Page 57 of A Lady in Name

CHAPTER NINE

Lucy jumped and looked up. The woman she had seen on her first day here was standing halfway to the breakfast table, her dark eyes glued to Lucy’s features. She was heavily pregnant, the protrusion emphasised by the currently fashionable high waistline, and looked even grosser than when Lucy had seen her on the stairs. Her hair was largely concealed beneath a turban-style cap that did nothing for the shape of her face, just now swollen with the added weight of her condition. But what was visible matched Lucy’s own colouring.

All at once, a memory crashed into Lucy’s mind: Mrs Ankerville, commenting on the similarities of feature so obvious that she took Lucy and this stranger for sisters.

The shock took her breath away, and she was unable to utter a word, which most unfortunately allowed Lady Sarclet to get in first. “So she is still with you.”

Predictably, Dion rose to the bait. “Of course she is. Surely Corisande told you we went only to fetch Lucy’s trunks?”

Lady Sarclet came to the table, still fixing Lucy with an unloving eye. “I will take a cup of coffee with you, Dion, if there is some in the pot.”

Dion cast a frantic look at Lucy, rolling her eyes in the way she had. She reached for the coffee, nearly knocking over the pot in her agitation. “I’m not sure there is any left.”

Lady Sarclet pulled out a chair opposite Lucy and sat down. “Then send for some more. Why do you suppose you have servants in the place?”

Rising, Dion crossed to the bell-pull, throwing grimaces of warning and exasperation at Lucy behind the woman’s back. Far from comfortable herself, Lucy summoned her best deferential manner. “How do you do, Lady Sarclet?”

“You know who I am?”

The tone was cold, and a shiver of apprehension went through Lucy. There could be no doubt there was suspicion here. She wished Stefan had been within call. She had never felt more in need of rescue.

“Of course she knows who you are,” Dion cut in, saving Lucy from having to answer. “Though I should have presented you formally.”

Returning to the table, she made an elaborate gesture towards the intruder. “This is our cousin Paulina. Or rather, Lady Sarclet.”

“Superfluous, Dion.”

“And this,” pursued Dion, ignoring the interpolation, “is Lucy Graydene.”

“Which tells me nothing at all.”

Dion sat down. “Well, I can’t see that it is of any importance.”

“Why not?” Lady Sarclet’s eyes at last left Lucy’s face, turning to her cousin. “Is there some secret about this Miss Graydene you do not wish me to know about?”

This was so near the bone that Dion gasped, throwing a frantic glance at Lucy. Urgency fed Lucy’s imagination. “I am here to help Mrs Ankerville.”

Dion threw her a grateful look, but Lucy was instantly disconcerted by the intent glance which came her way from Lady Sarclet.

“Indeed? She said nothing of it to me the other day.”

“Well, you know how forgetful Corisande is. I dare say she had her mind full of troubadours. It was all she could think of when we returned.”

Lady Sarclet’s smile was thin. “You underestimate your mama, Dion.”

This was perfectly true, as Lucy had had occasion to observe. She began to feel her half-sister was a force to be reckoned with.

Dion was inclined to bristle. “I think I know Corisande better than you, Paulina.”

The dubious smile was replaced with a sour look. “Do we ever know our own parents? Of course I never knew my mother, for she died before I was of an age to remember her.”

“Yes, you poor thing,” uttered Dion, in a tone of sympathy Lucy at least recognised as spurious. “Such a pity your papa never married again.”

Lucy watched her half-sister’s mobile mouth turn to a sneer. “Not in my book. I never felt the lack of a mother. I liked being the mistress of this house, as I was from an early age.”

“Yes, and you never let us forget it, do you?” said Dion sweetly.

The dagger look she received was met with a limpid smile. Lucy almost laughed out, but for the churn of maggots in her stomach which kept her on tenterhooks. Where in the world was Stefan? Why must he go riding just when he was most needed?