Page 75 of A Lady in Name

She heard Stefan’s gritty tones. “Now, ma’am, it is borne in upon Lucy that, so far from being my uncle’s natural daughter, she has been cheated of her rightful heritage.”

Lady Dorothea’s response to this was utterly unexpected. “So I was right. You are about to contract a misalliance, Pennington.”

“On the contrary,” said Stefan drily. “I am going to marry my legitimate cousin. Not that I wouldn’t have done it before I knew of this, for I had every intention of wedding Lucy regardless of what anyone may say. But at least now Lucy will not fight me.” He turned to Lucy, who had regained command of herself and was lowering her hands from her face. “Will you, my sweet?”

Lucy’s heart leapt, and then juddered into a ragged beat. “There is no proof.”

Stefan’s brows snapped together. “I was rather forgetting that.” He turned back to his great-aunt. “Had my uncle any marriage lines?”

Lady Dorothea was looking anything but reconciled. “How in the world should I know? Do you suppose I asked him to show them to me?”

Stefan seized Lucy’s hands and pulled her to her feet. His eyes were alight with purpose. “Then there is nothing for it but to go in search of the church where the marriage is registered.”

A surge of hope thrust a flutter of excitement into Lucy’s breast. Yet she could not but protest. “There must be fifty churches at least in the immediate vicinity of Upledon, never mind the whole of Gloucestershire.”

“Then we will search all their registers until we find it,” Stefan promised. He drew her towards him, and a tender smile curved his mouth. “We must find it, for I know you too well, my dearest, to suppose you will consent to marry me without. However long it takes, to me it will be time well spent.”

It felt strange to be once again scouring the area around her old home for evidence of her past. Stranger still, to Lucy, to be doing so in a spirit of unbridled hope. So much hung upon this journey, she was near overwhelmed with the sense of its urgency.

Stefan had left her at his great-aunt’s overnight, Lucy regretfully agreeing it was already too late to set out. Indeed, since the morrow was a Saturday, she had begun to chafe at the notion of potentially wasted time.

“It will take us all day to get there, and then it will be Sunday. How can we enquire at any church on the busiest day in the Anglican week?”

“What better day?” had argued Stefan. “When we may be sure of discovering the incumbents in their churches.”

He had returned to fetch her the following morning, driving, to her surprise, his curricle, and accompanied only by his groom.

“I believe it will suit us better not to be burdened with Dion’s presence on this occasion.”

Lucy had cried out at this, protesting Dion was not a burden. “And I am astonished she agreed to be excluded.”

Stefan had laughed. “It was not accomplished without argument, I assure you. Dion is naturally delighted at the outcome of events and wanted to be in at the kill, so to speak, but I managed to persuade her of the futility of leaving Corisande in charge with Paulina and her infant fixed in the house.”

Lucy could not but appreciate the justice of this, though she had entered a caveat. “But who is to chaperon me?”

“There is no impropriety in your travelling about the country with your affianced husband,” Stefan had pointed out, with a lurking twinkle.

Lucy had frowned down the leaping flame set alight in her veins at the thought of being quite alone with him whenever they must rack up at an inn for the night. “That depends,” she said severely, “if the gentleman in question is disposed to behave himself.”

Stefan’s eye had gleamed. “His conduct will be impeccable.” He had leaned to whisper in her ear. “In particular in the matter of never neglecting opportunity.”

Lucy had flushed both inside and out, and abandoned the subject for fear of his saying anything more outrageous. In the event, however, the purpose of the journey became ever more prominent until Lucy could think of nothing else. She was glad of the speedy curricle, for there was no need to spend a night upon the road, although it was excessively late by the time they entered into Gloucestershire at Preston and located a likely hostelry. It was all Lucy could do to remain awake long enough to partake of a makeshift meal before falling into bed, no thought of amorous undertakings so much as crossing her mind.

On the Sunday, Lucy was yawning as she ate a desultory breakfast. It occurred to her she’d had but little rest during the last few days, so intense and relentless had been the march of events. But she was eager to start, and waited with ill-concealed impatience while Stefan tucked away a mountainous breakfast.

They began with Preston vicarage, went on to the rectory at Broomsberrow, doubled back to the vicarage of Dimmock, and then checked the churches at Kempley and Pauntley, and finally took in Oxenhall vicarage. By which time they had travelled more than fourteen miles and wasted hours in fruitless questioning.

Despondent, Lucy hung back from re-entering the curricle. “We will never find it. I don’t believe it exists.”

Stefan put his arm about her. “Take heart. We have covered a mere five or six churches as yet.”

“Six,” stated Lucy flatly. “There are six in the immediate environs of Upledon.”

“They are beginning to look the same to me,” said Stefan ruefully, releasing her and casting a frowning glance at the sky. “One more, and then I think we must look for a likely inn and bespeak rooms for the night. Where shall we go next?”

Despite Lucy’s upbringing, her acquaintance with the incumbents of churches further afield was slight. “Corse, I suppose, though we must cross the Severn to reach it.”

Detecting her drooping spirits, Stefan tried to cheer her. “We could not expect to be as lucky a second time as we were in discovering Alice’s family. Recollect we have no notion where my uncle and your mother might have met, let alone run off to.”