A Country Affair (18 page)

Richard leaned forward to pour his guest another glass of port. "I have recently become acquainted with William Payley's children. Finding them in distressed circumstances, I formed an interest in their behalf."

"I see."

Sir Henry's searching look belied his simple statement. A man of his perspicacity must wonder just what Richard's particular interest might be.

But Richard was not of a mind to admit anyone to his innermost hopes yet. Addressing Sir Henry, he said, "So, if I understand you correctly, the incident at Cambridge caused you to sever your relations with William Payley?"

Sir Henry's brows shot up. "Not at all, although you may be surprised to hear it. It was Payley himself who decided he would no longer maintain contact with his former friends in order to spare them the embarrassment of association with an outcast." Again, that searching look sought Richard’s— "William was a fine gentleman. He had more than one friend willing to believe his version of the story."

"Which was . . . ?"

Sir Henry paused for a curious length of time. When at last he spoke it was with a little laugh. "My lord, I hope you will forgive me. But I cannot help wondering why you are posing these questions to me instead of to your own cousin."

Nothing he could have said could have surprised Richard more. "My cousin Wilfrid?" he asked. A vague sense of disquiet began to invade his mind. "Why should Wilfrid have anything to say upon the subject?"

After a moment's pause, Sir Henry's face relaxed. "Then you do not know of your cousin's involvement in the scandal." His statement was rhetorical, but Richard responded anyway with a sharp shake of his head.

"I think I begin to see . . . ."

"Then, you are much more fortunate than I," Richard said, "and I beg you to enlighten me at once."

"You would have been just a babe at the time, if even born. Forgive me, Lord Linton, if I have been mistaken in my notions, but apparently you were not aware that your cousin, Sir Wilfrid Bart, was a principal participant in the incident we have been discussing."

"A principal participant. Do you mean, Sir Henry, to say that Wilfrid was one of the gentlemen playing cards with William Payley when he was accused of cheating?"

"No, my lord. That is not all I mean to say." Sir Henry faced Richard squarely. "Your cousin was one of the players, but he also was the man who made the accusation of cheating against my friend."

Richard felt the first quivering of sickness inside his stomach. "I confess you have surprised me."

"Then, at this point, perhaps, you would prefer to consult with your cousin about the incident."

Richard's laugh was bitter. "I think not, Sir Henry. When you hear that my cousin has denied all knowledge of William Payley or his family, perhaps you will understand why I should prefer to learn the details from you."

A look of deep satisfaction spread over Sir Henry's features. "Very well," he agreed.

Over the next many minutes, he reconstructed the circumstances of what had been only one of countless card games among the students of King's College, recounting a time when he and his friends had been both young and irresponsible. Listening to him now, Richard found it hard to believe that such a staid gentleman could ever have been so heedless, and he said so.

With an astute grimace, Sir Henry conceded how much he had changed. "It was in no small part due to my friend's tragic fall that I became the sober man you see today. It did not escape me that if a fine man like William could be ruined over a game of cards, then the same fate could always befall me. You must understand," he continued, "that William, no matter that he was a superior student, had picked up some rather inadvisable habits during his years at Eton. You know the reputation of the King's Scholars?"

"Indeed I do. A most interesting lot."

"Nevertheless, I did not then, nor shall I ever believe that William Payley cheated at cards."

"What do you believe happened?" Richard held his breath.

Sir Henry released his. "At the risk of offending you, my lord, I would suggest that another man at that table possessed the type of character which more readily lends itself to a lie."

"Wilfrid." Richard tried to keep his voice steady, but the anger he was feeling at the moment made his cousin's name come out in a sharp clip.

"I am sorry to say it—" Sir Henry shook his head—"but, my lord, I have to think it. You see—" he seemed puzzled by something—"your cousin had taken a strong dislike to William Payley, almost upon first meeting, which was strange when you consider that some relation existed between them."

"Relation?" This new fact made Richard churn inside. "To what relation do you refer?"

"That I cannot tell you. Only that William, it seemed, had mentioned to your cousin that they had some family connection or other, which Wilfrid, at least at first, seemed perfectly willing to acknowledge. Before too long, however, his behavior changed, and he went about refuting any hint of a connection.”

"Curious," Richard said, though his mind had leapt rapidly ahead. What else could inspire Wilfrid to deny a relative if not the possibility of his own inheritance being weakened.

"Of course," Sir Henry was going on, regretfully, "there is nothing that can be done to rectify matters now."

"No. Wilfrid is not likely to confess." Though with his jaw clenched tightly, Richard promised himself he would try to force his cousin into a confession if he had to strangle one out of him.

Sir Henry sat back in his chair and sipped his port. The room was silent for a while, but then he ventured, "It would afford me some satisfaction to know that William's children were being cared for. If you will make me a gift of their direction, Lord Linton, I would be most happy to do something for them."

Richard sensed a question behind Sir Henry's statement. He did not require his guest's gentle smile to feel soothed, when he said, "I shall be happy to give it to you, sir. However, you may rest assured that William Payley's children will never want for anything again."

Chapter Eleven

Hurt and angry, Selina had not waited to see whether Richard would return. Though a part of her ached desperately to hear his reasons for the deceit, she refused to give him the chance to slip past her defenses. The circumstance of his coming so soon after her application to the Garter, his neglecting to give his name, and his cousin's seeming inability to trace their family link were much too convenient for coincidence. Plainly, he and Sir Wilfrid Bart had conspired to prevent her from laying claim to their name.

The fact that she had only done so in order to secure her brother's place at Eton had not dissuaded them from their design. Selina supposed that the elegant Lord Linton had not believed a penniless girl like herself would have such a selfless motive. But with his own poor conscience to guide him, he must have feared she would try to make demands upon his purse as well.

The thought that Richard suspected her of being a fortune hunter made her flush with wounded pride. She would rather die than beg for money. But apparently, Richard had not been able to see this aspect of her character. What he had seen, and had been quick to turn to his advantage, was a girl only too eager for his kisses.

The shame of her eagerness in his arms made Selina weep inside, but she refused to be cowed by what was past. Her ready anger, her pride's best ally in her troubled life, surged to bolster her resolve. No one would ever be permitted to see how foolishly she had allowed herself to be duped. And no one would catch her waiting at home to discover whether Richard would come back to explain his perfidy or whether he would abandon Uckfield and her without a parting glance.

Before the sun had set on Richard's back, Selina had already made her plans. Since Richard's emissary was not to be believed, she would have to find her own proof of Joshua Payley's marriage to Anne Trevelyan.

Leaving Augustus alone to manage the farm was her only cause for concern, but she knew that her pride would accept no other solution, and Augustus assured her that he would call upon their neighbors if any crisis arose.

Unfortunately, these words reminded her of the promise she had made in the barn, that she would never marry Romeo Fancible. Brushing a hasty tear from her eye, Selina told herself that promises to traitors need never be kept, but it took all the strength she possessed to hide her misery from Augustus. She scribbled a hurried note to the vicar, asking him to watch over Augustus in her absence, and left The Grange the next morning, knowing she had done all she could to protect her brother.

The stagecoach would be passing through Uckfield before dawn. Unwilling to risk meeting Richard at the inn, Selina made Lucas drive her in the wagon as far as the road to Hayward’s Heath, where the coach might be flagged down. Before he left her shivering in the bitter cold of a February morning, she threatened him upon pain of dismissal not to leave her brother to cope alone, and assured him that if he did not make all haste back to The Grange, he would feel her wrath upon his back the moment she returned. Surprisingly, the scapegrace seemed to take the responsibility of guarding his young master more seriously than she ever would have believed, which gave Selina a measure of comfort.

The stage, when it came, was crowded, noisy, and redolent of onions. But a large, matronly woman insisted there was room for one more and argued with the other passengers until they made a place for Selina on the seat. Wedged between this woman's soft, warm body and the sharp elbow of a man who was far less charitable, Selina prayed she would find what she sought in Cuckfield.

Not knowing whom she would have to face, she had brought the valentine along with her, safely tucked inside the deep pocket of her cloak.

She did not dare to read it. The sentiment in those words would shake her fragile defenses, and she could not afford to give in to her sorrows now. Until this moment, when her own heart was in tatters, she had not known how much those lover's words had tempted her to believe in love. But now, she could not think of them without remembering Richard's base deception.

Doubts about that other couple's feelings naturally followed. Had one person been loved and the other one spurned? Had Joshua Payley laid bare his heart to a Trevelyan only to have it trod into the dirt, too?

With a sharp shake of her head, Selina determined to discover the truth, no matter how long it would take her, though the pitifully few shillings in her purse gave her decision the lie.

The slow pace of the stagecoach in winter brought her into Cuckfield near dark. Like most villages, Cuckfield seemed to possess only the one parish church, and though the window shade in the stage had been drawn, Selina did not think that they had passed any others since leaving Hayward's Heath. The coach had stopped a number of times along the route, either to let a passenger down or to take another one up, and she had used the opportunity on each occasion to peer outside. Nothing had greeted her gaze but open heath, unrelieved by villages or farms.

If the information she sought did not rest in Cuckfield Church, Selina knew she would have no choice but to return home. She did not have the money of a Wilfrid Bart to hire a carriage to take her from village to village. And she dared not spend their last resources seeking after a truth she could not be certain of.

The stage let her down in the street not far from the church. With a shiver, Selina clasped her cloak tightly about her shoulders. Inured to the cold by a life of work outdoors, she was dismayed by the chill she felt now as she made her way inside.

The church was not as empty as one might have expected. An elderly woman had come to sweep out the nave. When asked, she identified herself as the vicar's housekeeper and, when Selina explained that her errand would require her to search the parish registries, the woman offered to notify the vicar of her visit at once.

It was fortunate, Selina decided later, that the Cuckfield Church was so blessed. She might easily have found herself in one of the many churches with no clergyman at all, or in one where the vicar was shared with several others. As it was, the Reverend Mr. Stanhope lived but a stone's throw away in a tidy vicarage, and he appeared to be at home.

Invited into his library, she was relieved to find a stooped, gray-haired gentleman with a scholarly air, who came instantly to his feet. His bow, though slightly wobbly and hardly polished, clearly ignored the unfashionable cut of her clothes.

To say that he was surprised by Selina's visit would be putting it mildly, but his first gentle words made her tense.

"My, my," he exclaimed in a soft, pleasant voice as he took her offered hand. "This is most unexpected and most, most unusual. To think of having two visitors in the same week, and with the same purpose, mind you! Which is not at all to imply that either visit is unwelcome at all. No, no. Quite the contrary, in fact. A merely unexpected pleasure."

"Another person has come, asking to see the parish registries?" Selina knew at once he must be speaking of Wilfrid, but she wanted to be careful about what she said.

"Yes, a most elegant gentleman. Quite turned out in the latest mode, I suppose, though I am hardly an authority upon the subject of clothes." Reverend Stanhope spied a spot of ink on one of his fingers and wiped it off with a linen handkerchief drawn from his coat pocket. "It is simply rare indeed for anyone in Cuckfield to sport quite the . . . degree of color, one might say, affected by the gentleman."

"Did you catch this gentleman's name? I suppose he might have been upon the same errand."

"His name?" Reverend Stanhope appeared flustered by the question. "Do you know, my dear, I do not believe he gave me his card. Nor, if I recollect, did he bother to name himself." He gave her an apologetic smile. "You see, I was so surprised—really quite put off my stride, as it were, by his quite unexpected appearance—most, most unusual to see such a turned-out gentleman in these parts—that I do not think I thought to ask for it."

Selina could tell by the strong impression the man had made on the vicar that he must indeed have been Wilfrid in his dandy's clothes.