Antonia was so taken aback by such arrogance that it was she who remained rooted to the spot, angry disbelief keeping her gaze firmly fixed on Jonathon’s white smile. It barely registered that her ladies-in-waiting had finally found her.
With a curtsey, the shorter of the two informed her that her carriage had pulled up in the portico.
A couple of bewigged nobles who were standing close by, drinking champagne, downing oysters and sharing a bawdy joke, were nudged into silence by two of their fellows with their wives in tow and became willing spectators to this little drama; they not the only ones who showed interest in the tall dark-skinned gentleman who had had the effrontery to dance with Antonia, Duchess of Roxton.
If Jonathon was not much mistaken, a general hush had descended on the refreshment room, and with the two gargoyles appearing from nowhere, it would not do to hang about to be further grist for the spectator mill. So before Antonia could move her feet or respond to Jonathon’s outrageous invitation to afternoon tea, he turned on a heel and sauntered off to be met half way across the crowded refreshment room by his daughter and her two flaxen haired friends, the Aubrey twins. A look over his shoulder, and his smile became smug, knowing he was still being watched.
For a few seconds at least he had managed to divert her thoughts from her dearly departed Duke. He was confident he could stretch those few seconds of preoccupation to minutes and then to an hour. But capturing her undivided attention for a full day, now that would be a challenge. But he was more than willing to exert himself. He was determined to give Antonia every attention, to help lift her out of her melancholy and provide her with the diversion she needed to overcome her preoccupation with the dead. And when he had gained her confidence, he would persuade her to see the merit and morality in returning to him the inheritance stolen from his ancestor Edmund Strang-Leven over a century ago.
He would spend every minute of every day of his stay at Treat in this single-minded pursuit.
Of course if the perquisite of this endeavor meant enjoying the company of an exceptionally beautiful woman who did not have designs on marrying him or marrying her daughter to him, it was a consequence he was more than willing to accept. Courting the Dowager Duchess of Roxton to the exclusion of every other female who threw themselves in his way would show Kitty and Sarah-Jane and the scheming mammas of Society that he was deadly serious when he said he was not the least interested in marriage.
Suddenly, the Roxton house party was not another dull social event to be endured for the sake of his daughter’s marital aspirations; Antonia Roxton had given it purpose and meaning.
Antonia was used to deference bordering on obsequiousness from everyone except her husband and immediate family. Encountering a plainspoken gentleman that was not in awe of her beauty or her nobility (what stranger spoke to a duchess in such an off-hand manner?) completely bewildered her. It would have gratified and greatly surprised Jonathon to know that he occupied the Dowager Duchess of Roxton’s thoughts during the carriage ride around the lake to Crecy Hall. Staring at the padded velvet upholstery between the shoulders of her ladies-in-waiting she decided that only a lunatic or a puff adder could muster the courage to ask her to dance, and defy her son’s tacit refusal. During the three years the Duke was ill and subsequent three years since his death no gentleman had dared to do either. And then a conceited, sun-bronzed lunatic had had the insolence to invite himself to afternoon tea! His skin wasn’t the only thing to have seen too much sun. She had heard it was not uncommon for men to go mad if they spent too many years in colonial climes, where the sun blazed so hot it blistered the skin.
That he had the audacity to invite himself to her house was in itself an overbearing presumption, but to saunter off and allow himself to be captured by three of the loveliest young ladies at the ball then turn and smile smugly at her, as if she cared the snap of two fingers that females found him attractive, decided her that Jonathon Strang was not only a lunatic but an arrogant lunatic. She wondered if he had danced with her to win a wager. Just the sort of ridiculous notion arrogant men who put a high price on their own worth engaged in. The three young beauties probably put him up to it.
She congratulated herself that she had the presence of mind to sweep past him with her chin up and without a second glance. Out of the corner of her eye she was gratified that the tittering beauties clinging possessively to the lunatic’s arms had the presence of mind to drop into respectful curtsies with the rest of the ladies and gentlemen who bowed as she passed by with her ladies-in-waiting in tow. Jonathon, too, made her a formal bow.
She stepped from the carriage without seeing the liveried footman who put down the steps or her butler and the porter who held up a flambeau to light her way into the warmth of the paneled hall of her Elizabethan manor.
He should have been grateful she had danced with him at all. She had saved him from social ruin and he had repaid her with a smug smile. Best to keep men of his stamp in their place, she told herself firmly as she was helped out of her petticoats, stays and chemise then wriggled into a fine cotton nightdress by her personal maid. Tomorrow afternoon she would go for a very long walk. If he did dare show his face at her doorstep and waited for hours alone and unwelcome, he would take the hint and not return. At the end of two weeks his white smile and dark brown eyes would be back in London, or whatever hot imperial outpost he was from, and she need never see him again.
She should have known better.
He was as stubborn as he was arrogant.
The next day, when she returned from a very long walk with her two faithful hounds trotting beside the hem of her many-layered petticoats, there he was, the sunbaked lunatic, seated on the top step of her summer pavilion down by the lake. He leaned comfortably against a fat Palladian column, long legs stretched out and crossed at his booted ankles. He was in shirtsleeves and sleeveless waistcoat, frockcoat discarded, and looked very much at home admiring the vista of sweeping green lawn down to a jetty and the still blue waters of the lake. He was smoking a cheroot and sending smoke rings up into a cloudless blue sky.
“Filthy habit,” Jonathon commented, removing the cheroot from between his even teeth when Antonia brought herself up short at the bottom of the pavilion’s polished marble steps and stared hard at him.
He balanced the cheroot on the ornately crafted lid of his small personal tinderbox and rose to his feet, languidly unfolding his long, lean legs as if he had been seated on the wide step for quite some time.
He made her a short bow.
“I discovered the marvels of the rolled leaf while employed with the Company in Hyderabad. It keeps flying insects away. I use a hookah when at home, much more relaxing, but out and about I prefer leaf tobacco to snuff taking, which makes me sneeze, and chewing the stuff rots the teeth. It would be a shame to ruin such a brilliant smile. Not too many fellows back here care to smoke; snuff’s more the thing. Still, I’ve invested in a number of tobacco plantations in the Americas on the off chance smoking will catch on.”
When Antonia did not move he came lightly down the broad steps and offered her his arm.
“I am not an invalid, M’sieur!”
She ignored his crooked arm and went up the steps into the pavilion where she removed her broad-brimmed straw bonnet and fringed shawl under the cool of the painted high domed ceiling. She then patted her mussed hair back into place, several golden wisps having escaped the multitude of pins and falling across her cheek, flushed from the walk, and then just stood there, at a loss.
She desperately wanted to remove her kid leather walking boots and pour out a glass of lemon water from the crystal jug that was always made ready for her on a silver tray on the low table. She would then rest her stockinged feet on the striped cushions of the chaise longue situated by the ornamental archway with its view of the jetty and which afforded a cool gentle breeze off the lake, and read for an hour or two before dinner. She was rereading her favorite Roman historian Tacitus, and had also started delving into a p
amphlet entitled Common Sense by an Englishman who supported the American revolutionary cause; given her by Cousin Charles. Both were waiting for her on the low table, as were several unopened letters.
First she had to get rid of this lunatic intruder.
She had walked further than ever before, stopping only to visit the family mausoleum that sat atop the highest hill on the estate where the best views of the county were to be had. Her son owned all the land as far as the eye could see, so wherever she walked, however far she walked, she never left home and could always see the magnificent marble mausoleum, a beacon that proclaimed to the world the family’s ancient nobility—last resting place of the Dukes of Roxton and their nearest kin.
But she rarely stopped to admire the view of lush rolling hills, old growth forest and, closer to home, the altered landscape of lake, ornamental gardens and strategically planted trees fashioned by architect-gardeners. She spent her time inside the vast edifice, in the cool stillness of the muted light that penetrated the enormous oculus set in the dome high above her head, surrounded by long dead Roxton ancestors, and the family that had been taken from her: Monseigneur her husband, his sister the Lady Estée and her husband and Monseigneur’s best friend, Lucian Lord Vallentine. Within the space of twelve months all three of her closest loved ones had been taken from her.
That groping fat-fingered physician Sir Titus Foley, worse, her son, claimed her visits to the Roxton mausoleum were proof that she had a morbid obsession with death. But it wasn’t death that consumed her when she was within those walls it was life. She had lived such a wonderfully happy and fulfilling life when her husband, sister-in-law and brother-in-law were alive. Was it so difficult to understand the simple premise that with their loss she had lost something of herself? She just wished to be left alone to reminisce in peace.
Where was Michelle to untie her bootlaces?
“I’ll stub it if you prefer,” Jonathon said to end her preoccupation, the cheroot in the side of his mouth. He poured out a glass of lemon water and held it out to her. “Drink up. Fresh tea’s on its way and—”
“M’sieur, me I do not care if you smoke or not, but you will not stay here! It is not—it is not...”
“The plates of little cakes and buttered bread were taken away with the teapot,” he continued conversationally, watching her closely as her gaze stole to the far end of the pavilion where a long low mahogany table with squat legs surrounded by tapestry covered cushions for seating was set for a tea party. “I guess they went stale…”
But Antonia wasn’t listening as she fixed on the pretty porcelain place settings for six and the child-sized silver cutlery to match. She had had the Sevres china specially commissioned to suit her grandchildren, a miniature version of the Roxton plate up at the big house. Twice weekly the children spent a few hours of the late morning with her at the pavilion. She always had the table set with crystal bowls filled with flowers and fruit, some with sweetmeats, and there were small tumblers filled with cordial. The table was exactly as she had left it before going for her walk.
She had waited for over an hour. And when the children did not come, sent a footman to discover what had detained them. Before her servant had set off, a liveried footman from the big house arrived with a note from the Duke. The ducal missive reinforced his decree of the previous evening: his children’s visits would resume when she put off her black, and not before. She took the note with her to the mausoleum and angrily showed it to her loved ones and felt better for it. But returning to the pavilion and the untouched table brought back the sense of aching loss of the here and now.
Unconsciously she relieved Jonathon of the glass of lemon water. She was so thirsty. Yet she did not drink.
“Did I miss the festivities?” Jonathon added lightly, though it was glaringly obvious the little tea party had never eventuated. “Shame. I prefer lounging on a couple of cushions when taking tea. Puts one far more at ease than sitting poker-faced on some stiff-backed chair with legs that can hardly hold up a peahen, least of all some turbaned matron. I remember once, at the Resident’s house in Hyderabad, a fat dowager by the name of Mrs. Mastive came to take tea. While we all sat on cushions, she insisted on a chair being brought out. We English are civilized,” he whined in a high-pitched voice, mimicking the turbaned matron’s cadence. “We do not squat like a native. Well!” he continued in his own deep voice, “we called her Mrs. Massive for obvious reasons. Not to her face, of course. But she was massive. Backside the size of an elephant and three double chins! You can imagine what happened to the chair. Lackeys used the splintered shards for kindling. Don’t worry; Mrs. Massive didn’t feel a thing when she hit the tiles. But she did end up squatting after a fashion.”
“Do you always run on at the mouth?” Antonia complained, scowling, oblivious to his mimicry, but his prattle forcing her out of her abstraction.
Jonathon laughed and shook his head. “No. A very recent affliction, I assure you, and all your fault, Mme la duchesse.”
“Mine?” Antonia was startled. “I do not see at all why the fault it is mine.”
Finally, she drank the glass of lemon water, too thirsty to wait any longer and because she hoped it would settle her nerves. The way he steadily regarded her while he quietly puffed on his cheroot was unnerving. She had not been left alone with a stranger, and certainly never a male, in such a very long time that she was awkward and ill at ease, which was ridiculous at her age, particularly with a gentleman who must be a decade younger.
She sat on the farthest end of the chaise, back ramrod straight, black silk petticoats and layers of white under petticoats billowing out around her, and lightly clasped her hands in her lap. Her chin went up and she lifted a shapely eyebrow in haughty disapproval she hoped cloaked her nervousness.
“I do not understand at all why you are here and not up at the big house where you belong with the rest of the guests.”
“I’d rather be here with you.”
Antonia did not know where to look.
“You are being absurd again, M’sieur.”
“Also your fault,” Jonathon said candidly and sat uninvited in the archway closest to the chaise. “I thought the asinine behavior of males when confronted with great feminine beauty was restricted to callow youth; something we grew out of with age. How wrong was I!”
“You should not say such things to me,” Antonia demanded, nervousness giving way to uneasiness. Her usual response to compliments about her beauty was one of teasing thanks, but that had been when her husband was alive. Now, and with this gentleman, she was strangely incapable of being off-hand. That he was bluntly truthful did not help. His next statement deepened the color in her cheeks.
“Why not? Don’t you like compliments?”
“I… I… It is not… It is not…” She threw up her hands and became angry when he started to laugh. “I do not see what there is to amuse you, just because I do not fall all over your admiration for my beauty. Of course I know I am above the ordinary to look at! I am not blind that I do not see this when Michelle brushes my hair before the looking glass each night. Do you think me witless?” She sat a little taller. “But I tell you, M’sieur, that you are to be disappointed if you think I am one of these females who flutter their eyelids and pretend to be coy all because a handsome stranger dares to state the obvious. Now what has made you grin like an idiot?”
“You called me handsome. I’ve gone all coy.”
Antonia’s mouth dropped open and then, in spite of herself, she laughed. “You are not blind either, M’sieur.”
“No, not blind,” he repeated, thinking she had a lovely laugh. “So what has delayed Roxton’s brood?” he added casually, back up against the column, long brown fingers to Antonia’s two whippets, who had earlier come prancing up the stairs, dehydration from the long walk and the cool water in their porcelain bowls making them totally oblivious to a stranger in their midst. Now, they took a tentative sniff at the buffed white nails. A lick of welcome at hi
s hand and they got for their good manners a scratch behind the ears before they trotted off to their respective cushions by the chaise and lay down, happy and content. “I presume they are the ones for whom the little iced cakes were baked? Not fallen ill, I trust?” he added when Antonia still did not answer.
Antonia shook her head, throat tight and unable to speak, and in a move she was later to wonder at, withdrew the Duke’s note from her pocket and thrust it at him.
Jonathon opened out the single sheet of parchment with one hand, skimmed the short paragraph, refolded it and handed it back without so much as a raised eyebrow. Yet his casual tone belied the quickening of his pulse, that she had taken him into her confidence so soon. Yet, he was shrewd enough to realize her actions said more about her deteriorating relationship with her son, than it did her wish to confide in him. As for the Duke’s actions: he thought them despicable.
“So what’s it to be, Mme la duchesse? Do you capitulate to Roxton’s blackmail? Though, if I may add my penny’s worth, snow white skin looks most fetching in black silks.”
“I do not wear black to set off my skin!” Antonia replied indignantly, annoyed by his off-hand tone and accompanying broad smile, and also for being weak-willed enough to confide her family troubles in a complete stranger. What had come over her? “I really do not know in the least why it is you are here!” she added in a rush of embarrassment when he continued to puff on his cheroot with a lop-sided smile.
“I told you. I’d rather be here with you. You witnessed those three irrepressible chits pounce on me last night, didn’t you?” he asked. “Had you stayed a little longer you would’ve seen them cart me off to the ballroom. Whereupon I was forced to dance with each and every pretty young thing in the room or receive a severe scolding from my daughter for my marked lack of manners.” He exhaled on a sigh and smiled crookedly. “The thought of another day of social chit-chat with girls younger than Sarah-Jane was enough to make me head for the lake, find the first tub and take up oars.”
Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Page 4