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.