Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series)

by Lucinda Brant

  “And the—the wounds from the—from the ligatures... Will they—will they heal?”

  “Yes; in time. But it is not the physical scars that concern me, your Grace. She has not confided in me the extent of her abuse, and I will never ask her,” he added quietly, not at all surprised that the Duchess had turned pale and was doing her best to keep her emotions well in check. She could not, however, stop the tears running down her face. Jonathon handed her his clean linen handkerchief. “What I do know is that for all her outward serenity she does not sleep at night and eats very little. Her maid is naturally very worried for her, and having no one else to confide in, told me. What you can be assured is that Foley will never again practice medicine, not even on a dead dog. What I did to him, short of ending his worthless life, has left him permanently crippled. Nor will he find succor here in England or on the Continent. I have sent agents to track him, to hound him, to make his life a misery. Should he decide to flee to a colony, rest assured, your Grace he will be found and all who come into contact with him will know what sort of creature walks amongst them.”

  Deborah pulled the woolen shawl up about her shoulders and hugged herself tightly. She was disbelieving. Not that she thought Jonathon a liar, she believed he was telling her the truth, she just could not believe Antonia had been subjected to such an horrendous ordeal and that Sir Titus Foley, a physician who was well respected within his fraternity and had treated dozens of Polite Society’s females, and had come with glowing references, could be one and the same as the sadistic monster now described. She felt sick to her stomach and dry in the mouth and cold, the damp handkerchief squeezed in her fist, and was grateful for the dish of sweet black tea Jonathon pressed into her hand and urged her to drink up. She stared out across the carpet of bluebells gently swaying in the afternoon breeze, listened to her giggling little daughter as she ran around flapping her arms pretending to be a butterfly, and further off, there were the shouts of her sons playing hide and go seek in the wood, taunting William the footman to find them if he could, all life affirming and reassuring, that there was so much good in the world and to this she had to hold firm and be strong, for the sake of her children and her husband, and for Maman-Duchess whom Frederick called his Mema.

  Most of all she would be forever grateful to whatever higher power had sent this handsome sun-bronzed giant, who was looking down at her with concern, into their lives, for not only had he saved her son from drowning he had now rescued the Dowager Duchess from unspeakable horror; and for confiding in her and not her husband who she was very sure would never forgive himself for offering up his mother into the hands of a sadist.

  Jonathon took the teacup from her and Deborah stood. She needed to walk now. Walking made her think clearly. And when Jonathon offered her his crooked arm, she took it saying quietly as they set off into the wood, Lady Juliana quick to grip her mother’s outstretched fingers,

  “Thank you for not going to the Duke, Mr. Strang. Of course he will have to be given a reason why that monster was so summarily dismissed...”

  “A brief description of Foley’s water treatment should suffice.”

  Deborah shuddered. “Yes. It will.”

  “And may I suggest you advise Roxton never to broach the episode with Mme la duchesse; ever.”

  “An excellent idea. Although, he does owe her an apology for what was said in the library, and so I told him.”

  Jonathon’s lips twitched. “I am sure you did just that, your Grace.”

  Deborah laughed and felt better for it. But soon lost her smile, saying seriously, “I know I can never make it up to her, but if there is anything I can do... For her... And for you...”

  It was Jonathon’s turn to laugh and he swung the Lady Juliana, who was whining for her mother to pick her up, back up onto his shoulders. “There are several things you can do, your Grace. I have a list! All of which I am going to ask of you, for her sake.”

  Deborah turned to regard him with a slight tilt of her head and a knowing smile.

  “I am going to ask you why, Mr. Strang. I believe I know. Yet, to hear you say it would be oddly comforting to this incorrigible romantic.”

  Jonathon grinned and blushed in spite of himself, yet he did not look away nor did he flinch from giving her the answer she already knew. “Because I love her.”

  “Michelle, has M’sieur Strang returned from the big house?”

  Antonia’s personal maid paused in the doorway between the bedchamber and the dressing room, where the Duchess sat before her dressing table looking glass brushing her hair, and met her mistress’s steady gaze in the reflection.

  “I do not know, Mme la duchesse,” she replied levelly and turned to scurry away to turn down the bedcovers but was stopped.

  “You do not know because it is common knowledge below stairs or because you do not know. Which is it?”

  “I—we do not know, Mme la duchesse. No word has come from the big house and none of us have seen him since this afternoon.”

  “Surely his valet, he must know, hein?”

  “M’sieur Strang he does not have a valet, Mme la duchesse.”

  Antonia paused mid-stroke, frowning.

  “What do you mean he does not have a valet? Of course he must have a valet. All gentlemen have a valet.”

  “Pardon, Mme la duchesse, but M’sieur Strang he does not.”

  “You mean he did not bring his valet with him.”

  “No, Mme la duchesse. He does not have a valet. He had one when he lived in India, but not here, not since he returned to England.”

  “But he left the subcontinent almost two years ago and you tell me he does not have a valet? Incroyable.” She swiveled about on her dressing stool to face her maid. “Then who is it that looks after him?”

  “He looks after himself,” Michelle stated and elaborated when Antonia put up her brows expecting further explanation. “When he was staying at the big house, he, M’sieur Strang did not have a valet to take care of him and he would not have one. So Oliver told me, and he was told by Lawrence Montbrail the footman up at the big house who is sometimes assigned to wait on gentlemen who do not bring their valets for one reason or another when they stay with M’sieur le Duc and Mme la duchesse for weekend house parties.”

  “Looks after himself?” Antonia repeated, clearly astonished. “Would not have one? What is his ridiculous objection I wonder? Me I saw his traveling portmanteau in the pavilion and wondered...” She had a sudden thought. “Which bedchamber has he been assigned?”

  “Bedchamber, Mme la duchesse?”

  Antonia tossed the hairbrush amongst the clutter on her dressing table and stood with a sigh. “Michelle, are you pretending to be dull-witted or are you over tired because me you do not listen to when I tell you to go to bed and instead keep me company who cannot sleep anyway! Tonight, you are to stay under the covers and not make me silly hot drinks which do not help me fall asleep in the least.”

  “Yes, Mme la duchesse,” Michelle answered obediently, yet both knew she would not do as she was told and would be up as soon as she heard her mistress pacing the bedchamber. She helped Antonia shrug a soft-yellow silk banyan over her thin cotton nightshift, placed matching slippers before her, then bobbed a curtsey, saying with a small smile, “If that is all, Mme la duchesse, I will still turn down the covers and see to the fire in the bedchamber in the hopes that tonight we may both sleep through the night.”

  “Merci, Michelle.”

  Michelle paused in the doorway again and Antonia, who had picked up a book from the small stack brought to her by Gidley Ffolkes and, as was her usual practice, about curl up in the wingchair by the warmth of the fireplace to read, waited for her to speak.

  “In answer to your question, Mme la duchesse, M’sieur Strang he is not in any bedchamber.”

  “There are fifteen bedchambers in this house of no use to me whatsoever and me you tell M’sieur Strang he is not using any of them?” For a second time in as many minutes Antonia was ast
onished and she was beginning to wonder if she was acting out a scene from a Sheridan comedic play. “He does not have a valet and he does not sleep in a bedchamber. What does he do then? Sleep under the stars like a native?”

  “Yes, Mme la duchesse, that is exactly what he has been doing for the past six nights.”

  “I cannot believe he is sleeping in my pavilion and that you allowed for this to happen!” Antonia whispered loudly, following behind her butler who was following behind a footman who was holding high a lantern to illuminate the winding stone pathway that led down to the pavilion. Close at Antonia’s back was Michelle and behind Michelle, another footman with a second lantern.

  “Mme la duchesse, with all due respect, M’sieur Strang he was offered a bedchamber but he would not hear of sleeping inside the house,” the butler replied in a similar loud whisper.

  “I do not understand at all what is his objection to sleeping inside my house.”

  “He said it was not fit and proper for him to do so,” Michelle explained in a low voice.

  “Shhh, you’ll wake him!” the footman at Michelle’s back hissed.

  “That is a ridiculous notion,” Antonia whispered dismissively at Michelle’s explanation. “It is not fit and proper that I have a guest who is uncomfortable and cold! He is being obstinate for some reason known only to himself.”

  All silently agreed with her about his stubbornness, yet were confident they knew his reasoning, even if their mistress did not.

  The small party continued on down the winding path in silence, treading carefully, as if creeping up on a wild animal that, having escaped the gamekeeper’s trap, was sleeping peacefully in its lair unaware it was still being pursued and about to be ambushed, and not wanting to wake it. Their progress was aided by a full moon shining brightly across the surface of the still lake, turning the water silver and making silhouettes of trees, jetty and islands against a glass grey night sky, while moonbeams lit up the steps leading into the pavilion, providing a patchwork of light across the darkened interior through the cut outs between the columns.

  When Antonia bunched up a handful of her flowing dressing gown and nightshift to alight the steps, the butler stopped her saying with some trepidation,

  “Perhaps it would be for the best if I go on ahead, Mme la duchesse?”

  It was on the tip of Antonia’s tongue to be outright dismissive of her butler’s anxiety but she looked at the concerned faces of her assembled group of devoted servants in the orange glow of the two lanterns and smiled kindly.

  “I do not think M’sieur Strang he will appreciate a delegation waking him in the middle of the night. And as you all failed to convince him to sleep indoors, it is left to me to order him to do so. That is best done without an audience.” She put out a hand for one of the lanterns. “You may return to the house and go to your beds. Our guest can guide me back to the house.”

  “Mme la duchesse, I will stay with you,” Michelle stated, foot on the first step. “You should not be left alone with—”

  “It is too late in the day for any of us to worry about the proprieties given the events of the past fortnight,” Antonia interrupted quietly. “Bonne nuit.”

  “Bonne nuit, Mme la duchesse,” all four servants murmured with downcast eyes, hot in the face and glad of nightfall, Michelle with a curtsey and the men with a bow. It was the first time the Duchess had made reference to her ordeal at the hands of the sadistic physician, and it made them all acutely aware of their failure to come to her rescue and more shamefully for them, how she had not once apportioned blame their way. Without further comment, they departed, though slowly and deliberately, and at the first bend in the path they paused, ears straining to hear any sound out of the ordinary in the still night air, such as the protesting noises of an awakening giant. Hearing only the hoot of an owl, the servants reluctantly returned to the house and their respective beds. It took them many hours to fall asleep.

  Jonathon was dreaming. He was back on the subcontinent. Yet, somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he knew he was dreaming and that he was most definitely not in India. India was hot and dry; England was cold and damp. Just before he had drifted off to sleep on the chaise longue in the pavilion, the coverlet given him by Michelle blanketing his nakedness, there had been a light shower of rain but not enough clouds to hide the brightness of a full moon. He was most definitely in England. Yet, somehow he had been transported across vast oceans to the subcontinent, to the dust and heat of summer, just when the heat became unbearable and then came relief when the heavens opened and the monsoon delivered torrential rains that swelled rivers to overflowing.

  It was a sultry night after a particularly heavy downpour and too hot to sleep indoors. He was on the wide veranda of an inner courtyard of his palatial white marble mansion in Hyderabad, sprawled out on the palanquin bed with its brightly colored silken sheets and cluster of soft cushions behind diaphanous silk gauze curtains that rippled gently in the breeze, the damp air heavy with the scent of jasmine.

  He had just returned that day from a prolonged absence to the northern provinces and while his daylight hours were spent reunited with Sarah-Jane, his nights belonged very much to his beloved bibi Asmita who lived in a house within the gated compound of his mansion, as was custom for all females of a household. But she shared his bed willingly.

  But it wasn’t Asmita on the palanquin beside him it was an English duchess, French to her pretty toenails, beautiful and beguiling and soon to be his, and so he knew he was not in Hyderabad; it was most definitely a dream, but what a heady intoxicating dream. He did not want to wake up.

  She was making love to him. Slowly. Deliberately. Her warm breath on his neck sent a frisson of desire through his heavy limbs and when her lips grazed the hard stubbled line of his strong jaw, a hand to where his heart beat strongly against his ribs, he turned his head, wanting the taste of her mouth. But her kisses progressed down his neck, light, feather-like, barely-there touches until her mouth pressed firmly to his collarbone and she rested her cheek on his chest, to listen to the thudding of his heart.

  Fingers lightly caressed taut arm muscles, brushing across bronzed skin as if smoothing out a delicate fabric, before crossing to caress the hard ripple of his stomach; one finger dared to trace the dark line of hair down from navel to groin. His breathing stopped in anticipation of where her exploration would lead but the caress did not venture where he wanted it to and he breathed again, shallowly as the caress continued out along the firm line of his buttock and then down the flair of thigh muscle before finally turning inwards to caress his inner thigh, lightly, slowly, almost tentatively but inexorably upwards, first to cup him and then to explore, fondle, tease and stroke him beyond reason.

  He rose up off the cushions onto an elbow, disorientated and half-awake, heat surging through his every vein to ignite between his thighs. And when her mouth finally found his, when she permitted him to kiss her as he had kissed her in the icy waters of the lake, he fell back amongst the cushions, fingers splayed through her waist length hair and one large hand cupping her heavy breast through the thin nightshift as she straddled him.

  Earlier, Antonia had stood on the top step of the wide stairs of the pavilion in a pool of orange light, lantern held high, squinting into the blackness beyond. She did not see Jonathon at first. It was a trick of the full moon that streamed light between the columns and across the interior. The chaise longue was in the direct path of the bright moonlight and it was moonbeams that bathed his bronzed flesh in an eerie silver glow so that he appeared as polished marble. And so it was as if Laocoön without his sons slept on her chaise longue.

  She had admired the monumental Greek sculpture of Laocoön and his sons in the Vatican’s Belvedere Garden, and been so taken with it and the story of Poseidon’s Trojan priest who, with his two sons, was crushed to death by giant serpents for Laocoön’s attempt to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse, that Monseigneur had commissioned a replica for the ornamental gardens o
f their Parisian Hôtel. She admitted to the Duke that it wasn’t so much the misery captured in the face of Laocoön that captivated her but the skill in which the artist had sculpted the male physique in all its dynamic muscularity.

  Although, in one all-important respect, the statue was a sad disappointment. Teasingly, she advised that when commissioning the replica, Monseigneur was to offer up his own member for replication as a substitute for Laocoön’s paltry specimen. After all, she murmured, as she fondled him, such a magnificent physique required a similarly impressive organ. In response, the Duke had caught up her hand, saying with a laugh as he carried her to their bed that it was as well sculptures did not deliver or he might find himself envious of cold marble.

  And here in her pavilion was a Laocoön who measured up in every way. He might not have the Trojan priest’s full beard or be wrestling a serpent but he possessed Laocoön’s wild mane of hair and muscular physique. The coverlet, that at some stage during the night must have covered all of his body, now barely concealed his nakedness, the cloth twisted up between his thighs and up over one brawny shoulder much like the giant serpent wrestled by Laocoön. His face was turned away into his arm, to the striped silk back of the chaise longue, one leg drawn slightly up and his tight torso slightly twisted, revealing a small firm and very white buttock, and at the line she had found so tantalizing, that divided bronzed flesh from white that had not seen the sun, the tattoo at his hip, a circle of three elephants, trunks to tails entwined.

  Antonia smiled. The awkward positioning of his body was a glaring indication that her chaise longue was a vastly uncomfortable substitute for a real bed when occupied by a wide-shouldered man six feet four inches in length. And as she set the lantern down, her smile turned into a frown of concern, wondering for the umpteenth time why he chose to sleep out here, in the cold and in discomfort when she had a house full of empty bedchambers.