Page 47 of A Lady in Name

Dion was scandalised. “You were alone in the parlour with Stefan in the middle of the night? Unchaperoned?”

Lucy let out a spontaneous laugh. “It is worse than that, Dion. We were both attired in our night clothes.” Dion’s expression of shocked dismay was so comical, Lucy broke into giggles. “There is no need to look like that. No one saw us.”

“What has that to do with it?”

“I imagine it has everything to do with it. There can be no scandal attached to an episode of which no one has any knowledge.”

“What about me?”

Lucy snaked an arm about Dion and gave her a hug. “I cannot think you will betray us.”

“I have a very good mind to tell Corisande,” said Dion on her dignity.

“I cannot suppose Mrs Ankerville will care, let alone take any action.”

Dion frowned. “That is regrettably true. But I still think it shocking.”

Lucy took her hand and squeezed it. “You are very right. But at least it gave us an opportunity to be reconciled, so perhaps we may be forgiven.”

But Dion was far from climbing down, and Lucy began to suspect the real cause of her dissatisfaction was that she had been excluded from the scene. For which Lucy could only be thankful. To have realised her feelings for Stefan in full sight of his sister must have made her ready to sink. Besides, Dion was so sharp-eyed she would likely have noticed. Lucy was reassured as to her most pressing concern, which was that Stefan had seen nothing of it.

His attitude towards her this morning had been one of playful teasing, with no reference to the events of the previous day. In Dion’s place, Lucy would have found this suspicious in itself, but it was decidedly unnatural for none of them to mention the eventful visit to the home of Alice Oade.

So much had changed in Lucy’s world overnight that what had seemed of vital significance yesterday had today lost much of its importance. Today her whole concentration lay in a determination to allow nothing of her state of mind to become apparent. A resolution which was to be tested sooner than she knew.

At the first halt for a change of horses, Stefan appeared at the coach door. “Dion, pray take a turn in the curricle for the next stage. Cobbold will drive. I want to talk to Lucy.”

To his surprise, his sister frowned direfully at him. “I don’t know that I can allow that.”

Stefan blinked at her as she poked her head through the window. “I beg your pardon?”

“It is highly improper for you to be alone with Lucy in the coach,” stated Dion, such an expression of piety in her tone Stefan nearly burst into laughter.

“Believe me, Lucy will be safe enough.”

“But I don’t know that I do believe it,” she insisted, “after what I have been hearing of your activities last night.”

Stefan froze. Could Lucy have tattled? No, she was far too embarrassed by the episode.

“I hear you and Lucy were alone together in the parlour in the middle of the night — and in your night clothes!”

Was that as much as she knew? Stefan devoutly hoped so. “You are remarkably well informed.”

“Lucy told me.”

“I did not suppose you had learned it from the town crier. Are you going to get down, or do I have to drag you out of there?”

He opened the door as he spoke, and as might have been expected, Dion flounced up from her seat in a dudgeon. “If you will be so kind as to let down the steps, brother dear, I may be able to do as you request.” In a moment, he had handed her down without ceremony, but when he made to escort her to the waiting curricle, Dion threw up a hand. “Thank you, but I prefer to rely on the services of Cobbold. At least he will be civil.”

Stefan watched her stalk off to the carriage, then shut up the steps of the coach and jumped nimbly up, shutting the door behind him.

He sat in the forward seat opposite Lucy and grinned across at her. “I hope you don’t object?”

He thought her smile was perfunctory. “Of course I don’t.”

Stefan glanced out of the window to check whether the occupants of the curricle were ready to leave, and then rapped smartly on the roof of the coach. It started off, rumbling on the cobbled yard of the posting inn.

As he looked round again, Lucy spoke. “I am afraid Dion is cross at having missed the meeting in the dead of night.”