#MidWeekTease... and?

where I say...

I'm teasing you...

‘I have a headache.’ It was almost true, Lydia thought as she glanced up at her mama from under her lashes. If she were forced to fall in with her parent’s intentions it would no longer be a white lie. Even thinking about the evening’s so-called entertainment made her tense. ‘Can I not give the ball a miss and you make my apologies to Lady Raith?’ After all, she’d spend most of the night as a wallflower—not that she minded that at all—it was the fact she would be forced to dance with whomsoever her hostess foisted her upon her that she hated. Supper would be agony as whichever gentleman had been coerced 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.’

Mrs Field 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 take heed.

Poor mama. She was Lydia thought with a surge of amusement, ever optimistic. In this case it was sadly misplaced. Her vivacious mama was once considered an incomparable, and even now in her fifties showed the beauty she once was. To her, fancy gowns, parties and balls were the spice of life and she couldn’t understand how her daughter hated them.

Perhaps I was swapped with someone else at birth?

‘Beside,’ Mrs Field continued, ‘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 to perfection. ‘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 so perfect as papa?’

It was an exaggeration. She loved her papa—as far as you could love someone rarely there—but he was most definitely the head of the house and her mama deferred to him in all things. Her mama 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 reason why Lydia had no intention of becoming a wife. How her mama could put up with the indifference shown to her, Lydia couldn’t comprehend.

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Happy reading,

love R x