The Lord’s Persuasion of Lady Lydia. Raven McAllan

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.

      Once he retrieved his hat and cane, he ambled along St James’s and dropped into his club, saw no one he wanted to spend time with, and eventually strolled home.

      As the watch called four outside his window, Harry punched his pillow and turned out the lamp. Was he ready to be subjected to the sort of interference pushy mamas could try to inflict? He was an old hand at ignoring or distracting them, and much too wily to be entrapped by any schemes thought up, but even so, it could become wearing if he had to always be alert and aware of anything of that kind all the time.

      Nevertheless, he intended to get to know Lydia Field better.

      Much better.

      Even that thought hardened his cock and made his muscles clench so tightly he had to force himself to relax. Some of his firmly entrenched rules had, he decided, just melted away. He couldn’t carry on like that. After all, if Lydia was ready for a little intimacy, with no strings, who was he to deny her? Better him than anyone else.

      And if she wasn’t, he thought uneasily, what then? Harry made a conscious decision. If he was to get any peace he needed to quench his desire for her, and to that end seduction might be necessary.

      Bed her and not wed her. That was what rakes did; he might as well live up to his reputation for once.

       Chapter Three

      Lydia surreptitiously looked at the clock on the wall of the milliner’s and did her best not to show her boredom. Why on earth did either she or her mama need yet more bonnets? It seemed her parents were deliberately ignoring the fact that her twenty-sixth birthday was but a few weeks away, and then elegant headwear would be among the last things she bothered about. Either that or her mother was determined to cram as much into these days as possible, to show Lydia what she would be missing if she kept to her plan. Did she hope it would change her daughter’s mind? Why didn’t she realise it was more likely to do the opposite?

      Not for the first time, Lydia wondered if somehow she had been swapped with another child at a young age, or just been brought up by her mama and papa on behalf of someone else. She certainly didn’t seem to have anything in common with them.

      ‘Lydia, are you deaf? I asked if you prefer the blue or the lilac silk on this bonnet,’ her mama said snappily. ‘Please pay attention. It is important and Madame Lois has other clients to attend to after us, you know.’

      Madame Lois smiled graciously. ‘You are my priority, Madame, you know that.’

      Lydia mentally rolled her eyes as the Countess preened. ‘Even so. Lydia?’

      Thus addressed, Lydia searched her mind how to give a tactful response. ‘Mama, I don’t much like either or really care,’ she said as patiently as she could, ignoring the milliner’s shocked, indrawn breath. The bonnet in question she thought neither flattering nor appropriate for any occasion she could imagine her mama attending. ‘If you must have it choose that pale green; it is much more flattering for your skin tones.’ She didn’t say any more, but even so her mama bristled.

      ‘Are you saying there is something wrong with my skin?’ she demanded acerbically. ‘That I am old?’

      Lydia sighed. She should have kept her mouth shut and her thoughts to herself, and told her mama to choose whichever she preferred. Tact was not her best suit. ‘Not at all. I just don’t think you really suit blue or lilac. You do, however, suit green, especially that soft shade,’ she added diplomatically.

      ‘Lydia, please