A Country Affair (16 page)

He gathered her nearer in his arms, if such a thing were even possible. "Selina, are you hurt?"

Carefully—suspicious of her lack of bruises—she tested each limb, then her back and her head. Widening her eyes, she gave her head a little shake. "No, I don't think so," she said. "But my barn certainly is."

Richard's lips quivered. Selina felt a surge of joy just waiting to escape. With a flood of relief, they both gave into laughter. Richard toppled on his back, rolling her over with him.

Selina found herself propped on her elbows on Richard's chest. He did not seem to be uncomfortably crushed.

"Selina Payley, you are the woman of my dreams."

Selina looked down at his gleaming eyes, and her heart nearly burst at what she saw. Shyly now, still uncertain as to how to proceed, she let her instincts guide her. She raised a hand to touch his cheek. He closed his eyes as if in pain.

"Am I too heavy for you?" Selina struggled to remove herself, but his arms lashed more tightly around her.

"Heavy? No. Tempting? Yes."

When he opened his eyes again, she could not deny the fire she saw inside them. Frightened, but reassured at the same time, she could only squeak, "Tempting? Me?"

In answer, Richard rolled her off again, his body melding with hers. She felt his fingers at her bodice, felt them loosening it.

With a low moan of pleasure she could not conceal, Selina arched in his arms.

A man cleared his throat, and she froze.

"Rusticating, cuz?"

At the sound of a weary drawl, Richard went rigid against her. His eyes flew open.

"Well, deary me,” the stranger said. “Here I was, thinking you had been waylaid by thugs and held to hostage, when you was playing at husbandry with the dairymaid."

Rage, cold rage, stared back at Selina from Richard's eyes. But the stranger's remark had slapped her in the face. She could feel her cheeks burning. She covered them with both hands to cool them, as Richard pried himself off.

She was fumbling with her bodice, which was only mildly disturbed, when he reached down a hand to yank her up.

He would not let her turn away, but made her stand close beside him, her head hanging so as not to reveal her face, as Richard greeted the newcomer.

"Wilfrid." Richard's tone was enough to make anyone cringe. "You will apologize at once to Miss Payley."

He was trembling. Out the corner of her eye, Selina could see his features quivering, whether from unanswered lust or the purest rage, she could not tell. But her own knees had nearly lost the strength to hold her up.

"Miss Payley? Oh, my heedless tongue! But, my dear, you must forgive me!"

Sensing insincerity, Selina slowly raised her gaze to take the stranger in and received a shock. The most frivolous dandy she had ever beheld stood just inside the door to her barn, bewigged, rouged and patched, in the finest silk hosiery, pink inexpressibles, a polka dot waistcoat and lavender overcoat. He smirked, then raised a fan to cover his lips.

"But what was one to think when my dear cousin Linton goes disappearing? Then, when I post down in breathless horror of finding him dead, I am surprised, nay shocked, to discover him rolling about in a crumbling barn. I heard the crash, you know, as I was walking about trying to knock somebody up at the house, which, by the way, appears to be quite unattended. Your servants, ma'am, should be reprimanded for leaving it so open to theft. But where was I —

"Oh, yes." He tapped his fan to his chin. "I heard this quite alarming crash coming from the barn, and naturally ran to investigate. Richard—" the dandy made this aside in a lowered voice—"I hope this can be put down as proof of my fond attachment to you, for I scarcely heeded my own safety in doing so. Nevertheless, you can imagine my relief at finding not only that there were no ruffians inside, but that you were indeed alive and in such obvious good health—"

The dandy raked them both with his eyes, not missing a detail of their dishevelment—their loosened clothes, the remnants of their hay fight. "That, I hope, at least, will excuse my very poor manners."

Selina jerked her chin into the air. She would not be insulted by a dandy. No matter that his clothes were so much finer than hers. No matter who he was.

Richard's cousin.

Richard's voice cut across this thought. "Wilfrid, what are you doing here?"

Richard's anger had only slightly mellowed. She could hear it in the biting quality of his voice.

The tone she had never heard in it before almost made him a stranger to her.

Linton. This Wilfrid person had called him Linton.

"Richard—" Selina drew herself up even though she wanted to sink beneath the earth. She hoped the tremor in her heart did not reach her voice. "Who is this gentleman, please?"

He made a move towards her as if to take her hand, but she hastily stepped away.

Looking stunned by her gesture, Richard hesitated, then bowed. "Miss Payley, may I present a distant cousin of mine, Sir Wilfrid Bart?"

Sir Wilfrid Bart, she heard, and her world shattered. His rank, his dress, his insufferable smugness proclaimed him to be far above her own station.

But the dandy was making her a leg, and she had to keep her shock from showing.

"
Miss
Payley." The insinuation in his voice slid over her like oil. "Any friend of my dear cousin Linton's is a friend of mine."

The repetition of Richard's true name made her want to flinch, but Selina held her head stiffly.

"And you, sir," she said to Richard in a frosty tone, "would be the Earl of Linton." She prayed he would deny it, that she could believe him if he did.

But all Richard did was address her with a serious light in his eyes. He made her a bow that was far deeper than the one his cousin had made. "At your service, my dear."

Chapter Ten

Richard had watched the soft glow vanish from Selina's eyes. Her accusing stare had struck like a blow to his abdomen, so he did not see the benefit of his cousin's next remark.

"Oh, dear," Wilfrid said in politely distressed tones. "I fear I have appeared at a most awkward time."

Much worse than awkward, Richard thought. Wilfrid could not have chosen a more damaging time if he had maliciously set out to do so, but, angry as he was at the interruption, Richard could not accuse his cousin of that.

He also could not explain himself to Selina with Wilfrid listening, yet he knew he had to do something to remove the hurt he had inflicted upon her, and as soon as possible.

Richard was on the point of asking Wilfrid to excuse them both, when Selina stepped into the breach.

"Not at all," she said with her beautiful chin in the air. "It appears that you have come at a most propitious time."

Richard winced at the implication. She clearly thought that Wilfrid had saved her from a fate worse than death.

"May I presume," she continued icily, "that you are the cousin—" she faltered, then recovered herself—"the cousin Lord Linton has spoken of? The gentleman who was to search the Cuckfield registries for proof of my ancestor's marriage?"

A glimmer of comprehension lit Wilfrid's eyes. He inclined his head. When he spoke, his voice was tinged with the utmost regret.

"I am indeed Linton's messenger. But alas, I can only bring you news that I fear must distress you. I am afraid there is no recording of such a marriage within many miles of Cuckfield."

Richard felt a sinking inside him, a surprisingly keen disappointment. The evidence which would have allowed him to throw his mantle over the Payleys had not materialized. He had not realized until that precise moment just how strongly he had wanted it to exist. And if he felt it, he knew that Selina was suffering far more greatly.

Ignoring Wilfrid, Richard reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. But she suddenly whirled to face him with such fury in her eyes, he felt like stepping back.

"You may reserve your condolences, sir, for someone who needs them. I believe I understand quite perfectly why your cousin discovered no proof of our kinship."

Feeling as if someone had shot him in the chest, Richard could only stare after her as she turned next to Wilfrid. "I must thank you as well, Sir Wilfrid, for such assiduous devotion to your cousin's interest."

With that last accusation, only thinly veiled, Selina tossed her hair over her shoulder and stormed from the barn, leaving an empty silence in her wake.

Richard, who had recoiled from her implications, felt as if his blood had begun to churn. Anger at her unjust thoughts warred with his guilt for knowing he had deceived her as to his true identity. He knew his behavior, no matter how well-intentioned he had thought it, had been underhanded and reprehensible. He had done his best to become intimately acquainted with two persons without allowing them to know his name. He had assumed upon their ignorance to linger among them for his own ends, a motive he had been reluctant to admit to himself, which was painfully obvious to him now.

He had stayed with the unacknowledged hope of taking Selina to bed.

Even now the frustration of his wishes had left him trembling, so much so that he was at pains to distinguish how much of his reaction was due to unfulfilled lust and how much to anger. And to have Wilfrid, of all people, witness his just deserts . . . .

Wilfrid's voice cut in. "I say, dear boy, I hope you will forgive my inopportune interruption. If I had had any notion of what might be going on in this dilapidated structure, I would never have—"

"Just why did you come, Wilfrid?" Richard was in no mood to hear his cousin's wanderings.

"But, Richard," Wilfrid said plaintively, "I thought I had explained it all most clearly. You see, when your note came to me, my suspicions were at once aroused by your failure to frank it. I was most concerned, nay grievously so. It quite truly appeared as if someone might have tampered with the letter. Nevertheless, knowing you to be disgustingly fit and strong, I supposed you able to take perfect care of yourself. I obeyed your summons to the letter and faithfully searched all the miserable little churches and chapels for miles about Cuckfield. And, at this point, cuz, I absolutely must protest the futility of such a mission. If there is one crumbling, draughty, mildewing edifice in Cuckfield, there must be a thousand in the surrounding few miles. I hope you do not plan to have me investigate any further such claims, for if you do, I am sure I shall take my death of cold."

Richard felt like striking the peevish expression from his cousin's face, but he knew he was wrong to feel that way. He could not blame Wilfrid for his own mistakes. If he had truly wished to do Selina a service he ought to have gone himself.

"That does not explain why you came here instead of sending word as I had expressly asked."

"My dear boy—" Wilfrid seemed sincerely hurt by his displeasure—"if you plan to take the habit of disappearing without one word of explanation either to your servants or to your relatives, simply inform me now, and I shall wash my hands of you. But what was one to think when you appeared to vanish off the face of the earth without a trace? Should I have meekly handed over a ransom to the first person so bold as to demand one, or should I—as I was persuaded you would wish me to do—show the courage you so often accuse me of lacking and come in search?"

Richard was about to protest the nonsense in Wilfrid's logic, but his cousin's expression changed.

"And," Wilfrid continued, his gaze burrowing deeply into Richard conscience, "I have to confess no small degree of shock at finding you engaged in activities that quite frankly have the appearance of a clandestine affaire. I very much fear, both from what I was told at the inn you directed me to, and from the umbrage that unhappy, young lady has justly taken that she had not been fully apprised of your identity."

Wilfrid's last words were uttered in a tone of gentle reproof. To be the object of his cousin's scorn on top of his other indignities was more than Richard could bear. He quite saw that this whole ghastly, disturbing episode had been his fault from beginning to end, and he would be immensely fortunate if Selina ever consented to forgive him.

By the look on her face as she had left the barn, Richard judged it would be quite some time, if ever, before that happy conclusion could ever be reached.

He could not help thinking, however, that if Wilfrid had turned up the evidence she was seeking, she would feel more in charity with him now. As it was, she clearly believed him to have conducted a false search in order to prevent her from claiming kinship to him. Worse—during that time of waiting, to have taken advantage of her trust. She could not know how hard he had tried to fight his attraction to her. He wished desperately to have some proof that his intentions had been good.

"You are quite sure, Wilfrid, that there was no record of a Payley—any Payley—in those church records?"

Wilfrid gave a sympathetic shrug. "Sorry, dear boy, but no. I can truthfully state that no such record remains in Cuckfield whether it ever existed or not."

"No mention, either, of the name Trevelyan?"

"I am sure if there had been, I should have noted it."

"Of course." Richard heaved a sigh. So he would have nothing with which to comfort Selina except for his own apologies. He would be proud to offer to pay for Augustus's schooling, but her pride was such that he expected she would refuse him. He would hate to resort to telling her about the conditions under which the King's Scholars lived, but eventually he would be forced to. And then, though she might accept his aid for Augustus's sake, she would never forgive him for persuading her to do it.

The pull of Selina's warm body, her glow, and innocence still drew him strongly. He wanted nothing more than to pursue her into the house, to make her listen to him and see reason. To take her in his arms and kiss her anger away —

No. Richard stopped himself from thinking such things. She would not want his embraces now. If he knew Selina, she would hurl a pot at him the moment he showed his face at the door. But he could not let that danger prevent him from speaking his apology as soon as possible.