A Country Affair

by Patricia Wynn

  Selina had already seen in what direction he was headed and had taken a place on the outside near the corner post. With herself on one side and Augustus on the other, they just might manage to catch the board. Mr. Lint was skillfully backing Nero, his stick poised like a sword to halt the hog's flanking attempts.

  Just before, Nero's rump reached the corner, he gave the command, “Grab the board ... now!"

  Both Selina and her brother grasped it and managed to hold on while the pig, startled by their movement, lunged forward. They pulled backwards, straining against the hog's immense strength, until his leg was extended fully behind him. In another second, the rotten board slipped free and they both fell back into the mud.

  Squealing in terror, Nero charged forward. Selina was ready to scream, but Mr. Lint dodged him, stepping aside as if to avoid a rapier thrust. He turned to anticipate another charge—but the silly pig had just that quickly realized he had been freed and had instantly calmed. Like the single-minded beast he was, he rooted up to the fence and stood oinking for his meal.

  Mr. Lint let out a laugh, tossed his stick across the fence, and vaulted lightly to the other side. Turning, he saw that Selina was struggling to her feet and hastened to help.

  Dirt had coated her palms when she had tried to catch herself. Muck—that evil pig's muck—had soiled her dress. And Mr. Lint had no more grace than to look, with the exception of his mud-caked boots, as spotless as a baby in a christening gown.

  “Are you quite all right?” he asked her, ignoring the dust on her hand as he took it to pull her up.

  Selina did her best to snatch it back. “Yes, I am. Thank you very much. But you must not—"

  Her protests, however, were useless. Nothing she could say would dissuade Mr. Lint from dusting off the back of her gown even though half the dirt he raised landed on his breeches. Not even her embarrassment, which she thought must be quite in evidence, seemed to discourage him.

  And, as if that were not enough, he extracted a handkerchief—a fine, white linen handkerchief—from the pocket of his breeches to wipe the muck off her face.

  “If you'll permit,” he said, then proceeded to ignore her protests, “you've a smudge on your face."

  “A smudge! Sir, your manners are so exquisite they astound me! Why, I must have half a mud puddle on my face! Which you should not—as I've tried to tell you—use your handkerchief to erase. I can very well take care of it myself. Inside. As is proper. If you will just be so kind as to stop daubing at me.” Selina hoped she did not sound too upset, but truly, this was the outside of enough!

  Mr. Lint took no offense. He lowered his handkerchief with a grin and bowed. “Certainly, miss, you may proceed as you think fit. I only hoped to assist, much as Sir Walter Raleigh must have done with Queen Elizabeth. You'll remember the legend of his cloak? Unfortunately, I have not brought my cloak with me or it would lie at your feet."

  At such nonsense, Selina could do nothing but laugh. Her laughter was mixed with mortification, but it helped that Mr. Lint found something to amuse him in the episode. It surprised her that a man who made his living on the land could find anything having to do with farm animals amusing—not when they were repeatedly getting into trouble—which made her wonder again exactly what his position was.

  Before she could wonder too long, however, he changed the subject. “Why Nero?” he asked. “Is he mad?"

  “As good as makes no difference,” Augustus chimed in. He had dusted himself off and came to join them with a toss of his fine hair. “He's always getting into mad starts."

  “The last of which I have just been privileged to witness. Come along, Squire,” Mr. Lint said, ruffling Augustus's hair. “Let's fix that pen while your sister's composing herself.”

  Before they did, however, he grabbed the bucket and treated Nero to what he'd been grunting for.

  Composing herself was right, Selina decided as she picked her way to the house, lifting her skirts with as much dignity as she could muster. She had worried about Mr. Lint finding her feeding the pig, and he had caught her wrestling with it instead. How demure! How refined!

  Fuming all the way to the house, she reminded herself that it did not matter what he thought as long as he bought several of her trees. He was, after all, no more than a customer to her. She should be glad to have entertained him when he might have gone off in disgust.

  Although he did not seem to be in such a great hurry to leave, she noted. Selina put aside all thought of asking where he came from. She could not risk offending him with an interrogation. He had shown such patience, how could she treat him to suspicion? It did not matter anyway, in the long run, just where he had sprung from. And in the short run, his help had been quite useful. She made no doubt that he would be gone from the district by morning, but she would not be in a hurry to chase him off.

  Richard watched her go with an appreciative quirk to his lips. Even with pig-muck splattered all over her, Selina had managed to look regal. It had amused him greatly to find himself chasing a hog around its pen. What his friends or the society matrons would say if they had seen him, he did not know. He only knew he had not had so much fun since he was a boy.

  But he had not meant to wound Selina's pride. Her pride was clearly what kept her going in the face of so much adversity. In her circumstances, it was a marvelous trait. He wondered, however, how that pride would transfer into other, less arduous spheres. An assembly of ladies and gentlemen, for instance. Would she look down her nose at all their pretensions ... like a countess?

  His own quest for a countess sprang into his mind, jolting him out of his reverie. An image of Selina putting Wilfrid in his place had been surprisingly pleasing.

  ...Disturbingly pleasing.

  Richard recalled his reason for coming to Uckfield, which had slipped his mind the moment he had seen Selina struggling with the pig. Now would certainly not be a good time to straighten out her misapprehension. He made no doubt that her pride had been wounded enough by being discovered in such an undignified act. And, even though he himself had found nothing remotely unattractive in her doings—to the contrary, he had only admired her courage and spunk—he knew that ladies could be a bit prickly when issues of vanity were involved.

  No, the time was definitely not right. Perhaps, later, when she had shown him her trees and they had conducted their sale, he would find a more appropriate opportunity to confess his lie.

  But, he thought with a smile, if Selina did not keep from running into trouble, there might never be an appropriate moment.

  When Selina returned in less than half an hour, he and Augustus had finished their work on the pen. She arrived wearing a different gown. This, too, was faded and out of date. Like the last, however, this skirt fell in ample folds from her waist and seemed to suit her noble stature. Richard admired the way it swayed with every one of her steps.

  He also noted with pleasure the fresh gleam of her face, the result of a hard scrubbing with soap. And the shine of her hair, which could only have been achieved by a vigorous brushing, owed to her magnificent rage. He would not have been at all surprised to learn that the boar bristles—as a surrogate for Nero—had been subjected to a hundred strokes, the gloss on her locks was so high.

  Out of tact, however, he affected not to notice any change when Selina thanked him with her noble air and invited him to accompany her to the orchard. With a bow, he followed her, not missing the fact that, for all her apparent confidence, she would not meet his eye.

  And seemed determined not to do so. As they walked towards the orchard, Richard found that he had to race to match her stride. With her womanly proportions, her legs were nearly as long as his, which allowed her to stay a shoulder's depth in front of him. Plainly, she was used to working at top speed. Richard wondered if she ever had a second to rest from her chores.

  He followed her into the orchard and through the rows of mature trees, as she pointed out the strength of her stock. Never stopping for more than a second or two beside an
y one, she kept him hastening to keep up. Unfamiliar with the terrain, he barely had time to see what she was pointing out and to watch his step, as they charged from row to row and tree to tree.

  Richard hoped he was making suitable noises of interest in response to her descriptions, but he could not see her face well enough to tell. All he saw was the curve of her high cheekbone, the rounded line of her jaw, and occasionally a glimpse of her lush, full lips. He wished he could forget the sight of those lips, their color deepened by cherry wine. Such a memory was not very conducive to recalling his business.

  Arriving at the end of a row, Selina did not pause, but turned and retraced her steps to the fence, double-paced. With an inward grin, Richard let her lead. Miss Selina Whoever-She-Was did not appear to get over an indignity very easily.

  She led him into the seedling orchard, where Caesar had done his damage. A damage that was distressingly evident in the morning light.

  Selina, however, seemed to pay the destruction no mind as she strode past the nibbled trees to reach the ones that had been spared.

  “These are the seedlings from which you might select, Mr. Lint.” Her tone begged him to do just that.

  Richard was not yet ready to have their business concluded, for he still had not discovered what he had come to find out. And he could see that she was not ready to learn that the customer she needed so badly was, in reality, a peer with a grudge.

  He stalled a bit longer.

  “We passed a number of young trees before arriving at these,” he said, anticipating her answer.

  What he had not foreseen was her reaction. The mention of the ruined trees had the impact of a blow to her face.

  “Yes,” she managed to get out, “but those have quite likely been damaged beyond salvation. I would not try to sell you those."

  “That is not what I meant,” he hastened to assure her. “I was simply wondering what you would do with them now."

  Selina gave a half-shrug, a brave gesture. “Oh, we shall have to look them over individually. See if there is anything to be salvaged."

  “Who will prune them?"

  “Myself ... Augustus ....” As an afterthought, she added, “Lucas."

  Richard knew that he must have frowned, for her chin rose in the air. “You need not concern yourself, Mr. Lint. We have had such setbacks before. As you yourself know, such are the risks of farming."

  Richard did know. But his setbacks had never cost him, in relative terms, what this episode would cost Selina. That knowledge pained him inexplicably and made him reluctant to let the subject drop.

  He changed it instead to something related. “Your man, Lucas—you say he is due to return soon?"

  Again, he seemed to have caught her unprepared. A shadow touched her face.

  “Yes. He should have been back by now, but I expect he will be shortly."

  “Is he a trustworthy sort of fellow? What I mean is, can he be trusted to do as he's bid?"

  Her answer was evasive. So were her eyes as they sought a spot on the ground. “Whether he can be or not is not the issue, for I must have a man to perform such tasks.” She flushed, and her eyes met his for one brief glance. “You yourself were surprised, I make no doubt, to discover an unmarried lady running her family's estate. And, although you made no protest, there are others who are not so charitable as to condescend to do business with me. Lucas allows me to conduct our affairs under the cloak of my brother's name without most people being the wiser."

  “And has it served?"

  “It serves reasonably well,” she said, turning away.

  Richard kept apace with her as she pointed out certain seedlings he might think it wise to choose, but all he could think of was the rot on every fence, the sagging roof to the house, and the fields which should have been turned by this time of year and had not. If this Lucas was their servant, why had he not performed this job, when to all appearances, Selina and her brother did all the work in the house and barn? And now, this Lucas-person was returning late.

  Just as Richard had this last thought, the sound of cartwheels came up the drive. He turned with Selina.

  “Lucas!” The relief in her voice was palpable, though she tried to hide it. In an aside marked by an assumed confidence, she said, “You see, Mr. Lint, I told you he would be back at any moment. If you will excuse me, however, I should go see just how he fared."

  Richard agreed with a bow of the head, but instead of staying where he was, followed her out of the orchard. He wanted to see for himself just who this Lucas was.

  The object of his gaze was rather slovenly in appearance. Lucas's hair, turning gray, must have been left as it had been slept upon, for no cap could have produced such disarray. His face was grizzled, with a few-days-old whiskers growing unevenly on his upper lip and jaw. Slow to get down from his cart, he shuffled none too sprightly across the yard.

  Selina asked him whether his business had been completed, then repeated the question when he seemed reluctant to hand over his purse. Lucas's eyes followed the money longingly, as if he had hoped against hope that she would forget to ask for it. Selina opened the purse right away, appeared to make a quick count, then handed Lucas back some coins which he quickly retrieved and stuffed into the pocket of his vest.

  Despite some signs of aging, Richard perceived that much of the man's slowness was nothing more than an act. His deafness was certainly assumed, for it turned remarkably around the moment Selina inquired whether he had breakfasted or not.

  “Not so's you'd notice,” he mumbled pitifully, doffing his cap and wiping his nose upon his sleeve.

  “Then you will want to help yourself to the bacon I've saved for you. It's wrapped by the fire, along with a piece of bread."

  “Thank ‘ee, Mistress Payley."

  His use of her name recalled Richard's business to him, just as the older man turned in search of his food. His step was far more lively, until he remembered to shuffle.

  “Something of a character, your Lucas,” Richard said after him, hoping to draw Selina out.

  She only smiled, a smile of distinct intelligence. “He is. Lucas would have me think he is much too decrepit for farm work, but I've noticed how well he accomplishes the things he wishes to do. On his nights off, he has no trouble harnessing the horse to the cart to go to Mr. Croft's."

  She said this with a deep chuckle, and Richard wished he could laugh along with her, but he was much too annoyed by the reality. A girl and her brother, who was no more than a boy, managing this place with no able-bodied man about? To all appearances, Lucas was next to useless. For appearances, he might serve some simple purpose, but surely for nothing else.

  Without more help, The Grange and the two young people who occupied it were doomed to a slow and painful ruin.

  Richard had scarcely come to this distressing conclusion when the sound of another arrival caught his ear. Selina, too, had heard the horse's hooves. She raised her head, and before she could hide it, a flash of comical pain crossed her features.

  Richard looked to see who had earned her disgust and was surprised to find a young Adonis approaching on a steed of the drafting variety. The picture they made was quite impressive: a young man, strong as an ox by the look of him and handsome in a florid sort of way, perched upon a horse that could easily have carried two knights in full armor.

  Turning back to see if he had mistaken the tenor of Selina's welcome, Richard found the annoyed look gone. In its place was a patient smile.

  “Good day t’ you, Mistress Payley.” The youth tipped his hat, which, though not of the first elegance, showed the possession of some fortune. He had the air of a wealthy farmer, not that of a gentleman. “Got a visitor, have you?"

  Noting the name the man had used to address her—Payley again, and not Trevelyan—Richard made his bow while Selina performed her introductions.

  Mr. Fancible, it appeared, was heir to the neighboring farm, which explained Selina's casual way of greeting him. It was clear that the two had been
acquainted since childhood, for Selina did not stand on any ceremony, but told him in no uncertain terms that she was occupied.

  This did not stop Mr. Fancible from dismounting from his horse. And, when he did, Richard experienced something that struck him in a most unpleasant way. At over six feet, he had always been taller than most of his acquaintance. He had become accustomed to the gentle feeling of superiority his height afforded him.

  But this young man loomed over him. So much so that Richard would have considered Mr. Fancible grossly misshapen, had his proportions not been so perfect. As it was, Richard could only stand in awe of the pair of shoulders that dwarfed his own not-inconsiderable pair. Mr. Fancible's wrists, which showed at the bottom of his cuffs, could each make two of most of the men's in London. Richard wondered just what the young man's mother had eaten to produce such a healthy specimen, one who reeked so strongly of masculinity as to make his own hackles rise.

  “Won't be no bother,” Mr. Fancible said, ignoring Selina's broad hint. “Just come to see how pig of yours is getting on."

  “Nero is perfectly fine,” Selina told him, forgetting somehow to mention the adventure of the morning. “You needn't worry about him so."

  A touch of exasperation tinged her voice. Richard wondered whether this was a ruse Mr. Fancible had used before to give himself a reason for coming by. If so, it was a very feeble one.

  “Has Nero been ill?” Richard inquired politely. “Is that the reason for your call?"

  “Eh?” Mr. Fancible turned towards him. Richard could see that the conversation had moved much too swiftly for his stunted brain.

  Selina answered in his stead, while a flush she could not hide struggled up her neck. “No, he has not been ill, but Mr. Fancible was kind enough to sell Nero to me. And he has been worried about the condition of that pen."

  Richard had no sooner nodded to indicate his understanding than Mr. Fancible said with the air of someone who had repeated himself a hundred times, “Time for you to let me fix that fence."

  Selina crossed her arms. “I told you that Lucas would soon get to it, and in fact, the fence has been repaired just this morning. So you can see that there is no reason for you to be concerned.” Her tone, when giving this speech was so firm, only a simpleton could ignore it.