A Lady in Name (10 page)

As she took his lordship’s hand and climbed out of the coach, a hideous thought occurred to Lucy.
Before she could curb her tongue, she blurted it out.

‘Oh, dear.
What in the world is Mr Waley going to say about all this?’

Stefan set her on her feet and released her.
‘Who the devil is Mr Waley? And what has he to say to anything?’

Lucy answered on automatic.
‘The Reverend John Waley. He is the curate. Papa commended me to his care, and he wants to marry me.’

Shock ripped through Stefan in a wave that felt like lightning. Marriage? This was the first mention of marriage. Was Lucy betrothed to the fellow? Why in Hades had she said nothing, if that was so?

He might have asked aloud, but curiously, he felt an odd reluctance to voice these questions.
As he helped his sister down from the coach, he was aware of feeling a savage repudiation of this Mr Waley. Reflecting that his permission must be granted before Lucy could marry anyone, he felt a trifle less ruffled and was able to usher the ladies into the inn with relative calm. The business of bespeaking rooms and a meal served to cast a further damper over his irritation, so that by the time he rejoined his sister and Lucy, he was in command of himself again.

‘We will dine shortly.
No doubt you will both wish to freshen up before we do so. The landlady will show you to your chambers.’

They went without demur, and Stefan was at leisure to make use of the facilities of the house for himself.
He had time for a tankard of home-brewed before the girls reappeared, by which time he was so hungry, he shoved the question of the curate to the back of his mind until he had taken the edge off his appetite.

Over coffee and sweetmeats, he broached the matter of tomorrow.
‘How do you wish to proceed, Lucy?’

The instant she looked at him, Stefan was aware of change.
Her eyes were troubled and she did not answer immediately. When she did, her hesitance argued a state of nervousness.

‘The vicarage.
I had best go there first.’ She put up her fingers in a gesture he’d noticed before, tucking at stray curves of hair as if she would hide them in her cap. ‘Somehow I cannot now remember what there is left to do. It feels as though I had been away a month, yet it cannot be more than a matter of days.’

‘That is the effect of change,’ said Dion, selecting a sugared almond from the silver bowl of sweetmeats.
‘It puts you out of kilter. I have often remarked it.’

‘You having had so many changes in your short young life,’ Stefan put in drily.

His sister twinkled. ‘I dare say it seems unlikely to you, but girls have quite as much adjustment to make as boys, you know.’

‘More, in some ways,’ he agreed, his eyes straying back to Lucy’s face.
‘Particularly when they are married.’

She met his glance, an odd look of question in her face.
Stefan held her gaze steadily. Was she thinking of the curate? His tongue betrayed him.

‘Where is this Mr Waley of yours?
Does he live near the vicarage?’

He had not intended the harsh note.
No wonder Lucy widened her gaze.

‘Who is Mr Waley?’ asked Dion.

Stefan ignored her as he tried to retrieve the slip. ‘I wondered if you intended to visit him at the same time.’

A tiny frown drew Lucy’s brows together.
‘He will be in church, I imagine. I may catch him there at any rate.’

Stefan felt a softening at his breast.
‘You look tired, Lucy.’

Her fingers ran between her brows, smoothing the frown.
‘I am rather.’

‘Go to bed.’

She looked startled, but Dion caught him up.

‘Stefan, what in the world is the matter with you?
I should think you are the one who is tired to be speaking so gruffly. Take no notice, Lucy.’

But, to Stefan’s secret surprise, Lucy gave a tiny smile and rose from the table.
‘On this occasion, I am glad to do your bidding, my lord.’

With which, she dropped a curtsy and hurried out of the room.
Stefan was subjected to an intense stare from his sister. He summoned his blandest manner.

‘What?’

‘It is of no use to say “what” in that stupid fashion, brother dear. I cannot think what has come over you to be behaving in this heartless way.’

Stefan dismissed the cross tone
—or tried to. This was just his little sister fussing as usual. ‘I fail to see what I have said for you to accuse me of being heartless.’

Dion tutted at him.
‘Cannot you see how poor Lucy is beset, coming home to all her sad memories?’

Stefan considered this.
‘I don’t think she is sad. I think she is confused, bewildered perhaps, which is not unnatural.’ His tone hardened. ‘Or else she is thinking of a different future than the one we are offering.’

Dion stared.
‘What future? She has no other future.’

‘With the curate.’

His sister’s mouth fell open. ‘The
curate
? What in the world are you talking of?’

‘The Reverend Mr Waley.
Apparently he wishes to marry her.’

A modicum of satisfaction entered his breast at the astonishment in his sister’s face.
‘Good gracious! Lucy said never a word of this to me.’

Stefan curled his lip.
‘You don’t know everything, Dion. Lucy Graydene is a very secretive female.’

* * *

The vicarage, oddly in Lucy’s heightened senses, appeared to be just the same. The rose bush still grew unmanageably all around the low-roofed porch, the closed shutters at the front windows gave the same impression of darkness to the aged stonework, and the cobbled pathway was as full of weeds as ever. The only difference lay in the silence of the house. Somewhere in the recesses behind, Lucy knew, lurked Jenny, the elderly maid who had long been the mainstay of the vicar’s household. Jenny was to retire to live with her sister-in-law once the new vicar was installed.

‘It has such an old world air,’ said Dion beside her, looking over the building with a critical eye.
Seeming to feel something more was expected, she added, ‘It is very nice, of course.’

Her over
-eager assertion had the effect of lessening Lucy’s sombre mood. She laughed. ‘Don’t fall over yourself to admire it, Dion. It is nothing to Pennington Manor.’

‘Well, but I have not always lived in so grand a style either,’ Dion protested.
‘Indeed, while we were abroad, we managed in the most unsatisfactory establishments. I cannot tell you how many poky bedchambers and stuffy parlours I have been obliged to suffer.’

Lucy extracted the front door key from her reticule.
‘I’m afraid it is bound to be stuffy. I dare say Jenny has not opened a window since I went away.’

But once they entered the front parlour, which had been wont to be Lucy’s domain, and she had opened the shutters to let in the light, she could see little had changed.
The place was cold, but as homely as ever with its chintz pattern to the upholstery, its faded rugs and the polished dark wood table where Lucy had sat to her lessons.

‘Oh, it’s lovely, Lucy,’ said Dion, real pleasure in her tone.
‘Does it all belong to you?’

Lucy shook her head, aware of a returning cloud in her mind.
‘Nothing of value. The furnishings must pass to the new incumbent. I have some of Papa’s books, along with his watch and a few personal items. The rest will be despatched to my—to his sister.’

How easy to forget that the woman she had ever known as Aunt Harriet was in no way related to her.

Dion picked up on it immediately. ‘You have an aunt?’

‘I thought I had.’
Seeing the light of question in Dion’s sympathetic gaze, Lucy made haste to change the subject. ‘I wonder where Jenny is.’

‘Your maid?
Perhaps she is out, or she must have heard us enter.’

Lucy laughed.
‘Unlikely. Poor Jenny has grown rather deaf. Let us try the kitchen.’

But a thorough search of the premises failed to turn up the maid.
It was odd, for the fire in the kitchen stove had been allowed to die and there was no fresh milk in the larder.

Dion chattered and exclaimed at every room.
Lucy was glad of the distraction, for it left her free to feast her eyes on the familiar patterns and paths of her erstwhile life. Yet she felt strangely out of place. She had been gone barely a week, but in that short time an inexplicable change had come upon her. It was as if she no longer belonged in these dark little chambers and narrow corridors with the creaking beam in the passage and the rickety banister on the stairs.

‘I feel like an interloper,’ she uttered aloud, forgetting she was not alone.

Dion, who was gazing out at the prospect from Lucy’s old bedchamber window, turned to look at her. ‘I know what you mean. I felt just the same when we were obliged to move to Pennington with Stefan. We went back to our house, which was to be let, and it was like entering someone else’s home.’

Lucy came into the bedchamber, gratitude in her heart.
‘You do understand. I thought I must be losing my reason.’

Dion came to her and tucked a confiding hand in her arm.
‘Do you know, I believe it is a way we have of making possible a break with the past. I suppose all females must experience something of the sort, when they return to their home after they are married.’ Her eyes rolled. ‘Except Paulina, of course. She has never become accustomed to losing her status at Pennington. Yet she left there some years before my uncle died. Paulina looks askance at every change and drives Stefan demented.’

The naughty giggle that accompanied this revelation was not echoed in Lucy’s breast.
She was positively glad to know Stefan’s path was not uniformly smooth.

She was recalled to the business of the day by a suddenly brisk Dion, who withdrew her hand and rubbed her fingers together in a business-like fashion.

‘Now, where do we start?’

* * *

Lucy stuffed the last of the items she had gathered together beside her into the old trunk and rose from sore knees. She put her hands to her back, massaging muscles strained from bending.

‘I had not thought there was so much left to pack.’

From a chair by the parlour window, where she was unravelling tangled threads from Lucy’s tapestry-covered sewing box, Dion cast a glance at the bulging contents of the trunk.

‘It is extraordinary how one manages to accumulate so much paraphernalia, is it not?
Sometimes I wish I was a gypsy, with nothing to take but my bowl and pipe.’

Lucy laughed.
‘I imagine even gypsies find their wagons crowded with useless items they cannot bear to throw away.’ She looked down into the trunk. ‘Really, I cannot imagine what I will do with the half of this stuff.’

‘But you cannot be rid of it.
I know. You would laugh if you could see the collection of dolls and childish games I insisted upon bringing with me to Pennington. Yet I have not looked at them from that day to this.’

Frowning round at the mass of items still awaiting her attention on the surrounding chairs, Lucy gave an exasperated sigh.
‘I have a very good mind to throw the rest away.’ She moved to a pile of old clothes. ‘I cannot conceive that I shall ever wear the half of these things, even when I am out of mourning.’

‘Take them,’ advised Dion.
‘Mrs Lovedown has an excellent system for disposing of cast-off clothing.’ She got up and came to join Lucy in sifting through the pile. ‘There is plenty of wear left in these. What you do not want will be much appreciated by those in less fortunate circumstances.’

Lucy felt herself to be scarcely more fortunate than the proposed poor recipients who might receive the offerings.
She ought not to indulge in the profligacy of discarding garments. How was she to replace them? A horrid thought occurred. Was she to be beholden to Lord Pennington for the very clothes upon her back? Unthinkable. She had rather marry Mr Waley.

Remembrance caught at her, and she fairly jumped.
‘Oh, dear Lord! I must go at once to the church. I had forgot Mr Waley. How uncivil not to visit him at once.’

She hurried from the room as she spoke, hunting for where she had discarded her coat.
Dion was hot on her heels.

‘Who is this Mr Waley?
Stefan said he is a curate.’

‘He was Papa’s right hand, and a good friend to us both,’ Lucy said, running upstairs.
‘I must have left my coat in the bedchamber.’

From the hallway, Dion called out.
‘Bring mine, will you?’

Lucy halted at the top of the stairs and turned, anxiety stirring in her bosom.
‘Oh, no, I must go alone. Pray, Dion, do you remain here. I will not be long. You may partake of some more of the cake we had earlier. And tea, if you wish for it. You will have to make it. But I must go by myself.’