Page 31 of The Mysterious Miss Lydia
Lydia grew hot with embarrassment. She might be shy, but she was not a child who needed a governess to prod her into speaking.
Miss Farthington murmured an assurance that Lydia would likely not need such assistance and then she made her excuses leaving Lydia with her mother who promptly pinched her cheeks. “Such a wan little thing,” she muttered.
“Yes, Mother.”
“Now come along. Sir Wendell is here and he’s asking for you.”
Lydia tried to match her mother’s brisk pace down the steps but everything in her rebelled. She didn’t want to speak with Wendell.
Her mother sighed. She too understood Lydia’s silences...especially the petulant ones.
“Now, now, dear,” she said. “You’ve made it clear that you have no interest in charming the gentlemen of theton,and your father and I have accepted that you will never draw the attention of a great lord.”
Lydia felt the weight of her failure as a daughter as surely as if her mother had settled a yoke about her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mother.”
Her mother tsked. “Now is not the time for apologies. If you want to make it up to us you can be a dutiful daughter and be pleasant to the man your father wishes you to marry.”
Lydia swallowed hard, but as the staircase wound and the crowd came into view, her heart started to clamor in her ears.
Where was that lovely feeling of being a brave heroine?
Gone. Dashed in the face of the duties that awaited her.
She wasn’t some wonderful, courageous heroine in disguise. She was just Lydia. Shy, awkward, disappointing Lydia.
“There she is now,” her father said as he caught sight of her.
She forced a smile, but it made her cheeks ache as Wendell smiled back at her from where he stood beside her father.
“Go on, darling,” her mother said, giving her a not so gentle nudge.
She swallowed hard, her insides sinking, but just then she spotted a newcomer walking through the front hall. He didn’t glance up. Didn’t see her.
But she saw him, and no mask could disguise that tall stature, or the broad shoulders. Nothing could hide the smile that she’d started to feel had been created just for her.
He was here.
He’d come.
Lydia let her mother guide her down the staircase, and her earlier excitement was back.
She was the heroine of her story once more.
“Oh, there’s Imogene,” her mother said. As usual, Imogene was surrounded by a flock of men.
Flockseemed absurdly fitting as from here their coattails and bows reminded her greatly of the seagulls she’d seen clustered around dead fish when she last visited the shore. The image made her lips twitch with a genuine grin.
“I must go tell your sister the news,” her mother was saying.
“What news?”
“That the Viscount Galena is in attendance this evening.”
“Oh?” Lydia was only half paying attention. She’d lost sight of her mystery man in the crowds and now she couldn’t find him.
“Mmm. He’s heir to an earldom and in need of a wife.” Her mother’s tone rang with smug satisfaction. “And he just so happens to be a friend of your father’s. Oh yes, Imogene will be delighted indeed to know he’s graced us with his presence.”
Lydia sighed. She almost felt sorry for the man.
