“That’s a shrewd thought, by Jove!” Percy exclaimed. “Your Sir Alan Lewrie’s a sly one, no error, to have thought of it. An admirable idea, hey? Get it? An ‘admiral’-able idea from a Navy officer?”
Well, Percy found it amusing.
“He is not my Sir Alan, Percy,” she pointed out. “Though, it may be good to strike while the iron is hot. He will have to coach to Sheerness tomorrow. We could go with him. Offer our own coach, then stay to tend to your business.” She tossed that off between sips from her cup, as if it was spur-of-the-moment.
“Tomorrow?” Percy frowned. “With Lewrie?”
“Quite early, I’d imagine,” Lydia mused, gybing him for his slug-a-bed ways. Despite the vigour of her night, she had been back in her own bed by 2 A.M., and had risen, remarkably refreshed and enlivened, at 8. Almost singing, she would own.
“Crack o’ dawn, all that?” Percy queried, furrowing his brow and pulling a face. “No, no, it couldn’t be done tomorrow. There’d be need of letters written, first, the ledgers to gather… next week, maybe.”
“Well, if you will not, Percy,” Lydia said, feeding a strip of bacon to their springer spaniel, who’d been begging and whining, “then I will take the coach and offer conveyance to Captain Lewrie, myself.”
“You’d what?” her brother exclaimed, appalled. “Alone? All the way to Sheerness, then back without a man to protect you?”
“I am almost your equal at shooting, Percy,” she breezed off as if it was no bother. “Father taught us early and well, do you recall? Our coachees are good shots, too. They should be, since you’ve recruited them into your regiment,” she pointed out with a smirk, and one of her eyebrows up. If Percy could not be cozened into it, then she would be brazen; she gave him a very level and determined look.
“To the further ruin of your reputation, and it might not be…,” he said, scowling.
“Percy, good Lord…,” she said, “do I ruin my reputation even more, that may be a good thing. The parents of my damned admirers at last could put their feet down, I’d no longer feel hunted like a stag through the woods, and be spared all the grasping bother!” she blurted, laughing in his face.
She busied herself with a bite of buttered toast, chewing while Percy got his wind back.
“What decent family would have the likes of me, anyway, Percy,” she went on with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Were it not for my ‘dot,’ they’d most-like tell their young men to find someone a lot more attractive, more…”
She would have added a scathing “Assuming your gambling leaves me anything” but thought it was the wrong time to nag.
“Oh, Lydia, I don’t know where you ever got the idea you’re not attractive. Why… you’re as fetching as most,” Percy tried to assure her, though it was back-handed and clumsy. And it irked!
Lydia could have told him where she’d gotten the idea! Their father had loved her dearly, though he’d naturally hoped for a boy and heir. Despite having a girl-child as his first-born, he had delighted in amusing her, talking to her, and calling her “my little funny face” or “you little monkey face” with the tickles and treats and affections that made her squeal with joy; it had been as dear to her as if he had said “my little princess.” ’Til other children began to taunt her as “Miss Monkey Face!” most cruelly, and she’d seen the why in her mirrors.
Her father had not been handsome; perhaps that was why he had married so late in life. He’d been all craggy-faced, with prominent cheek bones and bushy brows, and a Cornish beak of a nose, and as tall and rangy as a Clydesdale. Her mother, though… no matter his looks, he was immensely wealthy in lands, rents, and investments, and titled, a proper peer, whilst her family had been nigh as well-off, but commoners. Like had called to Like when it had come to land and wealth, and she’d brought almost an equal portion, along with her great beauty, of the sort that Society had applauded and worshipped.
“Lydia, I swear, you’re as thin as a rope, dear child! You eat like a sparrow! Do you wish to be called a ‘gawk’? No man will have you, then!” she’d said once, with a brittle laugh. And the once that Lydia had overheard them discussing her, her mother fretting that “she is such a plain child. Pray God she blossoms late, as some do, before being presented at Court, and to Society for her first London Season, else we must consider settling a large sum upon her to tempt the right sort of young gentleman!” And Lydia had been heart-broken.
Her debut at eighteen had been a miserable affair. Though her parents had deemed her pretty, by then, and her looks had rounded and softened to the point that she could, now and then, think herself adequate, even what little hope she’d had of success had been dis-appointed.
Young girls of her status in the peerage, young girls from the squirearchy or the newly-risen middling class, all properly schooled in music, manners, dancing, and “womanly attainments,” paraded at the many events… it had been the prettiest who had found success, and young men’s approval. Her dowry had been ?500, a goodly sum to go under some young gentleman’s “coverture,” yet… it had been the pretty, the ravishing, the cute, who’d shone at all the drums, routs, supper parties, the operas, symphonies, and subscription balls, whilst her own luck had been lacklustre.
Lydia had refused to try again at nineteen or twenty, preferring their country estate and her horsewomanship.
At twenty-one, she’d been dragged back to London, this time with ?2,000, and the change had been remarkable, and to her, sickening. That Season it had been the young beauties who had been ignored, whilst Lydia had been inundated in invitations and flatteries. Disgusted with the grasping hypocrisy, she’d treated the young beaus quite badly, but… no matter how arch and insulting, how flippant or scornful, she’d treated them, the greediest would abide her, declaring her bold, out-spoken, and intriguingly modern!
Lydia shook herself back to paying attention, squirming again at those memories; Percy was still blathering on about something.
“… then break the journey at Shooter’s Hill. Take a basket of goodies and dine al fresco atop it, hey?” he suggested, quite wistfully. “I swear, the sweetest, cleanest air ever did I breathe was at the top of Shooter’s Hill. Or, is that on the north bank, near Tilbury and the forts?”
“You’ve your geography wrong, Percy,” Lydia corrected him. “It’s a bit past Greenwich, on the south bank of the Thames… on the road to Chatham, and Sheerness. Why? If you’re not going ’til next week?”
“Well, if you’re so dead-set…”
“I am,” she coolly replied, sugaring and creaming fresh tea.
“First light tomorrow?” He grimaced. “God, I’d have to retire at sunset to get out of bed that early!”
“I am told that diligent soldiers are sometimes required to do so,” Lydia teased.
“Can’t let you gad off so boldly, what’d people say of you, or me for allowing it?” Percy said, shrugging surrender. “Should anything befall you… highwaymen… or worse, well.”
“Percy, do you mean you intend to accompany Captain Lewrie and myself?” she asked, relieved that he would weaken so quickly.
“I s’pose I could, yes,” her brother said, half his attention taken by the spaniel, who found him an easy mark, as well. “We will both go. Perhaps he can tell me more of his sea stories on the way to Sheerness. Begad, do you think they have a decent lodging house?”