Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series)

by Lucinda Brant

  “For all our sakes,” was Martin Ellicott’s response and when the Duke looked at him, rather surprised, he added, “He isn’t going to go away, is he, my boy? He looks a decent sort of fellow. Has shades of Lucian Vallentine about him, so Deborah tells me.”

  “Uncle Lucian?” Roxton was horrified to think the man his mother was to marry was being compared to his eccentric muddle-headed uncle. He stared at the Duchess. “Surely not Uncle Lucian?”

  “Oh, I surely think so, Julian; all the best bits of him. He is also swooningly handsome.”

  “Swooningly handsome?”

  The Duchess and the old man laughed at the rise in the Duke’s voice.

  “Frederick looks upon him as his best friend and the twins adore him.”

  “And so does Mme la duchesse,” said Martin Ellicott and was surprised when the Duke winced. “Well, she must or she would not be over there in that box seated beside him for all the world to see. At interval I am going over there and if you wish relations between the two of you to mend, you will accompany me.”

  “I have done my best to start the healing process, mon parrain. They will be married by special license tomorrow morning before he heads north to bury the Duke of Kinross. But when I think I put her into the care of that monster Foley... Father must be cursing me from Heaven...”

  “You told me Strang dealt out fit punishment.”

  “He did. But I couldn’t leave it there. My mother wasn’t the only gently bred female subjected to that cur’s terrifying methods. Crippled he may be, but I had to make certain Foley would never reoffend.”

  “On which remote tussock have you put him, Julian?”

  The Duke gave a satisfied huff. “I remember Maman reading to Father from Captain Cook’s journal; contains wonderful etchings and charts. I found a chart of the Pacific Ocean, took a stab at a chain of islands and there Foley will rot. One can only hope the natives prefer the taste of their Englishmen excessively fatty.”

  “Monseigneur would approve.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought, too.” The Duke glanced at his Duchess and then turned to face his godfather, saying with some difficulty, “But I can’t help wondering if he will approve of this outcome for her... Martin. The last words he ever spoke to me were about her; that I could not make Maman happy the way she deserves to be happy.”

  “You can’t.”

  The old man could have punched the Duke in the nose such was his astonishment. He smiled in understanding at his godson, pale eyes full of humor though he kept his face remarkably relaxed.

  “You would not have noticed; you’re her son. But I am confident Deborah is only too well aware. Mme la duchesse is not only extraordinarily beautiful she is a very sensual creature; she deserves to be loved as a woman. In his inimitable way Monseigneur was letting you know that she had his blessing, and thus your permission, to find someone worthy of satisfying her in every way and with whom she could spend the rest of her long life.”

  Roxton resettled on his chair, the old man’s words making him embarrassingly uncomfortable; nonetheless he accepted the truth in them. He took out his snuffbox, staring out across the light and color of the theater without seeing any of it.

  “He’s asked permission to have her personal effects from Paris shipped to Leven Castle.”

  “Naturally, you gave your permission.”

  There was a pause before the Duke responded to his godfather’s statement due in part to a roar that went up amongst the theater goers in the stalls. Roxton thought it in response to the curtain beginning to rise but a large section of the audience had got to its feet and was making elaborate gestures of acknowledgement by bowing and waving their hats up at the row of boxes filling up with England’s first families and their relations, one box in particular.

  “A brazen fellow has thrown a bunch of flowers up to your mother!” Deb Roxton exclaimed with a laugh, sitting forward on her chair like everyone else. “And Strang caught it. Well done!” She chuckled behind her fan. “How like her to blow kisses to the fellow in thanks!”

  The Duke groaned and wiped a hand across his face.

  “But will she want reminders of Father strewn about?” he asked in response to his godfather’s statement. “I’m surprised he would.”

  “They won’t be reminders to him, will they? He just wants to make her happy. And it will make her happy to have mementoes of your father and of their shared life. It’s a very generous and commendable gesture on his part, you must admit.”

  “Yes. Yes... Martin, I told her they were just things... I said they didn’t matter. I was wrong. I’ve been wrong about so much where she is concerned.”

  “Yes, you were wrong but it does not mean she won’t forgive you. She is your mother. Objects hold powerful, usually happy memories and they are a comfort.” Martin Ellicott rummaged in a deep pocket of his velvet frockcoat and produced a small, very shiny from wear, leather ball. “I carry this everywhere, and have done for thirty years. For the past ten years it’s been useful to relieve the arthritic pain in my thumbs. But I don’t carry it for that reason. I acquired it when your mother first came to stay at the Hôtel, before she married your father. She asked me to play at fetch with her and M’sieur le Duc’s dogs. To be truthful, I was horrified at the prospect. But who can deny your mother anything when she smiles? I played at fetch with her and it was such a-a liberating experience for one such as I so bound by ritual and formality. So the ball reminds me that when life offers up a surprise it is best to see it as an opportunity not as an obstacle. It is also there to remind me of what a wonderfully fulfilling life I have had as part of your family. First with your father, mostly because of your mother, and unquestionably as your godfather.”

  “Mon parrain, if not for you...” The Duke’s voice trailed, the elaborately tied stock about his throat suddenly uncomfortably tight.

  “At interval I will need your arm to lean upon to go visiting, ” Martin Ellicott said, dropping the ball back into his pocket.

  “I will stay here and hold the keep,” the Duchess said cheerfully, sitting back in her chair, a smile across the Duke’s square shoulders at the old man. “I will signal my approval with a wave of my fan which will set tongues wagging all along the row, and be vastly entertaining to watch. I also predict visitors very soon after and will shoo them away before your return.”

  “Deb! This is no laughing matter!” Roxton grumbled. “You know what it means if we go over there.”

  Behind her fan, the Duchess kissed Roxton’s cheek. “Of course, my darling. None better. You’re approval means everyone will approve. But I don’t care about anyone else. I only care what it will mean to your mother and to you, for both of you to be happy. And I for one couldn’t be happier for them. They’ll make a wonderful Duke and Duchess of Kinross.” She leaned back to look at her husband. “That at least should please you?”

  “It does. Very much. She deserves nothing less.”

  Deb Roxton and Martin Ellicott turned their attention to the stage, for the curtain was rising and the Duke’s words were lost in the crescendo of deafening cheers.

  No one enjoyed the comedic genius of John Palmer as Joseph Surface and the incomparable performance of William Smith as Charles Surface more than the Dowager Duchess of Roxton, whose lips, those in the boxes closest hers were astounded to witness, moved in silent synchronicity with the actors, as if reciting the words along with the actors. Sheridan’s School for Scandal was such an astonishing comedy of manners and so well-received that by the end of the third act, there were few dry eyes in the house from continuous laughter and amazement as to what the characters would say and do next.

  Antonia was on the edge of her seat the entire performance and on more than one occasion she turned to share a smile with Jonathon at a particular part in the play they had discussed earlier, in the boat on the lake or in the book room at Hanover Square when Henri-Antoine, Jack and even Gidley Ffolkes had been coerced to act out a scene or two after dinner. The a
udience was left in no doubts as to the relationship between the two when the India shawl draped across her shoulders slipped and Jonathon was quick to reinstate it, Antonia’s hand over his at her shoulder, the smile of thanks up at him and his comment close to her ear looking very much like an illicit kiss, sending necks craning and tongues wagging in direction of the Duke of Roxton’s box, the gossips disappointed that the Duke and his godfather were absent, leaving the Duchess in conversation with Lady Hibbert-Baker who came bearing wine and a surfeit of gossip.

  “I have heard the most astonishing piece of news,” Lady Hibbert-Baker was rattling on, her fan of ostrich plumes waving much too fast across her décolletage. “You will simply die laughing when I tell you! It concerns the Dowager Duchess your mother-in-law and Jonathon Strang—”

  “Then it is in all likelihood true,” replied Deb Roxton with a sweet smile and looked past Hettie Hibbert-Baker’s shoulder, down the length of boxes, to one box in particular. She waved her fan in acknowledgement of her husband’s bow in her direction and then inclined her head also.

  Stunned, Lady Hibbert-Baker paused in mid wave of her fan, mouth half-cock, then realizing Deb Roxton’s attention was elsewhere, and because of something else, a hush, yes, there was a general hush in the theater that was most uncharacteristic, she turned in her chair and followed the Duchess’s gaze to where all powdered heads were focused.

  The mouche at the corner of her ladyship’s mouth began to twitch of its own volition.

  The Duke of Roxton was bowing over his mother’s out-stretched hand. The Duke’s elderly godfather came forward and bowed his grey head to the Duchess who, no surprise to anyone, pulled him to her and kissed both his cheeks. She turned a shoulder to introduce him to Jonathon Strang who came to stand beside her. Lord Henri-Antoine and Jack Cavendish scrambled forward to join in the conversation, the Duke inclining his ear to a request from his younger brother and obscuring Lady Hibbert-Baker’s view just at the moment Martin Ellicott and Jonathon Strang shook hands. The two youths then moved on to the back of the box in time for her ladyship and everyone else in the theater to bear witness to the most extraordinary sight. The Duke shook Jonathon Strang’s hand then gripped his upper arm before kissing his mother on each cheek, and then she—Lady Hibbert-Baker’s fan stopped in mid wave—she, the Dowager Duchess of Roxton, tilted her head up to Jonathon Strang who did the most natural thing in the world: he kissed her on the mouth.

  “Kiss me again, Jonathon,” Antonia murmured, up on tiptoe. “I want everyone to see.”

  Jonathon’s eyes creased with mischief. “That’s two hundred guineas you now owe me, Antonia,” and before she could protest, took her in his arms and crushed her mouth under his.

  Three thunderous cheers and a hip-hip-hooray! shook the theater.

  Sir Titus Foley is based in part on the real Eighteenth Century physician Patrick Blair. Blair specialized in treating married women who had mild hysteria and had opted out of their “marital duties”. He used the “water treatment” to sadistic effect (see Porter, D. & Porter, R. Patient’s Progress, Doctors and Doctoring in Eighteenth Century England, 1989, Stanford University Press, California).

  Roderigue Hortalez and Company was indeed a Portuguese registered company with its headquarters on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius that smuggled French supplies such as armaments, clothing and other items to the American Colonial Army to aid the revolutionary cause. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Silas Deane, Ben Franklin and the Comte de Vergennes all played their parts in helping the Colonial Americans win the War of Independence, France openly entering the war early in 1778.

  Lucinda Brant is currently writing Book 4 in the Roxton Series, Dair Devil, about Lord

  Alisdair (Dair) Fitzstuart, heir to the Earldom of Strathsay and Miss Aurora (Rory) Talbot, granddaughter of England’s Spymaster General, Edward, Lord Shrewsbury.

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  The girl in the narrow wooden bed was in agony. Curled up in a ball, legs drawn up to her small breasts and thin arms wrapped tightly about her knees, her whole body shuddered with excruciating contractions. She had no idea if she had been in pain for five hours or twenty. Exhausted and bathed in sweat, her cotton nightshift with its little lace cuffs and pearl buttons had become twisted and tangled with the bed sheet. Both were soaked with blood.

  In the small, brief moments of reprieve between each painful cramp, she whimpered for the hurt to go away, big blue eyes staring imploringly at her nurse, as if a simple kiss from this most treasured servant would make everything better again as it always had with a childhood bruise. But no matter how tenderly the girl’s feverish forehead was bathed or soothing words of comfort offered, the contractions continued unabated; the intervals becoming shorter and shorter until the girl lost all sense of time and space.

  Tears coursed down the nurse’s sallow cheeks and she pressed the wet cloth to her own mouth; it was all she could do to stop herself sobbing uncontrollably at the sight of her beautiful, sweet-tempered child in such torment.

  “Have the girl drink this and tomorrow she won’t be troubled,” she had been ordered.

  Obediently Jane drank the bitter-tasting draught, on reassurance that the medicinal would ease the nausea and restore her appetite. She had then thrust the tumbler back at her nurse, laughingly accusing her of poisoning her.

  Poison.

  Yes, Nurse had poisoned her beautiful girl. She knew that now as she bathed Jane’s tortured forehead free of sweat. She would pray to God for forgiveness for the rest of her days for not better protecting her girl, for trusting her betters to do what was right and proper when all along they had planned for this to happen. But she had poisoned Jane unwittingly. The same could not be said of the other two occupants of the darkened and airless bedchamber; or the girl’s absent, unforgiving father, who had disowned his only child for losing her virginity to a noble seducer who lasciviously planted his seed then discarded her like a used, worthless thing.

  Murderers all.

  Nurse dared not look over her shoulder. But she knew the man and woman were there in the shadows, waiting. Jane’s cries and her ministrations to help ease the pain did not make her deaf or blind. She knew why they were there, why they suffered the stench and the ignoble sounds of suffering, why they could not avert their eyes from the offending sight of the waif-like creature with the translucent skin and distraught gaze who convulsed, sweated, and bled before them. They had to satisfy their own eyes that the murderous deed was done. How else could they inform her heartless father that his wishes had been satisfactorily fulfilled?

  Nurse hated them. But she reserved her greatest hatred for the noble seducer. It gave her the strength and single-minded purpose to fight to keep alive her precious, ill-used girl. It did not stop her jumping with fright when a firm hand pressed her shoulder.

  “The physician will be here soon,” Jacob Allenby assured her. “The recent snow fall must have delayed him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Nurse replied docilely, continuing to rinse out the soiled sponge in the porcelain bowl on the side table.

  “Physician? Good God, what use is a saw-bones?” scoffed the female over Jacob Allenby’s shoulder. She came out of the shadows to warm herself by the fire in the grate, her carefully painted face devoid of emotion. “It is evident my medicinal is working to everyone’s satisfaction. A physician will only interfere.”

  The merchant rounded on her. “Forgive me for not trusting the word of an angel of death!”

  “Pon rep, Allenby, how dramatic you are,” she drawled, a soft white hand to the heat. “Anyone would think by the creature’s moans she is on death’s door. She isn’t. Syrup of Artemisia hasn’t killed anyone of my acquaintance—yet.” She glanced at the bed in thought. “Of course my apothecary on the Strand advises that the required dose be taken immediately a female suspects she is with child, usually the first month her courses are overdue,” she mused m
atter-of-factly. “That this dolt waited four months before confessing to the fruits of her wickedness necessitated I increase the dosage to compensate for her sly stupidity. After all, one must be absolutely certain the monster is expelled.”

  Jacob Allenby ground his teeth. “You’re a cold-blooded feline, my lady.”

  “No. I am a pragmatist, true to the patrician blood that flows in my veins,” she said conversationally, preening at her upswept hair adorned with pearls and ribbons in the dim light cast on the oval looking glass above the mantle. “Blood connection is prized above all else. Bastard offspring of indeterminate lineage have no place amongst our kind.” She glanced at the middle-aged merchant’s reflection whose frowning gaze remained fixed on the suffering girl in the narrow bed. “Nor does mawkish sentimentality. Why you agreed to take her off Sir Felix’s hands, I shall never fathom.”

  “Sir Felix Despard is a spineless drunkard who should have kept a better eye on his only child or she would not now be suffering. As for my actions, they’re not for you to fathom.”

  “Indeed? A Bristol Blue Glass manufacturer could do worse than take as mistress a nobleman’s quick tawdry rut. She is the offspring of a baronet, when all is said and done. Used. Discarded. But still very beautiful.”

  “You’d know all about quick tawdry ruts, my lady.”

  “You rival Mr. Garrick, to be sure. This unholy alliance we’ve formed is so diverting. La! I do believe it’s the best night’s entertainment I’ve had since—”

  “—you went down on all fours at one of his lordship’s orgies?”

  “Shall I show you my technique?” she teased, tickling the end of Jacob Allenby’s snub nose with the pleated tip of her delicate gouache fan. She pouted. “Tiresome little merchant moralists must dream of rutting titled ladies. In your dreams is the only place you’re accorded the opportunity of entering society.”