A Lady in Name (15 page)

‘Nothing,’ he said, closing the final volume.
‘How extremely frustrating.’

Lucy fought the drop in spirits.
‘It was a long shot at best.’

‘Perhaps so.’
Stefan tapped the cover of the book he had just set down on the pile, a frown between his brows. ‘If Mr Graydene kept records of everything, as you say, they must be here somewhere.’

Dion eyed him with suspicion.
‘You cannot be thinking of hunting for them?’

Stefan looked up.
‘Why not?’

His glance swept across the large dark wood sideboard with its cupboards below and a desk on the other side.
Lucy noted Dion’s shocked expression as she followed his gaze.

‘You can’t ransack the vestry!’

But Stefan’s eye had shifted, catching Lucy’s gaze. ‘Do you have any notion where else we might find records?’

Lucy shook her head.
‘For all I know, Papa kept them locked away. This was his work sanctum, you see. I might beard him in his study, but he always shooed me out when I came in here.’

‘Then there is nothing for it but to go on looking.’

He moved to the sideboard as he spoke, but checked at the sound of a latch at the outer door.

‘We are discovered
,’ hissed Dion, skipping quickly to the door by which they had entered which led into the interior of the church.

Following Stefan’s lead, Lucy did not move as the old blackened door swung inwards.
Unlike Dion, she was well able to guess at the identity of the shadow which was immediately cast upon the stones of the vestry floor. The curate’s thin form followed it, appearing from behind the door.

Seeing the intruders, he threw up his head and let out a gasp.
‘Miss Lucy! What are you doing here? And my lord too!’

The memory of her last meeting with Mr Waley rushed into Lucy’s mind.
What would he think of this invasion after what had passed between them? As much to save face as anything else, she rushed into speech, moving forward to intercept him before he could address himself to the others.

‘Forgive this intrusion, Mr Waley, I beg.
Mine is the blame. Lord Pennington and his sister are merely trying to assist me.’

The curate’s cheeks were flying two spots of colour, and Lucy recognised the signs of incipient anger.
‘To do what, may I ask? And in my vestry?’

It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that it was not his vestry, and she had as much right as he to be in it, but prudence kept her from voicing her thoughts.
Hastily, she embarked upon a bald explanation.

‘This was the obvious place.
I am trying to discover some reference to my mother.’ She saw his lips purse, and added tartly, ‘You will not object to my plain speaking, I know, since you are fully cognisant of my past.’

He sniffed.
‘On a matter of such extreme delicacy, I would not presume to speak. But since you have opened the subject—’

‘Cut line, man!’
The interruption burst from Stefan. ‘To the devil with your prosing. Do you know where other records than these may be kept?’

He waved a hand at the pile of volumes which had been the subject of their searches.
Aware of the curate’s stiffening, Lucy frowned Stefan down and put out a conciliatory hand.

‘Pray can you help me, Mr Waley?
I know Papa kept note of all events that occurred in his church, and surely the occasion of my birth must be laid down somewhere? Or my real mother’s death was recorded perhaps.’

Mr Waley had been bending an outraged glare upon Stefan, but he turned back at this, a frown drawing his brows together above the spectacles.
‘What is it you wish to discover?’

‘Why, anything
. Some little fragment that may point me where I may look for my mother’s people.’

To her surprise and dismay, he came closer and took the hand she had inadvertently waved in her agitation, holding it between both is own.
His tone became almost avuncular.

‘Is this wise, my dear Miss Lucy?
Is it not a step upon the road to misery and disappointment perhaps?’

‘Good God, what are you trying to do to the girl?’
Stefan again, disgust in his voice. ‘If Lucy wants to discover her mother, who are you to presume to discourage her, sir? Do you imagine she will be less miserable for being kept in ignorance?’

‘Stefan, pray hush
,’ uttered Lucy, retrieving her hand and casting an unloving look upon his lordship. ‘Mr Waley’s scruples do him honour.’ She turned again to the curate, hoping she had smoothed his ruffled temper. ‘You are right to be cautious, Mr Waley. And very kind. But I am too anxious to find out what I may to be able to sit still upon the matter.’ She gave him a penitent smile. ‘Papa would have told you how stubborn I can be once I have the bit between my teeth.’

He hesitated, and Lucy was thankful to see Dion had dragged her brother to one side and was urgently whispering in his ear.
She only hoped he might be kept in check, or all her efforts to engage Mr Waley’s assistance might be vain. At length the curate’s bony shoulders sagged.

‘Very well, if you are determined on this course.’

Without hesitation, he went to the sideboard and bent to open the cupboard. He withdrew another set of large books, rose and laid them on the top. Lucy watched him sift through them, picking out one volume. He opened it and flicked through the pages. A pang smote Lucy as she recognised Papa’s hand in the neat entries. But it dissipated as she realised Mr Waley seemed to know exactly what he was looking for.

He located a particular page and ran his finger down the lines.
It stopped, and he kept it in place, looking up at Lucy.

‘Here.
You may find this of interest.’

She eyed him with a resurgence of the excitement that had attended her first hopes on entering the vestry.
Then she moved swiftly to the sideboard as the curate shifted to make room for her, but keeping his finger upon the place. Lucy cast her eyes upon the entry.

With one accord, her cousins came to look over her shoulder.

‘Birth,’ Lucy read aloud. ‘Lucinda Graydene Ankerville, on the fifteenth day of April, seventeen hundred and eighty-one. A girl, born to Alice, believed Oake or Oade, not of this parish, deceased, and Beves Ankerville of the county of Hereford.’

The words blurred in Lucy’s sight and her head buzzed.
She felt sick to her stomach and the curate’s warning words sounded in her head: “misery and disappointment”. Until this instant, the bare fact of her unseasonable advent had not fully registered.

As one in a dream she heard Dion’s frantic accents.

‘A chair! Quickly, one of you, she is going to swoon!’

Then Stefan.
‘Stand aside!’

Next instant, as her knees gave way, she was caught up in a strong embrace and lifted off her feet.
Her head fell upon a broad chest and she sank thankfully into its welcome warmth, closing her eyes. In the background of her mind, she could hear a scrabble of footsteps, hushed urgent voices and the scraping of a chair. Then a rumble in her ear.

‘Set it down there.
Is it possible to procure her some water?’

‘I will fetch it from my abode,’ answered a familiar voice.
‘It is close by. I will not be above a moment.’

The outer vestry door opened and closed, and then Lucy felt movement in her captor.

‘I am going to set you down in this chair, Lucy. You will be better directly.’

Her eyelids fluttered open, and she found Stefan’s strong jaw line jutting above her, his face at an odd angle as he looked down at her.

‘Oh see, she is recovering,’ came from Dion close at one side. ‘Poor Lucy, are you all right?’

‘Don’t ask her foolish questions, Dion.’

Lucy could only be grateful for the admonition. She felt incapable of speech as she was set once more upon her feet and pressed into a chair. She leaned into it, struggling to hold up her head, and wishing she had still been held in the safety of those strong arms. Stefan’s hands were on her shoulders, his face close before her own.

‘Have no fear.
I will not let you fall.’

But the faintness was receding already and Lucy straightened herself, feeling strength beginning to return to her limbs.

‘I am better, I think.’

Doubt was in Stefan’s face as he eyed her, his grip on her shoulders lessening a trifle.
‘Damn that curate for being altogether right! We should not have pursued this.’

Lucy managed a faint negating gesture.
‘It was only the shock of seeing it written. I think I had not fully believed it before.’

‘Well, I am glad you saw it,’ said Dion stoutly.
‘Far better to have the truth than to be beset by doubt and question, and at the trifling cost of a half-swoon.’

‘Trifling!’

A weak laugh was drawn from Lucy at Stefan’s scornful tone and raised brows as at last he released her.

‘Dion is right.
I am better, I promise you. I could not wish I had not seen it.’

Stefan looked down at her again.
‘You cannot be said to have got much by it. It is clear your mother’s name was never established.’

‘But it is a start,’ Dion insisted.
She moved back to the sideboard and looked again at the entry. ‘Oake or Oade.’

‘
Believed
Oake or Oade.’

Lucy met Stefan’s sceptical glance.
‘You think they may neither of them be correct?’

‘It think it highly probable.
You said yourself your adoptive father could not be sure of the names the woman mentioned.’

Her face fell, and Stefan was smitten with remorse.
He need not have dashed her hopes so thoroughly. Relief arrived in the form of the curate, armed with a carafe of water and a glass. Stefan shifted back, allowing the fellow to administer such aid as was at his disposal.

Instinct had led him to catch Lucy up as her legs buckled, but he had been conscious of more than the mere urge to assist her as he held her in his arms.
He had been too caught up to think of it at the time, but as he watched Mr Waley administer the restoring water, Stefan felt an echo of it in a ridiculous urge to take the glass out of the man’s hand and himself hold it to Lucy’s lips as the curate was doing. As if only he should be allowed to see to her comfort, a notion as absurd as the feeling that accompanied it.

Annoyed with himself, he emulated Dion, taking another look at the entry of Lucy’s birth in the register.
Only then did it occur to him that the curate had located the entry with unerring accuracy and speed.

He glanced back at the man, who was pouring more water into Lucy’s glass.
She had taken over holding it for herself, to Stefan’s secret satisfaction, but his attention was all for Mr Waley. When Lucy at last waved away any further refill and gave up the glass to the curate’s hand with a word of thanks, Stefan took his opportunity.

‘You have seen this before, I take it?’

Mr Waley looked deeply offended at being addressed in this manner, but Stefan cared nothing for that. He waited, so the fellow had no choice but to respond, though his voice was stiff.

‘Yes, my lord.
I had occasion to search for it.’

‘When you had been told of Lucy’s illegitimacy, no doubt?’

The air of outrage grew. ‘Since you ask, sir, it was indeed so.’

‘I suppose you wanted proof.’
Dion cutting in, her manner, to Stefan’s annoyance, a trifle conciliatory.

Mr Waley glanced at her and then turned his eyes on Lucy.
Stefan was conscious of a rise of irritation.

‘To be frank, Miss Lucy, I had some anticipation you might require proof.’

‘And you gauged the matter correctly,’ said Dion.

‘Not entirely,’ Stefan drawled.
‘Lucy was hunting for her mother, not proof. She already had the letter from my uncle if she wanted proof.’

He glanced at Lucy as he spoke and noted her attention appeared to have wandered.
Stefan did not know whether to be glad or sorry, for he was aware of behaving with unnecessary hostility. Why he should be so provoked by the wretched curate was a matter passing his comprehension. He shifted the focus of his attention.

‘Lucy!’

She looked up sharply. ‘Yes?’

Stefan smiled involuntarily.
‘You were miles away.’

She shook her head slightly as if to clear it.
‘It occurred to me that by the time he wrote the entry, Papa must have made his decision to adopt me.’

Dion looked struck, and Stefan was moved to check back upon the entry, reading the name again.

‘Of course. Lucinda Graydene Ankerville.’ He felt absurdly elated for her. ‘An excellent compromise. You live no lie as Lucy Graydene, yet your true identity is available to you.’