Free A Lady in Name by Elizabeth Bailey

retreat.
    Without thinking what he did, he made his way to a side door and slipped out into the gardens. The cold night air hit him on the instant, but he did not flinch. In his mind, the tragic note played and replayed, the simplicity of Lucy’s words lost in the turmoil of emotion.
    There was something about the girl. Had he not been struck by the self-same note in the air she had worn just this morning? Was it only this morning? It felt like a lifetime. It was hard to remember yesterday, when all he had known of Lucy Graydene was a letter to his uncle that he had taken as a harpy’s threat. Anything less like a harpy it would be hard to imagine. Lucy Graydene was…
    His mind blanked. Stefan had no words to describe her. She was an enigma. He did not understand her. At one moment, a passionate termagant; at another, a creature lost in the wilderness. Yet she could equally appear withdrawn, cool and hard-headed.
    Stefan spent some time in contemplation of Lucy’s differing moods without deriving any benefit from the exercise beyond a feeling of frustration. He was regretfully obliged to acknowledge that he had no notion how to deal with her. Were it not for the inconvenience of conscience and honour, he would abandon the whole scheme.
    Driven back into the house by the frosty night air, he returned to the hall and ran lightly upstairs, traversing the corridors towards his own apartments. At a bend in a narrow passage, he came plump upon Lucy, dressed in her greatcoat and bonnet, a bandbox in one gloved hand.
    ‘What in the world are you doing?’
    The harsh tone spurred Lucy’s determination.
    ‘I am leaving.’
    He barred her way. ‘In the middle of the night? Are you mad?’
    Lucy clutched her bandbox more tightly. ‘I don’t care.’
    She had acted on impulse. Arriving in her bedchamber, Lucy had intended nothing more adventurous than changing into her nightgown and climbing into the bed which had been made ready for her. Even the sheets had been warmed, she had found, when she felt them, just as she had always done for Papa, checking to see if Jenny, the vicarage’s all-purpose maid, had been diligent.
    Quite suddenly she had been overwhelmed with an urgent need. Without thought, she had heaved her bandbox onto the bed, thrust everything into it and strapped it tightly. Seizing her bonnet, she had jammed it all anyhow on her head, tying the black ribbons with feverish haste. Lastly she had thrust her arms into her coat, hardly troubling to do up more than one or two buttons, and quickly left the chamber before she could change her mind. It was the most curst mischance she had run almost immediately into Lord Pennington.
    He was looking at her in the dim light of his candle, searching her face. Lucy huddled into herself, as if she would draw away from his scrutiny.
    When he spoke again, his voice has softened almost to a caress. ‘Oh, Lucy. You poor, lost little soul.’
    As she stared at him, bemused, an unprecedented rush of some unnamed emotion spread through her bosom. Absurdly, she wanted to weep.
    ‘Don’t, Stefan,’ she uttered brokenly. ‘Pray don’t.’
    ‘Don’t what? Feel sorry for you?’ His hand reached out to hers and Lucy relinquished her bandbox into his hold without knowing what she did. ‘Come.’
    Before she knew it, she was being led back down the corridor and into her bedchamber. Stefan set down her bandbox and thrust her unceremoniously to sit upon the bed. Then he leaned against one of the posts, looking down at her.
    ‘Lucy, I put it badly. I should not have spoken to you as I did this afternoon.’
    Still beset by discomfiting pressures in her chest, Lucy could not answer. Was this the man who had driven her into fury? How had he changed?
    As if he heard her thought, Stefan spoke again. ‘I’ve been thinking it over and I realise I had not considered your feelings in all this.’ His smile was rueful. ‘I am not in general given to examining feelings.’
    He sat on the bed,