The Lord’s Persuasion of Lady Lydia. Raven McAllan

into escorting her attended to her for the bare minimum of time politeness dictated and then disappeared. ‘Seriously, Mama, let me have a night off. I am not interested and you know it.’

      Her mama, the Countess of Ibstock, sighed, frowned and felt Lydia’s forehead. ‘You’re not heated and your complexion is normal. I’m sure you’ll be fine once you are there.’ There was a note of finality in her voice that hinted Lydia should take heed. ‘You never know, you might even catch the attention of…’ She broke off and reddened. ‘You will be fine,’ she said again lamely.

      Poor mama. She was, Lydia thought with a surge of amusement, ever optimistic. In this case it was sadly misplaced. In her younger days, her vivacious mama had been considered an incomparable, and even now, in her fifties, showed the beauty she had once radiated. If she had been married to anyone other than Lydia’s papa her mama would, Lydia thought, have been a much sought after, leading hostess. Sadly, her papa, the Earl, was somewhat of an eccentric and eschewed most tonnish entertainments and his wife. To the Countess, fancy gowns, parties and balls were the spice of life and she couldn’t understand how her daughter hated them. Without those frivolities, Lydia suspected, her poor mama would be lonely and alone. Even Lydia couldn’t fill the void her papa deliberately left in his wife’s life. It was incomprehensible how he could be so unfeeling or how her mama managed to put on a stiff upper lip and rarely showed how hurt she was by her husband’s attitude. It might be the way of most of the ton, but it would never be Lydia’s way.

      It would not ever do for her. If nothing else, it showed her she could not and would not be subjected to such a life of anguish and lack of respect as a person in her own right. Her mama loved her papa dearly, and look how he repaid her?

      No, no, and no. It was not for her. She’d much rather be an old maid. Whoever said having a large fortune and a considerable dowry was an asset was sadly mistaken in Lydia’s opinion. The fortune might well be her saving grace one day, but a dowry? She shuddered. How many fortune hunters and men down on their luck had she refused? People who didn’t see her as a person, but as a purse. The number of females who, on discovering who Lydia was, looked startled, then speculative, couldn’t be counted. Friendships were courted and cultivated and ideas on how to spend her pin money – and more – bandied about. It was no wonder, Lydia mused, that she had deliberately gone out of her way to appear dull and bookish and fade into the background. Marriage had never been high on her agenda after she had thought her heart broken by a suitor she imagined loved her. Sadly – or thankfully, she had subsequently decided – she had discovered he loved her money, not her. It had been a bitter blow to come upon him, at what should have been her betrothal ball, bragging to one of his friends that she was boring, had no animation in her, and that nothing about her was interesting.

      No doubt, the man had continued with a laugh, she would be rubbish between the sheets, but he would perk himself up by thinking of her fortune. She’d shown him how wrong he was with regards to her personality, stormed in, slapped his face, and told him that he would never find out. Plus, she had said, in such an icy tone he had blanched, to her knowledge she hadn’t actually agreed to the betrothal. When he tried to protest, she had grabbed a carafe of red wine from a nearby table and poured the contents over his head. He had spluttered and sworn, and a large quantity had dripped over his immaculate evening breeches. As he had an affectation for buff, the pale material turned a nice, deep claret.

      Needless to say, she hadn’t seen him again. It had been a somewhat difficult conversation she had with her parents when they discovered her swain gone, but in her mind it had been worth it. To Lydia’s surprise the man didn’t talk about her in a bad way, indeed, the aborted betrothal never saw the light of day in the ton. She decided he was probably too embarrassed.

      Happily, within the season he married elsewhere and retired to Wales, out of sight and out of mind.

      Even so, the wedded state become less and less attractive over the years. Her erstwhile suitors left a sour taste in her mouth. As for her parents’ marriage? Words failed her.

      Perhaps I was swapped with someone else at birth? There seemed to be no other explanation for those views which were so diametrically opposed to those of her parents.

      ‘Besides,’ the Countess continued, bringing Lydia back to the present with a jolt, ‘though I hate to bring the subject up, how else will you find a…’

      ‘Mama.’ Lydia held her hand up to stop her mama speaking. ‘Do not dare mention a husband. I am almost six-and-twenty and not interested in the gentlemen who are interested in me.’ Not that there were many these days. Lydia knew she had perfected the art of fading into the furnishings, and dissuaded all but the most persistent. ‘You know I do not suit them, and you also know that I prefer it that way.’ She squeezed her mama’s shoulder in silent sympathy. ‘I’m not you. I really don’t see the benefit of being a wife. After all, where would I find a man as perfect as papa?’ She hoped her sarcasm didn’t show, for her words were such an exaggeration. Lydia wouldn’t hurt her mama for anything, but sometimes it was so very hard to show respect for her father.

      She wasn’t quite sure she loved him – for how could you love someone rarely there? However, she supposed she owed the Earl her filial respect for he was most definitely the head of the house and her mama deferred to him in all things. That lady never had an independent thought or idea, unless, Lydia mused wryly, it appertained to the problem of Lydia’s almost old maid status. She was definitely one more reason why Lydia had no intention of becoming a wife. How her mama could put up with the indifference shown to her – kindly or not – Lydia couldn’t comprehend.

      Lydia was well aware she did not have the disposition to accept commands meekly without question, nor not to ask why something should be just so, nor to hang on to a man’s every word as if it were the only thing that mattered. Even as a young child she questioned everything. Lydia understood she had a mind of her own and opinions that were just as valid as those of anyone else. Nevertheless, from all she had seen and heard, no man had ever tempted her to change her attitude. She would not be a commodity, or someone to be used as a brood mare and then discarded. That was something she had watched happen all too many times, and sometimes the results were horrendous. In general, though, the ton seemed to think a marriage of convenience was the preferable alliance, advantageous to both parties concerned. Lydia disagreed and preferred her single life. Oh, she accepted some people’s marriages were different – her friend Esther’s was one in question – but how could she be sure her own would be?

      Esther opined that miracles did happen; however, Lydia was of the belief that, after Esther and Edward, there were no more to be had. Esther, a friend of Lydia since schooldays, and now the wife of an influential lord who was an MP, had a marriage that was the one successful example, to Lydia’s knowledge, of those arranged for gain.

      There had only been two other firm offers. The first was when the man turned out to have feet of clay. It was pure chance Lydia learned – from the lady herself – about his married mistress a few days before he asked her papa for her hand. The said mistress, herself married to a man who ignored her, had, she declared, been assured her liaison would not end after the marriage. Fortuitously, Lydia’s papa had let her refuse the offer. That had surprised her, but she had been grateful. It was only later she understood that her papa thought the man inferior to them and was someone who had once snubbed the Earl at Tattersalls.

      Her mama couldn’t comprehend Lydia’s attitude. After all, a mistress was not something uncommon, surely Lydia understood that? When Lydia had asked her whether her papa kept a mistress, her mother had paled and her eyes clouded over until she stuttered and told her daughter it was not a subject to be discussed with innocent, unmarried girls. From that Lydia had inferred he did.

      So it had been a pleasant surprise when her papa had not pushed her to say yes to that or a subsequent, even less palatable, offer. Agreed, that was more to the elderly peer’s lack of fortune, fondness for inferior port, and Lydia’s father’s fortune the man assumed would go to her on her papa’s death, than her vehement refusal, but it still gave her two more lucky escapes.

      Since then she had become more wary of those peers looking actively for a wife. So many seemed to