“Well, I wish you did not have to go,” Anna said. “I daresay you have several shirts right here that would be perfectly suitable for your ball.”
“But, my love,” Avery said, sounding pained, “a man cannot be expected to wear a shirt he has worn before when he is celebrating a birthday as significant in the grand scheme of things as his thirtieth. Or a shirt of possibly inferior workmanship, which is all one might expect to find in a provincial town. It is perfectly understandable that Harry would wish to toddle up to London to see his tailor.”
“How absurd you both are,” Anna said.
Avery knows, Harry thought. Was there anything in this world he didnotknow?
Twenty-two
Lydia had expected the days between Monday and Friday to be quiet ones. They were not to be, however.
On Tuesday morning, when she was out of bed but only just—she had let Snowball outside and was getting the stove heated up in the kitchen to make her morning porridge and tea, but she was still in her nightgown, with bare feet and her hair in a braid down her back—the yapping of her dog preceded a knock upon her front door.
“I am on my way,” Harry said when she opened the door a crack and peered about it. “I thought you must be up when I saw Snowball outside. Just listen to her, Lydia. She is putting the fear of God into my poor horse.” Lydia opened the door wider. “And I hoped you would be up. I forgot to ask you for the loan of a ring, if you have one. You look rather gorgeous.” He grinned appreciatively.
She looked dubiously at her wedding ring, which she was planning to take off today and put away.
“No,” he said. “Not that one.”
“There is my mother’s ring,” she said, “which I rarely wear.”
“Does it fit your ring finger?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I will go and fetch it.”
She handed it to him a few moments later in its leather box.
“I will guard it with my life,” he said in all seriousness, “and return it tomorrow.”
“I trust you,” she said.
“Thank you.” He put the box into an inner pocket of his long drab riding coat. “I also wanted an excuse to give you an early morning kiss.”
She stepped right into the doorway and set her hands on his shoulders. He grasped her waist and kissed her.
“Ride carefully, Harry,” she said.
“I will,” he promised, grinning at her again. “I have much to return for.”
“Your birthday party?”
He laughed. “That too. Stay safe.”
“I will,” she said.
She stood in the doorway without even a dressing gown to lend decency to her appearance until he had ridden out of sight; then she waited for Snowball to trot inside, and she shut the door with a sigh. The next few days were going to seem endless.
The Earl and Countess of Riverdale and Baron and Lady Hodges called upon her before the morning was out. At least by then she was dressed, with her hair coiled neatly at her neck and her apron on. She had a batch of fruit scones almost ready to come out of the oven.
“Do come in,” she said. “I hope I do not have flour on the end of my nose or something embarrassing like that to see in the mirror after you have gone.”
“Not a speck,” Lord Hodges said. “Let me have a closer look, though. A dab on your left cheek, actually.”
“Oh.” She dashed a hand across her cheek.
“Got it,” he said. “Something smells good.”
“Scones,” Lydia said. “They will be ready in five minutes. Will you have some with a cup of coffee?”
