“It may be the only way we escape the house and evade capture,” Charles apologized to his betrothed, breathing short and heavy from the rapid flight up the grand staircase.
Everyone looked to Jonathon.
“Two of the Duchess’s cloaks, Michelle. Pronto!” Jonathon ordered and crossed to Antonia and took hold of her hands. “I need you at your imperious best, sweetheart, for you will confront the militia and demand by what right they have entered your house while Charles, Sarah-Jane and Mrs. Spencer wait here.” He turned to include the others in his plans. “Meanwhile, Henri-Antoine and Jack dressed in the duchess’s cloaks will pass themselves off as my daughter and Mrs. Spencer while I shall be Charles—”
“But, Papa, Charles is much too short,” Sarah-Jane threw at him
“Thank you, my love,” said Charles.
“The militia have never seen Charles, so his height is of no importance,” Jonathon explained patiently. “We three will exit the house via the front door—”
“The militia will see you!”
“Not if Phelps has herded them into the Blue drawing room,” Jonathon added, annoyed to be interrupted again by his daughter. “There are only six of them after all.”
“Charles? Six militia to cart you away? They must think you very dangerous indeed,” Antonia quipped and laughed when Charles straightened his stocky frame to all of its five foot seven inches and dared to smile smugly at his betrothed.
Michelle returned with the cloaks over an arm and Phelps appeared in the open doorway saying with great forbearance,
“I beg your pardon, Mme la duchesse, but there are a group of uniformed individuals in the Blue drawing room who are demanding the right to search the house. I have told them that under no circumstances can I allow them access to the house without your permission.”
“Good man!” Jonathon exclaimed. “Tell them Mme la duchesse is on her way!” and grinned at Antonia. “Time for your performance, sweetheart.” He turned to Charles. “Wait here five minutes then take the servant passage to the kitchen where you’ll find your travelling trunks. I’ve sent for a hackney and Ffolkes will accompany you as far as the George where a coach will be waiting to take you to the coast, Ffolkes returning here by a different route should his movements be followed.”
“You have co-opted Gidley into your madcap scheme?” Antonia was impressed.
“He and my valet are littering the staircase with books to impede the progress of our military guests should they make a dash for upstairs. So mind your step on the way down.”
“And of course you told Gidley and Lawrence that by their actions in helping a traitor and fugitive they are now implicated?”
“Couldn’t stop them if I tried!” Jonathon replied. “If only for lack of space, Lawrence would have gone with Ffolkes. I told him to stay here just in case the militia give you grief. But I am confident you can put in your best performance as indignant Duchess. That you’re French will add to their discomfort. Now go, woman, or my carefully laid plans will be ruined!”
“You are all enjoying yourself hugely!” Antonia accused them all without heat and said as an aside to Jonathon, “You most particularly!”
“Don’t tell me you aren’t too, Maman?” Henri-Antoine demanded, taking his mother’s hand and pulling her to the doorway. “Now go or Strang’s plans will be ruined!”
Antonia laughed, blew them all a kiss, but then stopped in the doorway, frowning, and addressed Jonathon.
“Be careful. They are militia after all and will be expecting Charles in the carriage. I want the boys—and you—returned unharmed. Promise.”
Jonathon smiled into her eyes. “We’ll be home for nuncheon. Promise. But in the unlikely event we are taken into custody, use the hundred guineas you owe me to post bail and—”
“You are a-a fiend and a-a brute!” Antonia hissed at him and was gone to do verbal battle with the militia, cursing the day a merchant had dared to invade her pretty pavilion by the lake.
“I cannot sit here all day waiting!” Antonia announced, up off the window seat of her sunny sitting room. She put aside the copy of School for Scandal. It had not diverted her as she had hoped from thoughts of the boys and Jonathon off on their escapade to fool the militia. And there was another matter bothering her. It had been troubling her since leaving her dower house to come to London and she knew it would not be resolved until she had voiced her fears to the one person who knew her almost as well as had her husband.
So she called for her carriage, exchanged her silk embroidered slippers for a pair of heeled brocade mules with diamond buckles and collected up not one but five gouache painted fans from the more than a dozen in a dressing table drawer. Four of these and several bejeweled hair clasps she stuffed into a reticule and pushed on Michelle who obediently followed with reticule, shawl and fur trimmed cloak, should these articles be required, and climbed into the carriage beside the Duchess, with no idea as to their destination. Why the Duchess needed four additional fans and a treasure trove of hair adornments, Michelle was left to speculate. And as if this wasn’t enough to fill her mind with worry, her mistress was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she did not once peer out the window at the view or to wonder why the carriage had slowed almost to a snail’s pace. Michelle did, and her concern increased to discover the carriage was trundling along in traffic heading east toward Tower Hill, the narrow streets and congestion of horses, carriages and wagons not to be found in the more salubrious surroundings of the west end squares and the surrounding streets of the elegant mansions and townhouses of Westminster.
When the horses finally came to a halt outside a double-fronted townhouse in Fournier Street some of Michelle’s trepidation subsided, but she was still nonplussed as to why they had come into this part of London and found it almost unfathomable that a Duchess would be on such terms with any person in this neighborhood as to call on them personally.
A crowd had been growing in number as people followed behind the carriage making slow progress through the narrowed streets, and it now closed in, wanting a look at the occupants who travelled in a fine carriage and four with liveried footmen and a noble coat of arms on the black lacquered doors. A liveried footman hopped off the box and pulled down the footrest while another went up the two shallow stone steps to rap on the front door using the brass knocker.
There was a slight delay before the door opened, and then only wide enough for a maid in a frilly cap to poke her head out. She took in the liveried servant and then looked past the servant’s powdered wig to the magnificent black carriage and four white horses, and at the second footman waiting silently by the open carriage door, and the girl’s eyes went very round and the door was shut in the footman’s face. The servant was about to rap the knocker again when the door opened a second time, and so wide that it was possible to see down the length of the passageway where it seemed every adult and child, servant and occupant were spilling out of rooms in a great frenzy of activity.
As three of the townhouse’s occupants rushed into the street, the footman barely had the time to retreat to the carriage to where his fellow was assisting the Duchess to firm ground. The crowd closed in, but only as close as the two other footmen would permit, and were not disappointed when a beautiful elfin lady in a fashionable polonaise gown of brocade silk with matching shoes that had diamond buckles stepped from the carriage, upswept hair festooned with tiny bows and diamond clasps and in her gloved hand a painted fan.
There were murmurings of approval that the beautiful lady matched the magnificence of the carriage in which she travelled and discussion opened on whose coat of arms were emblazoned on the doors. One woman ventured to suggest it was Lord Salt Hendon’s family shield but an erudite older gent carrying an arm full of leather tomes under one arm and who had just come from tutoring the spotty-faced son of a brewer confidently proclaimed he would know the Duke of Roxton’s coat of arms anywhere – he had once spent a quiet sojourn in the country where his third cousin was c
urate at the local village church close to the township of Roxton in the county of Hampshire which was part of the ducal seat. Impressed with his brush at the very upper echelon of the aristocracy, however faint the tinge, several in the crowd turned to the older gent to find out what else he could tell them about the ducal family, while a small clutch of women, come out onto the street in response to the commotion, craned to get a closer look at the noblewoman’s gown and expensive accouterments.
While Michelle took a quick look about her at the attention the carriage and its occupants were attracting in this part of the city and was overwhelmed, not only by the gathering crowd but also by the commotion coming from within the townhouse, Antonia was oblivious to everything and everyone except the de Crespigny household whom she had come to visit. The two girls and their mother who had rushed out into the street in greeting, brought themselves up short at sight of the Duchess and dropped into low curtsies, as if remembering their manners at the very last moment and just who it was who had come calling, the mother brought to tears to see the Duchess out of her mourning and dressed so very prettily as she remembered her before the old Duke’s death.
Antonia brought the stout woman to stand tall and would not let go of her arm when she tried to step away, and with a tremulous smile drew her closer to kiss both her wet cheeks. This elicited a rumble of approval from the crowd as did the Duchess’s greeting of the woman’s two oldest daughters who bobbed curtseys and briefly took the gloved hand held out to them, both too tongue-tied and shy to provide anything more than their names and a smile in welcome.
The little party moved inside, Michelle following behind, the Duchess taken upstairs to the warmth of the drawing room where a fire burned in the grate. Coffee and gateaux were ordered from the kitchen which sent the cook and two kitchen maids into a shrieking Gallic panic knowing a duchess had come to call and they rushed about the kitchen grabbing for flour, eggs and sugar and pots to boil water while the housekeeper rattled keys, nervous fingers plying for the right key to open the mahogany hutch that held the best silver coffee pot and porcelain cups and plates.
That the entire household, family and servants alike, spoke exclusively in French only became apparent to Michelle while the various family members were introduced to their illustrious guest. She was so used to speaking in French with her mistress that Michelle sometimes forgot that she now lived in England. She learned that the family’s name was de Crespigny and that M’sieur de Crespigny was a prosperous silk merchant with warehouses and weavers in the surrounding streets of Spitalfields; that he had three grown sons from his first marriage who were all married with children of their own: Daniel, Gerrard and Armand were all involved in the family business and thus away from home but would return for nuncheon within the hour, and that his second wife, the woman the Duchess had embraced in the street and who was now sitting beside her on the sofa, had four daughters: Minette who was almost fourteen years of age, Henriette twelve, Louise was ten and then there was the baby of the family Toinette who had turned three just a month ago.
It surprised Michelle that Mme de Crespigny’s children were so young because she herself looked much older than the Duchess but Michelle reasoned that Mme must have married late, and she could not be that old because she had a three year old child. It was the three year-old Toinette with her head of gold ringlets that the Duchess took most interest in, voicing her surprise that Mme de Crespigny had not informed her of this latest addition to her family to which Mme replied gently that she had indeed written to Mme la duchesse of her great surprise at being with child at the age of fifty and that she had written again to inform Mme la duchesse at Toinette’s arrival but had not expected a reply, after all the Duchess’s daughter-in-law had given birth around the same time, to her fourth child, a much longed for daughter. Mme de Crespigny did not need to mention that M’sieur le Duc de Roxton had died within a week of this joyous news.
There followed a moment’s awkward silence and then Antonia asked for the reticule. Michelle was slow to respond to the request because she was wondering why all four daughters wore plain gowns when surely if their father was a prosperous silk merchant they could be dressed in any amount of fine embroidered materials. But perhaps this was their at-home wear and the beautiful silks kept for Sunday best and for walks in the parks, if there were such entertainments as parks to promenade in this part of the city.
“Say the word, Mme la duchesse, and I will have Bridgette send you one of her girls,” Mme de Crespigny stated primly, gaze firmly fixed on Michelle who had finally woken from her daydreaming. “I hope you do not spend your hours idle, Michelle Bonnard?”
Michelle colored up and shook her head, startled that Madame knew not only her Christian name but also her family name. She did not have to speculate how because Mme de Crespigny was only too eager to offer her up the information and with a warning.
“Your mother is my second cousin, Michelle Bonnard, as was your predecessor. You would do well to remember the honor done you and your family by the position you occupy in the Roxton household for I have many cousins only too willing to take your place. Good things have been said of you, Michelle Bonnard, but it takes only one bad report for me to see you sent back to St. Germain. Do you understand me, girl?”
Michelle nodded and bobbed a curtsey, Mme de Crespigny appeased, and was surprised when the Duchess squeezed the woman’s arm affectionately.
“Gabrielle, will you ever stop looking after me?” Antonia asked with a warm smile which she then directed at the four little girls obediently seated on the sofa opposite, all wide-eyed interest to be in the presence of a real-life duchess who was dressed how they imagined a princess would dress for a ball, such was the richness of embroidery to her gown and the glitter to her shoe-buckles and hair adornments. Antonia placed the contents of the reticule on the low table and said to Gabrielle, “I am sorry I had not counted on Toinette, so I have only four fans and as many hair clasps and pins.” She addressed the little girls, “You may choose a fan and a hair ornament each, mes filles cheries, and for your Maman I shall send something special tomorrow.”
“There is no need, Mme la duchesse,” Gabrielle de Crespigny assured her quickly and with a nod to her eldest daughter, signal that Minette was permitted to choose first, she said to Antonia, “You are too generous as always, Mme la duchesse. You never forget a birthday or Christmas and when I think of what you and M’sieur le Duc did for me when I married Bernard, I-I—” She stopped herself and breathed deeply to hold back her tears, turning her attention to her daughters, who contained their immense excitement at receiving such gifts, made all the more special because of who they were from, to remember their manners and curtsey prettily and say thank you sweetly to the Duchess before resuming their seats to inspect in detail their gifts.
It was then that the coffee things arrived and sensing Antonia had not made the journey into Spitalfields merely for a dish of coffee and the pleasure of seeing members of the de Crespigny household, Mme de Crespigny sent the children out with Michelle, to have their morning tea in the downstairs parlor, and with assurances they would be able to see Mme la duchesse off in her carriage.
Alone, the two women sipped their coffee in silence, Gabrielle saying as Antonia put the porcelain cup on its saucer, “How-how is M’sieur le Duc et Mme la duchesse and their—”
“Gabrielle, do you remember when I told you it was fated that Monseigneur and I would spend the rest of our lives together?” Antonia said in a rush.
“Yes, Mme la duchesse. You said—”
“No. Do you remember when—when I told you?”
“Why, of course.” Gabrielle smiled at the memory. “It was at the Hôtel. I was brushing your hair, readying you for bed, and you told me just like that—as if it was the most natural thing in the world—that you were in love with M’sieur le Duc and that you didn’t care in the least who knew it. It was the way you felt and that’s all there was to it. You were very determined.”
; Antonia shrugged a shoulder. “Of course. I was certain of it. So what was there to be hesitant about?”
“To own to a truth: I was never more shocked of anything in my life than when you told me that!”
Antonia laughed and playfully rapt Mme de Crespigny on the knee with her closed fan. “That is a big lie, Gabrielle, because that very night I went to Monseigneur’s rooms and gave myself to him and you did not see me for six days!”
This remembrance still had the power to make the older woman blush but she managed to smile and nod. “Well, yes, I will own to being shocked about that but at the time my worry for you was far greater than any shock at your actions.”
Antonia nodded, saying on a wistful sigh, “All of eighteen and so full of confidence that I was in the right. I never questioned or wavered from that belief ever. I knew I loved him. That was all that mattered.”
“It is all that matters, Mme la duchesse,” Gabrielle de Crespigny assured her.
“I never once felt unsure or worried that perhaps there would not be a happy outcome; even when I was pregnant with Julian before we married. I knew, deep in my heart, that all would work itself out and that Monseigneur and I we would be together forever.”
“You had no need to wonder at it, Mme la duchesse.”
“I remember that whenever he entered a room my heart it would beat faster.” Antonia smiled at her former lady’s maid. “It always did that, right up until the end.”
Gabrielle nodded and swallowed but could not bring herself to respond.
“I forgot that it did that until very recently...” Antonia frowned. “But I do not remember ever feeling uncomfortable, as if sitting by the fireplace without the screen, so that I blush when it is the last thing in the world I want to do! I cannot help it, Gabrielle. And when he smiles at me from across a room or winks at me... I have the oddest sensation. It is almost as if I am about to faint, but I do not faint. I do not remember having these sensations with Monseigneur. Perhaps there is something the matter with me?”
Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Page 37