CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
“Only decent drink,” stated Lady Dorothea in the tone of one who would brook no argument.
“Unless it’s a good French claret. But you can’t get anything drinkable from the Continent since those wretches took to murdering anyone with a title to his name.
” The Revolution in France had long since been quelled, giving place to the new republic, but it was plain to Lucy that Lady Dorothea thought of it as happening yesterday.
There being no immediate sign of the footman, Stefan was chivvied into ringing the bell and did so just as the man arrived with a full tray.
“Where in the world have you been, fellow?” barked his mistress.
“Could have journeyed to China and back in the time it takes you to fetch a couple of glasses and a decanter.”
It was evident from the footman’s placid response that he was inured to this sort of thing. “There’s a plate of biscuits, your ladyship, along with the port.”
“Yes, yes, very well. Set it down and be off with you.”
The footman glanced towards Lucy as he set down the tray upon a nearby table, which looked to be the only one with a relatively clear surface. “And lemonade for the lady, should she prefer it.”
Lady Dorothea wafted an impatient hand. “Take it away, do. She’s an Ankerville. She’ll drink port with the rest of us.”
Reluctant to be drinking alcohol at this hour, Lucy was glad to notice the footman ignore this request. In a bid to avoid the old lady noticing, Lucy stood up and moved to the table.
“May I give you a glass, ma’am?”
“You may, and don’t be stingy. I’ll take a biscuit too.”
In the business of supplying her wants, and handing a glass to Stefan, Lucy was able to manage lemonade for herself without drawing Lady Dorothea’s attention. “Well done,” murmured Stefan, with a swift and intimate smile as she returned to her chair.
Lucy felt the warmth in her cheeks, and fervently hoped her hostess’s failing sight would permit it to go unnoticed. As it chanced, Lady Dorothea’s attention was concentrated upon the biscuit she was nibbling. “Currants? I think they have put currants in. Can you taste currants?”
Neither she nor Stefan had partaken of the biscuits, but it was plain to Lucy any answer was better than none. “I believe there are currants in them, ma’am.”
“Not enough sugar,” stated her ladyship, crunching with evident enjoyment. “They never put enough sugar in.”
Lucy was nearly betrayed into a giggle. She could not forbear a glance at Stefan, whose infinitesimally raised eyebrow spoke volumes. Lucy could well imagine there must be those who found this creature terrifying.
The moment the biscuit had been devoured, Lucy’s attention was reclaimed. “What did you say your name was?”
“Lucy, ma’am.”
Lady Dorothea lifted her eyeglass and through it surveyed Lucy. “How peculiar.”
“The name, Aunt?” asked Stefan. “It is short for Lucinda.”
Her ladyship’s eye, magnified by the glass, continued to bear upon Lucy. “My memory is not what it was. I thought Beves had named you Paulina.”
Lucy gasped and her hand jerked, dribbling lemonade upon her gown. She set down the glass quickly, swabbing the stain with her hand.
“Clumsy,” commented her ladyship, tutting a little. “Hope you’re not one of these girls forever spilling things.”
To Lucy’s relief, Stefan cut in curtly. “She is nothing of the sort. And you have it wrong, Aunt. Paulina is at this moment ensconced at Pennington with her newborn infant.”
Lady Dorothea grunted. “About time. No patience with all the shilly-shally girls get up to these days. What else is a marriage for, if not to produce heirs?”
“Very true, ma’am.”
Lucy threw Stefan a grateful look, trying for a measure of composure.
She had not foreseen that an elderly woman whose sight must be in question would so readily note the resemblance.
It could not but touch upon the wound of her reason for being here in the first place.
She threw out the first thing that came into her head, anxious to deflect the old lady from any further investigation into her true identity.
“I understand you never married, Lady Dorothea.”
The eyeglass thankfully dropped. “I was not permitted to ally myself with the man I would have chosen, so I refused to marry at all. In my day, we did the bidding of our parents.”
“Except that you did not,” Stefan pointed out.
“Because I did not choose to marry another? Poppycock. My father washed his hands of me. Turned his attention to my sister instead.”
“How very sad,” uttered Lucy impulsively.
“Marriage ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, my girl. Pennington knows that, I’ll wager.”
Stefan laughed. “On the contrary, Aunt. It happens I have the most ardent desire to be married.”
Up went the eyeglass, this time thankfully directed upon Stefan. Lady Dorothea snorted. “What you mean is you’ve fallen in love with some hopeless ineligible. Nothing ardent about an earl’s marriage plans, boy.”
The uncanny accuracy of Lady Dorothea’s statement threw Lucy into disorder. How in the world was she to live with a creature as embarrassingly outspoken as this? She dared not look at Stefan, and could only be glad he came down on the side of prudence and said no more.
The old lady once more let her eyeglass fall, but her oddly riveting gaze remained fixed upon Stefan, and her look became direful.
“You ain’t going to fall into the same foolish error young Beves made, are you, boy?
He was lucky, for the creature died and he was never called upon to confess his misdeeds.
Shocking misalliance. My brother would have crucified him. ”
Stefan felt as if his mind was tucked behind a veil of gauze, numbed with bated shock. Had his ears deceived him? He glanced at Lucy and found her wide-eyed and rapidly paling. As well she might.
He found his tongue. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but what are you saying?” His tongue ran dry and he was obliged to swallow and start again. “Are you saying my uncle Beves married a second time?”
Lady Dorothea looked pained. “Something wrong with your understanding, Pennington? Did I not just say so?”
Stefan let out a half-laugh of incredulity. “Yes, but it is so unexpected, I could not be sure I had heard you correctly.”
“When?”
The painful intensity of Lucy’s single utterance told him more vividly than any words how vital to her was the answer. He wanted to reach out and seize her hand. Instead, he reiterated her question. “When, Aunt? When did this marriage take place?”
The old lady sat back, her chin going up as she contemplated the ceiling, as if she sought there for the answer. “I am not certain of the time. My brother yet held the earldom.”
“You mean Grandfather Fulbert?” Stefan put in, desperate to have all clear.
“I had only one brother who was Earl of Pennington. Of course your Grandfather Fulbert,” snapped Lady Dorothea irascibly.
“Do you say my uncle Beves confessed all this to you?” pursued Stefan.
“He wouldn’t tell anyone else,” she said, as if they ought to have known. “Had to tell someone, I suppose. I advised him to confess it to his father and take the consequences. But before he could do so, word came the woman had fortuitously died.”
“Leaving a child whom my uncle refused to recognise,” burst from Stefan without will, springing from his seat in a sudden access of fury.
The abrupt movement tugged Lucy out of her stupor.
The words had flowed to and fro across the room, and all the while the only thing she was aware of was the slow and heavy pumping in her chest. Bemused, she watched Stefan pacing, his fists tightly clenched.
The possibility just opened up was so impossible she knew not how to look it in the face.
She was hardly aware of speaking, her words addressed within her own mind only.
“He wedded her. Then he left her. Friendless and alone. But he did wed her.”
“Scoundrel,” growled Stefan, turning to glare across the room at Lucy, as if she were at fault. “I thought I had known the worst of him when you came to me, Lucy, but this beats all!”
“What in the world are you talking about, Pennington?”
Lucy’s eyes were drawn to the old lady, whom they had both forgotten in the press of this precious intelligence. Lady Dorothea was sitting bolt upright, her stance showing no sign of her advanced years, her snapping eyes travelling from Stefan to Lucy and back again.
She saw Stefan’s glare turn upon his great-aunt, and quickly cut in.
“I am Lucy Graydene Ankerville, ma’am. I thought I was the late Lord Pennington’s illegitimate daughter.
But now…” Her voice failed as the enormity of the news came home to her.
Her eyes pricked, her throat worked and she put her hands over her face.
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.”