Page 37 of A Lady in Name

“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 cut 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.”

Even the curate was moved to produce a thin smile. “A move typical of the vicar, if I may say so. He was far-sighted as well as the kindest of men.”

A tremulous curve was upon Lucy’s mouth, and Stefan shocked himself with an image of kissing the soft lips.

“I believe I was lucky, more so than if the man who fathered me had chosen to take me in. I was not of his flesh, but no one could have been a kinder or more loving father to me than my own dear papa.”

Stefan was glad of his sister’s rush to embrace Lucy, for he was still in a state of shock at the trend of his earlier thought. The last thing in the world he needed was to become amorously entangled with Lucy Graydene.

The prospect of hunting throughout Gloucestershire for all the Oakes and Oades who might live there daunted even Lucy, keen as she was to find her mother’s family.

“And when we had done so,” added Dion in accents of frustration, “ten to one it would turn out your papa had the name wrong after all and the whole effort will have been for nothing.”

The matter was exhaustively discussed over dinner and beyond, but Lucy was loath to abandon the scheme. She was encouraged by Stefan’s belief that the woman succoured by Mr Graydene could not have come from very far afield.

“By the vicar’s account, Alice was afoot, and in the last stages of pregnancy. She cannot have come far in that condition.”

“True,” agreed Lucy, “although that does not mean she had not travelled some distance at the start of the business.”

Dion was in agreement. “Exactly so. If only we knew where my uncle had met her, we might have something to go on.”

“But it might have been anywhere,” Lucy said despairingly. “Bath or London, for all we know.”

Stefan looked decisive as he shook his head. “No, I think we may safely discount the sort of places where the gentry congregate.” A sliver of dismay entered Lucy’s breast as he gave her an apologetic look. “I have no wish to distress you, Lucy, but we must face facts if we are to gain any ground at all. Recollect the whole affair was conducted in secrecy. Had Alice been of gentle birth, there must have been a scandal. I cannot think the vicar’s efforts to uncover the facts would have met with failure. I imagine his enquiries were exhaustive.”

Lucy sighed. “I do not know. I keep telling you, he had little time to inform me, and he was so weak he could not speak for long without losing breath.”

“But you do know his efficiency,” Stefan insisted. “You know what sort of a man he was. Does it seem to you likely that he would have adopted you as he did had he any suspicion there was a genteel family in the case? After all, he wrote to my uncle.”

Aware of Dion’s compassionate gaze, Lucy thrust down the rush of dismay attendant upon all discussion of Papa. She met Stefan’s eye with assumed fortitude. “You are saying I must look among country folk and village maidens. Very well, but how does that help with our immediate enquiries?”