Chapter 34
The mornings were brighter now, the lawns sparkling with dew, but Lydia felt the absence of her brother with each step she took. Henry Thomas toddled at her side along the serpentine, clapping his small hands at the ducks, his curls bouncing with every stride.
How often had Langston carried him on his shoulders here, swaggering as though a knight with a princeling enthroned?
Lydia smiled at the memory even as her throat tightened. Now she was left to guide him herself, Maida circling them in wide, protective loops. The dog’s ears pricked at every rustle; her shadow was more constant than Ron’s.
At the stable, the loss weighed heavier still.
Ajax—a dark bay gelding with a proud neck and restless hooves—gleamed under the brush, but Langston’s questions no longer rang in the rafters.
Bill leant his great shoulder against the stall, silent, his eyes measuring horse and girl both.
Lydia plied him with queries, eager and endless, but even her own bright voice could not fill the gap where her brother’s laughter ought to be.
Her every hour was filled—dancing beneath Signora Bellanti’s stern gaze, drawing flowers until her fingers cramped, playing the pianoforte until the notes blurred.
The countess corrected her posture, her mother—the viscountess—drilled her in conversation, her great-aunt Gardiner cross-examined her on history and politics; and through it all Lydia sparred in English, in French, in Italian, even in sign.
But each week ended in the same ritual. A letter, folded and sealed, pressed into Bill’s massive hand. An express rider waiting in the yard. Lydia’s gaze following the horse as it vanished down the lane towards Cambridge. She had made a promise to her brother, and she meant to keep it.
* * *
Dinner had settled into its usual rhythm.
The Fitzwilliam table gleamed with porcelain and silver, the candles reflected in polished wood.
Conversation hummed in low, steady tones—her grandfather inquiring after estate matters, her grandmother commenting on a neighbour’s ball, her mother quietly interpreting signs of approval or disapproval with her needlework set aside.
Lydia wore lavender; she traded quips with her grandfather, returned her grandmother’s pointed looks with a sweet smile, exchanged private glances with violet-eyed Grandmama Gardiner.
The scrape of her father’s chair broke the rhythm. He leant back, his glass lifted, his eyes fixed not on her but on the flames.
“I must speak to Bill,” Fitzwilliam said, his tone deceptively mild. “The number of horses lamed on the Cambridge express runs is becoming unseemly.”
Silence slipped across the table like a cloth drawn tight.
Her mother looked up, brows furrowed. Her hands moved with grace, puzzled: I do not understand.
Fitzwilliam’s gaze flicked to her, cool. “Your daughter does.”
The weight of the words struck Lydia like a stone. She laid her silverware down with deliberate care, the sound of metal on porcelain sharp in the hush.
Her mother sighed, signing with weary tenderness: Now you have gone and done it.
Lydia’s voice came low, even, but carried: “Papa, do you mean to intrude into my affairs?”
He did not blink. “Only should I be required to.”
A tight smile curved her lips. She folded her napkin, placed it precisely by her plate. “This is between Langston and me.”
Her grandmother’s hand stilled on her glass. Her grandfather stilled his knife mid-carve, brows arched. Kitty’s lips parted, but no sound came.
Lydia rose, curtseyed shallowly—a gesture just courteous enough to pass—and swept from the room.
The hush lingered.
Her grandfather cleared his throat. “Her mother’s daughter.”
Kitty smiled faintly, her hands steady as she shaped the reply: That she is.
* * *
Now seventeen, Lydia found her days consumed by the circuits of society.
Morning calls filled the carriage, her grandmother precise with visiting cards, her mother gracious in each parlour, Mrs Gardiner steady with quiet encouragement.
Together they trod every polished floor in Mayfair, paying respects across Mayfair’s most exacting houses.
The rhythm was unrelenting: one house to another, bows, curtsies, measured compliments, the exchange of polite news.
And in turn, the visitors came to Matlock House, their carriages lined in Grosvenor Square until the footmen muttered of endless doors and endless tea.
Outside the parlours, Lydia’s hours belonged wholly to her attendants.
Duval ensured no hem was wrinkled, no ribbon astray.
Nurse Bessette inspected her hands for neatness of glove and taught her to bind her own pricked finger with invisible efficiency.
Signora Bellanti held her spine straight as a lance, her chin steady as she walked the long corridors with a book balanced upon her head.
At times Lydia swore she had lost track of the days; only the darkest gown laid out on her bed told her Sunday had come, and with it, chapel, and sermons about family and unity that mocked her separation from her brother.
Yet she began to master the rhythm. Her curtsey grew effortless, her French flowed, her Italian sharpened, her drawings took life.
On the pianoforte she no longer played for tutors but for rooms that hushed to hear her.
She was praised for wit, admired for beauty, measured for grace.
And though her smile never betrayed it, each evening she still slipped away to her desk, bent over the page, and wrote to Langston.
* * *
The Morning Post, April 1833
Among the young ladies who have lately attracted notice in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair, none is more remarked than Lady Lydia Fitzwilliam.
The daughter of Viscount Hopton and granddaughter of the Earl of Matlock, Lady Lydia has been much commended for both accomplishment and carriage.
Her command of French and Italian is said to be most elegant, and her recent performance upon the pianoforte at a gathering in Grosvenor Square met with universal approbation.
Her beauty—so strongly recalling that of her grandmother, the Countess of Matlock, once hailed as a Diamond of the First Water—is much discussed; yet it is her wit and spirited conversation which appear to set the seal upon her triumph.
It is confidently predicted that Lady Lydia will prove one of the brightest ornaments of the present Season.