Page 30 of A Lady in Name

“You consider a groom an adequate chaperon?”

“Yes, when the groom in question has known Dion from a child and guided her first lessons in riding.”

Either the words or his tone of faint boredom served to allay whatever suspicions she was harbouring and Lucy at last allowed him to hand her up and tuck the carriage rug about her legs. A sharp frost had left a chill in the February air.

Bent upon lulling her, Stefan confined his remarks to asking for directions to Corse where the vicarage maid was now resident. Once they were well on the road, however, he felt it safe to embark upon his purpose.

“You have said nothing of what passed between you and Mr Waley, Lucy. Are we to wish you happy?” Stefan caught a frowning glance as he turned his head to look at her briefly. For a moment, he thought she would not answer.

“No.” The bald monosyllable hung in the air, its echo filled with the cause of her evident depression.

“I see.”

Stefan waited. He might not have known his cousin long, but he believed he had her measure. There was too much spleen bottled up inside her to be long contained. Sure enough, in a few moments, his patience was rewarded.

“My aunt betrayed me to him. He knew of my background all along.” The gruff tone concealed nothing of her pain. Stefan did not make the mistake of referring to it.

“Yet he still made you an offer?”

She did not answer immediately, and then it came out in a rush. “I made sure he had been offered some sort of compensation, but he denied it. He would have me believe he would marry me for Papa’s sake and my own.” She stopped, her emotions apparent from the shortness of her breath. “I behaved badly. I shocked him. Even so, he says he will marry me.”

Stefan cursed under his breath, and muttered savagely. “Oh, no, he will not!”

Lucy swept him another of her frowning glances. “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing,” Stefan said hastily. “What was your answer?”

“I refused him, of course.”

“Why of course?”

“Do you suppose I could marry a man who had been somehow coerced into acceptance?” The passion was ill-concealed now.

“But did you not say you might consider marrying him if he knew the truth?” Stefan ventured.

“Yes, if I had told him myself. I might then be in a position to see just how he took the news, and know that if he overcame whatever shock or horror he felt, it was not through any coercion or bribe. I may not be respectable, but I have my share of pride.”

More than her share, Stefan thought, but he refrained from saying so. It said much for her sense of honour that she would throw away the chance to secure her future for a mere scruple. Stefan did not know many women who would have done as much. And then she ruined all with a thunderbolt.

“But Mr Waley was firm that I must regard his offer as remaining open, so if I cannot settle myself suitably, I may still choose to marry him.”

“You will do no such thing,” uttered Stefan, forgetting his intention to remain upon cordial terms.

Predictably, Lucy took him up on the instant. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said you will do no such thing,” repeated Stefan with emphasis. “I won’t have you marrying that man under any circumstances. In fact, I forbid it.”

“You forbid it?” For a moment Lucy stared at Stefan’s unyielding profile in total disbelief. Then she let fly. “This is beyond everything! You behave as if I am your chattel! How many times am I to repeat that you have no rights over me? You take too much upon yourself, my lord. For all you know, we may not even be cousins. All you have is the letter from your uncle, and upon that you appear to base a relationship which permits you all sorts of licence. It is absurd. What is more, it is utterly unacceptable.”

She ran out of breath and had to pause to recover. Stefan did not appear at all chastened by her tirade.

“Have you finished?”

Lucy did not think she had, but the discharging of her spleen had done much to lessen the sense of injustice under which she had been labouring. She let her breath go in something between a sigh and a giggle.

“Yes!”

“Capital,” said Stefan in congratulatory accents, and Lucy found herself laughing. She looked at him.