Loving Lucy (26 page)

Janet made to accompany them, but Lucy smiled and asked her to stay. “We shouldn’t be long,” she assured her, “And it’s not as though I’m without protectors.”

Janet smiled thinly, but was forced to let them go.

Mr. Chumleigh waited for them in his office; his large desk piled high with even more papers. One sat in front of him, the pink silk ribbon that had tied it lying loose underneath. He shook their hands warmly and bade them sit.

A maid brought in tea, and Lucy poured for them all, Mr. Chumleigh thanking her warmly. “You’re looking remarkably well, my lady, if I may say so,” he said.

“Thank you Mr. Chumleigh,” she replied, although in her ordinary, plain green pelisse and poke bonnet she thought she had looked better. She untied the strings of the bonnet and cast it aside on a vacant chair, then took off her gloves and tucked them inside the crown.

“I’m feeling much better, sir,” she continued. “And I’ll feel better still when this matter has been resolved.”

Mr. Chumleigh’s cheer faded from his face. He resumed his large comfortable leather chair behind his desk, and looked grave. “It’s a sad business,” he said. “I have seen Lady Royston several times. She is completely distraught.”

“I’ve written to her,” said Lucy, “But I trust you Mr. Chumleigh, not to tell her I was here today.”

“If you wish it, my lady,” he replied, but she didn’t think he looked pleased.

Lucy turned to Philip. “How much did you tell him?” she asked.

Philip shook his head. “Only that you wish to terminate your contract to Sanders, and marry me.”

She turned back to look at her man of business. She thought he didn’t look approving. Suddenly, she realised she had known him as long as she had known Philip. He had worked for her family as long as she could remember, and his father before him. If she couldn’t trust him, she couldn’t trust anyone.

“I shall tell you what happened,” she said, “If you promise to tell no one.”

“Lucy.” said Philip softly, but she didn’t look at him.

“Perhaps if you understand, you won’t mind doing this so much.”

She waited until Mr. Chumleigh nodded, reluctantly. “I will tell no one.”

“Very well then.” She took a deep breath and then a long draught of warm, sweet tea to fortify herself. But she knew if she was pregnant, she would need Mr. Chumleigh’s help. There would be arrangements to be made. “Sir Geoffrey Sanders raped me.” She waited again for the information to sink in. She watched as the expression on Mr. Chumleigh’s face changed from disapproval to horror, the eyes widening in appalled recognition of the violation done to her. His thin mouth became thinner, turning down.

“After that, I felt I couldn’t marry him. However my mother still wished to go forward with the contract with Sir Geoffrey. I had to leave.”

Mr. Chumleigh found his voice. “And Lord Royston has offered you his protection?”

She smiled and looked at Philip, reaching her hand across to take his. “More than that.” She looked back to Mr. Chumleigh. “But there’s nothing to compromise me in his lordship’s offer. I accept this one of my own free will. I’m presently staying with relatives of his, in the City. They are large family, and there’s perfect propriety in it. They don’t know who I am yet, but I will tell them, and they’ll be able to vouch for me if anyone asks.”

The lawyer closed his eyes and sighed in what looked like relief. “So you could conclude your contract with Sir Geoffrey and go home if you wished to?”

“I could,” she said. She felt Philip’s hand in hers and she smiled. “But I don’t want to.”

The look she gave Philip then was openly loving, and he returned it in full measure. “I truly want to marry Lord Royston, and as soon as possible.”

Something had occurred to the sharp-witted lawyer. “Forgive me, my lady, but what - what -”

Lucy nodded in understanding. “Yes,” she said. “What if Sir Geoffrey has made me pregnant? What then? Well sir, I come into full possession of my fortune in two months, and until then, Lord Royston will act as my banker. If I’m with child, I’ll go abroad and bear it secretly. It won’t be the first time that kind of thing has happened.”

“Indeed not,” said Mr. Chumleigh heavily, but he said nothing more yet. Lucy suspected he knew far more than she did about such matters.

“I won’t have that man’s progeny take the title my father had,” she said firmly. She let go Philip’s hand so she could take up her tea, and allow him to drink his own. “I’m determined on that.”

“So you will delay your wedding to Lord Royston?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Philip spoke. “There’s no need for that. I’ll marry Lucy if she is pregnant or not. I understand her wishes, and I’ll accede to them, but I won’t leave her to manage alone. I’ll go with her, and if I go as her husband it will be better for all of us.”

Chumleigh looked at Lucy and she knew he had realised the same thing. “If we’re married when the child is born,” she said, “when it grows up it will have a claim to the title. Do you want to see everything my father built destroyed by Chancery?” The court swallowed claims like Gargantua, spinning out the process until fortunes were exhausted in legal fees, families reduced to bickering paupers.

Philip sighed and looked down at his hands, now linked together on his lap. “You’re right,” he said without looking up. Lucy felt a surge of love for him, that he could so openly acknowledge it.

“If the child is born out of wedlock,” Lucy continued inexorably, “It will have no claim on the title, whoever is the father. I will make sure it is well cared for, of course, but I won’t see it inherit the earldom.”

Philip swallowed hard and stared at his hands. After a moment he looked up and met her steady gaze. His eyes were bright. “But you’ll let me come with you?”

“Oh yes,” she said softly. He smiled wanly and reached his hand out to hers again, gripping it tightly. Then he turned back to Chumleigh.

The lawyer’s face had undergone a transformation. His look was appreciative now, understanding Lucy’s dilemma and her brave decision. “Then what can I do to help?” he said crisply.

“We’ll go somewhere we aren’t known; pose as Mr and Mrs Stanley again, perhaps,” Lucy said. She hoped Mr. Chumleigh didn’t remember the ‘again.’ “So we’ll need a discreet access to funds.”

“
Europe
is at peace,” the lawyer said. “There should be no problem with that. What will you tell your mother?”

“The truth,” Lucy said. “But not to her face. She might yet try to force me to marry Sir Geoffrey, especially if I am with child. I’ll write to her, tell her the situation, but not my whereabouts.”

Philip interrupted. “In this case,” he said. “How long before we can marry?”

“December,” said Lucy firmly. “The babe would be born in November.”

Mr. Chumleigh thought hard. “Then legally, there is little problem. I can draw up your new marriage contract to take place by the end of the year.”

Lucy smiled. “Do you hear that Philip? We can be married by the end of the year.”

Philip wasn’t to be consoled. “I’d hoped for sooner.”

“It might be sooner,” she said, although privately, she had some cause for concern and feared she really must be pregnant. It had been nearly a week now since she had expected her courses, and that wasn’t like her. She was learning how to face what she must, and the knowledge that Philip wanted to be with her had almost overset her.

They finished their tea in silence, all of them glad of the chance to think.

Mr. Chumleigh put his cup down and picked up his pen, tapping the end of the stripped quill against his teeth. “To business,” said the lawyer firmly. “I cannot end this current contract without the agreement of both parties, but it might be as well if you signed your intent to end it now. Then, if you were forced, you could produce it as evidence of intent. The contract will come to an end the day after the date set for your wedding to Sir Geoffrey Sanders.”

“So we could be married the day after that,” Philip said. Lucy smiled at him fondly.

“You could,” said Mr. Chumleigh, “But you must obtain a Special Licence for that.”

“I can do that,” Philip said. Lucy saw he felt more cheerful now he had something to look forward to. “I want to be able to protect her against her mother, to have some weapons of my own.”

Mr. Chumleigh’s mood suddenly changed; he looked down, at another sheet of paper which lay before him. “You may need it, my lord,” he said.

Philip looked at him, a keen look in his clear blue eyes. “What is this?”

“Lady Royston is the principal guardian appointed to look after Lady Lucy’s fortune in her minority,” said Mr. Chumleigh. “That is, until she is five and twenty. That time is nearly upon us, and I think Lady Royston might have seen her way out in Sir Geoffrey.”

Lucy exchanged a shocked looked with Philip, but they let the lawyer continue. “She has consistently overspent in the last ten years. There is a sum allotted to you for your living expenses, my lady, and your mother has exceeded this every year.”

“How can that be?” asked Lucy, bewildered. “It is such a large amount. And the houses were bought from the Funds when Philip inherited.”

“Yes, my lady, and they are yours, in your name, the house in
London
and the one in Buckinghamshire. But her ladyship has spent a great deal of money in - improving them, and her finery costs a great deal. Then there is - her expenditure on the tables.”

“Tables?” said Lucy wildly, and then remembered. Her Mama enjoyed a game of cards and would often indulge in a visit to the card-room when they were at a ball. Lucy had thought nothing of it. Everybody played. “She
 
- how could she?”

“Great sums change hands,” said Chumleigh. “And your mother’s habits in this sphere have increased considerably in the last year. I was looking forward to your majority, my lady, but I don’t think she could have been.”

“Sir Geoffrey plays,” said Lucy slowly. “But not to excess. Do you think he knew?”

“I think it’s highly likely,” said Philip grimly. “He could have offered to pay off her debts. That would explain why she was so keen on the match, so determined you should have him even after you ran away.”

“Oh no.” cried Lucy in distress. “Mama.”

Mr. Chumleigh slowly got to his feet. “I think,” he said ponderously, “I’ll go and find some more tea. And I need to find witnesses for these documents. Your companion?”

Lucy shook her head. “She thinks I’m Miss Moore, not Lady Lucy Moore,” she said dully, her mind on what she had just been told.

“Very well, my clerk and the maid should do. They’ve done it before,” he said, and looked at Lucy perceptively. “It may take me some time to track the maid down.”

Philip smiled his thanks and the lawyer left the room.

At once Philip got up and drew Lucy into his arms, letting her rest her head on his shoulder while she wept. She looked up at him. He got out his handkerchief and began mopping up the tears, wiping her cheeks dry. “Do you think it’s true?” she asked. “Do you think she was selling me to pay her gambling debts?”

Philip disliked Lady Royston intensely, but he had to be fair. “You seemed happy with him,” he said, “and if she gave you a little push, it wouldn’t have mattered, if he was good to you.”

“Yes,” she said mistily, but she stopped crying.

“What is reprehensible is her determination to go on with the match. I’ve seen her, Lucy, and she’s still resolved the marriage will take place.” At her look of alarm, he kissed her softly. “But it won’t,” he assured her. “It mustn’t.”

She held him for a few minutes without speaking, then she said, “If I
 
- we - have to go abroad, won’t you find it hard? I mean, me carrying a child which may belong to someone else, birthing it?”

His face grew grimmer; his mouth formed a hard line. “Yes,” he said briefly. “Of course it will be hard. But I won’t let you do this on your own. I can’t.”

“Won’t it - stop you wanting me?”

“No,” he assured her, but she thought she saw doubt in his face and she was afraid. Perhaps she should persuade him to let her go alone, at least in the last months. If she sent him home, he might not be so affected by the sight of her, and she might keep him in the longer term.

In her heart, the decision was made. She couldn’t risk losing him again. After a week of anxious waiting, she had decided that she must be pregnant, and was doing her best to face the fact. What was three months or so in the scheme of things? She thought, bravely. She also knew how many women died in childbirth, but she would buy the best help there was, and she was young, so stood a good chance of coming through this unscathed. At least in body. Well, it had happened, and she must go ahead and face it all.

“Philip?”

“Yes my love?”

She smiled now, determined not to worry him. “Ever since we - well, we - you know“ she looked up at his face shyly to see his expression soften. “ Well, I’ve wanted to do it again.” She took a breath when she made this confession. “Does that make me a wanton?”

His smile was all she wanted to see, and he tightened his hold on her, brought her to him for a kiss. “No,” he said then. “What we did was make love. That isn’t - the other thing, that’s something apart, something special.”