CHAPTER SEVEN #3
He came to her then, and it was all Lucy could do to keep her feet as he stood before her, close enough to reach out and touch.
“Am I forgiven?”
She wanted to caress the planes of his face with her fingers, so tender a feeling enveloped her. Instead, she brushed the stem of her candle, feeling comfort in its warmth.
“There is nothing to forgive.”
Turning quickly away, Lucy walked swiftly to the stairs, praying her knees would not give way beneath her.
It came as no surprise to Lucy when Dion broke into eager questions almost the instant the coach bowled out of the yard of the Half Moon.
Stefan’s altered demeanour towards her had clearly not gone unnoticed, and since Lucy had schooled herself to respond in kind, just as if there had been no revelation to turn her world upside down, she had prepared herself to meet Dion’s searching questions.
“How can it have happened? When I left you last night, upon the point of going to bed, you were adamant against any reconciliation.”
Lucy made no attempt to hide the truth. “I was unable to sleep. Stefan found me in the parlour.”
Dion’s bright eyes were accusing. “At what hour was this?”
“Lord knows! Stefan thought it must be three o’clock at least.”
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.”
Stefan laughed. “She will be crosser now, I don’t doubt, at being excluded from this conference.”
A faint frown creased Lucy’s brow. “Is it a conference?”
Was she a trifle wary? He had felt a little distanced this morning, although she had been easy enough in her manner towards him. It was scarcely surprising she should be conscious after his behaviour last night. Let him get that out of the way first.
“Lucy, I cannot sufficiently apologise for my conduct. I took an unfair advantage of you.”
He thought a spasm crossed her face, but the light filtering through the trees into the dimness of the coach cast shadows across her so he could not be sure.
“On the contrary, you specifically did not take advantage of me.” She spoke lightly, but something in her tone rankled.
“You may say so if you choose, but we both know I was manifestly in the wrong.” He leaned a little towards her, but did not make the mistake of attempting to touch her.
“I have not been able to get it out of my mind that I caused you to make an odious comparison of yourself with your unfortunate mother. You would not have done so had I not given you cause.”
She looked away, and back again, and Stefan cursed the flittering shadows that would not let him properly read her expression.
“That was silly of me. Perhaps I was thinking of an old saying.”
“What is bred in the bone comes out in the flesh?”
“Yes. But in the cool light of day, I see it for the nonsense it is.”
Stefan was not sure he believed her, but he refrained from questioning her words. “I am glad of that.”
“After all,” she pursued, “I was brought up by a vicar, as Alice was not. I have been taught the refinements of genteel behaviour, though I am of humble stock.”
“On one side only,” Stefan put in sharply, unreasonably irritated to hear her speak so of herself.
“And in my upbringing,” she said, a note of insistence in her voice. “Papa never encouraged me to imagine myself destined for anything but a moderate milieu.”
“Of course he did not,” Stefan said acidly. “He did not tell you of your origins until he was dying. And then he withheld the truth of your mother’s background.”
She was silent, her lips compressed tightly together. Too late Stefan recalled her sensitivity to any remark she might consider detrimental to the vicar’s memory. He threw out a hand.
“Don’t rip up at me. I beg your pardon. I meant no disrespect to Mr Graydene.”
She bit her lip, appearing to struggle with herself. Then her eyes lifted to meet his. “You blame him for not telling me. You think he would have done better to have told me the truth at the outset.”
Stefan did not hesitate. “Yes, I do. I am sorry if it distresses you, Lucy, but I cannot think your papa, as you think of him, did you any favours.”
“Why not?” The words jerked from her. “He gave me more than twenty happy years of affection and freedom from the stigma that dogs me now. I would not have it otherwise.”
“Because you honour his memory. For which you are to be commended.”
To his immediate dismay, Lucy threw her hands over her face. Acting on instinct, Stefan moved across to seat himself beside her. She felt his movement for her hands came down, and she pushed herself away from him along the cushioned seat.
“Lucy —”
She flung up a hand. “You do not understand. I loved him! He was all the world to me.”
He tried to capture her hand, but she thrust it behind her. Stefan felt riven, as if her rejection tore him in half. “Lucy, I’m not trying to take that away from you. You are grieving and that is natural.”
“But? There is a but, I presume?”
She had thrown the words at him, like a challenge. Stefan let out a laugh of sheer frustration. “Lucy, this is madness. What are we quarrelling about? If I seem to you to criticise your father, I can only say I did not intend it.”
“Only you think he acted wrongly by me, and I will not endure to hear that.”
She was shaking, her breath coming short and fast. Stefan felt utterly confused. What had he said? How had a chance remark thrown her into such a distressing condition?
“Lucy, I don’t know what you want of me.”
She fairly glared at him. “I want you to sit on the other side of the coach!”
He was so surprised, he did move back to the other side.
For several moments he did not speak, instead watching her in hopes of some sign her extraordinary mood might be subsiding.
Presently her tremors lessened, the hands clutched tightly together in her lap lost some of their tension, and she sagged slightly in her seat, leaning back against the squabs with a little sigh.
“Better?”
She kept her gaze averted, but Stefan did not really think she was looking at the passing scenery beyond the window.
“Yes, I thank you.”
Stefan knew not how to proceed. Whatever he said might cause a resurgence of this oddity of temper. At length, Lucy turned her head to look at him, her expression faintly apologetic.
“I seem to have taken a leaf out of your book, Stefan.”
He was taken aback. “How so?”
A tight little smile came his way. “I was thoroughly undone by your fury yesterday. Now it is your turn.”
He was so astonished, he let out a bark of laughter. “Yes, you have me there, I admit. Was it revenge? No, I will not believe you so petty.”
She shook her head, and the flush at her cheeks died down. “I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You did as much last night. I can do no less.”
“Not even when you remember what that apology almost led to?” Then he wished he had held his tongue, for the colour flooded her face and she cast her eyes away from him again. “Consider that unsaid.”
She nodded, but constraint had returned.
Stefan was moved to regret having determined on this interview.
He had said almost nothing of what he intended.
The matters he meant to broach had flown out of his head.
It was hardly politic now to begin upon a discussion of how he meant to provide for Lucy’s future.