A Country Affair (21 page)

The fact that she had forgotten about the day's festivities might have stirred his curiosity, since so little occurred to alleviate the boredom of their lives. An outdoor dance with local musicians on the Uckfield green certainly should have claimed her attention.

But Selina had no wish to go. She could not gaze upon happy couples without reliving the pain of Richard's betrayal. That she should, even now, find it so hard to believe him capable of such treachery was a constant source of confusion to her.

Her reluctance to accept the apparent truth seemed inconceivable. Why she should be so unwilling to resign herself to the evidence of his villainy, she did not know. Yet, despite all her resolutions to put Richard firmly out of her mind, she had to confess that she dreamt of him still. At the slightest sound, she would glance up, hoping to find him at her door, and she could not help feeling in her heart of hearts that the connection between them had been real.

Had it been Richard's smile, so warm and bathing whenever it fell upon her, that had tricked her? Or had his extraordinary gentility, which she had found so deeply comforting, robbed her of her common sense?

Now that she knew he had been born into the peerage, other memories of Richard as he'd lived among them had returned to bewilder her. Richard, nearly breaking his back with the work she'd assigned him. Richard, fencing with the pig. Richard, patiently discussing Cicero with Augustus. And, the most painfully lingering memory of all, Richard as tender lover.

"Selina?"

Selina had forgotten that Augustus was waiting for her reply.

"No, love," she answered him, looking up with a false smile. "I do not think I shall go to the dance. However, do not let me stop you. It should amuse you to watch the people on the green."

"Why won't you go?"

Selina tried to make light of his question. "I simply have no time for such frivolity. The sheets must be mended, and I had particularly intended to stitch a new shirt for you this evening."

"The shirt can wait one more day. Please come."

His importunity preyed upon her sorrow, which Augustus could not possibly know. Selina struggled with ready tears by forcing a laugh. "Very well, if you really must know the reason. I do not go because I refuse to put my name in Mr. Croft's basket."

"Why?"

"Why?" she repeated. "Because I am far too particular to accept just any valentine."

"Is that why you no longer come outside when Romeo comes to check upon Nero?"

His acuity stunned her.

"Yes," Selina replied evenly. "I suppose that is why." She started to explain that she must not encourage Romeo to call upon them since she had discovered she had no wish to marry him. But her explanation was cut short by his next exclamation.

"Oh, I forgot," he said, looking shamefully remiss. "I forgot to tell you what Richard said before he left."

Selina felt the pain of Richard's name as if she'd been stabbed with a knife, which was why she failed to stop Augustus in time to prevent him from saying more.

Augustus recited his words carefully, as if, having failed to mention the message before, he must make sure of getting it right now. "Richard said that you had made him a promise with respect to Romeo Fancible that he expected you to keep."

"He had the nerve to send me that message?" Yet, even as she spoke, Selina's traitorous heart was bounding with a hope she could not quell. So Richard
had
cared.

"Yes, but what did he mean?" Augustus asked, with a frown.

"Nothing you should concern yourself with now." Rising from her chair, Selina tried to hide the jumble of feelings his words had aroused. "You should be going along before you miss the start of the dance. You will not want to be late in coming home for fear of being too tired to milk Clarissa in the morning. And, if you do not come home early enough to suit me, I shall fetch you."

With that gentle threat, Selina bundled up her brother and pushed him out the door before he could think of any other questions with which to torment her. Sometimes his very youth and innocence could do more damage to her wounds than her own conscience, which had refused to cease berating her. Even now it was chastising her for refining too much upon Richard's words. He had gone and not returned, so why should she try so stupidly to give his message some construction that might take away her injury?

That she had made up her own mind not to encourage Romeo Fancible had nothing at all to do with the promise she had made to Richard. She had simply learned how unfair it would be to tie up the heart of a man she could never hope to love. Romeo had been a generous neighbor and friend. She had no right to abuse his affections as Richard had done hers.

After taking herself to task for nursing forlorn hopes, even for an instant, Selina briskly set to work upon the promised shirt, settling herself in a chair beside the fire.  Before long, however, the warmth and the luxury of being alone made her succumb to wandering thoughts. Closing her eyes, she gave into the sweet temptation to recall the feel of Richard's arms about her and the memory of those brief, fleeting moments when she had felt herself cherished and loved. With a burning pang in her throat, she acknowledged they would most likely be the only such time in her life. No matter how false those few moments—those wickedly, blissfully delicious moments had proven to be—she would always treasure them as such.

Her thoughts were thus engaged, when a knock at the door made her start. With the practice of the past few days, she quickly wiped the moisture from her cheeks and the pain from her eyes before reaching for the latch.

The sight of Mr. Croft on her doorstep startled her. She would have thought him much too busy with his valentines to call upon her at such an hour, which thought gave her a sudden fright.

The ready welcome vanished from her lips. "Is it Augustus? Has he been hurt?"

Mr. Croft gave a surprised chuckle. "Not the Squire, miss." He gestured behind him with his thumb, and she saw with relief that her brother was there and fine. "He thought he'd come along o' me to see what I've got in here for you."

Mr. Croft held out the basket he always used to collect the villagers' valentines. "There's nobbut one left," he said a bit ruefully, "and I bethought myself of you out here at The Grange."

Selina tried not to show how his thoughtfulness had pricked her. "That is very kind of you, Mr. Croft, but I did not put a valentine into your basket, so it would not be just for me to receive one."

"Go on, miss," he persisted, practically pushing the basket into her hands. "I've taken care of all the other maids around, and I've still got this one left. You wouldn't have me return it to the gentleman and hurt his feelings, now, would ye?"

Something in Mr. Croft's coy manner struck Selina as suspicious, and a resultant feeling of dread swept through her body. What if Romeo had concocted a ploy to direct his valentine to her? If he had, then she would suffer no more than she deserved for using him so.

A niggling thought that such a high degree of cunning would be far beyond his mental powers made her wince with guilt.

"Go on, Selina." Augustus stepped up and added his plea to Mr. Croft's, which made Selina anxious to be done with the whole unpleasant business as quickly as possible.

She snatched the remaining valentine from the basket and said stiffly, "Thank you very much, Mr. Croft." Then, to prove to both witnesses that she had no interest in their game, she tore open the missive at once.

She had not remarked that it had been closed with an unfamiliar seal, as if a heavy signet ring had been applied to the wafer. But as soon as she broke it, this curious detail did strike her, causing her hands to falter in their task.

The handwriting, too, was unfamiliar. This did not surprise her, for she did not expect to recognize the hands of all her neighbors. What it did do at once was to comfort her on Romeo's score, for she had seen his writing too many times not to know it.

Then, instantly, a delicate sketch of two swans at the top of the page, their necks curved into the shape of a valentine, caught her eye. The dear familiarity of the words, even if they were in the current tongue and not the ancient form she had memorized, set her pulse to fluttering wildly. The knowledge that the poem could not have been reproduced without painstaking memory brought tears into her eyes, so that she could hardly read.

"Most suitors choose their love by chance,

 Yet, I disdain to follow such a dance,

 But take my wisdom from the birds above,

 To plight my troth instead to truest love,

 That this one year shall turn to life.

 When Valentine shall be my wife."

Selina did not need to see Richard's signature at the bottom to know who the note was from, but she could not keep herself from moving her thumb over it lightly.

Augustus broke in. "What does it say, and who it is from?"

Selina's speech was hampered by a painful lump in her throat, but, when she found that she could speak, she turned to Mr. Croft instead. "Mr. Croft," she said, trying to still the quivering in her voice, "is the—the gentleman who wrote this missive still lodging with you?"

"Aye, that he surely is, mistress. And would you believe it," he said eagerly, "if I told ye that Mr. Lint, the one what was here before, is the Earl of Linton, as sure as I live and breathe? Ye could have knocked me and the missus both down with a feather when we saw him, what with his coach and all them uppity servants of his."

Selina thrust her chin high in the air, feeling as if a sudden breath of life had filled her breast. "Actually, yes, Mr. Croft. Both my brother and I have been aware of that fact for many days now."

So, Richard had returned to Uckfield, as himself. But, Selina cautioned herself, she must not be quick to think he had done it for her, not when, if she was wrong, it would hurt her far, far too much.

"Do you have any idea why his lordship has come back to Uckfield?"

She almost hated herself for asking, but Mr. Croft, when he answered, gave her a knowing smile that made her heart want to leap with hope.

"He didn't mention his reasons to me exactly, I'm sure, being as how it's not rightly my business yet. But—" Mr. Croft touched the rim of his hat as he made his farewell—"I do suspect that his lordship'll be along o' here in the morning with his valentine's gift. Good evening to you, Mistress Payley."

The next morning, Selina refused to be caught waiting for Richard to claim his valentine. A night of worry, mixed with purposely stoked anger and a fair share of wistful thinking, had convinced her that she would be the greatest of all possible fools to pin any hope upon his message. That the Earl of Linton would want to marry someone who, though a lady by her bloodlines, was in reality nothing more than a miserable country lass, with the rough hands to prove it, and, moreover, of a size to terrify a horse, was patently absurd. Besides, if Richard had wished to marry her, he might have asked her any time those three weeks he had practically lived at The Grange.

In the mean time, the eggs must be gathered, the pig fed, and the cow milked, even it was Valentine's Day morning.

Selina set off for the chicken coop with purposeful steps, which slowed as the thought crossed her mind that Richard might not have had a good opportunity to express his feelings. She and he had been interrupted at a rather unfortunate time. And Selina had to admit that she might have made such a declaration nearly impossible by the attitude she had shown him the previous week. It was even probable that he had begun to think she would prefer to receive an offer from Romeo Fancible.

Remembering the wantonness of her behavior on the morning he had left, however, she thought he had likely been disabused of his ignorance on that score.

With this last thought in her head, she found it hard to go about her work without jumping at the slightest sound upon the drive. She could not help envisioning what might happen if Richard should indeed decide to claim his valentine.

By mid-morning, when she had returned to the house and he had not yet come, Selina was in a rousing temper. So much so, that when Lucas came to the door to ask if he might have his monthly pay, he was forced to retreat without uttering a word. And even Augustus, who had perceived his sister's agitation at breakfast and had a better notion of its cause, had chosen to work in the farther-most orchard.

`Selina—who, by this time, had begun to curse all men roundly—glanced outside her bedroom window only a few minutes later and found the Earl of Linton sitting on a bench beside the barn, deep in conversation with her brother. He had left what appeared to be a luxurious traveling coach outside the gate, which explained her failure to hear its approach. He and Augustus must have walked up from the orchard, and had been sitting there, she knew not how long.

Richard was dressed in a dark gray morning coat which fit his shoulders to within a fraction of an inch. A high-crowned beaver sat stylishly upon his head. Wellington boots, with an impossible shine, nearly reached to his knees, and a pair of pale gray inexpressibles hugged his thighs.

All these details came to Selina in an instant. In the next, she was racing for her dressing table with a cry of panic. Giving an anxious look in the mirror, she took up her brush and began to thrash her hair to dislodge the dust of the morning's work, all the while wondering why Richard would speak to her brother instead of to her. She could not think clearly enough to answer her own question, not when her knees were quaking and her arms trembled as if she had just picked a ton of cherries.

By the time Richard finally knocked upon her door, Selina was able to descend the stairs with clean hands and face, a fresher dress, and a fair semblance of composure. She held her chin high in the air and carried her skirt delicately before her. She did not rush, because it would be most unseemly to rush, and because, besides, Richard had taken his own good time in coming.

The sight of his handsome face when she opened the door to him, the way his eyes lit upon seeing her, and the gravity of his demeanor tamed the rest of her fury. But Selina could not allow herself to show how very glad she was to see him. Whether he had schemed against them or not, Richard had hidden his true identity from them, and for that he must earn his forgiveness.