“Ah. I see I am not forgiven, Mme la duchesse,” Jonathon said in French, blocking Antonia’s exit.
He held out her fan. It was not immediately taken back.
Antonia kept her eyes level with the covered buttons of his embroidered red silk and gold thread waistcoat. “M’sieur, you have made a habit of getting in my way. You must desist.”
“I understand why you are angry with me, and I ask your forgiveness,” he said conversationally, tall frame shielding Antonia from the curious glances of his Cavendish relatives, who had crowded in to hear what was being said. “I should never have touched you without permission, and never in the way that I did. My ungentlemanly behavior has been gnawing away at me since I left you.” He smiled in spite of himself. “If it’s any consolation I ate very little at dinner as a consequence of my shame. And not once did you look at me throughout all seventy-eight courses.”
This did bring Antonia’s emerald-green gaze up to his dark eyes.
“The puzzlement in your lovely eyes tells me you had no idea I was seated across from you at table. Another chink to my self-esteem! But what I won’t do,” he added seriously, “is take back what I said to you in the pavilion—”
“M’sieur! No! Stop! I won’t listen—”
“After all, good friends should be able to speak their minds without standing on ceremony. I told you I would not lie to you and I won’t. Friends tell each other the truth.”
“Friends?” she asked curiously, unconsciously taking the fan by its gold threaded tassel from his long, brown fingers and slipping the twisted gold rope over her wrist.
“Good friends, Mme la duchesse,” Jonathon replied with a smile, gratified that this tactic had the desired effect of throwing her off-balance. He offered her the crook of his velvet sleeve. “That is, if Mme la duchesse d’Roxton will permit a bronzed East Indian merchant who has not an ounce of social address, and very little to recommend him, to be her friend…?”
“Always you are absurd, M’sieur,” Antonia answered briskly, yet felt a huge relief that what he was asking of her was friendship. Still, she was wary of his motives. “Why do you want to be friends with me?”
Jonathon smiled at the small hesitant note in her voice. She was such a refreshing change from the brash over-confident women usual to her elevated station in life. “I would like nothing better than to discuss my reasons with you while taking a stroll down the length of this grand Gallery,” he answered, the crook of his velvet sleeve still on offer. “But I should like to do so without an audience…”
Antonia knew immediately he was referring to Spencer and Willis who hovered nearby. A slight turn of her head and two words over her bare left shoulder and they were consigned to wait by her wingchair. Spencer opened her mouth to protest, but one dark look from Antonia and the sisters curtsied and retreated.
“I’m pleased to report that Frederick and I are now fast friends,” he announced. “The boy showed me over his skiff. He’s very proud of it. And so he should be. He tells me it once belonged to his uncle Henri… He is your younger son, who is up at Oxford…?”
“Yes. The boat it was Henri-Antoine’s when he was a boy,” Antonia answered, finally laying her fingers lightly in the crook of Jonathon’s arm. “Julian he also had his own boat but by the time his younger brother was old enough to enter the boat races, Julian’s boat it was too knocked about to be considered sea worthy.”
“Did you know that Frederick has also had his oars painted green in your honor?”
“Oh? Superb! I do so want Frederick to win because his heart it is set on it,” Antonia answered brightly, strolling the length of the Long Gallery she knew so well, walls crowded with a collection of massive paintings by master painters of Roxton ancestors through the ages. “But I do not know what are his chances with his father rowing against him with his brothers. Julian he is a very fine rower you see, and he won’t throw the race just to let Frederick win. My son he believes everyone, his heir included, should win on merit and hard work.”
“I applaud the Duke’s sentiments. They mirror my own. But he hasn’t counted on my great desire for the Emerald Duchess to cross the line first. Frederick and I have a dinner and the pleasure of your company awaiting us at Crecy Hall if we do. Enough incentive for the Duke to be beaten this year, and so I announced to one and all over the port.”
Antonia gasped, but her eyes shone. She squeezed his arm. “You did no such thing!”
“Most certainly I did. It doesn’t hurt to stir the competitive muscle amongst men, Mme la duchesse.”
“But my son, what did he say to your challenge?”
Jonathon grinned. “What man worth his salt does not rise to a challenge?”
“He may be fair minded but that does not mean he likes one little bit to be beaten.”
“Well said. Naturally, he took the challenge in the spirit in which it was intended. Oh, and several large wagers were made there and then. My odds, I am afraid to say, are not as good as Roxton’s.”
“But of course not,” Antonia declared matter-of-factly. “He Julian is a very good rower.”
“That’s telling me straight,” Jonathon said good-naturedly. “How do you know I’m not just as good a rower as Roxton, if not better?”
“Me I do not know,” she admitted truthfully with a smile. “But I do know my son and you may believe me when I tell you, M’sieur, that you will have to be a very good rower indeed if you hope to beat him.”
“Well, I shall beat him because I have a much stronger incentive to win.”
He chanced to glance up at the paneled wall then, at a massive canvas in a heavy ornate frame, and the family portrait considerably sobered his mood. The painting had been executed to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the fifth duke coming into the title. His beautiful duchess was still absurdly youthful and had a ruddy-cheeked child of no more than five years of age on her lap of heavy damask petticoats, and the son and heir was a tall, handsome young man dressed in pale blue watered silk. But it was at the magnificently dressed nobleman Jonathon focused. The Duke was seated on a gilt chair in his ducal robes and coronet, black silk frockcoat and matching breeches and with white stockings that showcased muscular calves. He had a shock of white hair pulled severely off the starkly handsome aging face, a strong nose, thin, sneering lips and black eyes that stared out arrogantly on the world as if he owned every acre of it.
“A man like that can have any woman he wants, and no doubt did… until you came along,” he mused, before tearing his gaze from the canvas to look down at Antonia with a crooked smile. “I’ll wager he stole you out of the schoolroom for fear some other rogue would snap you up as soon as you were launched into society.”
“He did no such thing!” Antonia protested hotly, and added loftily by way of explanation when Jonathon followed his arms across his chest and looked skeptical. “I was never in a schoolroom. My father was an eccentric court physician and having no son brought me up as one, with a broad-minded education, and to speak my mind. And this is what attracted Monseigneur.”
“I was just about to say so,” Jonathon lectured her, though his dark eyes were full of mirth. “Monseigneur liked the fact you said it to him straight. Not too many men or women, I’ll wager, were brave enough to speak plainly with him, were they?” He eyed the portrait again. “I recognize the type well enough. Don’t suffer fools; can’t stand trencher-flies; and as proud as they come.”
Antonia blinked and looked contrite. “Oh. I thought…”
“You thought I was going to give the archetypal male response and mention your incomparable beauty, pretty toes and magnificent breasts.”
“M’sieur!”
“He wouldn’t have been male had he not lusted after you, but it wasn’t the deciding factor in Monseigneur’s capitulation.”
“M’sieur, you should not make such outrageous comments to me,” she replied curtly, but there was no heat in her voice this time.
“You’re not offended by my
plain speech, so don’t pretend, not with me,” he responded bluntly. “I like the fact you haven’t an ounce of artifice, that we can speak honestly to one another.” He smiled into her eyes. “That we can be friends.”
Antonia shut her fan with a snap.
“M’sieur, now it is my turn to wager you. Fifty guineas you say so to all the beautiful women of your acquaintance.”
“Now there you go again, making me grin like a Bedlam inmate.” He held up three long fingers. “Mme la duchesse, there are but three women in this palace of a home who don’t have an ulterior motive for offering me friendship.”
Antonia put up her brows but couldn’t stop the appearance of the dimple in her left cheek. “These three women, who might they be?”
“My dear daughter, your daughter-in-law the dear duchess, and then there is you. My daughter is young and has her own set of friends, and certainly doesn’t want her crusty old papa as her shadow. The Duchess of Roxton is as charming as she is beautiful, but quite reasonably, the Duke would have something to say if I began haunting her for conversation. He is in love with his wife; that is patently obvious. That leaves you, Mme la duchesse. I am confident I may simply enjoy the pleasure of your company and friendship without fear of being seduced into the padlock of wedlock.”
“Of that, I promise you, M’sieur, there is not the slightest danger,” and turned with a swish of her layered petticoats at the sound of the double doors at the end of the Long Gallery being flung wide by two liveried footmen to admit the four Roxton children and their assortment of nurses and tutors.
Had the Duke not been waylaid by the Countess of Strathsay, as he set aside his coffee cup on the tea trolley, it had been his intention to confront his mother and request that she return to join the Duchess at the tea trolley; her performance of turning her chair to the view and away from Deborah as hostess never ceased to annoy him. Despite Deborah’s assurances that her mother-in-law’s practice of ignoring her while she administered the tea things did not bother her in the least and that it was best to leave Antonia alone, Roxton knew the slight done his wife did indeed hurt her feelings.
It had not been an easy transition for Deborah to take over as Duchess of Roxton from a mother-in-law who had been a Duchess all her adult life, and thus had left an indelible stamp on the noble position and everything that entailed. In Roxton’s opinion, his mother could have done a great deal to assist her daughter-in-law ease into the role had she not been wallowing in a perpetual state of self-pity; self-pity that had the potential to spiral out of control as it had twelvemonths ago.
The third anniversary of his father’s passing was tomorrow and he wasn’t about to have a repeat of his mother’s mournful performance of the previous year. It was the Duke’s belief that his duchess had miscarried their fifth child on the second anniversary of his father’s death as a direct result of his mother’s pitiful and quite unnecessary over-dramatic display of grief upon that occasion. With Deborah in the early stages of the second trimester of her sixth pregnancy, Roxton was convinced that to protect his wife and their unborn child the presence of Sir Titus Foley was necessary to manage his mother through another anniversary. The eminent physician was due at Treat any hour, and his arrival couldn’t come soon enough.
That his mother had not put off her black as requested and was providing entertainment for his guests by being deep in conversation with a man who paraded about society as an East India merchant when he was anything but a simple man of no family only served to irritate the Duke further. For how was it that she barely acknowledged family and friends yet chose to be pleasant to a stranger who had the gross conceit to ask her to dance, and then show his host extreme insolence by visiting Crecy Hall uninvited, when it was universally made known to servants and guests alike that the dower house was off limits to everyone, even members of the Duke’s family, without his express permission.
With an eye on his mother and his mind going over what he intended to say to Mr. Jonathon Strang, he heard one word in five of the Lady Strathsay’s prattling speech. Something about the Dowager Duchess not needing something that Lady Strathsay could very well do with for a few weeks, perhaps a month, and if it pleased His Grace to release them to her, she would take very good care to ensure they had a wonderful little holiday at her expense of course, so that when they returned to the service of Mme la Duchesse, they would be able to provide even better service in the future. And when all was said and done, surely His Grace would concede that they were rather unnecessary to the comfort of Mme la Duchesse. If His Grace would only give his consent…”
“If Mme la Duchesse has agreed to it, then it is not for me to quibble, my lady,” Roxton replied curtly, annoyed that his mother had sent their cousin to him, as if he didn’t have more important matters to concern himself with than the release of a couple of her horses! As if she needed his permission. “You are most welcome to them, Charlotte,” he added and excused himself before Lady Strathsay could detain him further.
He was almost at Antonia’s side when the doors at the far end of the Gallery opened to admit his four children. Their little faces never ceased to make him smile and be more in charity with the world. He watched them walk or be carried up the Gallery, all on their best behavior with the room full of guests. That is, until they spied their grandmother.
With her habitual spontaneity, at sight of the children Antonia rushed to meet them with arms outstretched. The three boys scampered along the polished floor to get to her first, big grins on their little faces and laughter in their eyes, and when Antonia sank to the floor in a billow of petticoats to be at their height, they threw their arms about her neck to receive her hugs and kisses. She took Julie from the arms of her nurse and cuddled her on her lap, while listening to the twins prattle on excitedly about their papa rowing them tomorrow in the boat race.
Soon all four of the Duke’s children were trampling over the yards of Antonia’s exquisite black velvet and silver tissue petticoats, eager to sit close and have their young voices listened to. They laughed and giggled and spoke French all at once. The hours spent in the nursery instilling in them the need to be on their best behavior in front of their parents’ guests evaporated in an instant. Gus held up a bandaged finger for his grandmother’s grave inspection and glared at his twin. Louis said it wasn’t his fault his brother’s finger got in the way of the hammer, and Antonia believed them both. Frederick was conspiratorial and quickly shoved deep into his pocket the coil of green ribbon Antonia passed him, to be taken out later and made into a cockade for his naval hat by one of the nursery maids.
Antonia then watched and applauded Julie’s impromptu dance as if the little girl was the only being in the room and agreed that she was indeed the most beautiful fairy she had ever seen. And when the little girl then scrambled onto her lap and began fiddling with the tiny silk bows of her bodice, Antonia did not care in the least, nor did she mind when the five year old twins tugged hard at the cascading lace at her elbows to get her attention away from their annoyingly coquettish baby sister.
The nurses and tutors dutifully kept their distance, watching on as if it was a commonplace thing for the Dowager Duchess of Roxton to romp with their noble young charges on the bare polished floorboards. The Duke’s guests held back also and watched without a murmur, most wore indulgent smiles, for one would have to possess a heart of marble or no heart at all not to be affected by the unconditional love the Dowager Duchess showered on this brood of happy children and vice versa.
Yet there were those of a more jaundice eye whose attention remained focused on the Duke, awaiting his reaction to his mother getting down amongst the dust, her exquisite petticoats ruined by his children’s antics. But if Roxton was disturbed that Antonia’s spontaneous behavior was causing many an eyebrow to lift, he did not show it. He watched his children with an indulgent smile, and when the Duchess slipped her hand in his, he said something to his wife that had her smiling and nodding in agreement.
But
not everyone was silent on the matter. The Lady Strathsay voiced to Kitty Cavendish what the elder turgid members of the nobility were privately thinking.
“Of course they are all spoiled beyond permission,” the Countess enunciated coldly, nostrils quivering with envy at the sight of Antonia sitting upon the floor with the four most beautiful-looking children she had ever set eyes on. “Mme la Duchesse has always encouraged their willfulness and Roxton does nothing to curb his mother’s outrageous behavior because he fears what it will do to her fragile state of mind. None of us ever want a repeat of her emotional collapse in full view of the world of the previous year. So embarrassing for the rest of the family. Naturally, I blame Monseigneur for Antonia’s past and present ills. He over-indulged her terribly, as only a besotted older husband can a much younger beautiful wife.” She screwed up her mouth in distaste. “Is it any wonder then that she spoils her grandchildren in the same manner?”
Kitty Cavendish went to respond, but realized it was a rhetorical question when Lady Strathsay hardly drew breath before continuing to vent her vitriol.
“Why Roxton thinks he can instill manners in his children when his mother fells his edicts with one visit to the nursery, is beyond me. And of course the good dear Duchess… One can’t but be sympathetic to her plight. Deborah does her best, I know, but what hope has she of setting a good example for her children when Roxton keeps her continually pregnant and thus forever in childbed? Thank God Monseigneur was too old to impregnate Antonia more than twice. Her youngest son is an over-indulged, self-important young man and when Roxton was young he was the most spoiled, willful boy, all his mother’s fault. Yet, he surprised us all by growing up to be the most stoic and stolid young man; possibly because he was sent away on the Grand Tour when quite a youth. That cut the cord with his mother well and truly and one must applaud Monseigneur for at least seeing the sense where his heir was concerned. Yes, Kitty, I do believe you are correct; one must look to the future. There is hope for the Roxton dukedom yet in Frederick. That’s if Antonia’s unbridled influence doesn’t spoil him beyond saving. But I suppose now that he and his brothers and sister are no longer permitted to visit Crecy Hall, they will finally settle into being good, obedient children.”
Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Page 11