Free A Lady in Name by Elizabeth Bailey Page B

advent, if not her antecedents, was bound to leak out. Lucy had not grown up in a village without understanding the apparently endless capacity for gossip of the general populace. Well before this could occur, she was resolved on having settled her future to her own satisfaction, which did not include battening upon the Ankervilles.
    The only other hitch which threatened to delay them had been the sudden intervention of the Honourable Mrs Corisande Ankerville.
    ‘You are going where?’
    ‘To take Lucy to complete her arrangements and fetch her belongings,’ Stefan said fluently.
    The large gaze focused upon Lucy’s face. ‘Does that mean you are coming to live with us, Lucinda?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Yes!’
    Dion had spoken at exactly the same instant. Mrs Ankerville looked at her daughter and blinked. ‘Which is it? Yes or no?’
    Lucy thr ew up a hand to prevent Dion from speaking again. ‘I am coming only upon a visit, Mrs Ankerville.’
    ‘How long for?’
    Stefan intervened. ‘That is to be determined.’
    In the ensuing silence, Lucy found herself suddenly praying the lady of the house would not repudiate her. Just why she should be so anxious when she had begun by refusing to remain at all, she could not understand. And then Mrs Ankerville directed another of her open stares at Lucy.
    ‘It is a very good thing. You may provide Dionisia with a companion, which may steady her, and it will oblige Stefanus to behave with civility.’
    The outcry from both parties thus stigmatised prevented Lucy from making any response. While Dion repudiated any suggestion of unsteadiness with some heat, Stefan merely called upon his mother to inform him exactly when he had been guilty of incivility.
    Mrs Ankerville made herself heard once more. ‘It is of no use to protest. You both know your faults better than I, and if your papa were alive, he would corroborate my words. I have formed a very good opinion of Lucinda’s character—’
    ‘You can know nothing of her character,’ interpolated Stefan briskly.
    ‘—and I am satisfied she will be a restraining influence.’
    ‘As if I needed one ,’ uttered Dion rebelliously. ‘Not that I don’t want your company, Lucy, for I do. But that is the outside of enough!’
    ‘Well, I only hope you will be the more satisfied, Mama, when you are obliged to make up a tale to account for Lucy’s presence here.’
    Mrs Ankerville had lifted her brows in a manner reminiscent of her son. ‘My dear Stefanus, there can be no difficulty. Lucinda is an indigent relative whom I have adopted into the house for the purpose of having her assist at my work. I thought of that before you had even persuaded her to remain.’
    ‘How do you know I persuaded her?’
    ‘She would not have agreed otherwise.’
    It was rapidly being borne in upon Lucy that her hostess possessed powers of observation completely unsuspected by her own family, in despite of her apparent disinterest in anything which had no strict concern with the medieval.
    She confided this opinion to Dion when they were ensconced in the family coach, Stefan having elected to drive his curricle.
    ‘If I know anything of females, there will be far too much luggage for the three of us to travel back together. And we may stow a trunk or two in the boot of the curricle at need.’
    Lucy did not know whether to be relieved or sorry to be deprived of his lordship’s company upon the way. But in the event, she could not but be glad of the relative warmth inside the coach, with her feet set upon a hot brick and a carriage rug of warm fur covering her legs. And there was no fear of conversation flagging with Dion in the carriage. Lucy found she was developing a rapid intimacy with her new young cousin.
    Dion hugged into her thick travelling cloak, wrinkling her nose at Lucy’s suggestion of her mother’s sagacity.
    ‘Well, I don’t know. It is true Corisande is apt to surprise one with how much she knows, in general just when you had