A Lady in Name (5 page)

Dion eyed her in silence for a moment and Lucy felt she was being appraised.
She kept her gaze steady. Disconcertingly, a frown appeared on the other’s brow.

‘Oh, dear.
Yes, I see why now. I could not think how it came about, but there is something—intensity? No, it cannot be that.’ The warm smile reappeared. ‘No matter. I shall find it out.’

Lucy became exasperated.
‘I am at a loss, Lady Dioni—I mean, Dion. If you mean you will find out my history—’

‘Oh, that?
Well, I shall, but not now.’ She jumped up, and catching hold of Lucy’s hand, dragged her to her feet. ‘We will beard Corisande in her den. I doubt she will have much to say to it beyond quoting from some obscure poet out of the Middle Ages, but it is faintly possible she may know something.’

Ushered towards the door willy-nilly, Lucy began to wish she had never ventured upon this journey.
Just as they reached it, the door opened to admit Lord Pennington. Lucy was chagrined to feel a sense of relief and familiarity at seeing him.

‘Whither away?’

‘I’m taking Lucy to meet Corisande.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t.’

Stefan separated his sister’s hand from the girl’s arm. Trust Dion to nip in ahead of the game. A good thing he had not lingered, hunting through his uncle’s papers. The moment he had sent Miss Graydene off with Turton, it occurred to him there might be something he had overlooked. He had repaired to his study and dug out the sheaf of aged parchments which he and his secretary had not yet attacked. The cursory glance was just beginning to turn into a concerted hunt when he recalled his injunction to the maid to take the visitor to the Red Saloon. He had arrived not a moment too soon, it appeared.

‘Time enough for Miss Graydene to meet with Corisande at a later hour, Dion.’
He spied a protest in his sister’s face and nipped it in the bud. ‘And don’t argue. I am perfectly aware of what you intend, but we will not trouble Miss Graydene with speculation and question at this juncture.’

He caught relief in the girl’s eyes and surprised a rise of warmth in his own breast.
Dion allowed him no time to explore it.

‘Trust you to spoil sport.
I declare, it is too bad of you, Stefan. You present me with this mystery, and then you will not let me pursue it.’

‘I won’t let you distress Miss Graydene,’ Stefan corrected.

Dion’s gaze turned upon the visitor. ‘Have I done so? I did not mean it so.’

‘You have bewildered me rather,’ said the girl, letting one of her rare little smiles escape.
‘I am unused to be questioned so closely, and I am afraid I find you less than coherent.’

Stefan had to laugh.
‘There’s for you, Dion. She has you down pat already.’

His sister made a face, but he saw the amusement in her eyes and knew she had taken no offence.
Not that Dion pokered up readily, but he had already had occasion to note Miss Graydene’s uncompromising way with words. She would not err on the side of flummery.

‘You will become accustomed,’ said Dion airily.
‘And if you find me incoherent, only wait until you encounter Corisande.’

‘Who is this Corisande?’

‘Our mother,’ supplied Stefan. ‘She is, as you will discover, a law unto herself. And I would much prefer to be further informed myself before you meet her, Miss Graydene.’

‘I wish you will stop being so formal, Stefan,’ cut in Dion.
‘It is apparent we call cousins and I do think it ridiculous for you to be addressing her so.’ She caught herself up on a gasp. ‘How stupid. I don’t even know your given name.’

‘Lucinda,’ Stefan said before the girl could answer.
‘Miss Lucinda Graydene.’

The girl’s eyes darkened.
‘Oh no, no. Not Lucinda, I beg of you. I have never been anything but Lucy.’

Stefan found himself smiling.
‘Lucy it is then.’

But Dion laughed.
‘There is not the smallest hope of Corisande calling you so, however. She would thoroughly approve of Lucinda, and she does not care for contractions.’

Stefan was obliged to concede the point.
‘True. Which reminds me of my mission. Miss Graydene—or rather, Lucy—we have much to discuss. Let us repair to my study.’

Dion’s disgust was patent.
‘You mean to keep me in the dark. Why can you not have your discussions here?’

‘Because I prefer Miss Graydene to be permitted to speak without interruption.’

* * *

Lucy’s feelings were mixed as she ensconced herself, at his lordship’s bidding, in a chair in his study.

To call the room a study was ridiculous. With a pang, Lucy recalled Papa’s sanctum, a homely apartment which smelled of must and old leather, its dark wood shelves groaning with books. It had been her delight to sneak in and watch the vicar at his work, his concentrated mind bent upon the text he was studying, his forehead resting upon the folded knuckles of one hand. Lucy would make an inadvertent sound—or perhaps she had meant it to disturb him?—and he would look up, and smile upon seeing her.

‘What did you wish to discuss, Miss Graydene?’

Lucy jumped and the memory vanished. She focused on Lord Pennington’s face and found the grey eyes watching her keenly.

‘I beg your pardon, I was miles away.’

‘So I perceived.’

Impelled, Lucy hurried into speech.
‘I was thinking how unlike a study is this room.’

His brows rose.
‘Oh? How should a study look?’

Lucy glanced about the empty spaces.
‘Well, a good deal smaller, for one thing.’ She waved a vague hand at the meagre collection of glass-fronted bookshelves. ‘I can’t think that you have space for all the papers and accoutrements of such an estate, though you could hold a soirée in here.’ She noted a gleam of amusement in his lordship’s eye and felt all the awkwardness of ignorance. ‘I have no experience of such a house as this.’

‘So I perceive,’ he said again, much to Lucy’s irritation.

‘I dare say you have many such rooms.’

‘Too many.
Fortunately, my secretary has the chore of keeping track of administrative papers. I imagine you would highly approve of his study. It is jammed to the ceiling with shelves and cabinets.’ His eye gleamed again. ‘I assure you that room is decidedly smaller than this.’

Lucy lifted her chin.
‘Then perhaps you should think of exchanging.’

He laughed out.
‘An excellent notion. I shall suggest it to Barnsley, though I doubt he will approve. He feels this room is more suited to my status, particularly when I am obliged to interview my inferiors.’

‘Such as myself.’

His brows flew up again. ‘I was quoting Barnsley. I cannot pretend to have been conscious of any feeling of superiority in your presence, Miss Graydene.’

Lucy was silent.
She hardly knew how to take Lord Pennington. He was evidently laughing at her, but despite a tendency to be masterful, he did not appear to be high in the instep. She recalled he had only recently acceded to the earldom.

‘Perhaps you are not yet used to the life yourself,’ she ventured on impulse.
‘Or, no—you must have expected to inherit.’

‘All my life,’ he agreed.
‘But we lived in a very different style. My father had private means, an inheritance from his godmother. He chose to make full use of it for his own purposes, knowing I was provided for.’

‘Do you mean he was profligate?’
Lucy could not help a note of censure.

‘By no means.
Unlike his brother, the earl. But he had a love of adventure. We are a well travelled family.’

Lucy was still dissatisfied.
‘But he did not provide for you. What if I had been male?’

The easy air disappeared, replaced by the same steely glint Lord Pennington had worn upon their first encounter this morning.

‘I hardly think you would have proved an impediment.’

Lucy felt a deep flush suffuse her cheeks, and her bosom filled with chagrin.
‘No, of course. How foolish of me. I am a natural child of your uncle. There could be no question of my staking any sort of claim.’

There was a silence.
Stefan eyed the girl’s stiffened features. That was maladroit. She had not meant anything untoward by a remark made, he was persuaded, in good faith. A touchy subject. Small wonder she was thorny.

‘We have wandered from the point,’ he said, deliberately cool.
‘You were anxious to talk to me.’

She did not soften.
‘On the contrary, my lord. I am here upon your insistence. You are the one who wished to engage in further discussion. I merely wanted to go home.’

Provoked, he hit back.
‘I was under the impression you no longer had a home.’ The wound showed in her eyes and he was instantly disarmed. ‘I beg your pardon. That was uncalled for.’

Her gaze remained fixed upon him, and Stefan was struck again by the air of deep-felt distress.
Her voice was calm, but for the faintest of tremors.

‘I am permitted to remain at the vicarage for a little longer.
The new appointee is delayed in taking up his post.’

‘And after that?’ asked Stefan more gently.

She shrank a little. ‘I do not know.’

‘Your father
—Mr Graydene—made no provision for you?’

Lucy flared.
‘He had no time. It was all so sudden. Papa had no thought of an early demise. He had not attained his fiftieth year. It was the furthest thing from his mind.’ She recalled the will, hastily-drawn up as Papa lay swiftly dying. ‘He left me what money he had on hand, which enabled me to pay for the funeral.’ She had to struggle to command her voice. ‘There was also the doctor’s fee—this mourning garb of mine.’

Her funds were rapidly dwindling, and Lucy had known there was no earthly hope of having the wherewithal to set up house for herself.
Papa had known as much, for he had commended her to the care of his curate—a duty that could only be fulfilled in marriage. The Reverend Mr John Waley had shown himself willing to undertake the task. But Lucy, labouring under the double blow, had resisted his tentative advances.

A few guarded questions had convinced her Mr Waley was not privy to the circumstances of her birth.
To do as Papa wished, she must either tell him and risk his drawing back, or live a lie. It had not taken much cogitation for Lucy to realise she sought to pursue neither of these courses.

What she did want became daily more confused.
But out of the well of grief and despair arose one coherent desire: to find and confront the author of her disreputable origins. Instead, ensconced in his house, she was confronting his heir. She looked up to find Lord Pennington’s peculiarly penetrating gaze upon her face.

‘I presume Mr Graydene made no formal adoption?
Was no document found to that effect?’

‘None.
I looked through everything before the executor took his papers away. Papa had directed me to the letter from Lord Pennington, but he mentioned no other.’

‘What precisely did he tell you?’

Lucy strove to calm the disturbing bubble of upset and frustration rising within her, which had plagued her on and off since the vicar’s revelations. She had spent so many weeks trying not to think about it, evading the churn of discontent which turned every remembrance into dust motes floating away on the air. What had she left to believe in?

‘Come, Lucy, it does not do to keep from talking of it.’

She stared across the desk. Lord Pennington’s tone had been gentle, but with a note of implacability. It might have been Papa speaking. She was hardly aware of responding to it, as she had done all her known life.

‘The woman who came to him was in the late stage of her confinement.
She had wandered for some distance. Papa could not find out from where she had come for she was in a state of semi-delirium, he said. She was ill and in much pain and could do little more than moan and beg for sanctuary.’

Stefan watched the play of emotion in the girl’s face, though her voice was dull and lifeless.
She must have expended a good deal of effort in keeping in check the natural agitation attendant upon the receipt of such tidings. He was conscious of a growing sense of admiration as she resumed her tale.

‘She did not speak of the father of her child at first.
Only after the birth did she beseech Papa to send to him.’

‘She mentioned him by name?
Pennington?’

Lucy looked sharply at him, wondering at the curtness of his tone.
She had almost lost awareness of his presence, caught in the memory of Papa’s voice relating her story. She struggled to recall his exact words.

‘Not by that name, I think.’
She put a hand to her head, pushing at the hair piled into a knot under a plain cap. ‘It is difficult to remember. I was in a state of shock. Much of what he said is a blur in my mind.’ A fleeting thought caught at her. ‘Stay! Was it Ankerville? It might have been. I know Papa had not at first any knowledge of the man’s station in life. He must have had a time of it to find it out. But it was Lord Pennington, for you must have seen in his letter he makes no attempt to repudiate the relationship.’