Satyr’s Son: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Family Saga Book 5)

by Brant, Lucinda

  “Two nights sleeping in tents in the woods,” the gentleman stated with a smile and a shake of his head. “I can’t believe I allowed Roxton and Strathsay to persuade me. I don’t know who is more excited, they or our combined seven rascals. You know where I’d rather be.”

  “I do. But that’s not to say you won’t enjoy every minute of it, just as much as Roxton and my brother,” the woman threw at him with a laugh and touched his cheek. “And you couldn’t disappoint your sons. They’ve been talking of little else for days. But do be careful. And if there is even the hint of rain, come back. I couldn’t bear it if any of you caught a cold right before Teddy’s big day. Now, give your daughter another kiss and off you go before David and Luke jump themselves right out of that carriage.”

  The gentleman held the infant up in his outstretched arms, which made the baby gasp and then giggle, before he brought her down to kiss her chubby cheek then hand her back to her mother. He ignored the shouts from his sons, to say to his wife,

  “Do you know this will be the first time we’ve slept apart since—

  “—we were married. Yes, I do know that,” she answered gently and went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I shall be bereft.”

  She then brushed past him and went over to the carriage to see her sons settled, the infant in her arms squealing with delight when her brothers pulled faces to make her giggle.

  The sudden noise of a window being flung open with force had everyone looking to the house and up to the first floor. Hanging half out of an open window, her long red hair falling in tangled waves either side of her face, and her arms waving back and forth to get the attention of those below, was a young woman with bright eyes and an even brighter smile.

  “Papa! David! Luke!” she shouted, and then shouted their names again so they all looked her way. “Have a wonderful, wonderful time! Don’t sleep a wink! I love you! I’ll miss you all!”

  The two boys waved and shouted back. The gentleman blew her a kiss. Her baby sister giggled—she was still watching her brothers making faces, and the little lady holding the baby took a deep breath and smiled but said nothing.

  The buggy was gone off down the gravel drive and peace had descended once more on the Gatehouse Lodge, and the girl with the long red hair remained in the window, arms folded on the ledge, chin on her fist, gaze on the middle distance.

  Lisa and Becky had gone unnoticed throughout the entire family farewell, standing mute with their backs up against the wall, trunks at their feet. But they were not invisible for long. For no sooner had David and Luke’s mama turned to re-enter the house with her infant daughter than she noticed the two travel-weary girls. Lisa was staring up at the girl in the window. Becky was staring at the beautiful little lady in her floral-painted petticoats with the happy baby in her arms.

  And then the girl in the window went to pull down the sash and happened to look below, and directly into the upturned smiling face of her best friend from Blacklands, and who was waving up at her. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She pushed the sash back up and leaned out.

  “Lisa! Lisa! Lisa! You’re here at last! Mama! Mama! It’s Lisa Crisp! It’s Lisa! Wait! I’ll be right there.”

  FOURTEEN

  PART TWO: THE COUNTRY

  TREAT, ANCESTRAL HOME OF THE DUKES OF ROXTON

  ‘OH DEAR. Have you been standing there awhile?” Lady Mary apologized, going forward to greet Lisa. She smiled. “So you are Lisa Crisp. Here at last. Did you have a pleasant journey?”

  Lisa dropped a respectful curtsy, quick to realize when Teddy had shouted from the window that this fascinating little lady was her mother and, she remembered, the daughter of an earl; Becky followed her lead.

  “Not long, my lady,” Lisa replied. “And, yes, we had a very pleasant journey. Thank you.”

  “Leave your trunks and your bag with your maid—she’ll be taken care of by the housekeeper—and come inside.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady,” Lisa said politely but firmly, remaining beside Becky when the Lady Mary went to turn away. “Becky is not my maid in the strict sense of the term. She is a seamstress who agreed to accompany me for my stay, and to-to—be of assistance to me.”

  “Oh? I see,” replied Lady Mary, a glance at Becky. “Then we had best find a girl who can help Becky give you that assistance. Perhaps Becky can still remain with the trunks until the housekeeper comes, who will show her where everything is so she is comfortable and so she can be a help to you during your stay.”

  “I don’t mind bein’ Miss Crisp’s maid for the duration,” Becky stuck in, feeling she had to say something given Lisa had just made it plain she was not a servant, in the strict sense of the term. “It’s all new to me and I’m just ’appy to be ’ere.”

  Lady Mary blinked, unaccustomed to being addressed by a servant whom she had not addressed first, but then smiled thinly and said evenly, “Yes, I see that you are…” Then said to Lisa as she shifted the baby in her arms, “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Miss Crisp.”

  “Have you, my lady?” Lisa replied politely, giving the cloth bag containing her writing box into Becky’s safe keeping, and quickly falling into step beside the Lady Mary, who had turned to go inside.

  “All of it from Teddy, of course, and all most complimentary. My daughter says she would not have survived her time at Blacklands without your friendship. So for that alone, I am eternally grateful. She has always referred to you as her Blacklands sister…”

  “And now she does indeed have a sister.”

  “Yes! A surprise to us all, but quite the most wonderful surprise. This is Sophie-Kate, and she is five months old today.”

  “She is a beautiful baby, my lady.”

  “Yes… Yes, she is,” Lady Mary said on a sigh of happiness and turned to the housekeeper who had come out under the portico, a male servant behind her. “Mrs. Rogers, here is Miss Crisp finally come at last. Her friend Becky is with her to act as her maid. If you would take Becky in hand and find one of the upstairs maids to chaperone her—perhaps Meg would do—so she knows what is to be done, and where everything is to be found, that would be a great help to us all.”

  Mrs. Rogers shot a glance at Lisa which swept over her from half-boots to small peaked bonnet, and then out across to Becky obediently standing by two trunks that had seen better days, and while she nodded to her mistress without a change in her expression, Lisa saw the disapproval in her gaze.

  Her throat constricted to be summed up and then dismissed so summarily. But the uncomfortable feeling vanished the moment she entered the small vestibule behind the Lady Mary and to the sight of Teddy rushing down the winding staircase, so happy to see her that it brought tears to her eyes.

  Teddy scooped Lisa up into her embrace and both girls hugged and cried and hugged some more to be reunited after a separation of two years. There was not a dry eye in the vestibule, the Lady Mary smiling through her tears to see her daughter so happy as she handed her baby daughter to her nurse, who also had a tear in her eye.

  “May I take Lisa up to my room before supper, Mama?” Teddy asked, holding Lisa’s hand. “We have so much to talk about, and I need to tell—”

  “Perhaps allow Miss Crisp—”

  “Lisa. Mama, you must call her Lisa, after all she is my Blacklands sister. Aren’t you, Lisa?”

  “Very well. Lisa has come a very long way in one day,” Lady Mary replied patiently. “So you should do her the courtesy of allowing her to freshen up and perhaps take a dish of tea—”

  “We can do all those things in my room—”

  “As I was about to suggest, but—”

  Teddy kissed her mother’s cheek. “You are the most wonderful mama in all the world!”

  “Thank you, my darling. But do not tire Lisa out on her first day. There will be plenty of time for the two of you to become reacquainted. And don’t be late down for supper. You know how Granny Kate is one for punctuality, and how keen she is to meet your friend from your school days.” />
  “Promise!” Teddy announced. She smiled at Lisa. “Come on, Blacklands sister! I have so much to tell you! But first,” she added after she had led Lisa up the narrow winding staircase to the landing, and opened the immediate door to the right, which was her apartment, “I want to hear everything about what you’ve been doing since I last saw you. And I do mean everything.”

  LISA MANAGED to wash her face and hands and tidy her hair, and enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of seedy cake, while giving Teddy an account of her last two years living with the Warners in Gerrard Street. Teddy curled up on the window seat and listened attentively, and whatever her private thoughts about her best friend assisting in a dispensary for the sick poor, she showed most aversion for life in a great city, unable to fathom how anyone could live in a place where there were few open green spaces, where there were so many people that one could simply not escape the hordes, and where there were more buildings than trees. She had found Chelsea too overrun with people, and could not wait to return to the peace and tranquility and pace of the Cotswolds.

  It was Granny Kate—formidable mama of Teddy’s step-papa—who showed a keen interest in Lisa’s duties within a medical dispensary, asking her all sorts of questions at supper, most impressed that she acted as an amanuensis for the poor. And Lisa could understand why, given Granny Kate was blind, and thus having someone to read out her letters and to write them was very important to her. She told Lisa that she dictated all her letters to her companion, who also read the replies to her, Teddy often taking on this task whenever she was asked to do so.

  “But I am only given letters to read out that Mama, Papa, and Fran—that’s Granny Kate’s companion—will allow me,” Teddy revealed. “Which are all very interesting, but not as interesting as those from Granny’s particular correspondents, who commit to paper an exchange of scandalous anecdotes from their youth, and are thus unfit for the eyes of a young lady; so Mama tells me.”

  “Your mama is quite correct, Teddy,” Granny Kate replied primly. “But I think you’ll find that the stick in this mud is not so much your mama but your step-papa. He has given me fair warning that those correspondents, and such anecdotes, are for my ears only, and most definitely not for your eyes.”

  “But as they are anecdotes from your youth, Granny, then you must have been a young lady at the time you behaved in such a scandalous manner.”

  Granny Kate chuckled and had no answer for this. Neither did Lady Mary.

  “Teddy, it is time to steer the conversation in a different direction,” her mother advised gently, putting down her silver knife and fork and pushing her plate forward. She nodded to the butler, the signal it was time to remove the dishes and bring the coffee pot.

  “I don’t know what surprises you more, Teddy,” Granny Kate said with a laugh, ignoring her daughter-in-law’s directive. “That I was once young, or that I could ever be involved in scandalous behavior.”

  Teddy squeezed the old lady’s fingers, kissed her cheek, and whispered near her ear, “I believe both.” She sat back and put aside her napkin. “And one day, after I am married, I won’t take no for an answer and you will tell me all about it. May we be excused, Mama? Lisa has had such a day and is worn thin, and we still have much to talk about… I hope you don’t mind sharing my bed,” she asked Lisa when they were back upstairs in her bedchamber ready for bed.

  A maid had warmed the bed sheets with the copper warming pan, a fire crackled in the grate despite it being the first month of summer, and a tray holding two mugs of hot milk had been placed on the window seat. Both girls were in their nightgowns and banyans, and Teddy stood before her dressing table, brushing her hair free of tangles.

  “Why would I mind?” Lisa responded with a smile, sitting on the edge of the mattress of the four-poster bed watching Teddy brush and then braid her hair. “It will be like old times. Although this bed is far larger than the cots we slept in at school. But I am only sorry to put you to so much bother.”

  “It’s no bother. It’s just that this is such a small house—”

  “Is it?”

  “It’s a gatekeeper’s lodge. The entire structure would be swallowed up in one wing of Papa’s house at home, and Abbeywood must be three times this size. But it’s not the size that matters. It’s that we can all stay here as a family, and I wanted you here with us. Which is why we are all sharing. The rest of the extended family and guests are over at the big house.” Teddy gave a snort of laughter. “Big house! What a gigantic understatement! You must have thought so too when you first saw it. I am very sure if I were to ascend in one of Signore Lunardi’s balloons and look down upon the earth, Treat would be the most enormous structure to be seen for miles and miles! And I cannot wait for you to see inside Uncle Roxton’s palace! You’ll simply be dazzled blind by the twinkling lights from chandeliers in the ballroom alone.”

  “I am already dazzled and I have only seen the palace from across the lake. No doubt the ballroom will leave me speechless.”

  “Oh, it will. But you’re not to feel too overwhelmed because I expect you to stand up and dance with every gentleman who asks you.”

  “That is very kind of you to think I will be asked. But I am so out of practice—”

  “Then we must make certain you are practiced by the time of the ball. I will not have you sitting in a corner, Lisa Crisp! Not when you are the cleverest and prettiest girl in the room. Your turn,” she announced, tossing the hairbrush on the dressing table and pulling out the dressing stool for Lisa to sit upon. She patted the padded cushion. “Come along or our milk will grow cold. Oh! I have a better idea!” She brought the tray over to the dressing table. “We shall have it while I brush your hair.” When Lisa obediently sat before the looking glass, she removed her friend’s little lace cap, and then began taking out the multitude of pins that held up the coils of Lisa’s waist-length hair. She suddenly paused and looked at Lisa’s reflection. Her friend’s lips trembled of their own accord, and she had lowered her gaze, so that her dark lashes covered her eyes. “Do you not want me to brush your hair?” Teddy asked curiously.

  Lisa shook her head, and then she could no longer hold back the pent-up emotion of this longed-for reunion. She put her face in her hands and cried. It was such a simple gesture—Teddy offering to brush her hair—and so evocative of their schoolgirl friendship that it meant the world to her. She sniffed and sat up and looked at Teddy through the looking glass and did her best to smile.

  “I do,” she said with a watery smile. “I do very much… It’s only… No one has… No one since-since school, since you, and—forgive me,” she apologized, dropping her gaze. “I’m being foolish… I must be tired…”

  Teddy put the hairbrush aside, dropped to her knees by the stool, and gathered Lisa into her arms and held her tightly. She kissed her and sat back and smiled.

  “Never foolish, dearest Lisa. I remember you telling me once how you never did get hugs and kisses when you were a child.”

  “Not until I met you, and not since, my darling Teddy.”

  They stayed that way for a few moments longer, and after Lisa had dried her face with one of Teddy’s handkerchiefs and they had both taken a few sips of hot milk, Teddy set to brushing Lisa’s hair. And while her bristle brush went down the length of Lisa’s chestnut hair repeatedly in long even strokes, Teddy told Lisa what she had been doing with her time since she had left Blacklands some eighteen months ago. Adding with a sigh, “My life is not half as exciting or as interesting as assisting a physician in his dispensary is it? And I thought I would marry Jack as soon I left school. I could see no reason for waiting. For what? Jack had returned from his years abroad, and was ready to settle—”

  “—after all those years pondering paintings…?” Lisa asked airily with a cheeky knowing smile.

  Teddy blinked and stopped mid-stroke on a gasp. And then she burst out laughing.

  “Oh good grief! How like you to remember me telling you what mama had told me! Were we such naïve
little beings as to think the reason boys were eager to run off abroad was so they could stand before a bunch of musty old paintings?” She gave a snort of incredulity and resumed brushing. “If Jack Cavendish did any pondering it wasn’t in an art gallery. Particularly not when this pondering was done in Harry’s company. I’d wager Harry has tossed more coin into bordellos in France and Italy, and every country in between, than any other young man his age.”

  It was Lisa’s turn to gasp.

  “Teddy! How can you say—”

  “Because I know Jack, and I know Harry. There is good reason Harry has earned the nickname ‘satyr’s son’. It’s not only because he has a great look of his late father. His salacious conduct with actresses and other men’s mistresses, and his behavior while he was abroad, suggests he has every intention of emulating the legendary scandalous habits of M’sieur le Duc before he married Cousin Duchess.”

  “How-how can you know this?”

  Teddy held Lisa’s thoughtful frown in the looking glass reflection, and then she shrugged and said, “You think as a bride I should be ignorant of the habits of young virile men? That just because I live in the wilds of the Cotswolds where there are few people I would have little idea of how boys behave when they finally become young men?”

  “I do not dispute that we know something of young men and their habits. And I am not blind. I do see the poor girls who walk the streets hawking their favors. And I have read reports in the newssheets about titled men and their mistresses. But I confess to being thoroughly ignorant of the-the—process…” She looked at Teddy under her lashes and added, ears burning, “You once told me that growing up on a farm you’ve always known about how life—begins. So, no, I do not think you are ignorant. Though I suspect as a young lady you are supposed to avert your eyes to such processes…”