A Country Masquerade

by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  He cursed under his breath, reliving the sheer panic in her expression as she jerked free of his arms. She must have thought him no more than a lusty nobleman after all, as well she should with his lack of consideration for her virtue.

  Staring in the direction she’d gone, he thrust a hand through his hair, angry at himself. He’d taken advantage of her vulnerability, especially with her emotions heightened by the conflict with her friend.

  His gaze sought her out for all that he should give her time before forcing himself on her even long enough to explain. She’d been moving so quickly, though, that he could not find any sign of her along the forest edge.

  He scanned further only to have the same result.

  Tension coiled in his gut.

  She’d gone at a flat run, but even so she should have been in sight still and would have been if she hadn’t crossed from the fields to the forest in her agitation. She could get lost, hurt, or worse in there.

  Before he could pause to consider, Aubrey found himself charging across the intervening space with neither plan nor an effort to alert the others. All he could think of was Barbara. He had done this to her. He had sent her into the wild undergrowth, too upset to care where she headed.

  The forest proved as unyielding as he’d feared from how a scrap of torn cloth marked her entry point. He had little of the huntsman in him, but a blind man could follow the path she’d cut, undergrowth trampled and branches thrust out of the way, some having ripped free more fabric.

  Each marker only proved her state of distress, especially when a deer path cut around one dense bush that she’d clearly charged right through, leaving who knew how many scratches on her skin.

  He burned for her pain, feared for her safety, and cared for nothing other than the next hint he could find. Mindless of his own safety, he raced forward as fast as he could in the hopes of catching up to her, or at least of catching a glimpse of her before him so he could know she had not already come to harm.

  A sound in the distance drove him faster, though whether from Barbara or some animal he could not tell. He shoved aside bushes, jerked free when he grew tangled as she must have, and charged ahead with little thought to his own safety, only hers.

  His momentum cut suddenly, one foot trapped under a raised root.

  Aubrey threw his arms out wide to catch himself, already planning how to spring onto his feet and continue forward.

  His hands met open air where he’d expected land, and the soil, when he found it at last, held roots, rocks, and no purchase. With a startled yell, Aubrey continued his tumble head over heels down a steep slope.

  Trees and rocks appeared out of nowhere, crashing into his sides and his limbs, battering his head as he fell.

  Aubrey could not control his descent nor catch hold of anything strong enough to stop him. The roots tore free, and the rocks became yet another object to slam into him.

  Just when he seemed finally to be slowing, a sharp pain stabbed his head for a heartbeat before the world went dark.

  SHE’D BEEN RIGHT ABOUT his woodcraft from the sound of him coming through the forest long after any reasonable sort would have given up, especially with him thinking her a country girl familiar with the area. Her only hope lay in keeping quiet and letting him pass her by, his persistence more damning for the fact that he chased a lie.

  Then Barbara heard a great shout followed by curses her delicate ears should not have been party too, but that wasn’t what drove her to her feet.

  Between the blistering words came thuds and crashes much greater than even Aubrey could have produced on his way through the forest.

  Before she could wrestle her way through brush that seemed to grow fingers to catch on her hair and clothes with every step, though, the noise ended as quickly as it had begun, leaving a hushed silence.

  Barbara ripped her skirt free of the latest snag, aware she’d have much to answer for in her treatment of the clothing, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care for her reputation, her secrets, or anything.

  She had to find Aubrey.

  The place where he went over, as falling seemed the only possible explanation for what she’d heard, was marked with a swath cut through the brush and evidence of a rock fall that made her wince as she thought of the hard stones tumbling around him.

  “Aubrey. Aubrey! Where are you?” she called down, waiting for his response or at least a groan.

  Still she heard nothing.

  “Aubrey St. Vincent, you answer me this very moment,” she scolded, anger masking the fear that threatened to steal her breath.

  She didn’t wait for him this time, instead making her careful way down the very same slope, mindful of its steep nature and the warning in the signs of rocks that sprang free in his passage. As much as she wanted to blame her tight chest on the difficult climb down, she heard nothing from Aubrey any of the times she paused to listen.

  At last the slope started to level out, and she caught sight of him, lying unnaturally still with a dark, shiny puddle next to his head.

  Barbara leapt the last few feet, staggering as her shoes met uneven ground, but not stopping until she fell to her knees at his side.

  “Aubrey, please. Open your eyes. Talk to me.” The tears streaming down her face fell to dampen his mouth and offered the only sign of life as the liquid bubbled between his lips. “You have to be all right. This is my fault. You cannot be the one to suffer for it. Please, Aubrey.”

  Grief tore at her, but she swallowed hard and stood once more, unwilling to wallow in it and chance his only hope for survival.

  The branches had done her a good turn in starting tears so she could shred her skirt even more and use it to cushion his head and bind the wound.

  No sooner had she covered the gash with her makeshift bandage, though, but the blood seeped through to stain the cloth a dark red. She had neither the tools nor skill to tend to him. She needed to get help.

  Barbara called as loud as she could for Charlotte and the others, but she’d come too far within the forest to be heard.

  She knelt at his side once more, dropping a chaste kiss on his cheek. “I’d not leave you if I had any choice, my love, but you need more than my tears if you’re to mend. I’ll be back as soon as I can manage.”

  With that she had to be satisfied because she could delay no longer though she received no response.

  Barbara attacked the slope with more success going up than on the way down, her fear driving her while she’d moved far enough over to have no risk of sending something down to injure him further.

  Their path lay heavy in the crowded growth, and all those branches torn aside now eased her way and allowed her to speed toward the meadow, calling as she went.

  “There you are,” came Charlotte’s voice long before Barbara broke free of the greenery. “My father is not going to be pleased with your behavior, and if this is how you take advantage of the loose reins, I won’t be party to it.”

  Though she stood hands on hips, clearly ready for a further scolding, one glance at Barbara’s state brought shock to her face. Then Charlotte wiped her expression clear. “What happened? Are you injured?”

  Barbara hadn’t realized until that moment how she wore poor Aubrey’s blood on hands and skirt. “No, no,” she said, waving Charlotte’s fears away impatiently. “I’m fine. It’s Aubrey who needs your help. I’ll take his horse to the farmhouse and get my uncle. Go tend him, Charlotte.” She gave what directions she could, ending with, “You can probably follow the trail better than I can describe it. Look for the rock fall.” Then she paused, exhaustion and fear breaking through her control for just a moment. “Help him, please.” Tears gathered in her eyes once again.

  Her cousin waved Barbara past. “I will. I promise,” she called after.

  Even before Barbara reached the tethered horse and clambered aboard with the use of a nearby rock, she heard her cousin gathering the others. The girls would tend him for her, Charlotte most of all, but from the look of his i
njury, and his unconscious state, he needed a doctor’s care.

  The horse shied a bit, most likely from the scent of blood, but no unruly beast would stop her from saving Aubrey, and she soon brought the horse under control, transforming its nervous energy into a fast canter that ate up the distance between her and the help she so desperately needed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Barbara rode up to the farmhouse to find the sound of her frantic arrival had already provoked a gathering. Her uncle stormed over in the next moment, his face a mixture of fury and fear.

  “What have you done? Whose horse is that? How did you come by it?” he demanded, making her all too aware of every time she’d thoughtlessly began something that led to disaster, often taking others with her.

  He paled as she swung down, clearly having caught sight of the blood still marking her. “My daughters. Where are they?”

  She put a hand against his chest to stop him long enough to catch her breath.

  He stepped aside, avoiding her touch.

  “My cousins are fine, but we need your help. Charlotte and the others are tending him as best they can. We need to bring a wagon and make a sling to bring him up the slope.”

  Her words eased the fear, but his anger remained visible in the pounding vein on his forehead. “Who is he?”

  His gaze passed from her to the horse and back again, his jaw firming as he made the connection. “I told you to leave that be else trouble come to you, and to my family.”

  Barbara’s eyes itched with tears, but she blinked them away. “I know you did. You were wiser than I am, but there’s no time. The blood is his. He needs a doctor’s care and fast.”

  Uncle Ferrier grew still for a heartbeat only before he turned away to set things in motion.

  “Peter, get the wagon. Kevin, grab a pallet from the servant quarters and several lengths of rope. Come on, boys. Hurry now. A man’s life is at stake.”

  Barbara released her breath on a shaky sigh. She reached for the reins, knowing the horse already worn out, but what choice did she have?

  Her uncle closed his hand around hers and plucked the treated leather from her fingers. “He’s worked hard enough for this already. John will have the tending of him.”

  She nodded, stepping aside as one of the stable boys came to take the exhausted horse. On a fresh horse, she’d be able to ride ahead and tell the girls their father came with help.

  A hand came down hard on her shoulder when she turned to the stables.

  “You have no need to be in there,” her uncle said, his voice deep and rough. “You are going nowhere except to your room. I will take the nobleman to the manor where he belongs. You will stay here and consider your actions while in my care.”

  “You’ll need me to find him.” She saw no value in reminding him she too held noble blood from her father.

  “Unlike a foolish nobleman and girl, I know these forests, as do my men. I know where my daughter goes hunting the wild strawberries, and doubt not I’ll find one of my daughters waiting to take me the rest of the way.”

  His answer made it clear where the fault lay. His daughters were too clever to have done something this foolish.

  Barbara wanted to protest her exclusion, wanted to see Aubrey to safety herself, but her hands started shaking now that the crisis had been taken from them. She could not claim innocence in this. Even had he not followed her, she’d risked herself and done no good service to her borrowed clothes either. Anything she said would only make her uncle’s opinion sink lower.

  He stared down at her with a harsh gaze until she gave a nod and turned toward the farmhouse. He had no need to tell her how she’d caused this injury. She could think of nothing else. If his opinion of her hung low, her own stood no higher.

  She lingered at the doorway until they headed out, two on horseback to ride ahead. A heartfelt prayer for Aubrey’s health when they found him seemed little enough penance for her hand in all of this.

  When her parents sent her to the farm, she’d thought their opinion of her nature untrue, but here she’d proven them right more than wrong. They’d warned her against playing with a man’s feelings, leading him on, and having little regard for the pain she caused.

  That was exactly what she’d done with Aubrey, all the while keeping her true identity a secret to use as a bludgeon against him. And now, when her conscience finally awoke to the wrong she did to him and herself as well, her need to cling to her game, to hold on for just one more day, may have cost him not just the day, but every one to follow.

  The realization proved too hard to bear.

  She twisted away from the sight of his rescue party and raced through the farmhouse to throw herself down on the bed she had shared with her friend until her unruly tongue drove Sarah away. Whatever control she held over her tears broke, and Barbara cried until she thought she’d pour every drop of liquid from her body and become a dry husk.

  At some point, Sarah appeared to rub Barbara’s back as though the break between them never occurred. She didn’t ask what had caused this outburst, nor could Barbara marshal the strength to tell her as she twisted to throw herself into Sarah’s open arms and cry some more as though her heart had broken.

  She’d believed life lived separate from Aubrey could not grow more painful. How foolish that seemed now with the chance of a life lived without Aubrey even on the earth.

  IN THE LONG HOURS BEFORE her uncle returned, Barbara told Sarah the whole story, about how her friend had been right from the start, how she’d stolen just one more day before confessing the truth, and then how the kiss had broken through her control and sent her running off into the forest where Aubrey got hurt.

  “You truly love him, don’t you?” Sarah said, her face filled with none of the elation the words should have offered.

  Barbara gave a sad smile. “Had I any thought to how my feelings would deepen, I would never have hesitated in London. I wanted everything to be perfect when I met him only to learn he wasn’t perfect himself.”

  “No one is perfect.”

  “I know that now. Certainly not myself. It shouldn’t have taken a risk to his life to figure it out though.”

  Sarah laughed softly. “Consider that part of your own imperfections. And without them, you’d be intolerable.”

  Barbara threw her arms around her friend and gave Sarah a tight hug. “I’ve been almost so anyway. You could see what I could not. You tried to warn me, but I was too arrogant to listen.”

  Sarah pulled away, not in rejection but so she could meet Barbara’s gaze with a steady look. “Love, not arrogance, drove you to deny the truth. And before you take all the blame, remember the revenge came first from my lips, not yours. It’s what you do now that counts.”

  Barbara gave a stiff nod.

  She already knew exactly what she had to do. She’d been offered a gift, and in her thoughtlessness, she’d broken it beyond repair. She had no choice except to carry out her plan to leave, but not until she knew him to be all right.

  The sounds of the returning wagon broke through the silence that had fallen between them. They turned to the window, but their room faced the fields rather than the yard.

  “Go to the wagon,” Sarah urged. “You’ll have no peace until you learn what has befallen your love.”

  Uncle Ferrier gave Barbara a dark look when she emerged from the house, but he said nothing about his directive, perhaps reading in her expression she’d done as he’d asked and pondered her fault in everything that had occurred.

  “We found him where you said. Charlotte did what she could for him, but he still had not woken when we delivered him to the manor.” He didn’t even wait for her to ask the question. “Lord Pendleton has called for a doctor. Your nobleman will be in as best care as can be acquired.”

  She didn’t know whether to be relieved or more upset at this news, having never been around anyone with a serious injury before in her life.

  Uncle Ferrier caught her arm. “I’m sorely di
sappointed in your behavior. You had no business running about in the woods with an unattached man, ignoring that I’d specifically forbade you to seek him out. Charlotte and the girls say I should go gently, that you could hardly have cast him out of the field when he came, but your parents will be told exactly what a wild child they have, mark my words.” He shook her hard. “Your foolishness may have cost the man his life.”

  Her skin all of a sudden felt too tight against her face and the world seemed to spin violently. Only her uncle’s grip kept her upright.

  “Hold now, Barbara. More likely than not he’ll recover fully.”

  Whatever caused him to soften, she didn’t need to be coddled. She needed the truth.

  “There was so much blood,” Barbara murmured, mindful of how she had failed to change out of her bloodstained and torn clothing.

  “Head injuries bleed profusely. It’s that he’s still unconscious which provides the worry.”

  He used his hold to pull her through the farmhouse to his study. There, he pressed her to sit while he leaned against his desk to loom over her.

  “Barbara, you did what you could in getting help. He’s in a doctor’s hands. What happens from now on is none of your concern.”

  “But —”

  He shook his head. “No. No exceptions. You must put this nobleman from your mind. You must never see him again. Neither of you is innocent in these events, and what came before them. If you’re to preserve your reputation and not bring shame down on your mother’s head, you must listen to me. You must obey no matter what.”

  Barbara could not bear to meet his gaze for another moment. She stared down at her twisted fingers, wanting to protest, to argue more than anything, but she knew he was right. She’d already decided the same for herself.

  Even if he knew her true standing and forgave her the deceit, she’d proved nothing but trouble and a danger to him. He’d been right in his earliest judgment. Had Aubrey only recognized her that first day in the fields, he would have kept his distance. He would not now be lying unconscious and fighting for his very life.