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

by Brant, Lucinda

  By the time Becky had finished altering and sewing the first gown, it was time to pin Lisa into it. Just as Becky had done with the cast-off gowns the cousins had given Lisa to use, this robe à l'anglaise of chocolate-brown silk fitted Lisa’s lithe frame perfectly, the elbow-length sleeves molded to her long slim arms, and the bodice hugged her narrow back and small breasts, the little white lace edge of the chemise just visible along the neckline against her white skin. With the addition of tiered lace and blue silk bows at her elbows and a stomacher covered in matching bows, Lisa looked the part of best friend to the niece of a duke.

  She was nervous to be joining the family for an Italian feast. It would be her first formal dinner, and not eaten alone in the back parlor of Gerrard Street, since her days of communal dining at school. And it would be the first time gentlemen and guests would be present. She was particularly anxious at meeting Teddy’s step-father, having heard all about the dour Squire Bryce who had dared to reach up from his world to marry the daughter of an earl, much to the disapproval of Teddy’s Granny Strathsay, and because Teddy loved him as if he were indeed her true father. But what made her even more nervous was discovering that Jack and Henri-Antoine were coming to dinner. She wondered at the reception she would receive from the former, and how she was to conduct herself with the latter, and what he might think of her dressed in silks.

  Sensing her nervousness, Teddy put her arm through Lisa’s, and they came downstairs and walked into the drawing room arm in arm. Lisa could not remember ever hearing the sound of adult laughter or such incessant chatter in a drawing room. Everyone was taking drinks before dinner and not speaking in English or French, but in the Italian language.

  “Don’t concern yourself, I can’t speak the language as well as I ought, though I am much better at understanding what is being said,” Teddy confessed near Lisa’s ear. “As I recall, you used to practice your Italian language skills with the drawing master. Oh! And here’s Jack. He’ll speak in English with you. His Italian is inferior to mine, and having been on the Grand Tour, he has no excuse.” Her smile died seeing the tiredness in her betrothed’s eyes, and she said with a frown, stepping up to him, “You look green, Sir John. ”

  He made her a bow then kissed her hand. “I am, Theodora, but I do not deserve any sympathy. Last night Harry, Seb, Bully, and the rest of the fellows succeeded in getting me as drunk as a sailor.”

  Teddy swiftly kissed his cheek. “Then you most certainly will not have any sympathy from me, or from Miss Crisp. And here she is.” Teddy turned to Lisa, still holding Jack’s hand. “You needn’t worry that because we are formal you must be formal, also. It’s just that everyone calls us Jack and Teddy, so we thought we’d call each other Sir John and Theodora. And as I won’t allow anyone else to call me by that vile name, Jack saying it makes it very special. But as you are my best friend, and I am certain he will agree, you must call him Jack. And you,” she added, turning back to Jack who was looking at Lisa with a smile, “my dear Sir John, will call her Lisa when you know each other better.”

  “Miss Crisp! How utterly delightful to see you here!” Jack announced with a bow. “When Harry told me that the Miss Crisp of Gerrard Street in Soho was the very same Lisa Crisp who is my Theodora’s best friend, well, I thought he was the drunk one! I can’t tell you how happy I am for you both. And for you to be part of our wedding celebration.”

  “Likewise, Sir John,” Lisa replied with a smile and bobbed a curtsy. “To be here with Teddy… To see her married to you… To share in your happiness… It is a dream come true for—”

  “—all of us!” Teddy announced. “I hope you brought your viola with you?” she asked Jack. “We are to have dancing after dinner, and I do so want Lisa to hear you play. He is a splendid musician,” she said to Lisa. “And has composed something just for me which I am not permitted to hear until our wedding day.”

  “How can it be a wedding gift if you hear it before the wedding?” Jack said with a grin. “And when don’t I have my viola?” He looked at Lisa, a glance at Teddy, and spoke his thoughts aloud. “I hope you won’t mind me saying this, Miss Crisp, but that shade of brown sets off your hair most becomingly. And the blue silk ribbons are a perfect match for your eyes.”

  Lisa thanked him for the compliment, brimming with happiness. It had been another wonderful day, just like the day before. Spending it with Teddy, being part of her family, seeing her and Jack so happy together, and now this gathering for dinner. She wasn’t sure if it was the warm reception she had received, and the fact that Teddy was so loving and generous, or that it was this gown and the feel of the silk between her fingers, but suddenly she felt special, almost beautiful, and Jack’s compliment made her heart swell. All that remained to make it perfect was to find herself seated next to Henri-Antoine during dinner.

  “You see, Lisa!” Teddy exclaimed triumphantly. “I told you the brown and blue work well together on you. She does look divine in chocolate silk, does she not, Sir John.”

  “Divine,” Jack agreed, then leaned in to Teddy’s ear and said in a whisper, “Though, for me, nothing will ever surpass your ruby tresses and those freckles on your nose.”

  Teddy turned her head and looked up into his eyes. “Five more sleeps. Are you counting too?”

  He nodded, and they would have kissed but for Lisa’s unintentional interruption, which saw them move apart when she bobbed another curtsy and said merrily,

  “Thank you, Sir John—”

  “Jack. You must call me Jack,” he interrupted, standing tall. He glanced around the room, looking for Henri-Antoine, then said to Lisa with a smile, “I insist. You are practically a member of the family, is she not, Theodora?”

  “She is, but you must hush now on that score, or you will spoil the surprise,” Teddy told him stridently, a finger to her lips and a significant glance at Lisa. But she need not have worried her best friend had overheard her caution, because her mother had approached with her stepfather and was introducing them.

  Jack again looked about to see where Henri-Antoine had got to, because he had been at his side when the two girls had swept through the door, and then vanished. He had so wanted to see his reaction to Miss Crisp in her silk gown. She had been quite pretty in her floral petticoats when he had visited Gerrard Street as part of the Fournier Foundation, but this gown showed off her lovely form, and that she was not pretty at all, but breathtakingly lovely.

  It was only when everyone had moved through to the dining hall and were being seated that Henri-Antoine reappeared, one of his lads following up behind, carrying a large parcel that looked to be the shape of a framed canvas, wrapped in cloth. This was leaned up against a wall by the sideboard, out of harm’s way, and with no further comment, and Henri-Antoine was directed to sit on Lisa’s right hand, while Lady Fittleworth was placed on her left. Teddy and Jack with Granny Kate sat opposite, with a chair left vacant on Lady Mary’s right. Lisa was given no time to glance Henri-Antoine’s way, for while everyone had taken their seats Jack remained standing and was waiting for conversations to cease. When he had their attention, he looked down the length of the table at Christopher Bryce, and receiving a nod from him, he addressed the gathering.

  “I know we’re all eager to taste Silvia’s delectable dishes, so I will be brief,” he said looking about the table. “Though I cannot be held accountable for the aftermath of this speech, and so I have apologized in advance to Silvia should we need a few moments to compose ourselves and regain our appetites. And I will also apologize on behalf of myself, Uncle Bryce, and Harry, because we know what you, my dear Aunt Mary, and you, dearest Theodora, and you Granny Kate, do not, and have kept from you for three nights. But I am assured that none of that will matter once the surprise is revealed.”

  “Surprise?” Teddy interrupted, eyes wide. “Oh, I do love surprises. Is it animal or vegetable? Do we all get to guess?”

  “No guessing required, Teddy,” her step-papa said quietly. “Though perhaps, Jack, you ma
y care to ask her ladyship one simple question…?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jack turned to Lady Mary. “Aunt Mary, what have you been saying for months is the one thing missing that, if it could be obtained, would make our wedding celebration perfect in every way?”

  Lady Mary looked down the length of the table at her husband, then across at her daughter, before looking up at Jack. She did not hesitate in her response.

  “To have my brother—Teddy’s Uncle Charles—here with us.”

  A hush came over the room. No one moved or spoke. Everyone, except the Lady Mary, was looking across her shoulder to the door behind her. At mention of her brother’s name, a footman opened this door and into the room stepped a man of middling height, with a head of flaming hair that was a beacon to his familial connections. And with the same nose as his elder sister, there was no mistaking his kinship. Here was the stranger who had shared the coach, but not his name, with Lisa from Alston to Treat, and who had disembarked before the black-and-gold iron gates to wander off in direction of Crecy Hall.

  “Mary?”

  The Lady Mary’s name was uttered just as Teddy jumped to her feet. But she did not go forward. This reunion was first and foremost between a brother and his sister, and no one wanted to spoil that moment.

  Wide-eyed and shaking, the Lady Mary swiveled about on her chair at her name said by a beloved voice she never thought to hear again. She saw the gentleman standing just inside the door and froze. She was disbelieving. But when he smiled and took a step forward, she scrambled up so fast her chair fell back and hit the floor. She rushed up to him, threw herself into his arms, and was gathered up in her brother’s loving embrace.

  She sobbed and he submitted to her outpouring of joy and relief and disbelief, overcome by this reception, which was much more emotive than his reunion with his elder brother, the Earl of Strathsay, his cousin the Duke of Roxton, and meeting for the first time his brother-in-law Mr. Christopher Bryce. All three men were jubilant. It was the first time brother and cousin had seen Charles in almost a decade, and Christopher welcomed finally meeting his brother-in-law. But as is the way with men, they tempered their finer feelings amongst themselves and in front of others, in particular because of the presence of their young sons who were all huddled about the campfire in the woods, a wide-eyed audience of seven little boys.

  Christopher Bryce went forward and shook Charles’s hand and offered his wife his handkerchief. The Lady Mary was still so overcome to see her youngest brother that she was only too happy to be comforted by her husband, as Teddy rushed forward to be introduced to the uncle she had heard so much about and had never met. And within a short interval of Charles Fitzstuart’s surprise arrival at the Gatehouse Lodge, he was seated at his sister’s left hand, dinner was upon the table, and everyone was enjoying Silvia’s delectable dishes.

  And while brother and sister became reacquainted, and exchanged news that may have not made it into their correspondence over the years, or had yet to be written, they held hands. Lady Mary occasionally touched Charles’s cheek, he squeezed her fingers or kissed the back of her hand, as if touch was needed as assurance that this was not a dream, that indeed they were both in the same room together. And both could not stop smiling.

  They were left alone, everyone else getting on with eating, drinking, and chatting amongst themselves. It was under the cover of this general chatter, with Lady Fittleworth recalling a particular anecdote from a wedding she and Granny Kate had attended at the consulate in Florence, and with footmen coming and going with covered dishes and topping up wine glasses, that Henri-Antoine finally turned to Lisa and engaged her in conversation, silver knife and fork placed on his plate and pushed aside.

  Lisa had been just as caught up in the reunion between the siblings as the rest of the dinner guests, but with food and conversation came a return of her acute awareness that on her right sat Henri-Antoine. She pretended an interest in the food, but one sidelong glance at him and she lost her appetite for the mushroom-stuffed pasta. If the upturned cuffs of his lavender silk frock coat were any indication, then he was dressed resplendently. The silk was smothered in an intricate embroidery of honeysuckle, vine leaves, and tiny bees, and the white lace ruffle that covered his wrists was delicately paper-thin. So when she turned at her name, her lashes remained lowered, and she noted that the front panels and the buttons of his frock coat were similarly embroidered, the lace stock under his square chin matching the lace at his wrists. And how could she not fix on his mouth after he briefly touched a linen napkin to his lips.

  “You are staring at me without blinking, Miss Crisp,” he observed as he put aside the napkin. “Which makes me wonder—Do I have spinach caught between my teeth?”

  Lisa’s gaze flew up to his, startled, and then she clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  He smiled and winked. “That’s better. I like it when you look me in the eye. It allows me to admire your fine eyes. And now I see that they do indeed match the blue of the silk bows to your gown. Which, by the way, is very pretty.”

  “Teddy and her mother have been most generous.”

  “And with the expertise of their seamstress, too. I’d no idea the small of your back was so narrow—”

  “My lord! You can’t say—”

  “I just have. Now don’t jump. Give me your hand.”

  He let his slide under the table and she followed his lead. And when they found each other’s fingers and fumbled, then held on, neither could stifle a smile. And while he was searching out her hand, he made certain to look the other way, holding his glass for a footman to refill. He rested their entwined fingers on the skirts of his frock coat which covered his silken thigh, set the glass down after taking a sip, and turned to her with an expression that suggested they were the merest of acquaintances.

  Before he could say a word she quipped, “That was expertly done. So expert in fact I suspect you’ve done this sort of thing before. Possibly not with a maiden, but with a mistress, or perhaps another man’s wife…?”

  Taken aback, he almost spat his wine across the table, only managing to swallow it down hard at the last moment, then cough into his fist before taking a deep breath. He followed this up with another sip from his glass to calm himself. He squeezed her fingers, and when he could speak said curtly,

  “Don’t be absurd! I’ve never—”

  “Good. That is gratifying.” She frowned and squeezed his fingers in return and regarded him with such a serious expression that he wondered what was the matter. “Now that I have kissed you, the thought of you holding hands with another makes me sad.”

  “Does it?” he drawled, schooling his features to remain neutral, though he could not stop the sudden onset of lightheadedness at her admission.

  He wondered if he was still feeling the effects of the previous night, for though he had tempered his drinking and smoking to ensure his health remained robust, he had not fallen into bed until almost dawn, and then slept most of the day away. But then he realized this feeling had nothing to do with smoke-filled rooms and late nights and everything to do with Miss Lisa Crisp. When she continued to regard him with a frown, he said gently,

  “I never want you to be sad. You do know that don’t you?”

  She nodded and her frown lifted. She took a swift glance about the table, saw that everyone was otherwise occupied, and said cheerfully, “Perhaps it is the wine making me sad, or happy, or both. I may have drunk a little too much, too quickly. It isn’t the same as drinking tea or coffee or fruit punch, is it?”

  “Were you not permitted wine in Gerrard Street?”

  “There was no cause for me to drink it. I’ve never dined in the dining room. And I suppose the Warners did not want me drinking wine on my own.”

  “You ate dinner alone?”

  When she nodded it was his turn to frown, but like her, he did not let it linger. He was enjoying holding her hand too much to let his anger with the Warners and her life with them ruin their evening
. He leaned sideways as he picked up his glass, hoping this action would mask his intent of confiding in her, and said while looking out across the table, and not at her,

  “I missed your company today.”

  Her fingers shifted in his, which made him look at her. She smiled and confessed,

  “And I missed you… I had hoped you would be at Crecy for nuncheon.”

  “That had been my intention. But my days are not my own while there are guests for the wedding. Elsie’s disappointment at my absence was tempered by your presence. She likes you.”

  “I like her. And she loves you very much. You are a devoted brother.”

  “She is my sister. How could I not love her?”

  Lisa looked down the table to where the Lady Mary and Charles Fitzstuart were deep in conversation, heads together and peering at a miniature portrait in a gold frame. Three similar portraits were on the table before them. Lisa supposed these were of his children back in France with their mother. She turned to Henri-Antoine with a smile.

  “I have yet to meet your elder brother, but I suspect you and he are also close.”

  “In sentiment, if not in age. He is fifteen years my senior, and I am fifteen years older than Elsie. In many ways we grew up as you did.”

  “As I did?”

  “As an only child.”

  “The gap in your ages allowed your mother to devote herself singularly to your infancies. But whatever the differences in years, you will always have each other.”

  “I visited Elsie before I came here tonight, to apologize for not being at nuncheon, and she could not wait to share with me your good deed.”

  “My good deed?”

  “As scribe for Simone, her night nurse.”