A Country Affair (20 page)

Wilfrid inclined his head. "It did exist. . . but I am afraid I must inform you that, sadly, it no longer does." To this minute, he had shown no contrition at all.

"But why should that disturb you?" Richard made his question sound as if his interest were academic. "It is true that I would have felt a strong compulsion to help William Payley's descendants out of their current misfortune. But I hardly think that would have alarmed you. As eager as you are to inherit my estate, you must know how easily it could support another dependent or two."

Controlling the impulse to examine his cousin as if he were a particularly vile form of asp, Richard waited, tensed, for Wilfrid's explanation. He had seen a flicker of hesitation in Wilfrid's eyes, but now they appeared to glow with a curious satisfaction.

"Do you mean to say, dear cuz, that you have not yet tumbled to the exquisite truth?" Wilfrid's lip curled in a sneer. "Deary me. I must say, I am disappointed in you when I had been thinking you such a downy one."

Richard felt strangely impervious to Wilfrid's contempt. He found it was hard to be squashed by an asp.

"I feel certain you mean to enlighten me," he said, letting a note of admiration steal into his voice. "That is the reason I invited you here today. There must be some reason why you would go to such lengths, first to ruin a relation, then to deny him."

"But of course there was a reason." Wilfrid's tone told Richard he had been incredibly dense. "When have you ever known me to exert myself to no benefit?"

"To yourself?" Richard did not skip a beat. "Never."

"Precisely, dear boy. Though, if you will forgive me, I think I shall leave off with the 'dear boys' from now on." Wilfrid sighed. "After so many years of pretending, I find this feigned affection has taken years off my life. If you only knew. . . ." Wilfrid smiled as if with profound relief. "When I think of the times I have lied and said you were an adorable child, when the truth was quite, quite the opposite. I have always despised children, but you, dear Richard, were rather loud. And boisterous. You even had the effrontery to ask me—your 'Uncle Wilfrid' as you called me then—to make a horse out of my leg for you to ride on." At the memory, Wilfrid shuddered.

Richard allowed Wilfrid his moment of spite, only mildly surprised by the depth of Wilfrid's hatred for him. He was much more astonished to hear it expressed so openly. Though Richard had known that little love existed between them—Wilfrid was far too eager to inherit Richard's fortune to have much affection for him—Richard still thought it strange for Wilfrid to divulge this so completely and with so little provocation. He could only assume that something had made Wilfrid feel extraordinarily secure to do so now.

Richard waited a moment before saying mildly, "These reminiscences are all quite touching, Wilfrid, but could we return to the topic at hand? Why did you seek to destroy William Payley?"

"Ah, yes." Wilfrid gave a chilling smile that Richard felt like wiping off with a facer. "Well, if you will promise not to tell anyone, I shall be happy to let you in on my little secret.

"After all," he continued, ignoring Richard's failure to respond, "it would be only your word against mine. And, in case I have to remind you, dear cuz, I have one friend, at least—a rather influential friend if his palace at Brighton is anything to go by—who would rather believe me than you."

Richard's expression must have betrayed his sudden understanding, for Wilfrid shook his head with mock sadness. "You should have had the wits, Richard," he said, "to quit the Whigs as soon as Prinny ever did."

Richard stared at Wilfrid grimly, aware of the import of his words. Wilfrid thought himself as safe from public censure as anyone could ever be. Anger churned inside Richard at the thought of the Regent's misplaced favor, but he was not through with Wilfrid, yet.

"You have made your point. But now, I confess I am all agog to hear why you took such great pains to conceal the connection."

"There is not much to tell." Wilfrid waved a careless hand. But his lips were parted in an avaricious smile, his eyes closed to mere slits, as he said, "Only that William Payley's ancestor, Miss Anne Trevelyan, was the elder sister of my own, very female ancestor."

Feeling, suddenly, as if a piece of gauze had been lifted from before his eyes, Richard nodded slowly. "Of course," he said in a wondering tone. "That would be the ancestor on whom your claim to my fortune is based."

"Precisely. So—" Wilfrid inclined his head—"you see that without my interference a higher claim could easily have been asserted by those farmers of yours. Is it not fortunate that my branch of the family had the good sense to claim the connection so many years ago? To claim and register it with the Garter? William Payley's family deserves to be punished for such inattention to their own self-interest. But do you know —" Wilfrid's tone suggested that there was a lesson to be learned from this episode—"when I think about the insufferable airs William Payley used to affect, I think the error was due to misplaced pride. Is it any wonder that pride is thought to be a grievous sin?"

Richard allowed his cousin to rattle on, though his hands trembled beneath his desk with the urge to strangle Wilfrid. And this desire came close to overwhelming him when he thought of the miserable life Selina had led.

The work and the pain, the fears about her future and her brother's, the humiliation and the indignity—all, it seemed, could be laid at his weaselly cousin's door.

Richard wanted nothing more than to make Wilfrid grovel in apology at her feet, which he planned to do symbolically, if not in fact. Thoughts of Selina's work-roughened hands, the chores she had been subjected to repeatedly, goaded him now as he stared at his cousin's smirk.

It was with this mixed pair of images before his eyes—Selina's relentless suffering versus Wilfrid's undeserved content—that his cousin's next words penetrated his brain.

" . . . and you will undoubtedly thank me one day, Richard, for preserving you from such an undesirable connection. 'Pon rep! To think of the Earl of Linton being forced to give the nod to such a set of yokels. Why, the very thought—"

Never in his whole life had Richard felt the fury that surged in him at that moment. The pressure it built was such that he could no longer sit.

His sudden leap to his feet cut Wilfrid's words off short. Richard had the satisfaction of seeing a pale, sickly gray replace the bloom in his cousin's cheeks.

"Since we are being perfectly honest for once—" Richard delivered his words in a scathing tone—"I think you should know that it has been the glaring penance of my life that I should be forced to call such a worthless piece of rubbish as you my heir." He took a deep, cleansing breath before proceeding. "Which fact makes what I am about to announce to you so exquisitely gratifying."

Even as he spoke, a sense of satisfaction was slowly drowning his ire, much the way a shower of rain extinguishes a tree aflame, giving Richard the ability to enjoy the play of emotions across his cousin's face.

At his first words, Wilfrid had risen indignantly in his chair, only to fall back with a look of foreboding as he absorbed Richard's last syllables. Richard would have delighted in giving him a tongue-lashing in the hope of watching him shrink by several inches, but he knew that what he'd planned instead would strike Wilfrid a
coup
no mere scolding ever could.

"It gives me the greatest honor to announce to you, Wilfrid, that I soon plan to have a new set of relations who will effectively wipe you out of the running for my succession."

"But—" Wilfrid sputtered in his chair—"I've already told you no evidence exists—"

Richard stopped him with a smile and an upheld hand. "That will no longer be necessary, I fear. Not when I plan on making Selina Payley my wife. And you need not concern yourself over your cousin Augustus, for he will be perfectly happy living with his sister and me as my long lost heir."

"But Prinny—"

Richard quelled him with a scornful eye. "Even Prinny will not be able to refute the evidence of kinship I am certain Miss Payley's uncle will provide, when I inform him of the circumstances of his brother's disgrace. Once he knows of my intention to wed his niece, I am sure he will be able to present some proof or other of his ties to the Trevelyans. After all, as you yourself have pointed out, we are not all so afflicted with the honor and pride of a gentleman like William Payley."

As Richard painted this scenario, he did it merely to torment his cousin, for he had no certainty at all that William's brother would have any proof of their ties. Richard's true plans for an heir fell along entirely different lines, but he would not mention these to Wilfrid. They would far better be discussed with Selina alone.

Eager to do just that, Richard did not wait to see how Wilfrid received his news before heading for the door. Upon making his announcement, desire had welled inside him to see Selina and to hold her in his arms. The relief of being free of Wilfrid, too, had buoyed him, but he feared his confident feelings were likely to desert him before he faced Selina with his apologies. So there was no time to be wasted now.

He paused at the door. "And need I point out that your allowance is hereby permanently revoked as is your permission to visit this house? Now, if you will excuse me,
cuz—"

Instead of seeing Wilfrid out, Richard left him sitting there, his mouth hung open in abject horror, as Richard closed the library door.

Chapter Twelve

When Richard returned to Uckfield that evening, he found it had an unusually festive air. Men and women from the country had swelled the ranks of villagers. In spite of the gathering dusk and a strong threat of chill, the younger set collected in doorways to boast or giggle with their friends.

Normally, the unexpected appearance of an elegant traveling coach bearing the coat of arms of the Earl of Linton would have attracted a great deal of attention. But the villagers halted in their visiting only long enough for one good stare at Richard's impressive crest, before taking up where they had left off. His arrival caused no more flurry than a leaf that has drifted onto a pond already rippled by stones.

To say, however, that Mr. and Mrs. Croft at the inn were stunned by their discovery of his identity would be to understate the case. The sight of Richard's intimidating retinue, from his lofty coachman to his haughty, exacting valet, nearly reduced the poor couple to tears. If Richard had not already known them, he would have seen at once that his hosts were not accustomed to entertaining visitors of such an elevated rank.

But Richard would not think of appearing among these people again under any other guise. If Selina chose to disappoint him, he wanted the world to know that she had received a very eligible offer from the Earl of Linton and had refused him.

Mr. Croft seemed particularly anxious to be reassured that he had done nothing during Richard's previous stay to offend. But Richard's calm politeness, and his evident pleasure in being shown to his former room, quickly laid the poor man's fears to rest. Then, Mr. Croft's only lingering regret seemed to be that he could not give his honored guest the full attention he deserved.

"For, your lordship," Mr. Croft informed Richard proudly, "tonight it falls to me to collect this year's valentines and dole them out by lot."

Richard had been so intent upon his confrontation with Wilfrid that morning, he had overlooked the day's date, and, on the road, his thoughts had been consumed with the problem of how best to approach Selina. Now, he realized with a start that it was indeed Valentine's Eve, and the first glimmer of hope he'd had since leaving London lit a flame inside his chest.

He urged Mr. Croft to give him the details of the celebration.

"Well, your lordship," Mr. Croft said, "it goes like this. All the youths and the young maids hereabouts place their names in my basket. Then, it's up to me to see that they're fairly parceled out."

"An ancient custom, I presume."

"That and it is, your lordship."

Richard knew from the experience of overseeing his own estates that ancient customs were more likely to survive in rural areas. And in Uckfield, where the people were rarely exposed to the changing fashions of London, people would assuredly hold fast to the old ways.

"So the youths of Uckfield must take their chance, must they, on whom their favor falls for the year?"

Mr. Croft surprised him with a cunning wink. "Oh, there's always them what are sharp enough to get around."

"Is that so?" Richard smiled at his host's evident complicity. "Would you care to inform me by what method a man, who happens to be in love with a particular maid, might be assured that his valentine will be received by the proper hands?"

A hint of reluctance tinged Mr. Croft's honest face. "Well, your lordship, if I said that some delivers their own valentines themselves, I wouldn't be telling ye wrong."

"But. . ." Richard sensed there was a better way . . . "you have a different suggestion?"

"Aye, sir, your lordship." In his enthusiasm, Mr. Croft seemed to shed ten years at least. "There are some what likes to do it in a more—what ye might call—devious way."

At Richard's encouragement, he continued, "It can be arranged with the man in charge, so to speak, that the valentine be given to the proper maid."

"Oh, it can, can it?" Richard chewed upon this bit of information.

As Mr. Croft only gave another wink, Richard asked, "And would a request for you to cater my own wedding feast be sufficient inducement to perform such a service?"

A smile such as Richard had never seen lit up his host's ruddy features. "Sure and it would be, your lordship."

"Then, I must instantly beg of you some paper and ink, with the promise that your service will be available when required."

* * * *

Selina was sitting at her kitchen table with Augustus when he asked if she would go into Uckfield for the Valentine's Eve celebration.

Since returning to The Grange, she had immersed herself in work, refusing to speak about Richard or her trip, except to inform her brother of the failure of her search. His subsequent attempts to convince her of the paleness of his scholarly ambitions had brought a mist to her eyes, but Selina was determined to match his courage. She would not let her own suffering add to his disappointment, and she resolved to spare him an awareness of the hurt Richard had done her.