Free A Country Affair by Patricia Wynn

for a challenge. Which was ludicrous, he thought. Breathing deeply, he eased the muscles in his neck.
    Augustus, whom neither one had seen since Nero's temper tantrum, came running up the drive. In his hand he waved a folded sheet of paper.
    If Richard had known that the boy had planned to go into the village, he would have lent him his horse. He was on the point of saying so, when Augustus called out, "It's from the Garter King of Arms!"
    His news smacked Richard soundly in the face. He had been sure the Garter would have notified the Payleys of his refusal of their claim long before his arrival. Otherwise, he would never have allowed himself to be caught in such an awkward position. He was the last person who should be present when Selina read the Garter's letter.
    But there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Selina sprang for the missive and tore the seal before Richard could excuse himself.
    The change in her expression—from boundless hope, which made her eyes sparkle, to bottomless despair, which made her suddenly go pale—nearly tore his heart. In no little measure, he felt to blame for her sadness, even though his responsibility was nil. He wished he did not so keenly care now about her well-being. Or Augustus's, for the boy seemed to take the letter's contents as hard as his sister.
    "Distressing news?" Richard could not prevent himself from begging the opportunity to console them.
    "Yes . . . I'm afraid so." Selina's eyes met his. A thought, like a brief plea for sympathy, seemed to move behind them as she said, "We've been denied the use of our ancestor's coat of arms."
    "On what grounds?" Richard asked, feeling the veriest weasel for pretending, but, at last, on the verge of discovering what he had come to find out. And it was possible that he could do so now without divulging his real identity.
    The more he thought about it, the more he was coming to believe that things would be better left that way. He had far rather part from these people a stranger in harmony than let his duplicity add to their misery. He meant them no harm. In fact, he was prepared to buy tens—hundreds—a thousand trees if it would help.
    Selina's chin was already on the way up when she answered, "On the grounds that our proof of kinship is not substantial enough."
    "Did you think it was?" He had pushed for too much. Selina was obviously beginning to regret her openness.
    "Of course," she said with a toss of her proud head. "I am quite certain of where I stand." But her eyes avoided his as she said, in a lower voice, "If you will excuse me, I think I should prepare something for dinner—that is, if you would be willing to postpone our business until later?"
    Richard hurriedly assured her that he would be willing to wait, knowing she meant to hide her distress, though he wondered how much longer he should stay at The Grange. His feelings for the Payleys were growing far too complex. The quick embrace that Selina gave her brother in passing revealed too much for Richard's heart to take lightly. The bond of love between them. Their joint disappointment. Though it did not reveal the reason for their dismay.
    Intending to be of help to one of them, since he could not be to the other, Richard offered the boy his assistance in pruning the trees. Augustus accepted it with good grace, showing once again how well he had been raised. The proof of breeding, Richard knew, was not in one's family tree so much as in the gentility one displayed. And these Payleys had gentility in abundance—frustrated gentility, trodden down—but gentility nonetheless.
    He begged Augustus to tutor him in the way of pruning cherry trees, giving his future plans of an immense planting as reason. The two fetched tools from a drafty outbuilding, which could have stood a new roof, then set to their task. They worked side by side for many minutes, Augustus showing him just where to clip each trunk in the hope of saving the seedlings. The boy's manner of instruction was