A Country Masquerade

by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  Charlotte had a commanding tone that would have served a naval officer well.

  Within heartbeats, all the girls had returned to their searching.

  Aubrey dropped to his knees, hoping the servant Jasper had lent him for this visit wouldn’t scold for the stains. “Can I help you? You’ll have to tell me what to do.”

  Barbara glanced at him, her eyes sparkling with some aspect of humor she chose not to share. “Don’t pull them from the ground. Break them off just above it. And you heard my…Charlotte. Only half of the patch.”

  He understood her hesitation all too well. If she felt even a fraction of what he did, the reminder of their differences in station only served to point out how unlikely their connection had to be. And yet, he’d observed often enough the close bonds between nobles raised alongside their common staff. Such didn’t happen in London, or if it did, much more rarely, but his contemporaries who had been raised in the country seemed to consider this happening commonplace. He had only to look to Daphne and Willem for an example, her London life beginning when she’d been almost grown.

  When Barbara tucked the caps into her basket, he took the woven handle from her. “I know how to carry, at least. You’d best do the searching.”

  Though one of the other girls had called out a success while they carefully plucked the mushrooms free, from the time passing, Aubrey suspected finding the fungus had as much to do with luck as skill.

  “It’s only a matter of walking slowly. You must push the grass and bushes aside with your toes.”

  The comment sent his gaze to her feet to find them bare and enticing. Slender and graceful despite the soil smudged along them.

  “I think I’ll leave that task to your skilled digits. I’ve heard in France they train pigs to find truffles the same way a hunter would use dogs to search out a fox den.”

  She glanced at him with a wide smile. “Are you claiming I’m a pig, then, sir? Or the same as one?”

  In another, her words would have been full of anger, but she offered a challenge of different sort, straining his skills as a conversationalist, an event he’d rarely experienced. Then the call from another of the girls brought the answer to him as his own lips curved.

  He caught hold of one of her dirty hands and raised it to his mouth to brush a kiss on her skin. “No, my fine girl, there is little chance of mistaking you for a pig.”

  Aubrey waited for the blush he knew would sweep her features before he lifted one eyebrow to give her a sardonic look. “A pig would be much more successful.”

  Barbara stared at him, her eyes widened in shock at his words. Then she jerked her hand free and planted both on her hips. “Well, I never.”

  He shook his head. “Not never. After all, this basket does not stand empty.”

  As much as she struggled for anger, he could see the humor tugging at her like quicksand until it won the battle as she threw her head back in a laugh.

  Aubrey stood transfixed.

  The sunlight burnished her dark curls with hints of copper.

  Her skin cried out for his touch, a craving began when he claimed her hand and now grown to a wanting so much stronger.

  “Let’s see if you are any better,” she said once she regained control. “I’ll hold the basket, and you can probe the undergrowth.”

  She stared at him boldly for a moment before he understood her meaning.

  “It’s no less than I deserve,” Aubrey answered with a shrug.

  He surrendered the basket to tug off both boots and stockings. “At least this way I won’t have blisters from walking in footwear intended to ride.”

  Where his boots kept him separate, now his feet sank into the rich soil, a twig pressing hard against one heel in a warning he risked more than blisters. He didn’t care, though. Somehow, this deeper connection with the earth married well with the bond he felt to his sweet Barbara. If she could not come to his world, at least in this he could join with hers.

  BARBARA HADN’T EXPECTED AUBREY to be so quick to follow suit. After all, it had taken her some moments to come to terms with what Charlotte told her was the best way to go hunting mushrooms. She refused to admit how much her reluctance had stemmed from the thought of Aubrey joining them and seeing her as something less.

  Instead, there he stood, shifting gingerly from foot to foot as he tested the soil, and the various sharp and uncomfortable objects she knew lay hidden within it.

  With her own toes peeking out from between the blades of grass, his state of undress, even in so small a fashion, sent a shiver of heat through her. Barbara forced her gaze to her cousins and Sarah, checking on their progress as a distraction from a man who consumed too much of her waking thought already.

  His teasing spoke of familiarity, a comfort in her presence she wished she could deny. Every moment at his side only made her wish an ignorance she could never have again. This, more than the infatuation she’d had in London, threatened her wellbeing.

  She understood Sarah’s worries better than her friend supposed. The plot had become in itself a pretense, an excuse for spending time with the one man she should stay as far from as possible on their island home. To do otherwise was to put her heart at risk.

  Yet here she stood, in an intimacy grown of bare feet, and the distance between them and the other searchers.

  Aubrey cleared his throat as though he’d recognized the same circumstances that now plagued her. “Probe the undergrowth, you say?”

  Barbara nodded, not trusting her voice to be even.

  “Well, then, we best be at it. I need to prove I am as skilled as the average pig. Not the trained ones, mind you, but dogs only go after foxes because it’s in their nature.”

  “And hunting fungus is in yours?” she teased, her voice returning as mischief took the place of discomfort.

  He shrugged. “Hunting dinner certainly is, though this is the first time I’ve gone after this part. Do you think your mistress will allow me to bring some home with me?”

  Barbara supposed Charlotte was her mistress in most senses for the moment. Her parents had given her over into her uncle’s care, and he assigned the task to his oldest daughter from how Charlotte had been keeping her busy. She pushed aside the twinge of guilt in letting the statement stand. “That would depend on how pig-like you are. Or is it how French?”

  Aubrey gave one of his deep laughs at that, and Barbara stopped her forward steps to stare.

  “You, my dear girl, offer as much entertainment as many on the stage.”

  Desperate for something to distract her from the connection she felt growing between them, Barbara latched onto the statement with the focus of a drowning man.

  “Have you seen much of the theater?” she asked, knowing full well Aubrey St. Vincent was considered a patron of the arts and spent much of his time in the theater district.

  “The tales I could tell you,” he said with a dramatic pause as though quoting from one of the performances he’d seen.

  “Then do.” She widened her eyes and tried to put forth the words in a tone appropriate to a young girl locked in the country.

  They wandered the forest edge, eyes cast down to catch any hint of the savory mushrooms, as Aubrey told her of the plays he’d seen. She’d been to some of the same, but in his voice, the stories took on a deeper meaning, as though tales of star-crossed love spoke of her and how endangered she’d become while the adventures played on her thrill of a challenge.

  “You certainly chose the more entertaining partner,” Charlotte said one of the times they’d called her over to confirm what they’d found would rest well in their bellies. “Take care you don’t wander too far though.”

  Avoiding her cousin’s stern look, Barbara discovered Charlotte had more than enough cause to question when her averted gaze found Jane at some distance. “I hadn’t realized how separated we’d become. Aubrey and I will follow you back.”

  Charlotte’s eyebrows rose at how easily his first name tripped from her tongue, but Barbara a
lmost forgot her cousin’s presence when Aubrey greeted the familiarity with a grin.

  Her world narrowed to his face. Her heart beat faster, and she longed for him to reach for her, to pull her into his embrace.

  “Pick half this cluster first. They’re safe for the table, and we’ll need as many as we can find if we’re to reward his lordship with some in return for his labors.”

  Her cousin’s words, matched with Charlotte rising off the ground and brushing her skirts free of the mossy soil, broke the trance Aubrey had trapped Barbara in.

  She stepped away as though to escape him, but stopped herself and instead bent down to the mushrooms, ever conscious of Charlotte still within earshot. The use of such a formal reference had been a warning more subtle perhaps than Charlotte’s gaze, but a warning she’d meant not just for Barbara’s ears.

  They both focused on the task in silence for a moment.

  Though she could no more read his thoughts now than ever, Barbara suspected he pondered the warning as well, or maybe he’d felt the same bond between them before Charlotte broke it, an intervention Barbara had to be grateful for no matter how much she’d have preferred to remain suspended there. They spent this time together against her uncle’s wishes and against her best judgment. She would not fail herself or her uncle so far as to cost her reputation.

  “I guess that answers my question,” Aubrey said, his voice light in a clear attempt to ease the silence between them.

  Barbara stared, wondering just what question had been floating in his mind. Did he now think Charlotte wary of him?

  “That your mistress would let me take some of these finds to the manor as well. The kitchen staff must think I’ve become quite the scavenger for all the wild fruits and foods I bring them.”

  She barely heard his last sentence over the reminder again of just what he thought her to be. He was no more than a nobleman whiling away the lonely hours in the company of an uncultured country girl. Perhaps her delight in his tellings amused him, or perhaps he had let himself fall into a bit of a fantasy like the plays they’d spoken of with him as a country role, wandering barefoot and gathering fruits of the dark earth.

  Whatever his reasoning, she had to recall her own.

  This was not some playwright’s fancy where the titled man falls for the lowly servant girl, and moves heaven and earth to rescue her from her rough upbringing. If anything, it played more the farce with him the fool. If she thought any chance of it turning out differently remained, whether she told him now or strung it out as long as she could manage before she lost him, she had taken the fool’s cap onto her own curls.

  Barbara feared she felt the press of its band already.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Even without a mirror to watch Sarah’s face, the way she tugged and jerked the brush through Barbara’s curls was evidence enough her friend had something on her mind as they prepared for bed. The ritual had extended beyond the responsibilities of station years ago, but rarely had Barbara longed for it to come to an end. Usually, the brushing soothed her and eased the day’s tensions.

  Unable to stand it a moment longer, Barbara raised a hand to catch the offending brush and spun to face her friend. “Out with it, then. Whatever you’re keeping bottled up, my scalp cannot take more of this.”

  A flush colored Sarah’s neck, but she didn’t turn away as she marshaled her thoughts. “I know you don’t want to hear my opinion. You made that clear enough this morning.”

  Barbara should have known the problem. Through unspoken agreement, the girls no longer mentioned Aubrey once they returned to the farmhouse, a conspiracy grown out of a romantic notion that her uncle was the only barrier between them. While the cousins knew Aubrey had been deceived as to her station, only Sarah understood the full of it, as well she should being its mastermind.

  “You might as well speak,” Barbara said, rising to drop her brush on the chest of drawers “I’m hearing it anyway though not in words.” To emphasize her point, she rubbed a sore spot where Sarah had pulled too hard. The country air and wind had much to answer for in the state of her hair, but Sarah’s usually gentle ministrations could untangle the most distressing of knots if she but tried.

  “You’ve grown too close, too comfortable with him. This has to end or you’ll wind up compromised no matter what your intentions. You need to tell him the truth and have him seek your uncle’s permission in lieu of your father.”

  Barbara stared at her friend. “I will not. Can you imagine Uncle Ferrier’s response should he discover what I, what all of us, his daughters included, have been about?” She pressed a hand to her breast and acted a swoon.

  Sarah scowled back, no sign of amusement on her features. “Better that than you returning to London more broken than when you were sent off, and under his watch. Don’t try to make this into a fun little game. It’s long gone beyond that. I’ve seen the two of you together, and I know you too well. You need to tell him before it’s too late.”

  Unable to meet her friend’s gaze, Barbara twisted to stare out the window, this time lifting the curtain though she saw no more than before. “I won’t tell him.” Sarah might know her well, but not so well as to realize Barbara had passed beyond the bounds of safety long ago though it took Barbara until today to admit it.

  When she told Aubrey, he’d hate her for playing him the fool—more even than she’d hated him upon hearing his cutting remarks. She couldn’t suffer that. Not now. Not yet.

  She needed to hold on to every connected moment she could for she feared those memories would be all to comfort her through a loveless marriage to any one of the suitors she left dangling in London. Her parents would see to it, and they’d be confident she needed only time for love to grow. They’d never perceive her heart had already been claimed, claimed by one who rejected her once and would do so much more harshly the second time. He’d thought her frivolous for dancing. What would he call her upon learning her schemes?

  Sarah caught Barbara by the arm and turned her round. “If you won’t tell him, I will. There is nothing to be gained in continuing on this revengeful path, and much to lose.”

  Barbara barely heard the rest of Sarah’s statement as she saw her life crumbling before her. It was far too late to save her from harm. Whether Sarah told or she did mattered not. The game had gone on too long to recover his regard.

  She drew herself to her full height and pulled on every moment her mother had taken charge for inspiration. “You will not,” she ground out in a low, commanding tone. “You will not speak of this to Aubrey. I forbid it. Do you understand? I forbid it.”

  In the stunned silence that followed, Barbara did not know which of them was more surprised. Never in all their years together had Barbara so mistreated her maid, never before had she dismissed Sarah as though she were nothing more than a servant rather than a lifelong friend.

  She raised a hand to break the silence and rub out her words, but Sarah only gave her a tight nod, not a sign of interest in reconciliation but rather an acknowledgment of the offense.

  “Please,” Barbara whispered, wanting nothing more in that moment than to have her friend again.

  Without a word, Sarah pivoted and walked to the door. She closed it a little too firmly as she left.

  Barbara sank to the floor and stared at her hands.

  Perhaps it had been Aubrey who’d seen her character clearly when he spoke what she’d overheard.

  First she deceived the man she’d given her heart, and now she stabbed the girl who had been her companion since as far back as she could remember.

  She’d trapped herself in a situation where any attempt to change things would mean she’d lose. Her blissful plan to teach him a lesson had resulted in a lesson for sure, but Aubrey remained unaware of his part in it, just as he’d had no way of knowing how he’d destroyed her world with his sharp words.

  This time, though, she had none but herself to blame. Sarah might have made the suggestion in jest or through some other
motivation, but Barbara had been the one to decide to put it into play. She’d kept the pretense, lying to herself as much as to him.

  Now she stood in a disaster of her own making where every path only led to a greater tangle and none offered hope of a better outcome.

  THE SOUNDS OF A BUSY household woke Barbara to a difficult day.

  Her curtains were still drawn.

  She’d fallen into a sleep of exhaustion still in her clothes though no longer on the hard floor because she’d moved to the bed to wait for Sarah’s return.

  The other pillow remained untouched, nor had Barbara any memory of her friend sneaking in.

  “There you are,” Marian exclaimed when Barbara made her way to the kitchen, but she said nothing further, pulled up short by a sharp glance from Charlotte.

  “You’ll have to grab some bread and cheese for breakfast, though there might be some warm tea left in the pot if you hurry.”

  Barbara stared at her oldest cousin, surprised her tardy arrival would provoke such a cool response, especially since no one had been sent to roust her.

  “We’ll be heading out shortly. Sarah has volunteered to help Cook sort the pantry and so will not be joining us.”

  Suddenly, Barbara understood Charlotte’s behavior after all.

  Sarah had not returned to their room no matter how long Barbara had managed to wait for her. The girl must have gone somewhere, and now Barbara had the answer. She’d gone to Charlotte.

  Barbara’s shoulders slumped as she turned to follow her cousin’s directions, pouring a cup of over-steeped and lukewarm tea on her way to collecting some bread and cheese from the pantry.

  Though she’d hoped to find Sarah there, to apologize and beg for forgiveness, her friend proved absent from here as much as she’d been from their room.