Page 44 of A Lady in Name

“Of course,” Lucy said, in as natural a tone as she could manage.

Dion tripped over and gave her a convulsive hug. Drawing away, Dion let her hands slide to Lucy’s arms and held them. “There. Just to show you at least one Ankerville is in your camp.”

Lucy sighed. “We have made things uncomfortable for you, have we not?”

“Fiddle. It was not you, but Stefan. I declare, I have never seen him as angry. He has cooled now, thank goodness, but I cannot think what came over him.”

This was cold comfort to Lucy. To know she had been the cause of provoking Stefan to a fury unknown in the bosom of his family could not but reawaken the feelings of remorse she thought she had subdued. She shrugged off Dion’s hands. “I should not have spoken in that way.”

Dion snorted. “Oh, stuff. I am sure I have expressed much the same sort of thing in the past, and Stefan cared nothing for it. No, depend upon it, there is some other force at work upon him.”

Lucy was sceptical. “Such as?”

Dion twinkled. “If I knew that, Lucy, he would not have set me in a puzzle.”

“Thank you for trying to set all to rights.”

“I cannot be said to have got much good by it. The wretch is as surly as a bear. I have a very good mind to speak to him.”

“Oh, pray don’t,” Lucy begged, blenching at the thought. “You will only quarrel with him and make bad worse.”

“Very likely. But I am excessively cross with him for speaking to you like that. Why, anyone would suppose he was married to you.”

Something stabbed violently into Lucy’s stomach, and she was deprived momentarily of speech. Dion appeared to have no notion of having said anything amiss. It was clearly a mere figure of speech. Lucy tried for a light note.

“If that is how he means to conduct himself towards his unfortunate spouse, whoever she may prove to be, I must confess myself sorry for the poor creature.”

Dion laughed merrily. “Yes, and we may thank our stars you are hopelessly ineligible. Stefan could not possibly marry you, even should he wish to.”

“Which is in the highest degree unlikely,” agreed Lucy, desperately hoping the sudden access of dismay did not show in her face.

To her consternation, Dion’s bright eyes regarded Lucy’s countenance in a considering way. “Oh, I don’t know. Stranger things have happened.”

Lucy whisked away from her, crossing to the washstand and making play with pouring a little water into the basin from the ready jug. “What a fortunate thing then that neither he nor I are the least inclined in that direction. Besides, I shall soon be removing from Pennington to make my way in the world.”

A giggle erupted from Dion. “I wonder what Stefan will have to say to that?”

“Good riddance, I should imagine, if we are to judge by his outburst today.”

Lucy lowered her face to the basin and began to splash it with water. From the doorway, Dion spoke again.

“Well, at least I have dragged you out of the dismals. Goodnight, dear Lucy.”

The door shut behind her, and Lucy froze over the basin. If only that were true. With Dion’s departure, her spirits immediately dropped. Fond as she had become of the girl, she could wish Dion might refrain from talking the most arrant nonsense.

Reaching for the towel, Lucy patted her face dry. In vain: within a moment of her snuffing out her candle and getting between sheets, her eyes sent a deluge down her cheeks and she was obliged to hunt for a handkerchief to stem the tears she had been keeping back all day. Cursing, Lucy got up out of bed to wash her face again, glad of the moonlight seeping under the drapes at the window. Tucked once more between sheets, although she no longer felt like weeping, sleep eluded her and the night hours dragged.

Stefan had slept but fitfully. The consequence of his unprecedented fit of anger haunted him. He could not now imagine what had driven him such a reaction towards Lucy. She had been foolish, yes. But he was perfectly aware the words had been said in the agitation of the moment. There had been no serious intent behind them.

Yet when she had spoken so dismissively of her own possible demise, Stefan had been overtaken by an unstoppable consuming rage. He could only suppose he must have been harder hit by the events of the day than he knew. The visit, which had begun in a spirit of adventurous investigation, had rapidly turned into a scene from one of the more lurid gothic romances. That it had ended with the lunatic Oade waving a blunderbuss out of the window was equalled only by his own devastating loss of control. Had he been infected by the madness?

His fit of insanity — if that was what it was — had dissipated through the journey back to Upledon, the need to look to his horses providing him with a welcome distraction. But when his passion had cooled, Stefan was left with the bitter disintegration of the understanding which had been growing up between himself and Lucy.

Now it had gone, destroyed by his own unthinking outburst, Stefan realised he had experienced a sense of kinship with the girl, such as he had not encountered even within his own family. His father had given him companionship, but fond as he was of Dion, she had not the years or the intellect to offer. As for Corisande, she was too wrapped in her own concerns. But Lucy, with a swiftness he could only marvel at, had caught his senses in a way he could never have guessed at.

She was maddening, outrageously passionate, rebellious and frighteningly independent. But she had captured his interest without apparent effort, and he found himself wholly devoted to the task of rescuing her from her predicament. She had become like an itch under the skin.

And then he had crushed her so thoroughly she no longer wished even to speak to him.