Page 87 of A Lady in Name

“Wed? He wedded her?”

“He did.”

Oade blinked, repeating it in disbelieving tones. “Wed?”

“Certainly. You may visit St Bride’s church at Much Marcle and see it for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

Oade heaved a snorting sigh. “Wed! Wed to a lord, and she never said nothing.”

“No doubt she felt you were unlikely to listen.”

The farmer growled in his throat for a while. Then his bull-like head thrust to and fro. “Where’s the girl?”

“Talking to your mother.” Stefan signalled Cobbold to stand guard by the door. “And if you have any notion of resorting to that damned blunderbuss, let me advise you to steer clear of my groom there. He has a useful right.”

Oade took one look at the groom’s square-jawed and stolid stance and retreated a pace. He glared again at Stefan. “Alice ain’t been treated right. Seems to me as there had ought to be a reckoning.”

Stefan could hardly believe his ears. He laughed outright. “Are you daring to think of demanding compensation? Who is at fault here, I should like to know?” Disgust overcame him. “You are contemptible.”

Oade clenched his fists, but Cobbold marched up to flank his master and he thought better of whatever intention he had in mind, dropping back.

“There’s much I could say would harm that girl.”

Furious, Stefan strode forward to confront the man. “You try it, fellow! I’ll have my lawyer down here so fast you’ll be rotting in gaol within hours of the first sally.”

“Stefan?”

He turned his head swiftly. Lucy had come through the front door. Stefan instantly crossed over to her. “Come, let us leave this place. Cobbold, unhitch the horses.”

The groom went to fetch the curricle from where he had left it, tying the reins to a fence. Stefan handed Lucy into the vehicle, and jumped up to take his own seat.

“Let them go.”

Cobbold released the team and scrambled for his perch as Stefan whipped the horses up, anxious to be shot of the wretched Oade as quickly as he might.

But the creature bawled after them to the last. “You ain’t heard the last of me, not by a long chalk you ain’t! I’ll have my rights!”

Lucy covered her ears as the coarse threats pursued them halfway down the lane. Stefan glanced across at her.

“We are out of earshot, never fear.”

Her hands came down. “He is a brute and a monster. Did you tell him?”

She listened to a recital of her abominable uncle’s attempts at extortion and blackmail without comment. At the end, she let out a weary sigh.

“I think he must be truly mad. I do hope he will not bully poor Mrs Oade, and will let her slip away peacefully.”

Then she relapsed into thought. Stefan was a trifle concerned, although she did not appear to be despondent.

“You are very quiet,” he commented, after he had driven several miles in silence.

Lucy glanced round. “I am thinking.”

“About Oade?”

“No, I am not thinking of him, but of his sister.”

“Alice, you mean.”