countess being Grainne Archwood and had decided it was not a worthwhile connection. Lydia bit back a gusty sigh. It really wasn’t a surprise — Lady Katherine was old-fashioned, and her friends were old-fashioned, and her ideals were old-fashioned, and of course she would not approve of Lady Archwood’s roguish behavior, even if it made her popular with the younger, faster set from which Lydia was expected to snag a husband.
“We grew acquainted last night,” Lydia said with an attempt at lightness. “I believe she is only a little older than I am. Since she is not yet a mother, she perhaps still finds herself friendly with girls rather than other married women. Perhaps it is very trying to be amongst matrons who have families when she has not one yet.”
But Lady Katherine was quite unmoved by Lady Archwood’s plight as an infertile woman. She poked a tendril of fading hair, a sandy lock once the same sunshine color as her daughter’s, back beneath her severe cap and favored Lydia with a scowl. “Of all the patronesses you could take up with, Lydia, I do not see how you could have chosen a more useless one, or one that is more distressing to me. For all her fortune and title Grainne Archwood is a nobody. The ton may be amused by her now, but another eccentric will soon step up to the next novelty — especially since she is decamping to the country so early, very foolish of her! And when she is no longer the most entertaining woman in London, her funny ways will appear disgraceful instead. This is who my unmarried daughter wishes to ally herself with?” Lady Katherine cast her watery blue eyes heavenward. “Truly, girl, I thought I had raised you with more sense than that. And more cunning, besides.”
Lydia bit her lip and looked down at her hands, folded decorously in her lap. She had been taught the sense and cunning needed to negotiate the Marriage Market successfully — but it had done her no good. Halfway through her second season and she was no longer of any interest to anyone, could not bother herself to care, and now found herself head-over-heels for a gentleman who didn’t know she was alive: it had all come to nothing. She had gone from a smashing success to a forgotten failure.
And Lady Katherine was well aware of it — no doubt Lady Katherine saw it as a personal failure, an affront to her own child-rearing. “Well, what has become of Lady Hadley? Three months ago you could not be torn from her side. And now she is wed and has that great townhouse and you never darken her door? That is where you should be looking for a husband, my daughter. Not strolling about with some up-jumped Anglo-Irish with freckles on her cheeks. Lady Hadley could find you a proper gentleman in no time at all, with her connections. And yet you act as though the two of you never met.”
Lydia bowed her head and studied her hands harder still. They seemed to place themselves in her lap without her knowledge; the graces and manners drilled into her by her mother and governess had become part of her very bones. But little good had it done her. Didn’t Lady Katherine even suspect the truth of Alyssa Hadley? Did she truly have no notion of the scheming, the lies, the betrayal, or was she only upset that her daughter had not been so clever in catching a husband? When she and Alyssa had been intimates, Alyssa’s name had been Richmond, not Hadley.
And Lord Hadley had still been Lydia’s beau.
The thought of it pushed Lydia past what could be reasonably expected of her at three forty-three in the morning. Perhaps she was not as recovered from the horrid experience as she had supposed. The prickling behind her eyes was hot and insistent, and she wanted nothing more than to bury her face in her pillow and cry it all out. She certainly couldn’t be expected to maintain her composure if her mother was going to go on behaving as if Lydia’s disappointment had not mattered to her at all.
“I am sorry, Mama,” she whispered, trying to hold back the pressure of the tears. “I will think on all you’ve said. Might I go to bed now?”
Lady Katherine stood with a creaking of stays and kissed Lydia emotionlessly on top of her linen nightcap. “Sleep well, darling,” she said in more measured tones, doubtless pleased that her words had been heeded so severely that Lydia was emotionally overwrought. “Shall I send Smith back to you? I suppose she is just outside.”
“No, no, I can manage,” Lydia assured her, certain poor exhausted Mary had already climbed the service stairs and crept under the coverlet of her narrow attic cot. Mary had been suffering from a severe lack of sleep due to Lydia’s late nights, but there was nothing Lydia could do for her: it was just the nature of the Season, after all.
Lydia watched the door click shut behind her mother, then she turned back to the looking-glass above the dressing-table and studied her own reflection in the candle-light, wondering if she had truly grown forgettable and unnoticeable in the months since Lord Hadley’s affections had waned. Despite meeting Mr. Fawkes that evening for a brief moment, there had been no change in his face; she had not seen an answering spark of recognition as he bent over her hand. And then he had hastened away, begging Lady Archwood’s forgiveness.
It had been that lack of interest, as much as her mother’s thoughtless comments about the Hadleys, that would keep Lydia awake tonight, she knew. If there was one thing Lydia thought she had kept from her days as belle of the ball, it was her looks! Had she changed so much? Peering at the mirror, she hoped she might find some answer.
Luminous blue eyes met her there, red-rimmed from lack of sleep, an onset of doubt, and unasked-for memories. But they were still large and bright, enough to make her face stand out in a sea of gilt-haired, white-skinned females. Or were they not enough, without her former status and her loyal friends romping behind her? Perhaps some of her shine had been really only been a reflection from the lovely young ladies around her. Alone, she might just be another girl, winding down her second Season without a husband.
She thought again of Lady
Archwood’s snapping blue eyes, changing as the sea before a storm, and her dark ringlets framing her white face. The countess never could have faded into the crowd, as Lydia seemed to do every night now.
And she had held her own for a long time; Lydia had been quite the toast of the season last year when she made her debut. She shook her head at her reflection, trying to find what had changed. Was she paler? Had her looks faded?
But no — it was nonsense — she knew, deep down, in the pit of her stomach where all of her unwanted truths seemed to reside: the change had not come from the outside.
It was not her looks. It was the way she had sidestepped Society, and the requirements Society had imposed upon her since her coming-out. Defiant of the Marriage Mart, she grown more quiet, she had grown less witty — she had simply ceased to captivate men with nothing more than an easy smile and a pretty laugh, because she did not even try. There had been a time in which flirting had been her only trade, and she had plied it with as much skill and faith as a master baker or barrister or barrel cooper. But those days were behind her now. Her heart was not in it, and she could not succeed at a chore for which she had no passion.
And it was a shame, now that she wanted all those talents, because she had been good — good at it! Had her mother not held her back in hopes of a better match, she could have been married three times over by now.
She bit back a chuckle at the thought… that wasn’t exactly legal! But still… she had quite liked Mr. Gardiner, even if he was only the heir to a barony. He had been funny and self-deprecating and wrote comic poems for her. And then she had been rather taken by Mr. Fitzhugh, and had thought that his claim to the title of Viscount of Debrys was quite good enough, but it had been a rather impoverished title, unfortunately and her mother had not thought it good enough at all. Lord Roger Winthrop had been rather boring, it was true, but she would have married him if only because he was kind and had quite enough money to please her mother, had her father not thought his father was a cheat at some business scheme in the Indies, and put the idea of marriage to rest.
The Honorable Nobody (Heroines on Horseback Book 2) Page 2
