Page 36 of A Lady in Name

CHAPTER SIX

The words blurred in Lucy’s sight and her head buzzed. She felt sick to her stomach and the curate’s warning words sounded in her head: misery and disappointment. Until this instant, the bare fact of her unseasonable advent had not fully registered.

As one in a dream she heard Dion’s frantic accents: “A chair! Quickly, one of you, she is going to swoon!”

Then Stefan: “Stand aside!”

Next instant, as her knees gave way, she was caught up in a strong embrace and lifted off her feet. Her head fell upon a broad chest and she sank thankfully into its welcome warmth, closing her eyes. In the background of her mind, she could hear a scrabble of footsteps, hushed urgent voices and the scraping of a chair. Then a rumble in her ear.

“Set it down there. Is it possible to procure her some water?”

“I will fetch it from my abode,” answered a familiar voice. “It is close by. I will not be above a moment.”

The outer vestry door opened and closed, and then Lucy felt movement in her captor.

“I am going to set you down in this chair, Lucy. You will be better directly.”

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she found Stefan’s strong jaw line jutting above her, his face at an odd angle as he looked down at her.

“Oh, see, she is recovering,” came from Dion close at one side. “Poor Lucy, are you all right?”

“Don’t ask her foolish questions, Dion.”

Lucy could only be grateful for the admonition. She felt incapable of speech as she was set once more upon her feet and pressed into a chair. She leaned into it, struggling to hold up her head, and wishing she had still been held in the safety of those strong arms. Stefan’s hands were on her shoulders, his face close before her own.

“Have no fear. I will not let you fall.”

But the faintness was receding already and Lucy straightened herself, feeling strength beginning to return to her limbs. “I am better, I think.”

Doubt was in Stefan’s face as he eyed her, his grip on her shoulders lessening a trifle. “Damn that curate for being altogether right! We should not have pursued this.”

Lucy managed a faint negating gesture. “It was only the shock of seeing it written. I think I had not fully believed it before.”

“Well, I am glad you saw it,” said Dion stoutly. “Far better to have the truth than to be beset by doubt and question, and at the trifling cost of a half-swoon.”

“Trifling!”

A weak laugh was drawn from Lucy at Stefan’s scornful tone and raised brows as at last he released her.

“Dion is right. I am better, I promise you. I could not wish I had not seen it.”

Stefan looked down at her again. “You cannot be said to have got much by it. It is clear your mother’s name was never established.”

“But it is a start,” Dion insisted. She moved back to the sideboard and looked again at the entry. “Oake or Oade.”

“Believed Oake or Oade.”

Lucy met Stefan’s sceptical glance. “You think they may neither of them be correct?”

“I think it highly probable. You said yourself your adoptive father could not be sure of the names the woman mentioned.”

Her face fell, and Stefan was smitten with remorse. He need not have dashed her hopes so thoroughly. Relief arrived in the form of the curate, armed with a carafe of water and a glass. Stefan shifted back, allowing the fellow to administer such aid as was at his disposal.

Instinct had led him to catch Lucy up as her legs buckled, but he had been conscious of more than the mere urge to assist her as he held her in his arms. He had been too caught up to think of it at the time, but as he watched Mr Waley administer the restoring water, Stefan felt an echo of it in a ridiculous urge to take the glass out of the man’s hand and himself hold it to Lucy’s lips as the curate was doing. As if only he should be allowed to see to her comfort, a notion as absurd as the feeling that accompanied it.

Annoyed with himself, he emulated Dion, taking another look at the entry of Lucy’s birth in the register. Only then did it occur to him that the curate had located the entry with unerring accuracy and speed.

He glanced back at the man, who was pouring more water into Lucy’s glass. She had taken over holding it for herself, to Stefan’s secret satisfaction, but his attention was all for Mr Waley. When Lucy at last waved away any further refill and gave up the glass to the curate’s hand with a word of thanks, Stefan took his opportunity.