Page 62 of A Lady in Name

“I assure you we would not. Dion has no experience, and Corisande would be utterly useless. She has not even emerged from her eyrie, though I sent to tell her what is afoot.”

“But she might have done so had you said she was needed.”

Stefan shook his head, and Lucy melted at the caress in his voice. “You are determined to make light of it, are you not? Dion told me how Paulina reviled you. I find your conduct magnanimous in the extreme.”

Lucy laughed out. “Fiddle, if I may borrow the expression from Dion. It is only what Papa would have expected of me. Besides, the poor creature has some claim upon my conscience.”

“None whatsoever, from what I’ve been hearing,” Stefan said grimly. “But I see there is no moving you.” He came up and found her hand, bringing it to his lips. Lucy felt that little snake leap into her fingers and run again up her arm. “Permit me only to say you have my heartfelt admiration.”

Lucy ought to have been delighted with this encomium. Upon the contrary, however, she felt a profound drop in her spirits.

Stefan let go her hand and went to a side table. “There is brandy ready for Sarclet, when he should finally arrive. I have just sent one of the grooms to discover what is keeping him.” Lucy was about to thank him for this, when he turned, a glass decanter in his hand. “Would you care for a restorative? I should think you must need it.”

A shocked laugh was surprised out of Lucy. “After last night? You must have taken leave of your senses!”

“I was rather forgetting that,” he said slowly, and Lucy saw his eyes darken. “Though the results of plying you with liquor were intensely rewarding, my seductive Lucy.”

She was swept with instant heat, and knew the colour was flying into her cheeks. She had not dreamed it. Embarrassment swamped her. How could she have behaved in so wanton a fashion? And how dared he encourage it?

Before she could think how to answer him, footsteps were heard flying down the passage beyond the door.

“Lucy! Lucy!”

All thought of everything but the possible meaning of Dion’s call flew out of Lucy’s head. “It must be starting!”

She ran for the door and reached it just as Dion flung it open, standing breathless and panting as she hung on to the handle.

“Quickly, Lucy! We think the baby is coming!”

Stefan watched with increasing irritation the restless titupping to and fro of Lord Sarclet’s skinny legs. The fellow was some years Paulina’s senior, and his unprepossessing appearance had more than once made Stefan wonder at his cousin’s choice. He was squat and wide about the abdomen, and he held a round ball of a head thrust a little forward, reminding Stefan of a discontented bullfrog.

At length Stefan could stand it no longer. “Sit down, man!”

Sarclet halted mid-stride and a reproachful glare came at Stefan. “Two hours! Two hours since I got here and they told me then the infant was coming. Where is the damned quack?”

“He will be here presently,” Stefan soothed, handing him a glass of brandy. “Drink this.”

Sarclet took the glass and drank, seeming to become a trifle calmer. “Obliged to you.”

“There is no necessity for alarm,” Stefan told him.

“Yes, there is,” the other returned. “Crick says it may be a boy this time. It is lying differently or some such thing.”

His anxiety became comprehensible, for Paulina had so far produced only daughters. But Stefan applied a bracer nonetheless. “Well, that is matter for rejoicing, man. And you may safely trust to Lucy’s ministrations.”

Sarclet’s brows beetled over protuberant eyes. “Seems to me that’s just what I can’t do. Who the deuce is this Lucy female?”

Evading the question, Stefan made haste to soothe. “You have no need to fret, Thomas. She is highly competent. I am assured she has experience.”

“Is she a midwife?”

“Not precisely.”

“Then why in the name of all that’s holy is she tending my wife’s lying-in?”

This trend was dangerous. Stefan tried deflection. “She is assisting merely. You need have no fear. Mrs Lovedown is in attendance.”

This assurance appeared to have some effect, but Sarclet’s belligerence did not lessen. “It didn’t appear to me your housekeeper was in charge. That wretch of a female would not permit me more than a moment in the chamber. And your sister thrust me out at her command!”

“A lying-in is no place for a man,” Stefan pointed out.

“It should be. The quack should be here. Why is he delayed so long?”

Did all expectant fathers go through such apprehensions, Stefan wondered, watching the man resume his pacing. Out of nowhere, a wild notion came into his head. Of Lucy in labour with his child. A feeling of sick terror swept through him, just before he took in the trend of his thoughts. The door opened at this point to admit the doctor, leaving Stefan no time to speculate upon why in the world he should be imagining such a thing.