A Lady in Name Read Free Page A

superior servant.
    ‘Thank you, Hawkesbury.’
    Lord Pennington ushered Lucy past him and through the door. She entered a copious hall, filled with light which fell upon pale washed walls and a chequered floor, and dominated by a great staircase leading to galleried upper regions. Huge paintings of classical scenes were to be seen on either side, and a number of doors led off, as it seemed to Lucy’s bewildered eye, in all directions.
    ‘Where is my sister, do you know?’
    ‘Lady Dionisia is in the Red Saloon, I believe, my lord. Lady Sarclet has called.’
    This information caused the frown to reappear between Lord Pennington’s brows. ‘Oh, she has, has she? I suppose she had to choose this precise moment.’
    Her attention fairly caught, Lucy at once deduced that his lordship’s dissatisfaction arose from her presence. Whoever Lady Sarclet might be, it was evident Lord Pennington had foreseen none of the complications Lucy rapidly envisaged.
    How in the world was she to be introduced? How explain her presence to his mother and sister without revealing her disreputable identity? Lucy’s respectability had been shattered at a stroke, making her unfit company for the legitimate descendants of her hitherto unknown parent.
    The reflection filled her with such angry distress, she missed most of what Lord Pennington said to his butler.
    ‘—and request Mrs Lovedown to make ready a chamber for Miss Graydene, if you please.’
    This penetrated. Forgetting the presence of a servant, Lucy flashed out without thought. ‘I am not staying, Lord Pennington.’
    ‘We will discuss that at a more convenient time, Miss Graydene,’ he retorted, in a tone blending hauteur with admonishment as his eyes flickered to the butler.
    Lucy flushed and looked away, dismayed to have allowed herself to be provoked into impropriety.
    ‘Meanwhile, ma’am,’ he continued smoothly, ‘I have arranged for a little refreshment to be brought to you in the breakfast parlour. If you will accompany me, Miss Graydene?’
    He moved across the hall as he spoke, opening one of its many doors and gesturing for her to enter. Feeling she had little choice, Lucy moved to join him and passed through into a long room a degree less overwhelming than the hall, and thence to a much smaller chamber.
    ‘You may be snug here for the time being,’ said her guide.
    It was not the word Lucy would have used to describe a room into which both parlour and dining-room at the vicarage would have fitted comfortably. An oval mahogany table was set close to the windows, surrounded by matching chairs with seats upholstered in a blue striped fabric that toned with the wallpaper. A long side board and a couple of vast china vases, empty of flowers at this season and set either side of the fireplace, comprised the rest of the furnishings. Warmth came from the hearth, where the embers of a recent fire lay smouldering.
    Lord Pennington pulled out a chair facing the window and Lucy sat down, looking out upon pleasant grounds that gave at this angle no hint of the vast acres through which she had just been driven. Nevertheless, she felt a trifle dazed and was glad of the offered respite. Feeling she had something to make up for, Lucy turned to say so, and discovered she was alone.
    A sense of ill-usage could not but creep upon her. His lordship, having ousted her from The Boar without so much as a by-your-leave and virtually forced her to accompany him here, had delivered her to a place of his own choosing and summarily abandoned her. Lord Pennington, Lucy decided, stood in crying need of a sharp set-down.
    * * *
    Having divested himself of his hat, gloves and greatcoat, Stefan mounted the great staircase at an easy lope, rapidly reviewing his options. He’d had ample time to regret the momentary compassion which had decided him to bring the Graydene female to this house. It had not taken him long to realise he had been foolhardy, but he was not the man to draw back upon an