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

by Brant, Lucinda

  This monolith of a building had a surprise around every corner, and each surprise was more surprising than the last.

  “This is the room the family calls the Ancestral Guilt Room,” Henri-Antoine explained. “My nephew Freddy, who will one day—a day long into the future—be the seventh duke, has dubbed it the What do we do with this lot because we don’t want it, but it’s been in the family for generations room.” He ran a finger around the rim of a marble pedestal that supported a cup made from polished sea shell and silver. There was an inscription but he did not read it out. “Some of these pieces date back before Queen Bess’s time. Some of it belongs to me. Most of it my brother inherited from our father, who inherited it from his. My mother has a few pieces here, willed to her by her grandmother, a nasty old witch of a woman. None of us want this-this—stuff, but we don’t know what to do with it.”

  “If none of you want it, not even your nephew, then perhaps it could be put to better use?” Lisa suggested, trying to take in as much of the horde as possible.

  “Such as?”

  “You could hold an auction—”

  “Auction?” Henri-Antoine was surprised but Lisa had all his attention. “Go on.”

  “There may be other pieces your brother and your mother, and any other relatives, would like to contribute to the auction, and feel they are superfluous to their needs—”

  “That would include most of what’s stuffed in this house,” Henri-Antoine quipped. He smiled. “But go on.”

  “You could have a catalog printed, like the one advertising the Duchess of Portland’s collection, and list all the items here in this room, and whatever else is contributed.”

  “I know Deb, my sister-in-law, would gladly contribute. She’s been wanting to do something with this lot for years. But my brother is a sentimentalist. He would need convincing.”

  “It seems a waste to have all this sitting here being of no use, particularly when no one in the family wants it, when it could be used to better purpose, and for other’s enjoyment. Lots of people bought objects from the Portland collection, and no doubt most of those items had been gathering dust for years.”

  “Such as Elsie’s shell.

  “Yes. Just like Elsie’s shell. And perhaps your brother would be more agreeable to the idea if it was named the Roxton Catalog?”

  “He might indeed.”

  “And if the proceeds were used for a worthwhile cause…?”

  “That would certainly add weight to the argument for him, his duchess, and our mother.”

  “And what more worthwhile cause could there be than the one closest to your heart: The Fournier Foundation for medical research.”

  He grinned. “You are a mind reader.”

  “Oh? I thought I was a witch.”

  He stuck the taper on the nearest surface, grabbed her and gently took her face in his hands. He kissed her. “You’re so clever. No wonder I love you. Come,” he said and snatched up the taper, and took her by the hand. “My apartment is through this door and along the passageway.”

  Lisa followed, mute. She was dazed by his declaration. He had said it before, when they were making love that first time, but later when her mind and body had cooled she wondered if she had misheard him. And now he had said it again, but in such an offhand manner she was left all at sea. So she did not attach great importance to it. And by the time they entered his apartment she was distracted enough not to dwell on it. For there on the carpet by a sofa was her battered trunk, and sitting on the lid was her rosewood writing box in its cloth cover.

  “Where’s Becky?” she asked, looking about, as if the girl was to be found near her belongings.

  “Returning to London with the Strathsays—”

  “But—”

  “If you want her back, you’ll have to write to the Widow Humphreys offering her niece employment.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “That is what she told my major domo.”

  Lisa was suddenly awkward. “Her aunt may not allow her to be employed by the likes of me.”

  “The likes of you?” Henri-Antoine was puzzled. “She should be so fortunate. Widow Humphreys can advertise to her clientele her niece is seamstress to Her Ladyship. Her business will treble overnight.” He pulled her to him, and with her in his arms he untied the bow at her back that held her fichu in place. “You’ll need a proper lady’s maid,” he murmured, dipping to kiss the curve of her throat. “Someone well-versed in the care of silks and satins…”

  Lisa stayed his hands, suddenly ill at ease, and took a step away, and glanced about at her opulent surroundings, which she had not done that first time when she had come to speak to his major domo: Velvet curtains, high ceilings, paintings of foreign abodes in heavy frames of gilt, deep carpet underfoot, and everything bathed in a golden glow from the very best beeswax candles. She felt foolish for having a frisson of panic, thinking of what had happened on the terrace with Seb Westby, and quickly banished him from her thoughts. She would not allow that episode or that drunken lecher to intrude into her life again, and drew Henri-Antoine back to her.

  He had instantly withdrawn his hands and stepped away, too, and made her a small bow. Now, as she put her arms around his neck, he said with a concerned frown, looking into her eyes, “I should not have presumed… It’s been a long night… You must be tired.”

  Through the open double doors she glimpsed an equally opulent and expansive bedchamber, home to an enormous four-poster bed, and smiled up at him to say cheekily, “I’m not the least tired. But I wonder what His Grace would say to me staying with you under his roof?”

  “My apartment; my roof: That’s our agreement. And this is where you belong, with me, always. That’s all that matters.”

  “I would very much like His Lordship to show me the rest of his apartment…”

  He kissed her palm, and holding her hand led her into the bedchamber and closed the double doors on the world.

  ~ ~ ~

  SHE WAS WRAPPED in his arms and drifting off into a blissful sleep when he made enough movement to wake her. And once she was awake and he had plumped the pillows for her, and she was sitting up against the carved headboard, he slid out from under the covers. He crossed the room and disappeared into the next and returned carrying her rosewood writing box, perfectly comfortable in his own skin. But for Lisa something about the scene sent her into a fit of the giggles. It wasn’t his tumble of messy hair, which fell into his eyes so that she wondered if he could see at all. Or his nakedness, which was splendid and intriguing. It was the rosewood writing box. She’d had a flash of memory of him presenting it to her in Gerrard Street, dressed magnificently, and how formal he had been with her upon that occasion. And here he was, not that many weeks later, presenting her with the same box, in all his magnificent nakedness. And what was she supposed to do with it? Write a letter? At this hour? And to whom?

  “Does His Lordship require an amanuensis in the middle of the night?”

  “I can’t sleep until I have your answer,” he said as he slipped back under the covers beside her, the writing box on the coverlet between them.

  She had curbed her giggling, but the laughter was still in her blue eyes.

  “You intend to dictate this answer and I am to write it down?”

  He looked at her with one eyebrow raised over his blackened eye.

  “Droll. No. There is more to this writing box than meets the eye, isn’t there?”

  She knew at once. Without further prompting she opened up the writing box, which was unlocked, and folded back the red leather writing surface to expose the compartment below, pressed on the panel that concealed the three little drawers, and removed it. She looked up at Henri-Antoine.

  “You have left me a note?”

  “Notes.”

  She gave a little gasp of pleasure.

  “When? How? I don’t recall you having access to my writing box since Gerrard Street.”

  He smiled thinly. “His Lordshi
p works in mysterious ways. But I know you won’t leave it there, so let me tell you. I wrote the notes. I had Michel conceal them. I was otherwise occupied at a wedding.”

  “They were put there tonight?”

  “Today. Yes.”

  “And you wrote them—when?”

  Henri-Antoine leaned his shoulders against the mountain of feather pillows.

  “You’re not a witch. You’re a grand inquisitor!”

  She giggled. The truth was she was excited and apprehensive and these were her first secret notes. She took a deep breath and asked, “Which drawer should I open first?”

  He threw up a hand. “It matters not. Only your answer matters.”

  She gave a tug on the little round horn pull of the left hand drawer, and there inside the tiny compartment was a tiny piece of folded paper. It read: Try the third drawer along. She folded the paper and put it back and slid the drawer closed, a look up under her lashes at Henri-Antoine who was grinning at her. So she did as the note instructed, and pulled open the right hand drawer. Inside was another piece of paper, but this paper was wrapped around something. Lisa slowly unwrapped it, and what she saw made her stare at Henri-Antoine in astonishment.

  “It’s a ring!”

  “Wonderful. Michel managed to place it there without it falling out of the paper. That would have required a treasure hunt to find it—”

  “It is real? Is it old?”

  “Do you mean are those diamonds and sapphires paste? No, they are not paste. Yes, they are real. Yes, the ring is old. It requires a good polish. The last to wear it was my grandmother, Madeleine-Julie Salvan Hesham, Marchioness of Alston, daughter of the Comte de Salvan, and my father’s mother.”

  “Your father’s mother?”

  “Yes. She died over fifty years ago…”

  Lisa held the ring between thumb and forefinger and inspected it closely, turning it this way and that in the candlelight.

  “Your grandmother had slim fingers.”

  He smiled. Trust her to be interested in the anatomy of the wearer rather than the value of the stones, or, surprisingly, the significance of what the ring symbolized.

  “She was five-and-forty when she died. Of course, there is the possibility her fingers were even slimmer when she married, and the ring has been altered since. She was just sixteen when she eloped with my grandfather.”

  “Eloped? How—How did you come by the ring?”

  “I see the grand inquisitor has returned,” he muttered. “My father left it to me, along with a letter,” he explained patiently. “I opened the letter for the first time this morning. That ring was inside the packet.”

  “A letter from your father?” Lisa was intrigued. “He wrote you a letter to be opened today?”

  “Not today precisely. The letter was for me to open when I had come to a particular decision about my life.”

  “Did he not also leave you a letter to be opened on your twenty-first birthday, too?”

  “He did.”

  “How delightful and farsighted of him! He loved you very much.” She frowned and leaned in and kissed his mouth, before looking into his eyes. “I can imagine reading such a letter was very emotional for you…”

  He held her gaze. “The entire week has been like that.”

  She kissed him again, and then lightly pressed her lips to his black eye. She held out the ring shyly. “Will you put it on me?”

  “Gladly. First, you should peek in the middle and final drawer, and give me your answer.”

  “Oh yes! Silly me forgot that drawer. Dazzled by precious stones!”

  “Dazzled by the circumference of grandmère’s ring finger.”

  Lisa laughed and was still smiling when she pulled open the tiny middle drawer of her writing box. She was not surprised to find tucked inside a third small piece of paper. She quickly pulled it out and unfolded it and was smiling up at Henri-Antoine before she even glanced at the note itself. And then she let her gaze drop to the paper, and she saw drawn a love heart, and inside the heart were two words: Marry me.

  She stared at the heart, and at the words, and took a deep breath and thought she might stop breathing from happiness. It lasted but a moment, before she exhaled, folded the note with shaking fingers and then just sat there, head bent, long hair falling about her face and bare arms. And then the tears came and dropped onto the paper, and she could not stop them, nor did she try. She was indescribably happy that he loved her so much he wanted to marry her, and she was unutterably miserable because she loved him so much she had to refuse him.

  When she was finally able to articulate her feelings, and she enlightened him that she was crying from happiness, overwhelmed by the occasion and what it meant, but most of all because she could not give him the answer he was expecting, he was stunned. But he was not angry or sad, or even disappointed. He was strangely numb. He believed her when she told him she loved him. He even believed her when she confidently assured him she had every intention of living with him as his mistress, and they would be a couple in every sense. But he did not believe her when she said he could not marry her. It interested him that she did not say she could not marry him, but that he could not marry her. What did that mean, precisely? What doubting bee was buzzing about in her head, and who had put it there? Two and two did not add up to four.

  Perhaps a good night’s sleep would bring perspective and some answers. With this in mind, he removed the writing box from the bed, set his grandmother’s wedding band on the side table next to the silver chamberstick, and found Lisa a clean white handkerchief. He then tucked them both up under the covers and snuffed the candle. Snuggled up, silent and still, yet acutely aware of each other, it took them both a very long time to fall asleep.

  LISA WOKE IN the big bed, alone. She had a recollection of being suddenly cold. Henri-Antoine was no longer beside her. It was early morning. There was bird song. Distant whispered conversation was somewhere far off. Then it went quiet. She had not slept well all night. She wondered if she had slept at all. She was exhausted. She fell into a deep sleep…

  For a single moment she thought herself back in her narrow bed in Gerrard Street. But she was surrounded by plump pillows filled with the softest down, and covered by sheets of the finest linen, and the bed was enormous, the canopy and bed curtains of velvet. The curtains covering the windows had been drawn back, and light streamed across the carpet. The diamond and sapphire ring once belonging to the Marchioness of Alston was not by the chamberstick, and where her rosewood writing box had been placed at the end of the bed there lay one of Henri-Antoine’s banyans, this one of golden yellow silk damask, the sleeves rolled up.

  Lisa threw back the covers, and wearing the banyan, arms hugged about her body, she followed the light through to a spacious dressing room, furnished with chaise longue, chair, and curio cabinets. Stacks of books lined the windowseat. A fire smoldered in the grate. And sitting on tiles before the fireplace was a large, linen-lined copper bath. Beside the bath, a pile of towels and a copper pail. Through an open doorway she could see into a closet, and hanging on pegs along the wall were sumptuous frock coats in silks, linens, and cottons, alongside matching waistcoats, and there was a row of mahogany clothes presses.

  What surprised her most were the clothes laid out on the chaise longue under the window sill. They were hers. A floral cotton caraco, petticoats to match, a flimsy apron, clean stockings, and a chemise. She was staring at this assortment when a thin-shouldered man dressed in black frock coat and breeches came through from the closet, and introduced himself as Kyte, His Lordship’s valet. Two manservants carrying pails of hot water followed, and behind them a maidservant, who kept her eyes lowered to the parquetry.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” Kyte said cheerfully, as if it was an everyday occurrence for Lisa to be in his master’s dressing room. He made her a small bow. “Rose will help you bathe and dress and arrange your hair the way you like it, while I make certain your breakfast has been set out in the alcove of th
e drawing room. I trust hot chocolate, toast, and an egg meets with your approval? After breakfast the lads will escort you to His Grace’s library.”

  The thought of eating made her queasy. She might sip the hot chocolate. What made her lose her appetite altogether was mention of the library. And any awkwardness she had being in Henri-Antoine’s room vanished, replaced with apprehension and dread; she had heard tales of what it meant to be summoned to His Grace’s library. But mention of Henri-Antoine’s lads made her curious.

  “The lads are to take me?”

  “M’sieur Gallet is to take you. The lads will be your escort.”

  “Escort?” Lisa thought the word ominous.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Lisa continued to frown, Kyte thought it best to explain. He dumped a towel, hair brush, and pins on the maid, and sent her across to the bathing area to supervise the placement of a privacy screen, then turned to Lisa with the same noncommital smile.

  “His Lordship has assigned two of his lads to you. For your protection—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Kyte—”

  “Kyte, ma’am. Just Kyte.”

  “Oh? Excuse me, Kyte, but I do not understand why I need protection here in His Grace’s house.”

  The valet’s fixed smile slipped slightly. The girl might be wrapped in one of his master’s banyans and wearing white stockings tied up over her knees, but he would wager that was all she was wearing. With her long hair tumbled about her shoulders and down her back in messy abundance, she looked every inch the lover the morning after the night before. She was young and beautiful and he was not surprised his master was besotted. But there was nothing tawdry about her, or her relationship with his master. Michel Gallet had confided about the little notes, and the ring, left in the rosewood writing box. And as she carried herself with dignity and was devoid of artifice, he treated her with the respect he thought she deserved, and said politely,