A Lady in Name (7 page)

‘When he came back from your conference.
The wretch would tell me nothing of what was said, and when I would have gone in search of you, Stefan would not let me.’

Lucy had not supposed she could be grateful to his lordship, but this speech served to make her feelings veer wildly.
Thank goodness he’d had the sense to do as much. He had unwittingly spared her at a moment when she would have found it hard to summon a modicum of common courtesy. An unwelcome thought sneaked into her mind. It could not be that he’d prevented Dion from bearding her for Lucy’s own sake? No, of course not. If he had any consideration for her feelings, he would not have behaved in that imperious fashion.

‘But you are here now.’
Dion’s eager voice cut in on her thoughts. ‘And Stefan is late. So pray put me out of my misery and tell me what happened?’

‘I beg you will hold me excused,’ began Lucy, but she was immediately interrupted.

‘No, that is too bad of you, Lucy. I will not hold you excused. If you don’t tell me, I shall be thinking you and Stefan have a pact.’

‘A pact with Lord Pennington?’ uttered Lucy outraged.
‘Most certainly not!’

Dion clapped her hands, her tone gleeful.
‘There now, I knew you had quarrelled. Was he abominably overbearing?’

Lucy could not contain her spleen.
‘He was unbearably autocratic, and I tell you now, I will not endure it!’

‘Splendid!
How often have I said the same.’ Dion leaned confidingly towards her from where she perched on the opposite sofa. ‘He is dreadfully like Corisande, you must know, except she is so single-minded about her passion it does not disturb us so very much. Stefan, on the other hand, has a great sense of family loyalty, and once he has taken one of his ideas into his head, there is no moving him.’

A statement which did little to endear him to Lucy.
Her determination intensified. She was not a member of his unfortunate family.

‘And now you are recognised as one of us,’ continued Dion blithely, ‘of course you are bound to come in for your share of his commands.’

Lucy shot up from the sofa. ‘I am not one of you! A mere accident of birth is not to determine my future. I will not have it so. But a short while ago I had never even heard of the Ankerville family. I will not be coerced into accepting them.’

Catching Dion’s open-mouthed astonishment, Lucy stopped abruptly.
She drew a series of short breaths, trying to steady her mind.

‘Forgive me.
I should not have spoken to you so. You are not to blame for this hideous predicament.’

From the doorway, Lord Pennington’s cool tones cut in.

‘The Ankerville family accepts your apology.’

Lucy jerked round, glaring furiously at his lordship, who was now clad like herself in black.

He held up a hand.
‘Don’t rip up at me, Miss Graydene. Remember we are to dine together and tantrums are not conducive to digestion.’

Incensed to hear a note of amusement, Lucy toyed with the pleasurable notion of striking him in the face and weighed it against the alternative of rushing from the room in a welter of tears.
The image of Papa’s features rose up in her mind, in the look of kindly understanding he had ever worn when she was frustrated and upset. With difficulty, Lucy quelled both instincts, and sat down again.

‘Very sensible,’ commented his lordship, almost breaking her resolution.

Fortunately, Dion spoke for her. ‘Don’t be horrid, Stefan. How can you be so unkind?’

‘In applauding Miss Graydene’s resumption of civilised conduct?
I fail to see anything unkind in that.’

He strolled to the mantelpiece as he spoke, bending his steel grey gaze upon Lucy.
She looked away, afraid of giving in once more to her unruly tongue.

‘It is damping and unnecessary,’ stated Dion, ‘when poor Lucy has successfully controlled her temper.
You had much better have said nothing at all.’

Stefan eyed the downcast features, aware of a sliver of regret poking into the cold necessity that had made him avert a potential scene.
A passionate creature, this Lucy. Not a trait he admired in the general run of things. But forgivable in this girl, considering the provocation he must suppose to be at the back of it.

‘I beg your pardon, Lucy,’ he said on impulse.
‘I must bow to my sister’s better wisdom.’

Dion giggled.
‘Gracious, that’s a first. I wish you will stay a while, Lucy, if you are to be a reforming influence upon my brother.’

He received a flash from the dark eyes.
‘I cannot think I would have the slightest influence upon him, under any circumstances.’

Stefan was surprised to discover in himself a wish to deny this assertion.
What in the world was the matter with him? If she only knew, he had been shocked at his own vehement insistence on her remaining under his charge. What had possessed him he could not imagine. The last thing he needed in dealing with his uncle’s complicated legacy was the addition of the man’s illegitimate daughter into his household.

When Lucy had rushed from his study, he had stood in a state of blank incomprehension at himself for the space of several seconds.
When he tried to account for what had prompted him, he was unable to do so. Yet the moment he thought of abandoning the purpose, he realised he could not. How, with honour, could he repudiate the girl after all he had said? Besides, there was in truth a question of honour involved. He had pledged himself to make good his uncle’s depredations and mistakes. This was another of them. He could not escape it. Perhaps that had been all his reason at bottom. Stefan hoped so. For if not, he was in danger of believing he must have taken leave of his senses, just as Lucy had accused him. A thought so unpalatable, he made haste to change the subject.

‘Where is Corisande?’

‘I have no notion. Hawkesbury must have sent to her as usual. You know what she is like. She will have meant to come, and then remembered some fragment or other she wanted to consult.’

Stefan glanced at the clock.
‘I had better go and fetch her, or we shall have Cook up in arms again.’

He moved towards the door as he spoke, but it opened before he could reach it, and his mother walked into the room.

‘I am so hungry, I could eat a horse. Why are we not yet dining?’

Lucy rose automatically from her seat as the older woman moved towards the sofas, her eye shifting to encompass the newcomer.
Mrs Ankerville was also attired in silvery grey, but with an incongruous yellow woollen shawl draped over her shoulders, which set off her auburn locks.

‘Why, who is this?’

Dion leaped in. ‘She is Lucy Graydene, Mama, a member of—’

The girl broke off, a hand flying to her mouth, her eyes flicking to Lord Pennington.
A hollow appeared in Lucy’s chest as Dion’s belated realisation brought a further reminder of her invidious position.

‘Lucy is a relative, Mama,’ said his lordship calmly, stepping into the breach.
‘She has suffered a recent bereavement, and so I have brought her to stay with us. Lucy, allow me present our mother, the Honourable Mrs Ankerville.’

Despite everything, Lucy could only feel gratitude for his smoothing over the moment.
She made a prim curtsy.

‘How do you do, ma’am?’

‘More to the point, how do you do?’ said Mrs Ankerville. ‘I am sorry for your loss, though to my mind we make altogether too great a matter of death. Our medieval ancestors took the thing a great deal more for granted, although in the case of heroes, of course, they would use the occasion for versifying, enshrining the deeds of his life in—’

‘I thought you were hungry, Mama,’ interrupted Dion without ceremony.
‘Stefan, do you take Mama’s arm and I will follow with Lucy.’

Mrs Ankerville was still talking as Lord Pennington led her out, and Dion giggled as she tucked her hand into Lucy’s arm.

‘You will think me excessively rude, I dare say, but once Corisande starts, she will go on for hours. There is nothing for it but to cut her short the instant she launches into her wretched Middle Ages.’

Lucy began to feel as if she had strayed into a madhouse.

              * * *

True to her daughter’s prophecy, Mrs Ankerville maintained a flow of remarks throughout the first course, interrupted only when she was obliged to put her spoon into her mouth and swallow a portion of asparagus soup.
She ranged over a bewildering plethora of odes and legends, enumerating names of those mentioned in sagas as well as the poets who had composed them, all apparently concerned with death and funeral rites. Making a polite attempt to follow the byways of her hostess’s discourse, Lucy soon lost track and found her head in a whirl. Dion’s rolling eyes and facial contortions directed at her from across the table so chimed with her state of mind, Lucy at length succumbed to an unseemly fit of stifled giggles, in which Dion soon joined.

This deplorable state of affairs was brought to an end when Mrs Ankerville trailed off mid-sentence, casting enquiring glances from Lucy to her daughter.

‘I fear our guest is not accustomed to our style of living, Mama,’ said Lord Pennington, thankfully saving the day. ‘You will have to excuse her ignorance, for she has not been brought up as we have to appreciate the niceties of medieval folklore.’

Lucy jumped quickly in as Mrs Ankerville’s large-eyed stare turned upon her.
‘Pray forgive me, ma’am. It was most uncivil of me to laugh, and I can only plead in mitigation that you have set my head in a whirl of confusion.’ Remembering an earlier determination, she seized opportunity before her hostess could open her mouth again. ‘I must also apologise for my attire, ma’am. His lordship surprised me with his…’ She hesitated over the right word. ‘…his invitation, and I was not properly prepared.’

Mrs Ankerville’s gaze moved down to what she could see of the black gown, and she blinked.
‘Is there something wrong with your gown?’

‘She means she has not been able to change for dinner, Mama,’ Dion explained.

‘Heavens, is that all? I had not noticed.’

Dion smiled across at Lucy.
‘Mama frequently forgets to change, you must know. We Ankervilles are not at all formal, as I am sure you have observed.’

‘Nonsense, Dionisia,’ reproved her mother.
‘If occasion demands, naturally I approve all necessary formality. In the fourteenth century—’

‘Thank you, Mama, I believe we have heard sufficient on that score for tonight,’ broke in Lord Pennington firmly.
‘I think we will spare Lucy any further bewilderment.’

Before she could stop herself, Lucy flung him a glance of gratitude.
A brief conspiratorial smile winged back at her, and struck in so intimate a fashion that Lucy’s heart gave a sudden thud. She turned quickly away, encountering a look of startled question in Dion’s face. Thrown into a confusion as strong as that engendered by Mrs Ankerville’s monologue, Lucy knew not where to look. She was unwittingly rescued by her hostess.

‘Lucy, you said?
That cannot be right. I abhor contractions. Why spoil a perfectly good name? Is it Lucilla or Lucia? Of the two I prefer the latter. Lucia was a popular saint in the Middle Ages, but Lucilla is very much of the Roman period. There were a number of variants in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of course, such as Luciana and Lucina, but these are mere diminutives.’

‘It is Lucinda,’ Lucy offered, not without a qualm.

‘Lucinda?’

Mrs Ankerville’s tone was not encouraging.
Lucy thought quickly, recalling Papa’s words on the subject. ‘I believe it is a more recent but
poetic
variant.’

‘Ah.’
To her relief, there was satisfaction in the monosyllable. ‘I am of course less familiar with later names, but there is the example of Lovelace and Lucasta as a precedent. Lucinda then. Very pretty.’

Receiving a gracious smile, Lucy presumed she had achieved acceptance and looked over at Dion, who mouthed “very well done” at her.
Lucy smiled back, and breathed a little more easily as the covers were removed for the second course.

Her relief was short-lived.
No sooner had Mrs Ankerville been served with her choice from the dishes on offer than she turned her attention back to Lucy.

‘Now, Lucinda, tell me all about yourself.
Stefanus says we are related. I delight in family trees. Where do you fit in?’

For a moment, Lucy’s tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth.
How in the world was she to answer without giving all away?

‘It is a trifle complicated,’ she managed.

‘Excellent. I enjoy nothing better than a puzzle. Tell me all.’

Lucy looked wildly across the table at Dion, who made a face of utter helplessness, and thence to Lord Pennington.
His eyes met hers, the brows above slightly raised, but his mouth firmly closed. Lucy’s heart sank. He was not going to help her. Surely he could not wish his mother to know the truth? It was evident Dion had no notion of revealing it. Lucy turned back to Mrs Ankerville and found the large eyes sparkling and eager.