A Lady in Name Read Free Page B

impulse. Life was to be lived, and a risk or two added spice.
    He admitted an unwelcome qualm on discovering his cousin was in the house. Paulina was bound to kick up a dust. She could never be brought to believe in her parent’s insalubrious habits. How she could have lived for the better part of her life with Beves Ankerville and not known about the man’s peccadilloes was a mystery. Unless Paulina chose to stick her head in the sand? He had a fair notion how she would react should he present her with a female claiming to be her natural half-sister.
    A curst nuisance she should have chosen today to visit her erstwhile home. Which brought to mind a further grievance. Paulina seemed not to realise she was now a visitor. Her frequent comings and goings were an irritant, more for Dion than himself, it must be admitted, his sister being obliged to listen to the veiled criticisms that fell from the creature’s lips upon every change effected in the mansion. And Dion who would bear the brunt, if Paulina knew about Miss Graydene.
    On all counts, Stefan decided, as he crossed the gallery and approached the door to one of the larger of the upstairs reception rooms, it would be better to keep the matter under wraps until Paulina had left the house.
    The Red Saloon, so called on account of the once vibrant brocade upholstery, boasted two great sofas set either side of the hearth, where a cheerful fire burned merrily. One was occupied by Dion, most improperly reclining with her legs stretched out. The other was mostly taken up by Paulina, who had camped her currently overlarge frame bang in its centre. Hovering between them was his mother, her attitude decidedly uncertain. Before Stefan could open his mouth, the Honourable Mrs Ankerville accosted him.
    ‘What is one to do, Stefanus?’ she exclaimed, without the slightest preliminary. ‘I say nothing of Dionisia, who seems to have no notion of correct conduct, but here is your cousin, who must have a perfectly good sofa of her own, taking up enough space for two.’
    ‘She is two, Mama,’ piped up Dion, rolling her eyes at Stefan in her usual fashion from under the blonde frizz framing her pixie face. ‘Not that I expect you to have noticed, but poor Paulina is increasing.’
    Stefan was not surprised to see his mother turn an enquiring eye upon her niece. ‘What, again? Dear me. Well, if you must, you must, I suppose.’
    ‘It is hardly my blame, Aunt Corisande,’ said the visitor snappily, smoothing a restless hand over the large mound beneath her silken gown.
    But Mrs Ankerville was not attending. ‘Stefanus, if Paulina is set upon having incessant babies, you must purchase another sofa, or I will have to refrain from coming down.’
    ‘You hardly ever do, Mama,’ Stefan retorted, strolling forward and ignoring both his sister’s stifled giggle and Paulina’s glare. ‘What can have brought you from your eyrie? Have you run out of ink again?’
    ‘Paper! There is no paper in this house.’
    Stefan met her as she came out from between the sofas, and dropped a careless kiss on the riot of burnished curls, as yet untouched by grey, tumbling untidily over her shoulders.
    ‘I will find you some presently.’ Putting his mother from him, he turned his most practised smile upon his cousin. ‘Pay no heed to Mama, cousin. You must understand that infants, like everything else unconnected with medieval legend, are a burdensome inconvenience to one of Corisande’s artistic temperament.’
    ‘Now that is simply not true,’ said his mother, returning to Dion’s sofa and seating herself —without the least difficulty—in the space between her daughter’s feet and its rolled end. ‘I doted upon the two of you.’
    ‘For about five minutes each day,’ said Dion, entirely without rancour.
    Neither of them, Stefan reflected, bore Corisande the least grudge for having largely ignored her offspring. There were benefits to be had in owning a creature so scatterbrained as to