Aubrey refused to admit how exhausting the carriage ride out to the farm had been despite the strength offered by the broth. He couldn’t hold back a relieved sigh when they reached the fence.
“You don’t have to do this now,” Jasper said, catching Aubrey’s arm when he went to exit the carriage.
Aubrey shook him off. “I need to speak with her. You won’t stop me, and I’d suggest you don’t try.”
His friend gave him an intent look, clearly seeing both his conviction and weakness. “Well, then, we might as well get it over with.” He reached past Aubrey to swing the door open.
Whether they’d lingered a bit too long within or their arrival proved momentous, a small gathering had collected outside.
Aubrey stepped down and scanned those nearest. Charlotte stood among them, her solemn expression at odds with what he expected of her. Stern, yes, but not solemn.
“I need to speak to Barbara.”
Her eyes widened, though she must have guessed at his reason for arriving there. Daphne told him how Charlotte had been in charge of his care before the doctor arrived. Surely the woman knew how he’d come to be there in the forest.
“Your father, then,” he added when she showed no signs of taking him to the one he needed to see.
That earned him a stiff nod.
“Marian, get the gentlemen something to refresh themselves while I get Father.”
Aubrey put up a hand to stop both from leaving. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be coming with you.”
She glanced beyond him and exchanged a silent communication with Jasper. “I’ll take you to his study. Marian, get Father and bring him there.”
As much as Aubrey wanted to argue, he could feel the weakness of too little food and too much rest in his knees. Standing in a field or stable would not be possible soon enough.
“Are you sure I can’t get you some water at least,” Marian said as he settled into one of the chairs and Jasper took another.
“Fetch him some vinegar juice if you have any,” Jasper said.
Aubrey had no chance to protest before she left the room, not that he would reject something more to sustain him.
“You need to calm yourself or they’ll think you came to lay charges. Something doesn’t feel right here.”
He couldn’t reject the statement, not when he’d seen first Charlotte and now Marian acting both solemn and skittish, but the need to see Barbara was all that kept him upright. Calming himself might drain what little strength he had.
Mr. Ferrier entered just then, his daughter following with a tray of vinegars, bread, and cheese.
She placed the tray on her father’s desk and left with unseemly haste.
Ferrier settled at the desk, his hands steepled in front of him. “You wanted to see me, my lord? Are you healing well? Last I saw you was to deliver you unconscious to the manor, so you seem much recovered.”
Aubrey pushed to the edge of his seat, waving a hand to brush off the man’s concern. “I’m well enough, thank you for that though it’s not why we came. I need to see Barbara.”
The farmer shifted so the wood of his seat creaked. “She is not here.”
Aubrey leapt to his feet only to freeze as the room spun. He narrowed his focus to Ferrier. “Don’t try to deny me. I know she’s your servant. She has no other place to be.”
Ferrier rose as well, coming round the desk to catch Aubrey’s arm and offer a support Aubrey wished he didn’t need. “You should sit. Have some of the treats Marian brought for you. Conserve your strength.”
Though Aubrey sank onto the chair once again, he shook his head to deny the rest. “I’ll be better when I’ve had my say to your servant girl. Bring her here promptly.”
The farmer let out a heartfelt sigh and rubbed a hand along his jaw.
His response sent a jolt of fear through Aubrey. “Where is she? She’s not fallen ill, has she? She came from the forest healthy. I saw her myself. Tell me nothing has happened to her since.”
Ferrier’s brow furrowed, and he rested against his desk for a moment before meeting Aubrey’s gaze. “She’s well. It’s not that. This is much more complicated than you might think.”
“Speak plainly, man. I have little patience.”
Ferrier glanced to Jasper first as though looking for guidance, but his friend said nothing.
After what seemed an age, the farmer sighed again. “She’s not a servant here. She never was.”
“But I met her working in your fields with your daughters. What else could she be?”
“She’s my niece.”
Aubrey took a moment to digest that information, rewriting the family care between the women as bloodline rather than kindness. Her clothing meant she came from a poorer branch of the family, but that made no difference, or rather, it made what he planned that much easier.
He raised his eyebrows. “This changes nothing unless you’re going to say she’s already wed. I know her too well to think she’d trifle with a man when she has one waiting at home, though.”
Ferrier shook his head. “That’s just the problem. You know her not at all. My eldest gave me the whole story. How she let you think all sorts of things about her uncorrected, and how she had some plan for revenge after you cut her direct.”
Anger uncoiled at the accusation and Aubrey’s fists curled though he rarely chose physical violence as a first action. “I never gave her reason to believe I thought less of her. Your daughter tells tales to keep us apart.”
Ferrier straightened at that. “My daughters are nothing but truthful. They are ashamed of their part in this, though you never saw fit to ask.”
Aubrey jerked to his feet, unable to stay seated in the face of these accusations. “How do I know any of this to be truth?”
Jasper rose and caught his arm before he could advance on the farmer and beat the truth from him.
At the same moment, Charlotte slipped into the room to catch his other arm, having clearly been listening outside.
“Barbara,” Ferrier continued, “Lady Barbara is not a simple country girl. Her father is a viscount. Her parents sent her down here after her season proved a little too frivolous for their tastes, a fact she credits to what you had to say of her.”
Aubrey wanted to shake off his restraints, but a wave of weakness crashed over him, and he could only stand there between them, frustrated.
“Lord Aubrey, you are correct,” Charlotte said from his side. “You never spoke to her before that day in the field.”
He turned to face her. “Are you admitting now what you told your father was lies? Is there any truthful female in this family?”
She paled, and her father crowded forward, but Charlotte stopped him with a hand. “I suppose we deserve that, but you misunderstand me. You are as quick to judge now as you were in the fields, and the ballroom. You did not speak to her directly. She happened to be within hearing when you destroyed the character of almost every debutante at the event.” Her tone sharpened as she continued, “But you singled out Lady Barbara Whitfeld with excessive care.”
Aubrey opened his mouth to deliver a sound denial only to have a hint of memory trickle in to silence him.
He exchanged a pained look with Jasper, a moment of frustration with the frivolity of the season having consequences greater than he could ever have imagined.
He slumped into his chair, eyes closed on the vision of a white-clad girl with brightly colored ribbons who danced through the crowd of willing suitors. His only charge against her came from Jasper’s mother attempting to create a connection where he saw none, but he’d let that control his tongue as he scorned her nature to Jasper.
Memory of his cutting remarks burned. Had he only given in to The Dowager Lady Pendleton’s matchmaking, he would have spent the season squiring his Barbara around and securing her affections.
A groan slipped from him as he remembered his desperate search for Lady Barbara after their encounter in the park.
No wonder she cut him that day, not for an imagined offense but for one quite real, if unintended. Only arrogance made him bundled her in with the other debutantes who judged him by how they measured his purse or title. He’d had no cause to suspect her of being the same.
His head sank between his hands and he stared at the floor, cursing the time lost.
“Are you unwell?”
Aubrey looked up to find Ferrier, his daughter, and Jasper gathered close, their expressions matched in worry.
“It’s not my injuries that pain me now but my past mistakes. I have much to apologize for. Charlotte, you called me out for jumping to conclusions, and you spoke the same truth you always had. If I’d seen fit to question, I have little doubt you’d have been direct whether Barbara—Lady Barbara—held to her plan. If I’d been willing to meet her before judging…Can you now bring her forth? I swear I will not condemn her for her game. It’s a fair enough return for my false commentary.”
Charlotte stared into his eyes for a long moment, and Aubrey made no attempt to mask the desperate longing within, but then she shook her head as though finding him wanting.
“I need to see her,” he burst out. “Don’t deny me this.”
“It’s not that. She’s not here anymore. My father spoke faithfully. She returned to her parents, unwilling to chance facing you once again after all the harm she’d caused you.”
Aubrey gave a bitter laugh at that. “Any harm done was of my own doing.” He pushed to his feet, finding them steadier than they had been with understanding to give him strength. “Jasper, it seems I’m off to London.”