Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series)

by Lucinda Brant

  “Four weeks?” The bite of delectable cheese-smothered asparagus tartlet half consumed turned to ash on Jonathon’s tongue and he dropped what was left onto his empty plate and swallowed reluctantly. “She was to spend a month under that dung beetle’s care?” He downed a swig of ale and wiped the frown from his mouth with a napkin before tossing it aside. “Christ! Roxton needs his head read! And why hasn’t he been a dutiful son and come to see her for himself? Aye, Audley, can you tell me that?”

  “It is hardly your business to question—”

  The rest of the secretary’s sentence went unspoken because the librarian’s silver fork clattered to his porcelain plate and the silver knife fell to the tiles as he tried to balance the plate and its contents on his knees. He met Jonathon’s gaze with a queer little smile that split his face and when Jonathon smiled back with a wink, the librarian had his suspicions confirmed. He couldn’t be happier or more relieved to discover this handsome giant of a man was not Sir Titus Foley. He liked Jonathon’s off-hand approach and suspected that beneath the casual distracted demeanor there was a steely determination to get what he wanted. Watching him amuse himself with the haughty secretary was most entertaining.

  “Your first report is now overdue,” Mr. Audley enunciated into the silence, oblivious to the new understanding between Jonathon and the Roxton Librarian. “If you have the document, sir, then I ask you to hand it over so I may leave you and your patient in peace.” And that moment couldn’t come soon enough.

  “I’ve got it!” Jonathon announced, sitting forward, a long finger waging at the librarian.

  “If you’ve got it, then pray, sir, hand it over!” demanded the secretary.

  “Those pale blue eyes! I knew I’d seen them before,” Jonathon continued, proud to have made the connection at last. “There up on the wall in the Hanover Square dining room!”

  Philip Audley edged closer to the table and looked from Jonathon, who was grinning at the librarian, and then to the librarian, who was beaming from ear to ear and nodding. The secretary scratched his bobwig, feeling he was the idiot fit for Bedlam, and waited.

  “The report is at Hanover Square? Why would you send the report to Hanover Square?”

  The secretary was ignored.

  “Eyes are a family trait that one cannot hide, however successful we are at concealing other lesser attributes,” Gidley Ffolkes said with a twinkle. “I spent the greater part of my life denying all knowledge of my familial connections, head in a book, or should I say books, at the Bodleian until my dear wife passed away... And then I came here, at the invitation of Mme la duchesse, to administer the Roxton Bibliothèque... And to live.” He took a sip of ale and added with a smile, “If not for the Roxton libraries... If not for the great kindness of Mme la duchesse... Here I have found a second home.”

  “So who’s the dapper relative and his wife up on the dining room wall?”

  “My first cousin Lucian Ffolkes, Viscount Vallentine and, in the last four years of his life, Earl of Stretham Ely. Though he remained Vallentine to family and friends. His wife was M’sieur le Duc’s sister. Their son Evelyn would be the present Lord Stretham Ely if his whereabouts were known, which they have not been for the better part of five years.” The librarian pushed aside his plate and lifted his blue eyes to Jonathon’s attentive gaze. “We must assume the boy has no idea both his parents died within weeks of each other and less than a year after M’sieur le Duc’s death, leaving Mme la duchesse tragically alone. They were an inseparable foursome: M’sieur le Duc, Mme la duchesse and the Vallentines... And now I must presume I am the last of the Ffolkes and the title will die with me if the boy cannot be found. I say boy, but Evelyn is only a handful of years younger than Roxton.”

  “You do not use the title.”

  “No. I do not consider it mine to use. It belongs to Evelyn. I have every faith he will be found one day.” The librarian smiled ruefully. “When he wants to be found that is.”

  All this was news to the secretary and he stared at Gidley Ffolkes as if at an ogre with not one but two ugly heads. “You’re the heir to the Stretham Ely earldom? You? A librarian? You are a member of the-the family?” He was offended. “My lord, it is most disconcerting of you to let me think, to allow others to think, you are a mere librarian of no social distinction when in fact you are a peer of the realm who should, for the benefit of those beneath you, reveal yourself so that we may know how to conduct ourselves in the proper manner.”

  “What the deuce are you rabbiting on about, Audley?” Jonathon demanded, tapping the cheroots to the end of the silver case and offering one to the librarian, who declined. He lit his cheroot. “Ffolkes here could be a rat-catcher for all I care about the color of the blood in his veins. So try not to let it bother you; I’m sure it don’t bother the family. And Ffolkes won’t hold it against you. He hasn’t yet.” He inhaled as he reclined against the cushions, a hand over the back of the silk striped chaise longue, stretching out his long legs and crossing them at the ankles. The chaise made a much more comfortable bed than it did a place to dine, as he had discovered after sleeping six nights on the said piece of furniture. Though, having slept rough under the stars on innumerable occasions on the sub-continent, a padded chaise longue and an assortment of cushions was luxury. “I hope the coffee arrives pronto. Or would you prefer tea, Ffolkes?”

  “Coffee would be most excellent, thank you.”

  Jonathon looked up at the secretary who was standing as a statue and continuing to stare at them with mute fury. “You still here, Audley? Would you prefer tea?”

  “Tea? No! I would not prefer tea, sir. What I would prefer is your report. Now, if you please.”

  Jonathon reluctantly sat up at the sound of footsteps. Two footmen appeared, one carrying the tea things, the other, at Jonathon’s signal, to clear away the remnants of nuncheon.

  “Ffolkes, you play hostess. Audley?” he said, “Shouldn’t you be getting back to sharpen His Grace’s quills or decant his ink or whatever it is you do to keep yourself occupied? One sugar, Ffolkes. Oh, and before I forget... Here, you are welcome to cast your eye over this until Mme la duchesse is ready to receive you,” he said, a hand flat to the manuscript of School for Scandal. “I have every confidence you will find it most amusing.”

  He picked up his dish of coffee and with the cheroot between his fingers, took a leisurely sip of the bittersweet brew, a smile at the secretary who, as he hoped, was on the point of a demented rage. It was time to put the officious little toad out of his misery. “The report is in here, Audley,” he stated, tapping a finger at his temple. “Now run along and make yourself useful. No! No, don’t speak. No thanks are necessary. I’ll be over the bridge directly to give my report but first I must have a second dish of coffee with my fellow bibliophile.”

  He turned to the librarian without another look at the secretary who, after a moment to collect himself from launching into a tirade about wasting the time of His Grace of Roxton’s secretary, stomped off down the steps and was last seen crossing the lawn towards the stables. “I’d like your advice about the book room at Hanover Square...”

  He then spent a leisurely half hour in companionable conversation with the librarian before following in the secretary’s footsteps to the stables, leaving Gidley Ffolkes to enjoy Richard Sheridan’s comedic genius. Entering the pavilion, Antonia found the elderly librarian with Sheridan’s manuscript upon his lap, tears of laughter streaking his face, the only indication Jonathon had been there, a pile of wet clothes and a towel in a heap beside a travelling portmanteau.

  Jonathon was ushered into a sunny morning room with French windows that opened out onto an Elizabethan walled garden. French flowered wallpaper adorned with sprays of pink and white roses and small birds in flight on a sky blue background adorned the walls and matching drapes were pulled back to reveal the view, tied off with heavy tasseled rose gold and pink silk cord. Cotton chintz and tapestry cushions edged in a similar silk cord were scattered on the
arrangement of sofas and occasional chairs up against three walls.

  A fire blazed in the grate of the white marble fireplace above which hung a heavy gilt-edged framed portrait of the fifth Duchess of Roxton as a young girl, or so she seemed to Jonathon because she was far too young to have on her silken lap a little boy in short skirts, with a mop of unruly black ringlets and in his chubby fist a silver rattle. The artist had situated mother and child in a garden setting, possibly the garden he could see from the open windows, with white roses in bloom and two faithful hounds at her feet, and near the claw and ball foot of the chair, a small stack of books, one with a blue riband protruding to hold a place.

  “This is where she wrote her letters,” the Duchess said to Jonathon’s grin and shake of the head as he peered closer to read the spines of the books; one was Tacitus. “There is a perfect view of the roses from here and she could watch Julian at play, on the carpet or he could run out into the walled garden; years later, Henri-Antoine, Julian’s younger brother, also played in here or in the garden. The picture behind you is a family portrait painted when Maman-Duchess and the Duke took Henri-Antoine to visit Julian who was in Constantinople at the time, on the Grand Tour.”

  Deborah Roxton came away from the lady’s French escritoire-a-toilette, situated at the sunniest window where she had been reading a letter, and joined Jonathon in front of the large family portrait on the wall opposite to the fireplace and waited for him to make the usual remark that all who admired this noble family grouping could not help to make because of their surprise at the age disparity between her husband who, in this portrait, was a young man not quite twenty years of age and his brother who was all of four years of age. But no such remark was forthcoming.

  Jonathon stared up at the illustrious family grouping painted against a rich backdrop of mosaic tiled Ottoman interior: the fifth Duchess, still looking absurdly youthful, was seated, the central figure on the canvas, wearing what Jonathon presumed to be Ottoman attire—ankle-length billowy silk trousers, a long-sleeved shift of seersucker gauze that reached down to her bejeweled open backed slippers and over the whole a long-sleeved cardigan in shimmering gold thread, the edges trimmed in ermine. Atop her head was a small silk turban, her fair hair pulled over one shoulder and allowed to cascade to her waist; her youngest son Henri-Antoine, on her left, leaned across her lap with hand outstretched and looking up adoringly at his elder brother; Julian was on his mother’s right, a velvet elbow to the high back of her chair and offering his little brother a multicolored leather ball to play with. Beside him, in profile, a dapper older man with silver hair, in plain wool frockcoat and in his hand a map, possibly of the city of Constantinople. The Duke stood behind his youngest son, a long white hand over the back of his wife’s chair, displaying the large square cut emerald ring, the other lay casually across the jeweled hilt of his sword, his head, with its shock of white hair, was tilted down, gaze firmly on the Duchess.

  The only one in the portrait looking out on the world was Antonia, and with an enigmatic smile and a twinkle in her emerald-green eyes. Jonathon suspected the painter’s secret wish was that she was looking exclusively at him.

  “She was certainly the center of their world, wasn’t she?” he said, not taking his gaze from the canvas. “The painter’s composition and placement of the family conveys this very well. And though they wouldn’t own to it, despite the age difference her sons are alike in form. Yet,” he added, turning to look at Deborah Roxton for the first time since entering the room, “that may be where the parallel ends. Methinks Lord Henri-Antoine is a far more languorous young man than ever was his brother, or so he would have the world believe. Your nephew on the other hand, can barely sit still for two seconds.”

  “Oh, so you have met Henri and Jack?”

  The Duchess was clearly surprised.

  Jonathon bowed. “I had the pleasure of their company in Hanover Square for the sennight I was up in London. But you did not hear that from me, and you do not know that they are now my guests. I made them a solemn vow not to tell the Duke, and I have not done so.” When Deborah frowned he added, “Better to have them in familiar surroundings and under a paternal eye, your Grace, than seeking the myriad of entertainments the city has to offer from unknown digs. And,” he added with a wry smile, “to be fair to them, they were unaware that the house had been let, and fairly leapt to the ceiling when I made myself known to them.”

  “If you can tolerate having two fifteen-year-old boys under your roof, Mr. Strang, I cannot thank you enough. They are good boys with good hearts who are intent on the usual mischief their age indulges in. They have been a little neglected of late...”

  The scene of Henri and Jack collapsed drunk across ribbon back chairs in the Hanover Square dining room that reeked of tobacco smoke and port, while two boon companions were breeches down, up against the polished mahogany table enjoying the oral talents of two plump prostitutes Jonathon kept to himself.

  “But not by you, your Grace,” he said with an understanding smile and turned back to the portrait with a questioning frown. “The gentleman in black... He is painted in this family portrait but is not part of the family?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Strang. Martin Ellicott is very much part of this family. He is Roxton’s godfather and was valet to his father M’sieur le Duc for almost thirty years. He was the brave soul who accompanied my husband on the Grand Tour. But you did not come to talk to me about portraits, did you, Mr. Strang?” she added, putting out her hand in greeting.

  “How remiss of me, your Grace,” Jonathon responded, bowing over her hand and seeing her as if for the first time, an eye sweeping her petticoats of green striped muslin, her abundance of shiny auburn hair simply dressed, a weight of ringlets falling over her shoulders where a light woolen shawl was draped, despite the sun streaming through the windows and falling across the deep rugs. She was remarkably beautiful and majestic, with an innate self-assurance well suited to her elevation. Yet, she was rather out of place in these quintessentially feminine surroundings more suited to a butterfly than a lioness. “No, not portraits, but the people in them, certainly.” The sound of children at play beyond the French doors made him smile. “Those squeals of delight are not coming from the gardeners, I presume?”

  “The twins are determined to catch as many butterflies as their little nets will hold before their afternoon tea, and Julie is most entertained by her big brothers’ efforts; hence the squeals.”

  “How fairs our pirate, your Grace?” he asked, mentally castigating himself; must his head always be full of thoughts of that other duchess?

  “Fully recovered from his ordeal and intent on more adventures, Mr. Strang,” she answered, and, despite the chairs, did not offer for him to sit, saying with a look about the room, “I agree with you. My surroundings are better suited to the fifth duchess than to me. One day I will do something about it, but for now... The children like it. Shall we walk in the gardens?” she continued smoothly, turning away to the desk to fiddle with the quill in the Standish because at mere mention of her mother-in-law her guest’s face had flushed with color. She turned back with the same enigmatic smile, as if nothing untoward had occurred, adding as she picked up the wide-brimmed straw hat off the chair by the open French window, put it on and tied the white silk ribands in a loose bow below her chin, “I have been at that desk for two hours trying to complete all my correspondence because I promised to take the children beyond the wall to picnic by the bluebells which have shown themselves in profusion this year.”

  “Have they?” Jonathon politely enquired, following her out into the sunshine and along a path bordered with stands of rose bushes. In the distance, Louis dashed out from behind a fountain, net held high, only to disappear again. A shout of Huzzah! and Jonathon presumed a poor butterfly, or some such flying insect, had been captured. “My memory of bluebells blooming is scant at best.”

  “It is unseasonably warm weather for late April.”

  “Warm? Is it?”
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  “Very. Hence, you see the roses are also in bloom.”

  “Yes. The roses are quite lovely.”

  “I mean to send bunches to Maman-Duchess. White roses are her favorite.”

  “She’ll like that very much...”

  A small head of red curls with a cheeky grin showed itself from behind a statue of Aphrodite and cupid, net turned into a sword and this Gus waved menacingly in the air as his little sister ran past squealing, a nurserymaid hard on her little silk heels. Gus followed in pursuit, makeshift sword pointing toward the Heavens.

  Deborah Roxton smiled indulgently at their antics and stopped at an intersection of paths where a team of gardeners were busily refurbishing the brass nozzles of a waterless fountain and cleaning a statue of Apollo atop a plinth. They tipped their hats and continued on with their work, she acknowledging them with a smile before walking on to be out of their way and then turning to Jonathon and lifting up the rim of her hat so he could clearly see her face.

  “Mr. Strang, I am not one for small talk and you did not come here to discuss the weather or flowers. I think you also prefer plain speech to dissimulation so please do not spare my feelings. Why are you here and not in Buckinghamshire with your daughter?”

  “Ha! Well said. I had hoped to spare your feelings, your Grace. I came to call upon the Duke and was directed to your pretty writing room instead. And I had every intention of joining Sarah-Jane at Lady Strathsay’s little get-together but circumstances detained me here. Well, not here, but at Crecy Hall.”

  “I wonder what circumstances could possibly keep you from your daughter? Who, I may I say, does you great credit. She is a self-possessed young lady who knows her own mind and is wise beyond her years.”

  “Much like yourself, your Grace.”

  Deborah Roxton laughed at the compliment and continued on with the walk, turning left into a wide avenue of crushed stone bordered by orange and lemon trees in ornate tubs, Jonathon falling in beside her, hands clasped behind his back.