A Country Masquerade

by Margaret McGaffey Fisk

  Lord Whitfeld shook his head, but a smile played about his lips. “With the two of you having suffered so much in this affair already, and her mother and I as well, I should punish you both by denying you, but I will not be the one to hold you back.” He held up a hand when Aubrey went to rise. “You’ll have the devil of a time convincing Barbara all is well if I know my daughter, and from what you said of your injuries, you’ll need all the strength you can muster.”

  He crossed to the bell, and the butler responded much too quickly to its ring. Aubrey wondered if curiosity made the man linger or if he’d expected to show Aubrey out bodily.

  “Send word to my daughter her presence is wanted in my study at once. And have a tray sent here as well.”

  Though too full of nerves to enjoy his breakfast, Aubrey had made sure to eat before coming to the town house. Still, he did not protest. Having something to do with his hands might be wise. From her father’s telling, the urge to shake some sense into her might overcome him.

  When Lord Whitfeld turned to face him, Aubrey sought some form of conversation to pass the time, but his mind seemed blank.

  Her father offered a stiff bow that ended with a wink. “It seems to me you’d do well with some time to gather your thoughts, and you have no need for further witnesses to this mess. You’ve likely given her cousins gossip fodder for some time to come. I’ll leave you to your speech planning, but remember while she may be headstrong, her heart’s a delicate instrument.”

  With this warning, Lord Whitfeld quit the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Summoned to her father’s study this early in the day, Barbara had little doubt as to the cause. Her mother must have lodged some complaint about the poetry reading. As much as she knew she needed to choose among her suitors, Barbara had the hardest time imagining them willing to wander at her side picking berries and talking of important things like politics, or less so like theater.

  It all seemed so permanent. A lifetime spent with the wrong person when she’d lost all hope of the right one.

  Perhaps the time had come to confess her sins so her parents could understand why she’d behaved the way she did then and now.

  Aubrey consumed her thoughts as she rapped on her father’s study door, not that he’d ever been far from them. From the moment she’d first set eyes on him, she’d either craved his attention or hated him. Never had she found his presence as innocuous as the men on either side of her the previous night.

  Her mind was so caught up in Aubrey that even her father’s voice sounded like his as he bid her enter. She had no idea how to purge the man from her very being so she could move on with her life. Perhaps her father could give her some much needed advice.

  The door swung wide, and Barbara froze at the sight before her.

  The man who rose not from the desk but one of the companion chairs was none other than the same one to consume her thoughts.

  She stared at him, propriety forgotten as she cataloged his handsome features, noting where mottled browns and greens showed still-healing bruises, but also that he looked much more lively than when she’d seen him last. No one would suspect him of lingering at death’s door now.

  Barbara took a step toward him, drawn against her will by the need to touch, to reassure herself that he actually stood there and was not an apparition.

  Then she sank against the doorframe as her scattered mind put together the clues to realize what his presence here had to mean.

  “So you know,” she murmured, her gaze now pinned to her father’s carpet. He’d come to accuse her of falsehood, wanting to measure out his punishment in person.

  He must have revealed all to her father before she could.

  She’d been prepared for a lecture, and she’d earned one from his lips more than any about her behavior.

  Despite this knowledge, her heart ached at the thought of hearing his condemnation a second time for now she knew it was deserved.

  Warm fingers brushed her chin.

  She jerked her head up to meet his gaze, drowning in the emotions there. His eyes held nothing of anger or condemnation while that beloved mouth quirked to one side in a sad smile.

  “I’ve come here to learn exactly why we cannot be married, and I’m not leaving until you satisfy me even if it takes a lifetime.”

  Her breath caught in her throat, the slight sound all she could offer him. She could not have heard him rightly. Her mind had cracked and now daydreams crossed over with the waking moments.

  Aubrey placed his hands on her shoulders and held her fast. “When I proposed, I thought you simply a country girl without the culturing necessary to survive London. I needed you at my side even so and would have stood by you until you found your bearings. How much better we suit than I knew, and yet you still ran from me.”

  She wanted to smooth his wrinkled brow, to wash away the confusion lingering in his eyes, but could only stare back at him.

  “I cannot believe you find me repulsive.”

  Barbara’s hand crept to the lips he’d kissed only once, a moment she’d relived more than any other. She shook her head.

  “I’m no good for you, Aubrey,” she whispered. “You deserve better than my lies, and better than the disaster that seems to follow in my wake.”

  Unable to help herself, she reached out to brush the back of one hand against the shadowed bruise marking his cheek. “You barely escaped with your life the last time you chased after me. Next time, you might not be so lucky.”

  He turned into her touch to lay a kiss on her hand before she could withdraw. “If you do not run, I’ll have no cause to chase.”

  She jerked free and moved behind one of the chairs, her face turned from him because she could not bear to see him as she did what needed to be done. “I cannot have you on my conscience.”

  Aubrey stretched out an arm and pulled her forth, shifting her until she stood pressed to his body. “Your conscience will only be satisfied if you accept what beats in your heart is the same as what has hold of mine. I’ve gotten exactly what I deserve in you and more just as you deserve the whole of me, flaws and all.”

  She leaned away once again, but only so far as to see his face. “You have no flaws, Aubrey, except those I imagined in my anger. You deserve better than a foolish, deceitful, betraying girl who didn’t have the sense to recognize the hazards in her path.”

  His chuckle rumbled through every point they were still connected, its humor warming Barbara against her will.

  “No flaws? Am I some paragon to be set atop a pedestal only to be admired from afar? You forgot how all this came about. Had I not been so arrogant as to dismiss you out of hand, we might yet have come to a more traditional courting. I believe we would have as our souls are drawn to one another.”

  “You spoke in confidence. It’s not a flaw to vent frustration, or if it is, the measure of such a flaw would require a jeweler’s glass.”

  He stroked a thumb across her lips, causing shivers to work their way under her skin in a pleasant manner.

  “You were not meant to overhear. No one was. But I gave no thought to the possibility, no more thought to the consequences than you with your scheming. It seems to me we make a perfect imperfect set.”

  Every bone in her body wanted to give in to his urging, to wash away all the wrongdoings as though they had never been, but conscience wouldn’t let her.

  Once again, Barbara pulled free, thrusting a hand into the air to stop him when he would follow. “You speak pretty words, and I want to believe them, but they’re not the truth. You said yourself you meant no harm to come from your cutting remarks. How does that measure against my actions? I set my cap not for you but for revenge against a slight so small it had passed beneath your notice. I’m everything you said to your friend and worse. I was willing to play with your heart, your very life, as though I had any cause to stand above you.”

  She choked on a sob, but held firm, loving him too much to burden him with a wife who held
rot at her core.

  AUBREY LACED HIS FINGERS THROUGH her outstretched hand, bringing it to lie against his chest. “You may have started with a vengeful heart, but you never carried out that plan.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I was waiting for the moment it would have the most impact.”

  A laugh burst from him at the return of the Barbara he’d come to love, not this chastened, mournful lady, but the one with passion in her face and tone.

  “Why should I question that lesson any more than when you held forth an opinion about a play I thought you’d never seen, or taught me how to pick the best of berries and mushrooms?”

  She tugged her hand, but he refused to release it.

  “Don’t you see? Every word we shared was laced with falsehood. You thought I had never seen the plays we spoke of when at least with one of them, I could observe you in your box not far from mine. And I know little more about nature than you do, my teachings stolen from what Charlotte had shown me only moments before.”

  Aubrey brought her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss on her fingers before breathing his words over them, “It matters not the source, but the offering. Had you nothing but my destruction in your heart, why would you think to share your newly won knowledge or your opinions?”

  That brought a reluctant smile to her lips. “Sarah would say I’m never slow to share an opinion.”

  “There. Yet another way we are alike. Arrogant, quick to judge, and opinionated, whether or not we have the right of it.” Aubrey recognized the irony in winning her favor by telling of his faults and hers rather than promoting his virtues, but he could see her softening.

  “I had lessons to learn,” he continued in a gentler tone, “Of the dangers in judging others as wanting, and the risk in using my wit to denigrate instead of praise. Only you recognized my flaws and chose to guide me in them. All others were blinded by affection or my social standing.”

  He stepped closer, her arm bending to narrow the gap between them until he stood right before her.

  “Every moment you spent scheming brought me nearer to the one person who caught my attention, who plagued me long before your plan came into effect. I escaped London when I couldn’t find the Lady Barbara Whitfeld who had cut me in the park. I needed to know what I had done to offend her, but even then I focused more on myself than on her. So much so I couldn’t recognize the very one I sought when she appeared before me. Sure, I noticed your hair and name held in common, but I never imagined you could be she.”

  “A vision of patchwork and brambles,” Barbara cut in, the undertone of amusement giving him hope.

  “A vision despite the smudge of dirt across her cheek.” He stroked that very same skin as though to rub away imaginary smudges.

  Aubrey thought she hesitated a moment before pulling away from his touch, and he realized the one argument she could not deny. Much as he had in the field, he slowly lowered his lips to settle against hers. If she could reject his kiss as easily as she had his words, he had no hope left to speak of.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  All words fled as his warm lips brushed against hers, bringing back a moment in the hot sun with the scent of rich soil and sun-warmed rocks filling the air. Barbara knew she should pull away, should reject him for his own good, but she couldn’t hold fast any longer.

  Her hand came up to catch on his waistcoat as she leaned in to the touch.

  This had been her fantasy. She’d had too little faith in believing it could come true, and yet he’d come to fight for her instead of with her.

  Nothing else mattered. She loved him too much and didn’t have the strength to give him up a second time.

  Even as she found that understanding, he pulled away to look down at her with laughter sparkling in his beautiful eyes.

  “Please say you’ll marry me and you’ll stay by my side. I fear for my safety should I spend a lifetime chasing you down. Especially if you lay claim to a horse. I’ve seen your skill.”

  “You seek to win me with humor when you couldn’t by argument?” Though her words might have seemed harsh, her laughing tone showed him she would not fight their connection any longer.

  Aubrey dropped to his knees and caught her hand between both of his. “Had I known I need only make you laugh, I’d have pursued that method from the start. Ease my concerns, my love. Tell me plainly.”

  Barbara gazed down at him, her whole body aglow with the knowledge she had not lost him. She had only to speak the words and her future would hold not desolation but love.

  Confidence made her cocky, and after all, it was this aspect of her nature that had captured his interest from the start, not her ability to conform to the rules he’d been so quick to scorn.

  “I’m afraid, my good man, that there is a list, a good number to consider before you. I must assess each and every one for their suitability.”

  He rose to catch her in his arms and spin her around only to lower her so he could give her a kiss deeper than any other.

  When she came up for air, she could only gaze at him with clouds in her eyes. “I have not said yes,” she murmured.

  Aubrey shook his head. “If I were to wait for a simple agreement from you, I’d grow old and grey.”

  “But what of my suitors? There is a duke among them even.”

  “Had you interest in your duke, or any other on that list, you would have decided already. You wouldn’t have been sent off to the country to learn your faults. No, my love, you were meant only for me, and it’s about time you realized it.”

  Barbara slapped his chest where her fingers had been pressed before. “There’s the arrogance that got you into this trouble in the first place—your fatal flaw,” she said, more humor than rancor in her tone.

  Aubrey laced his fingers with hers and pulled her ever closer until Barbara had to tip her head back to see him. “This trouble is exactly where I want to be, now and forever, so if arrogance won me the place, it’s less a flaw than a virtue.”

  “With virtues like that, it’s no wonder you remain unmarried.”

  His expression took on a mournful cast, broken only by the dancing in his eyes. “I had to search high and low to find a woman with virtues to match my own.”

  She laughed then. “Is this your courting speech? You tell a woman her flaws so she is brought down and considers herself lucky to receive only you? You forget the others who have made their case in this very room.”

  “They matter not at all, not to me or to you. Give me your answer, Barbara. Put me out of this misery. Do you have any affection for me at all?”

  She felt the heat of a blush sweep her features and leaned into his chest to mask the response. “Do you think I’d have been so quick to condemn if I had none? Or so quick to cast aside your offer for fear of your safety?”

  “As you’ve mentioned a time or two, my offer is but one of many, and claims for my safety could have been naught but excuses to let me down gently.”

  She jerked away. “Gently? Since when do you match that word to my behavior?”

  “You are all that is gentle, and fierce, and strong. What you are not is forthright.”

  Barbara felt her brows come together as confusion broke through their repartee.

  As though he were capable of reading her very thoughts, Aubrey’s voice dropped to a low rumble as he said, “You still withhold your answer, and your feelings.”

  Barbara threw her head back to laugh. “Yes, I love you, Aubrey St. Vincent. I think I have from the start, though it was nothing but an infatuation in a girl fresh from the schoolroom then.” Her voice softened. “And yes, I will marry you.”

  A grin cut dimples into his cheeks as he said, “Good. I was worried I’ll have to confess our kisses to your father so he’d force your hand.”

  He bent to repeat the offense, swallowing her joking protest. Their lips came together unerringly as they sealed a bargain to last a lifetime.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  A cough sounded from the corridor, intruding
on their moment.

  Barbara pulled away from Aubrey to see her father come to check on them, having forgotten until this moment how she’d never closed the door.

  Lord Whitfeld raised both eyebrows. “I returned to make sure St. Vincent had not come to greater injury at your hand, Barbara, but I assume instead he’s won his case. The banns need to be posted or license secured. The sooner the better from the looks of what I interrupted.”

  Aubrey gave her a pointed look, and Barbara laughed as her father proved the secondary plan would have been successful regardless of her stance.

  “You’re not surprised?” Barbara asked her father after a moment. His easy acceptance startled her when she’d put her poor parents through so much.

  Lord Whitfeld gave her both a smile and a wink. “Whatever your lips said, or refused to say, your heart had chosen before you left your uncle’s dwelling. We are neither so blind nor ignorant not to see it. And you are not so foolish as to deny the truth when face to face with the man in question.”

  She glanced at Aubrey, and meeting his gaze, lingered there for a moment. Her father had understood what she’d been too mixed up to admit. “You have no objection then?”

  “Your lord has already sought my permission, which was gladly given once I learned where he’d chanced upon you. And might I say, I appreciated your determination.” The last was to Aubrey, who only shook his head in response.

  “However, you do need to inform the others before we make any announcements.”

  “It is only fair,” Barbara said, not looking forward to the meetings she’d be facing.

  “Perhaps I should sit in on these meetings. After all, I wouldn’t want sight of your duke to change your mind.” Aubrey struggled to maintain a somber expression, but his eyes gave him away as they always would.

  Barbara put a hand on his arm as though to restrain him. “I think the meetings will be awkward enough without the victor lurking in the room, but you have nothing to worry about. These others only understood how to appreciate a frivolous girl.”