Barbara woke the next morning with a sense of well-being at odds with the hard work Charlotte had put them to upon their return from the ride.
They’d gone through a long list of chores that kept them close to the farmhouse so surely their tasks today would take them into the fields and beyond her uncle’s narrowed gaze. He’d welcomed the gift of berries the previous day, and by some twist of fate or luck, had not inquired as to why they’d stopped during their ride long enough to discover the fruit.
His distraction had been so noticeable Georgiana asked after him, but when he’d started to speak of some decision regarding his breeding program, his youngest daughter quickly turned the conversation to speculating on what Cook would do with the berries this time.
Barbara would have liked to hear about the horses, but she was happy enough to avoid another lecture on engaging in activities with Aubrey.
“You’re looking quite lively this morning,” Sarah said, pulling herself to a seated position with obvious effort. “One might wonder just what—or who—put that smile on your lips.”
With a glance to the window, Barbara shrugged. “It looks to be a beautiful morning.”
“And you can tell this through the gingham, I suppose?”
Barbara focused on the space she’d used as an excuse only to find the curtains pulled closed. Of course. Sarah was the one to open them each morning, forcing Barbara to rise, and her friend was still abed.
Instead of answering, she slipped out from under the covers and crossed to the basin of water to begin her morning wash.
“It isn’t for thoughts of seeing your nobleman, is it?”
“If I have any thoughts of seeing him, it’s for the chance to give him a taste of his own nature using your grand plan,” Barbara said.
She glanced over to Sarah, but instead of the mischievous expression she’d expected, her friend wore a frown.
Sarah rose as well. “Perhaps I spoke too hastily before. Perhaps it would be better to tell him the truth and let him discover his mistake now in a gentler way.”
Barbara had not expected her friend to have given in so quickly to Aubrey’s pretense, not knowing what she did once Barbara had told her. And yet, hadn’t she experienced the same trouble? Though she’d not admit it to Sarah, the hope of seeing Aubrey once again had brought her awake with anticipation, and her response had more to do with the chance for his company than any punishment, deserved or not.
Her voice sharp more against her own fickle heart than Sarah’s, Barbara snapped, “Aubrey St. Vincent caused me no end of heartache. Who knows how many other girls have suffered from his cutting wit? And he is the root of any worries my parents suffer as well. God sent him here so I could give him a taste of his own medicine, not so I can soften the blow and cater to his already overblown sense of superiority.”
Sarah had flinched when she started speaking and showed no more signs of comfort now that Barbara fell silent.
A twinge of regret passed through her.
Sarah deserved her rancor no more than her parents had for sending her here instead of letting her finish out the season. Aubrey lay at the root of everything, and she’d do well to remember it.
With a familiarity from their shared childhood as much as the forgetfulness of station this place provoked, Sarah caught Barbara’s arm when she would have turned away. “I know you believe that to be true. I do not doubt what you heard him say, or that he meant every word at the time. And yet, you said yourself he spoke in confidence to his friend, unaware anyone stood close enough to listen. I’ve seen no sign of such a disregard in the time he’s spent in our company, and I have seen how you are drawn to him no matter what you’d like to pretend.”
Barbara pulled away, wishing for a mirror so she could watch Sarah without looking in that direction, but the simple chest of drawers had none. She stared resolutely at the wall instead. “I’m not the one pretending. You hear my words, but you don’t listen to them. How is his gentle nature now any different than his mask worn in London? Tell me how you can see through to his heart when he has all of society fooled?”
This time when Sarah touched Barbara it was to offer a soft hug to her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to state I could see what you could not. It’s only that being out of London can bring out true natures in a way society prevents. You, yourself, strained at its strictures. Why couldn’t it be the same for him? Why couldn’t this be whom he would be if he didn’t have to conform?”
Though Barbara tried to shrug off the touch, it wasn’t much of an attempt and had little effect. Sarah said nothing she hadn’t thought herself. It took more effort than she could have imagined to keep herself from succumbing to his playacting. When he’d touched her those few times, her whole body joined the chorus begging to accept his deceit as truth.
“I can only think on your cousin’s warning,” Sarah said as though reading the answer in Barbara’s tense form. “No good comes from scheming and lies, no matter how good the intention.”
Barbara forced a smile to her lips ignoring how strained it must have appeared as she turned to meet Sarah’s worried gaze. “Then it’s a good thing I have not deceived in the slightest manner. It is no fault of mine if he looks on my clothes and assumes without asking. I promise you, should he seek my background, I’ll be truthful. That should calm your fears. Though if he thinks to ask and looks beyond the judgment he made without my consent, no one will be more surprised than myself.”
She pushed her friend aside gently so she could collect a dress from those Charlotte had lent her, ignoring the quiet words that followed her.
“But when you told him your name, you chose not to tell it all. Is that not enough of a lie?”
THE BERRIES WERE AS WELL received at the manor the second time as they had been the first, and Aubrey suffered the sideways glances and knowing looks from his friends in silence. He might not have gone out of his way to seek her, but some part of him had been aware of the greater possibility when he’d chosen the direction he had.
Aubrey found little value in self-deceit. He could call her a siren, claim she had mystical nymph-like qualities, or however else he chose to explain why the next morning he turned his steed toward the farm once again, but that she—and no other—drew him could not be denied.
He mused on where this attraction would take him as he rode, determine to break through her reticence and get a glimpse of the thoughts in her head. Whether she could survive in London became more imperative as he questioned if he would survive leaving her behind. Part of him dreaded the discovery that, like any wildflower, once plucked from the country she would shine her bright colors into his life for only a few short days before beginning to fade.
Aubrey laughed at himself, always planning so far into the future when too many twists and turns lay in his path for him to see the truth of such a plan. After all, he’d always thought to find his mate the traditional way, at the marriage mart, and yet he’d fled from the scene after less than a full season, unable to stomach it.
As though an echo of his humor, he heard faint laughter.
He pressed heels to the horse’s sides. No doubt of the source ever rose, not with the way his heartbeat quickened at the teasing sound.
“I found some!”
His faith rewarded, Aubrey rode up to the forest edge to find his country girl calling the others over. She knelt in the dirt, her hands pressed to the soil as she stared at something beneath her.
“Fine morning,” he called, swinging down from his horse. He paused only long enough to tether the beast to a tree before joining the gathering. “What have you found?”
Barbara had looked up at his greeting, and from the moment their gazes locked, had not shifted.
He could see the confusion at his question and when she blinked to clear her mind of the effect they seemed to have on one another. The sight offered hope where nothing else could. It confirmed she was as affected by his presence as he was by hers.
“Mushrooms,” she said after a short pause.
He suspected she read a match to her earlier expression on his face with her reply.
He’d been so caught up in whether she shared his interest he’d forgotten asking the question at first, but he followed her pointed finger to see the small brown caps against the ground.
Charlotte approached with her sisters, and Barbara moved back to give her room. The farmer’s eldest poked the fungus, inspecting its features as the others stood by, waiting for her assessment.
Aubrey had nothing to offer in this. The only mushrooms he’d ever seen had been carefully prepared by a cook and presented in their most savory forms.
“Yes, these are good for eating. Collect half of them, Barbara, no more. We want to keep the patch growing, and it’s only right to share some bounty with the wild creatures,” Charlotte said as she dusted her hands and stood. “The rest of you get back to looking. She needs no help in this. It’s been a wet winter, but the finds are still rare this early in the season.”
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 almost 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.