A Lady in Name (11 page)

It did not take many moments to array herself in her coat, and Lucy was just running down the stairs when a peal
of the bell sounded at the front door.

Dion came in from the back premises as Lucy crossed towards the door.
‘That is likely Stefan, come to ask why we are taking so long.’

Just when she needed to be gone, Lucy thought.
How typical of his lordship to arrive at an inconvenient moment. The last thing she wanted was for Stefan to thrust in upon her meeting with the curate.

She opened the door.
Standing outside was Lord Pennington, in company with a thin gentleman on spindly legs. His near skeletal features were only too well known to Lucy.

‘Mr Waley!’

He peered with his habitual air of anxious concern through the spectacles which made a habit of dropping down his nose so he was obliged to be constantly pushing them back.

‘Dear Miss Lucy, I am so glad to see you returned.’

‘I was just coming to find you.’

He cast a puzzled look at Stefan.
‘No need, dear Miss Lucy, no need, for his lordship found me instead.’

Heat sliced through Lucy in a flare of rage.
How dared he interfere? She cast one fulminating glance at Stefan, with difficulty biting down upon the hot words rising to her tongue. Desperately she sought for other words, innocuous ones that would not give her away.

‘
What am I about, keeping you standing? Do come in, Mr Waley.’ She pulled back to allow him to enter, taking opportunity the instant he had passed, to turn back and glare fury at Lord Pennington.

He met the look with a coolness which did nothing to improve her temper.
‘Am I included in your invitation?’

‘Naturally.’

Lucy bit the word out, turning immediately into the house without waiting for him to enter and addressing herself to the curate.

‘I’m afraid the parlour is all at sixes and sevens, Mr Waley, for we have been packing.
Oh, this is Dion. Lady Dionisia Ankerville, I mean.’

The curate bowed awkwardly.
‘My lady.’

Dion’s eyes were alive with curiosity, raking the poor man’s person.
Lucy tried to frown her down, perfectly aware of the impression he must create in the other girl’s mind.

‘How do you do?’

‘Mr Waley, come into Papa’s study, if you please,’ said Lucy hastily, leading the way across the hall and opening the study door.

She had deliberately refrained from entering the room before, afraid of the memories, astutely managing to draw Dion’s attention away from that particular door.
Her efforts proved vain. Mr Waley went in, closely followed by Dion, who exclaimed at once.

‘Gracious, I have not seen this room before!
Lucy, it is so quaint. Why did you not show it to me?’

Lucy moved through the door, aware of Stefan in her immediate rear.
She would not turn. She would not acknowledge him. Let him see how angry he had made her.

She would not have c
hosen this way of re-entering the most important room in the house. In the event, what with the commotion and upset of the moment, she experienced only the briefest of tremors, and was at once called upon to play hostess. Her nerves and temper both steadied.

There were two prominent chairs, one behind the desk, the other before it, with a couple of straight backed chairs against the opposite wall.
Unthinkable to sit in Papa’s seat. Lucy turned the chair before the desk and invited the curate to be seated.

Mr Waley demurred.
‘No, no, Miss Lucy. Do you take that chair. And my lady?’

He waved towards the chairs by the wall and Dion immediately perched on the further one.
Lucy perforce sat down, noting Stefan remained standing by the door, dwarfing the little room in his greatcoat. She could not help but make comparison with poor Mr Waley’s far less prepossessing figure.

Lucy thrust the thought away, reflecting that at least Stefan’s manners were unimpeachable.
Even if his actions were outrageously domineering.

Stefan caught the look she cast at him and his will strengthened.
She might be as angry as she chose. At least he had thwarted whatever design she’d had in mind with this stick of a curate.

‘I was exercised by your absence, Miss Lucy,’ the fellow was saying, peering myopically at Lucy as if she were a specimen in a glass tank.
‘No one had the least idea where you were or for how long you would be gone.’

So she had told none here of her journey, reflected Stefan.
Had he not said she was secretive? How was she going to get out of that one?

‘I had business with Lord Pennington, sir, which
—which was to do with my father’s legacy.’

Adroit, Lucy.
Waley would take this “father” for Graydene, of course. The man looked pained.

‘I had thought the lawyer dealt with all such matters.’

Stefan saw Lucy’s cheeks glow faintly pink. Should he intervene?

‘It was a private matter.
Nothing to do with the executor, or the will.’

Mr Waley’s hesitation was understandable.
It was evident he would much have preferred to conduct this interview in private. His glance went from Dion to Stefan, a frown accentuating the extraordinary thinness of his features. How Lucy could contemplate marriage with the man was beyond comprehension.

‘This business.
I take it you have successfully concluded it?’

It was Lucy’s turn to look from one to the other of her cousins.
Stefan deprecated Dion’s mischievous look and hoped he maintained his own bland expression. He must feel his way, depending on how Lucy played it.

‘Not entirely,’ she said.
She drew a breath. ‘I am going to stay with the Ankervilles for a space. Lord Pennington brought me back so that I may pack my trunks and complete arrangements here ready for the new incumbent.’

To say Mr Waley looked shocked would be understating the case.
He looked shattered. Stefan could almost feel sorry for the fellow.

‘Going away?
For how long? I had hoped—I mean, I had supposed you would go to your aunt, if you went anywhere.’

Stefan threw a sharp glance at Lucy.
This was the first he had heard of an aunt. How many more secrets were to unfold before he had the full picture of Lucy Graydene’s life?

She had the grace to look confused.
‘No. Unhappily I am unable to go to Aunt Harriet.’

Mr Waley’s upset and confusion were evident as his voice cut into a higher register.
‘But I had thought it settled. She spoke of it to me at the funeral. Indeed, she intimated a visit to you there would be welcome. I had expected—nay, desired—to be permitted to settle matters in due course.’

‘Once I was out of mourning,’ stated Lucy, in the flat tone Stefan had no difficulty in recognising as the one she used to conceal her true feelings.
‘Yes, I understood that, Mr Waley.’

She fell silent, and the curate appeared to recall their company, casting an unloving glance at Dion and Stefan, who resolved not to be ousted unless a specific request were made for privacy between the pair.
Even then, he would be within his rights to insist upon Dion remaining as chaperon.

He realised Lucy was looking at him.
Stefan read it in her eyes before she spoke. ‘I must speak to Mr Waley alone, if you please.’

There was nothing to do but acquiesce, loath as he was to retire from the lists.
Who knew but if the fellow made his proposals, Lucy might not accept him? He made up his mind.

‘Certainly.
But before we leave you, Mr Waley, perhaps I may be permitted a word?’

He came under the beam of the curate’s bespectacled gaze.
‘As I am indebted to you for learning of Miss Lucy’s presence here, my lord, I am of course at your service.’

He moved towards the door, but Stefan held up a hand.

‘There is no need for us to leave the room. You are curious as to Miss Graydene’s reasons for approaching me.’ He glanced at Lucy as he spoke, and spied a sudden flash of fear in her eyes. He gave her a slight smile of reassurance and turned back to Mr Waley. ‘You are perhaps not aware that the Reverend Graydene commended his daughter to the care of my predecessor. My uncle was indebted to the vicar for a substantial favour he made him a long time ago. Though I have no knowledge of the nature of it, I cannot in honour repudiate the debt. My uncle being dead, a duty of care towards Miss Graydene redounds upon myself.’

The curate looked more bewildered than shocked, and no wonder.
What sort of indebtedness a peer might have to a lowly country vicar was hard to imagine.

‘I had no knowledge of this, sir.’

Stefan paid no heed to the querulous tone. ‘Naturally you had not.’

There was a silence, during which Mr Waley looked to Lucy, as if for corroboration.
She kept her eyes demurely lowered, but Stefan could feel an emanation of some unnamed emotion, whether anger or apprehension he could not judge.

‘Do you imply, sir,’ asked Mr Waley, red about the gills, ‘that Miss Lucy, or rather Miss Graydene, is under your guardianship?’

‘No, I am not!’

Stefan stiffened.
He might have known she would cut the ice from beneath his feet. He temporised. ‘Miss Graydene is of age. But I consider myself wholly responsible for her welfare.’

He caught Lucy’s dagger look, and quickly passed to Dion, who was gazing with mouth at half-cock, her eyes going from one to another like a spectator at battledore and shuttlecock.
At least she had sense enough to refrain from adding to the mêlée.

Waley’s consternation was patent.
He fidgeted for a moment or two. Then he turned to Lucy. ‘Miss Lucy, you must excuse me. I am so put about by this news, I must have time to think. When do you go?’

‘I do not know.’
Stefan watched her head come up, her eyes catching his briefly before moving swiftly away. ‘Tomorrow perhaps.’

‘Do you remain here at the vicarage tonight?’

‘No, we are staying at the Half Moon.’

‘Then may I call upon you there?’

Lucy’s smile was perfunctory, her voice subdued. ‘Of course, you will always be welcome with me.’

The curate made a movement, as if he would go to her, and caught himself back again.
He made a little bow. ‘You do me great honour, Miss Lucy. Until tonight.’

With a slight bow to Dion, he came towards the door, nodding at Stefan as he moved to allow the fellow to pass.
Before he was through the door, Lucy spoke.

‘Mr Waley.’

Halting, he looked back. ‘Yes?’

‘Have you any notion where Jenny may be?
We have been here the better part of the day, but there has been no sign of her.’

The curate took a step back into the room, a frown creasing his brow.
‘Ah, you do not know. Jenny’s sister-in-law was taken with a seizure.’

‘Oh, no!’

‘She is alive, but the doctor thinks she will never manage without help.’

‘Then Jenny has gone to be with her?’

Waley nodded. ‘I suspect she may be obliged to remain. Which was another reason why I—’ He broke off, reddening. Clearing his throat, he resumed, ‘I may answer further when we meet, if you wish.’

And then he went quickly out, as if he was afraid of being called back once more.
No one spoke until the front door was heard to close behind Mr Waley. Then Stefan looked to Lucy, expecting the worst. It did not come.

‘Poor Jenny.
I wish I had been here.’

Stefan was abruptly moved.
‘Does she live far from here? Would you like to see her? I will drive you there, if you wish it.’

Impulse had prompted the offer, just as it had made him capture the girl into his curricle on a day which was rapidly becoming imprinted on his memory as the moment his life
had changed.

He was rewarded with a brief, tired smile.
‘Thank you, I should like that. It is a matter of four or five miles only. Tomorrow perhaps?’

‘Then it is settled.’

Dion at last piped up. ‘And what shall I do while you are gone? There is not room for three in your curricle, Stefan.’ Mischief entered her face. ‘I know. I shall entertain Mr Waley for you, Lucy. The poor man is dreadfully set down. I think he must be in love with you, Lucy.’

Reminded of her grievance, Lucy bounded up from her chair to confront Stefan, wholly ignoring Dion’s remarks.
‘Why did you do that? You should not have spoken for me.’

Those ironic brows rose.
‘What, will you upbraid me when you clearly needed rescuing?’

‘I did not!’

‘You had no notion what to say to the man, or how to explain the presence of Dion and myself.’