Raven McAllan - The Lord’s Persuasion of Lady Lydia

Harry glanced at the arm she held, and Lydia realised she had tightened her hold. Deliberately, she relaxed her fingers, cursed at the deep creases she could now see in what had been immaculate cloth, and smiled tremulously. ‘I’m sorry, my lord.’

She chose not to say why and hoped as an aristocratic gentleman he wouldn’t ask what for. That was her intention anyway, although knowing her luck, her expression would appear to indicate she was in pain or constipated.

‘Now then, that wasn’t so bad, was it?’ Harry asked in a teasing voice as they left the room together. ‘No apology needed. This way.’ He pointed to the French windows that led out onto the long, wide terrace that ran the length of the house and edged the landscaped gardens beyond. ‘We have left the protection of Lady Raith and nothing has befallen us. No clap of thunder and no one struck dead.’

‘No, my lord.’ She smiled as if she had just understood she was supposed to do so and wished he wasn’t so appealing in this mood. It was the last thing she needed. Any vague ideas that she looked on him even the slightest bit favourably would help her mama to disrupt the plans Lydia had formed to escape the ton. Not that anything would come if it – she knew enough about rakes to understand that – but her mama would work whatever transpired for all it was worth. Drat the man. Why him of all people. Harry Birnham was not noted for altruism, so why start now?

‘No dragons I need to slay and mess my evening coat?’ he said in a teasing voice. ‘No puddles to put it over and ditto?’

She giggled and bit her lip. Giggled? Oh, for goodness sake. Grow up. I am no longer a young, impressionable deb, so I need to act like it. ‘It has not rained for days, my lord. I believe you are safe,’ she said composedly. ‘We are indeed fortunate. We can just enjoy ourselves and the surroundings.’ However hard she tried, she couldn’t raise enough enthusiasm to make that sound appealing.

One male eyebrow lifted and it was no hardship to colour up and look at her toes. It was that or match his quip with one of her own. They walked on for several paces until, beside her, Harry sighed. ‘They are lovely slippers, my dear Lady Field, but I’d prefer you to look at me, not your shoes. Unless they have something I do not?’ He paused and waited.

Lydia slowly glanced at his face and he raised the other eyebrow.

The question seemed harmless enough, but… ‘Or the other way around?’ he added.

‘No, my lord.’ The stupid milksop act was so hard. Especially when she wanted to act normally with Harry, and show him she did have a brain. She thought he was the sort of man who would appreciate it.

****

It had been the most unusual evening, and for once he hadn’t been at all bored, Harry decided, as several hours later he took out the elegant jewelled pin he favoured, unwound his cravat and threw it over a chair. Foster, his valet, helped him out of his form-fitting coat, stroked the lapels lovingly, and carried it and the long neck cloth away. It didn’t matter how many times Harry informed the man that he was well able to manage and there was no need to stop up for him, Foster would silently appear, help him out of his boots and top clothes and leave him to finish undressing in peace. When Harry remonstrated, Foster had smiled.

‘My lord, it is my duty and honour to help you,’ Foster said earnestly. ‘Plus, if I may be so bold to say so, over my dead body will you use a book jack on your Hobys unless it is an emergency.’

‘I’ll have evening shoes on,’ Harry pointed out. ‘Not boots.’

‘That’s as maybe, but your jacket now,’ Foster said stubbornly but politely. ‘You need my help to get out of it.’

‘I’m a rake. Rakes can undress and dress themselves.’ And their ladies.

‘If you were in rake mode, my lord, undoubtedly you would not be here,’ his valet said, stating the obvious. Harry nodded, resigned to the fact that Foster would indeed wait up. He stripped slowly and stretched as he ran over all the events of the evening. It had proceeded as he expected until his unexpected encounter with Lydia Field and then, well, it had been very different to any other ball he’d attended.

His jaded palate had un-jaded – if that was indeed a state of mind – very quickly. With a self-satisfied grin, Harry turned down the covers on his bed, rolled onto the mattress, stretched out on his back and put his hands behind his head. Over the last few hours his plans for the immediate future had dramatically changed. Instead of pursuing his usual practice of his clubs, Jackson’s salon, and Tattersalls, he intended to pursue Lady Lydia Field and discover what she was all about. Oh, not to take any dalliance outside the realms of polite and acceptable behaviour, but just to find out what made her tick. One thing he was certain of was that she would never do for Jeremy, whatever the reason Jeremy had in mind. That young man would sulk for days if thwarted and, even on such a short acquaintance, Harry understood enough about Lydia to realise she would never stand for such nonsense as Jeremy was wont to indulge in.

She would suit me perhaps? Many years hence. What on earth had she done to him? To even contemplate the wedded state for many years hence brought him out in goosebumps. He knew the day would have to come eventually, but please God, not yet.

However, something had to be done . If Harry had thought Jeremy truly in love, he would stand to one side, even if he couldn’t condone a marriage with his heir still being so immature. Strangely, Harry understood Lydia didn’t fit the idea he had always had of a biddable wife. Those sparks of temper she showed him indicated that. So why was his mind flirting with the idea of marriage to her, one day?

One day was not now. He put the idea out of his mind and turned it to the knotty problem of Jeremy and her, and her idea of what was pleasant and what was not.

‘You mean you really do not like the gaiety and activities of London?’ he had asked after a decorous turn along the terrace during which slowly their footsteps matched. ‘Not the tea parties or theatres?’

‘Definitely not, my lord. Apart from the proximity of Hatchards and its shelves of books, I prefer walks in the country and the comfort of my own home, and friends, not sycophants,’ Lydia said with certainty. ‘That makes me an oddity in our world, I know.’ She looked over the edge of the terrace wall towards where tiny candles flickered in the garden. ‘Perhaps we should go back now.’

‘Is my company so bad?’ he asked in a humorous tone to show he was jesting and not serious. ‘I am devastated.’

She looked up at him. He knew she would see a shadowy figure in the semi-darkness. No one else was around them, and he thought her reply would be along the lines of they were too secluded. Instead she surprised him.

‘Coming it too brown, my lord. You know your worth, and I am not going to fall for that. My reason is much more mundane. I know our stroll will get back to my mama sooner or later, but I prefer later,’ she said with a ladylike chuckle. ‘After all, once I leave the capital it will not matter. Before then, if she catches wind of your kindness, she will turn it in her mind to interest, and neither of us will have a moment’s peace.’ She began to walk back towards the house. ‘I do not desire that and I am sure you feel the same.’ Her tone told him that she neither wanted nor expected him to reply.

‘Leave the capital?’ Was she going on a journey?

‘It is of no consequence.’ She firmed her lips. ‘I intend to go to the country very soon. I’m sure you have other places to be.’

As it was obvious she wasn’t going to say anything else, Harry very properly escorted her inside and left her before her mama or any of her parents’ cronies spotted them. Then he spent another half an hour or so chatting to his peers, and departed before his godmother decided it was time to insist he danced with some young woman or other.