Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series)

by Lucinda Brant

  But Antonia was not to be distracted from her grandson’s chatter. Jonathon admired her skill in teasing information from the boy, so that it was not many minutes before Frederick, who showed a natural reticence for one so young, had lost his shyness in the company of a stranger and was telling her all about the planning that had gone into the building of his sailing craft for the annual Spring race around the largest island on the lake. No detail was too small for Antonia to express immense interest, and she showed such enthusiasm for her grandson’s plans that Jonathon marveled at the change in a woman who not half an hour before had been weeping into his handkerchief. Her eyes sparkled, she laughed prettily behind her fan, and she was so full of animation that he knew this was how she was before Monseigneur’s death, and how she needed to be again.

  He was quite content to remain as spectator, but when Frederick expressed the desire for a glass of lemon water and a slice of cake, Antonia remembered her duty as hostess and signaled for her butler to pour out saying to Jonathon as she led Frederick to the low table,

  “You must forgive me my teapot. It is full of coffee. I do not drink tea, do I, Charles? It is insipid. But I have tea up at the house if you prefer?”

  “Coffee it is then. Although you would drink tea if I was to make it for you, Mme la duchesse.”

  “So you think? And why is that, M’sieur?”

  “Because I make it the way it is intended to be drunk, mixed with India spices stirred into hot frothing milk and savored. One day you will try my most excellent Chai tea. But today, coffee will do very nicely indeed,” he replied, following her to the low table, a heightened color to his cheeks because he realized he had been so preoccupied with watching her in conversation with her grandson that he had been ill mannered enough to ignore the existence of Charles Fitzstuart, who was now regarding him with a suppressed grin. To mask his awkwardness at being so scrutinized, Jonathon picked up off the little table by the chaise the book and pamphlet saying conversationally as he flipped the pages of the dog-eared and well-read copy of Tacitus’ Annals of Imperial Rome, “Do you drink tea, Fitzstuart?”

  “It’s Charles, sir. The Duke and Duchess prefer Christian names to be used amongst their younger relatives, particularly in the presence of their children. No titles and definitely no one standing on ceremony. It is all part of the Rousseau educational philosophy,” he explained evenly, as if the Frenchman’s philosophy on the rearing of children was common knowledge, adding with a glance at Antonia, “I always drink coffee when I visit with Mme la duchesse.”

  “I presume then that if you always drink coffee with Mme la duchesse you speak French like a native?”

  “Tolerably well, sir. I have a first in languages from Cambridge.”

  “Do you indeed?” Jonathon mused, a studied look at the young man, particularly his green eyes, and then a glance at Antonia. “So green eyes are not the only attributes shared by members of this illustrious family. Does your linguistic abilities also extend to an appreciation of the Roman historians?”

  “Yes, sir. It was Mme la duchesse who first introduced me to Suetonius, Tacitus and Cicero when I was not much older than Frederick is now. I prefer Cicero’s prose, although Mme la duchesse will argue that he is overly self-important.”

  “Charles, you know he is!” Antonia scolded playfully, patting the tasseled cushions on her left. “Come sit before the coffee it is cold. Marcus Tullius’s vanity and pomposity shine through his writings and therefore me I cannot like him, though his letters are beautifully constructed. But Tacitus, he is more perfunctory in his commentary. His observations concerning the domesticity of the Julio-Claudian emperors are vastly more entertaining, particularly because he is biased, especially so towards Augustus’s wife. He detests Livia to the point of mania, which is delicious to read but shameful historiography.” She smiled at Jonathon over the rim of her porcelain cup watching him struggle to sit at a table designed to accommodate children. “But perhaps we should talk of more general topics, Charles, and not bore M’sieur Strang with our playful arguments about Roman historians?”

  “To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness—”

  “—they call it peace,” Antonia said, finishing the line in unison with Jonathon, face lighting up with approval. “Touchè! So you do know your Tacitus, M’sieur.”

  “I did not waste all my time when I was up at Oxford,” Jonathon quipped, his pulse quickening at her smile, and stretched out a hand for the cup of coffee Antonia offered him.

  “That is one of your favorite quotes from Tacitus, is it not, Charles? You quoted it just the other day when you asked that I read the Englishman’s pamphlet. I am sorry, Charles, but I have not read it yet. But as you see I have it here in my pavilion meaning to do so.”

  “I have read the pamphlet several times, Mme la duchesse, so am in no hurry to have it returned,” Charles replied and attempted to change the subject, “Miss Strang tells me you were born on the Indian subcontinent, sir?”

  Jonathon plonked a spoonful of sugar in his cup and stirred slowly, gaze on the young man. He glanced at the pamphlet beside his plate and said blandly, “I can only surmise that by offering Mme la duchesse the treasonous writings of this unknown Englishman, you hope to make a republican of her?”

  “You have read Common Sense, sir?” Charles asked earnestly, all reticence extinguished in his admiration for Jonathon’s choice of reading matter. “What do you make of the-the treasonous sentiments expressed, if I may be so bold?”

  Jonathon did not get the opportunity to offer his opinion one way or the other because Frederick, who had finally finished off a second slice of seedy cake and drunk all the lemon water in his tumbler interrupted the conversation by blurting out, “Mema! Mema! They are speaking in the English tongue at your table and it is not permitted! Tell them, Mema!”

  Antonia opened her eyes very wide at her grandson and turned an astonished expression on her two gentlemen guests. “So they are, mon petite chou. Thank you for bringing this social lapse to my attention. How impolite they are. I did wonder what they were gibbering on about but me I was too polite to ask.”

  Charles Fitzstuart went very red about the ears, baulked and began to stammer a reply before Jonathon, who had cocked an eyebrow at Antonia’s theatrical performance while sipping his coffee, cut in saying in French, “Excuse moi, Mme la duchesse, a momentary linguistic lapse on our part. We promise it won’t happen again.”

  “Now you must run to the jetty and back! That’s the rules,” Frederick announced and grinned cheekily, all shyness evaporated at thinking himself very clever at catching out these two grown men and excited at the prospect of watching them run to the lake. “Mema! Tell Charles and M’sieur they have broken your rules, Mema! Tell them they must run to the jetty and back!”

  “But who would know the rules if they were not broken from time to time, mon chou? It is hardly fair when this is M’sieur Strang’s first visit to Crecy Hall. So, he is unaware of my rules. And Charles, he was merely being polite to our guest. Perhaps we should be charitable and give them a reprieve this one time? But not a second time, yes, Frederick?”

  There was a long moment of silence while the little boy considered the matter before he nodded his agreement.

  “Just this once,” he said, exchanging a smile with Antonia. He looked at Jonathon, who was comfortably sprawled out on a number of cushions at the end of the table and feeding cake to the two whippets, and said in all seriousness, which had his listeners suppressing indulgent grins, “Mema is from France so she only understands French. So we speak only French at her house, always. Sometimes, if Louis and Gus fight, they forget their French and then it’s a run to the jetty for them. Mema says that if they run about by the time they get back to the pavilion they’ve forgotten why they were tumbling with each other on the lawn! But Julie doesn’t run at all because she’s just turned three. Her proper name is Lady Juliana Antonia and she’s a complet
e nuisance.”

  “Frederick, that is uncharitable.”

  “But… Mema, she is! Julie’s forever being annoying. Papa he loses patience with her because she babbles on in French all the time when we have been expressly told to speak English when we’re not in the schoolroom on account of the servants being ignorant. Mamma says it’s bad mannered not to.” He took the glass of lemon water offered him, adding with a grumble to Jonathon, “Mamma says Julie could get away with mur-murder because she’s going to be the great beauty of the family. Whatever murder is!”

  “She must resemble your Mema,” Jonathon stated, stretching a long arm up the table for a second slice of almond cake, not a glance at Antonia.

  “Yes, yes she does, come to think on it,” Charles Fitzstuart agreed placidly.

  Frederick rolled his eyes. “Everyone says that!”

  “Who is to be your oarsman, mon chou?” asked Antonia, turning the subject because she was unreasonably annoyed by Jonathon’s guarded compliment yet unaffected by her cousin’s frank assessment and that bothered her more than she cared to think about. “Is it to be you, Charles?”

  Frederick shot Charles a black look. “Was to be, but Charles is rowing for the enemy!”

  “Enemy?”

  “The American colonies, Mme la duchesse,” Charles explained evenly.

  “That’s what I said! The enemy.”

  “Not all the American colonists are at war with us, Frederick,” Antonia said quietly.

  “Dair says all Americans are traitorous dogs and the French mean to side with them and then we must hate the French too! But I don’t want to hate the French!” Suddenly tears welled up in Frederick’s brown eyes and his lip quivered. “Mema,” he whispered, “I don’t want to hate the French. I won’t.”

  Antonia smiled and beckoned Frederick to her who readily scrambled off his cushion onto her lap. She kissed the top of his curls and held him in a comforting embrace, saying soothingly, “It will not come to that, mon beau petit-fils. Your papa he will never let that happen. Accepté?”

  When Frederick nodded, content to remain cuddled in Antonia’s arms, she said to Jonathon by way of explanation, “Alisdair—Dair—he is Charles’ elder brother.”

  “The returned hero of the Long Island campaign?” Jonathon commented with surprise, thinking the two brothers could not be more different, in appearance and temperament. He had had an earful from Sarah-Jane about the recently returned Lieutenant Colonel’s adventures in the American colonial war, rather too much of an earful for his liking. In his opinion the man was an egotistical bore, but apparently his lordship was considered swooningly handsome by girls of his daughter’s age, and a great matrimonial catch as heir to an earldom and cousin to a ducal house. No doubt his pedigree and good looks cancelled out the man’s loutish womanizing; but what would he know? Sarah-Jane had pouted when he had made his opinions known. Not much, so it would seem...

  “Charles, please to tell us who it is you row tomorrow.”

  “Dair offered to row Miss Strang,” Charles explained, the color in his freckled cheeks deepening to match his red locks. “But then he had to withdraw his offer because he had earlier promised Her Grace he would row for the Stuarts, with Juliana wearing his burgee, and so was not able to fulfill his obligation to Miss Strang.”

  “Charles here is rowing my daughter Sarah-Jane,” Jonathon stated flatly to Antonia. He raised a mobile eyebrow and bit into a strawberry tartlet. “For the American colonists.”

  “Yes. Yes. I volunteered my services, sir. It was the right thing to do.”

  “For Sarah-Jane or the Americans? Never mind! Never mind!” Jonathon said dismissively, not a whisker of sympathy for the ripening color in the young man’s cheeks. “I am certain Sarah-Jane is beside herself to have you rowing her boat, regardless of your backing for the traitorous Americans.”

  Charles’ jaw set hard. “You think the American patriots’ cause traitorous, sir? That I am a traitor because I believe in free and fair elections; that men should be judged on what they do not who they are?”

  Jonathon stared at him as if it was blindingly obvious. “Traitor? It has nothing to do with your political inclinations one way or the other, my boy. Can you row?”

  “Well, yes, yes I can.”

  “So you’ll win and that will please her. My daughter loves to win, Charles.”

  “Does she, sir? Does she indeed?”

  When Charles visibly gulped, Antonia stared hard at Jonathon as if to say, stop teasing the boy! His response was to wink at her. She decided to ignore him and asked her grandson with practiced innocence, “So who is to row your boat, mon chou? Mon père?”

  “It is Papa’s turn to row Gus and Louis for the Hanoverians.”

  “What about Gregory or his brother?”

  Frederick scrambled off Antonia’s lap to resume his place beside her and took another slice of cake.

  “Mema?” Frederick responded with revulsion at the idea. “Gregory? Gregory doesn’t like boats. And his head it is always stuck in a shrub!”

  “That is very true.” Antonia giggled. “Poor Gregory. He is the eldest son of our head gardener and dreams of being a botanical scientist,” Antonia told Jonathon. “He is prone to great abstraction. What of his brother? He rowed the boat of Louis and Augustus in last year’s race. He almost beat you and your Papa to the line, did he not? What is his name, Frederick?”

  Frederick’s face lit up. “You mean Lawrence, Mema! Yes, I wanted him too. But don’t you remember? He fell off his horse and broke his arm. The bone it stuck out from—”

  “Yes, thank you, Frederick,” Antonia cut in, “I remember now.”

  “Not a nice neat break then?” Jonathon enquired with wide-eyed encouragement; two could play at the Duchess’s game.

  “No, sir. It was a-a ferocious break,” Frederick answered with relish. “Lawrence was thrown from his horse and we didn’t think anything of it, because Lawrence is a crack jumper of fences. But you’ll never guess what happened to him! His arm was all twisted up behind his back. He snapped it in two places. And when the sawbones reset the break he let out such a screaming howl that Papa said it was sure to wake the dead. We heard it from the nursery.”

  “Poor Lawrence’s broken arm does not solve your problem, Frederick,” stated Antonia, unable to resist a sly glance at Jonathon. She had formed a mischievous idea and smiling to herself said seriously to her grandson, “Mon chou, did you know, M’sieur Strang he rowed all the way over here to see me today. Yes, from your house… By himself. Incroyable, is it not? Such a distance! He is a very good oarsman, I think. Are you not, M’sieur?”

  “Did you, sir? Truly?” Frederick asked enthusiastically before Jonathon had a chance to reply. “Papa says it’s twice as far to row from that jetty to this, than to go twice round Swan Nest Island. The race tomorrow is once round Swan Nest on account of Louis and Gus being only five. Papa says next year we can row the whole course.” He looked to Antonia, who was smiling encouragingly, and then at Jonathon. “Would you… Would you be my oarsman, sir? I’d be forever grateful. I don’t want Gregory. He can’t swim. Can you swim, sir? Can you?”

  “Yes, I swim very well. And I would be honored to be your oarsman, Frederick,” Jonathon answered, regarding Antonia with a small smile and a lift of his brows that said he would deal with her later. “But I will do so only on condition that if we win the race Mme la duchesse invites the captains and oarsmen to dine with her here at Crecy Hall.”

  Frederick looked expectantly at Antonia. “Will you, Mema? Will you invite us?”

  “How could I refuse you?” But when Antonia looked at Jonathon it was with an imperious raise of her arched brows. “I give you afternoon tea and now you wish for me to invite you to dinner. Perhaps, M’sieur, you would like also for me to invite you to breakfast so we have covered all the main meals in the day?”

  Jonathon gave a bark of laughter. “Oh, I have high hopes that when that day arrives I won’t require an invit
ation!”

  Antonia’s lips parted in astonishment. She was stunned by such brash self-assurance. She was unsure if she should be furious, embarrassed or flattered, for there was no mistaking his inference. She did not know where to cast her gaze and fussed unnecessarily with the tea things. She would certainly ignore such an outrageous suggestion. The sun of the Indian subcontinent had indeed boiled his brain.

  Yet the implied suggestion was underscored when Charles, who had been sipping a second cup of coffee, reacted to Jonathon’s outrageous remark by breathing in and swallowing at the same time sending him into a fit of coughing and spluttering. He scrambled up from the table, fighting for breath, Jonathon following, clapping him on the back, the butler close behind with a tumbler of lemon water. By the time he returned to the table breathing normally, Antonia had regained her calm. She could not bring herself to look at Jonathon asking her grandson in a light tone,

  “Have you named your boat, mon chou?”

  Frederick nodded but frowned. “She’s called the Emerald Duchess, after you, Mema.”

  “What an honor you do me, Frederick! That makes me very happy. But… Something it is troubling you, yes?”

  “I wanted to name her the Black Duchess, but Papa he won’t allow it. He says it’s tradition for all the race boats to fly a color burgee, but that black is not a color. Nothing and nobody can change his mind. Will it, Charles?”

  “I’m afraid that is true, Mme la duchesse. His Grace is adamant.”

  “And your color, Charles?”

  “Blue.”

  “What luck! That’s Sarah-Jane’s favorite. She will be pleased.”

  Charles eyed the older man with the suspicion he was being laughed at. “Yes, sir, she was.”