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

by Brant, Lucinda

  “His Lordship considers it necessary for your well-being and his peace of mind that whenever you step outside the confines of his apartment, the lads be with you at all times. In this way you may move about freely, unconcerned at being approached by persons with whom you do not wish to have speech or contact. I assure you, all of His Lordship’s servants are most discreet and loyal.”

  “I would never doubt it, Kyte.”

  The valet bowed and would have departed but Lisa had one further question, and that was the whereabouts of his master.

  “His Lordship rose early with the intention of taking a morning ride. I dressed him for just such an outing. However, he did not inform me of his subsequent movements, but M’sieur Gallet may be able to provide you with the answer after your breakfast.”

  Later, when the major domo arrived to take her to the library, Lisa asked him the same question. He apologized for not being able to tell her His Lordship’s present whereabouts. But he was able to elaborate on his master’s early morning activities, and gave Lisa an entertaining account while she finished her hot chocolate.

  “His Lordship did indeed go riding,” Michel told her. “But first he attended to some unfinished business at the stables. It seems that last night he ordered a carriage to be made ready for departure at first light, and instructed that the trunks and belongings of a number of guests be packed and these guests and their personal servants be aboard the carriage by dawn. Unfortunately, His Lordship’s directive was perceived as one of amusing himself at their expense and they were all disbelieving. Thus, while their servants had indeed done as instructed and had themselves and the trunks and belongings of their masters aboard the carriage as ordered, the guests were still abed when they should have been making their way to the stables. Undeterred by this circumstance, His Lordship had the guests rallied, and when they objected to the early hour, and what they considered gross mistreatment and refused to do what was ordered of them, His Lordship took the only option left to him.”

  “What—what did he do, M’sieur Gallet?” Lisa asked, chocolate cup paused between saucer and her parted lips.

  The major domo’s mouth twitched.

  “His Lordship had the lads manhandle them to the carriage in their nightshirts. And when the females objected most stridently, His Lordship ordered the lads to swing them over a shoulder and carry them, kicking and screaming if need be, to the waiting carriage—”

  “There were women involved?” Lisa put aside her chocolate cup, and sat up straight.

  “Two gentlemen and two females. A brother and his sister—the Knatchbulls— and Mr. Knatchbull’s close friend Lord Westby, and Miss Knatchbull’s friend, a Miss Medway. All four were subsequently bundled into the carriage, their various items of clothing thrown in after them, and the carriage, under escort of outriders, was ordered to take them to The Swan—”

  “—at Alston?”

  Mention of the local inn where she and Becky had been set down by the stagecoach gave Lisa a kernel of an idea as to why Henri-Antoine had sent the carriage to that particular location, and under escort.

  “Yes, ma’am. A number of stagecoaches pass through the town, setting down and picking up passengers, mostly for travelers taking the London to Southampton road.”

  Lisa set aside her cup and patted her mouth with the linen napkin before asking calmly,

  “What happened at Alston, M’sieur Gallet?”

  “While the Knatchbulls, Lord Westby, and Miss Medway were taking refreshment at The Swan, their carriage left for London without them—”

  “To London—without them?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Their personal servants and belongings were permitted to depart in the carriage provided by His Lordship, while their masters were detained under armed escort until the stagecoach arrived.”

  “Dear me. I fear they will not enjoy their journey on the common coach.”

  “They will not. Although, one of the lads confided Mr. Knatchbull was inclined to see the humor in the exploit and confessed that they were all deserving of His Lordship’s justifiable ire. He was willing to take the inconvenience on the chin. Lord Westby was not so inclined and had to be restrained from lashing out at his friend, whom he blamed entirely. As for the two females… They burst into howls of self-pity and nothing the gentlemen said or did could silence them.”

  “I have sympathy for those unfortunate people having to share the carriage with them all the way to London—”

  “His Lordship’s sympathy was also for the common traveler. He instructed the carriage carrying the servants and belongings to stop five miles up the road and wait for the stagecoach’s arrival. Whereupon their masters were permitted to rejoin the carriage for the rest of the journey to their Westminster abodes… If you have finished your chocolate, ma’am, it is time for us to go. We do not want to keep His Grace waiting.”

  Lisa suddenly looked ill, as if she were about to climb a scaffold. And as she followed Michel Gallet through a warren of passageways and rooms to what seemed the farthest reaches of this palatial collection of buildings, two of the lads at her back, she wondered if they were her escort to make certain she did not escape and dart off to hide. There must be any number of hiding spots, and that was only from what she had seen. She imagined there was a whole other world inhabited by the servants, and lost count of the number of liveried footmen they passed. And as she failed to see any of the guests, she presumed she was being taken to the library via a route that deliberately avoided the public rooms.

  Finally they came to a set of inlaid double doors where two footmen stood as sentries. Here, M’sieur Gallet left her with a bow, and the two lads at her back went over to an alcove to wait. One of the sentries disappeared inside, and did not return for over a minute, and then with the unsurprising news His Grace was ready to receive her. Once inside, she was to walk to the other end of the room, and not to dawdle, and in a straight line, and not to deviate. With those instructions, the door was held wide, she entered, and the door closed on her back before she had taken more than four steps.

  She did not loiter, but she could not resist looking about her in fascination and awe. She had never been in a room quite like it. It looked to be on the same vast scale as the ballroom, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases divided into two floors, a narrow walkway with an ornate railing running around three sides of the room and accessed via a spiral staircase. The domed ceiling was painted with blue sky and white clouds and colorful scenes, but she did not stop to make out the scenes or the figures, and she feared giving herself a crick in the neck. There were collections of chairs, tables covered in maps and large folios and rolled parchments, world and celestial globes on pedestals, statues and marble busts in alcoves, oriental rugs scattered across the parquetry, and along the entire length of one wall, windows divided by walls hung with paintings, and where the velvet curtains had been pulled on all but two of the windows, to keep out the harsh summer light.

  As directed, she kept to the central path that divided the library in two, and made her way to the far end of the room, keeping her back straight, her chin parallel to the carpet, and with her elbows in and her hands clasped under her bosom. And because she could see the Duke seated behind an enormous desk, she concentrated on keeping her gaze straight ahead and did not look left or right, the arrangement of furniture, the shelves of books, and assorted paraphernalia a peripheral blur and of no consequence or interest.

  She came right up to the desk, heart beating hard in her chest, and dropped a curtsy as the Duke rose out of his chair to meet her. She was surprised when he came round to her side of the wide desk, and invited her to join him by a fireplace that was to one side of a second spiral staircase, leading up to the narrow walkways and more bookshelves. Here there was a collection of comfortable wing chairs and two high-backed settees back-to-back, one facing the fireplace, the other the spiral staircase. It was on the settee facing the fireplace that the Duke indicated Lisa sit. She did so, and found the cushion hard. S
he decided this must be the settee where he put his children when and if he needed to deliver them a stern lecture about their behavior. She wondered why he did not sit opposite her and if he meant to deliver her a similar stern lecture while on his feet. And then he was joined at the sofa, which startled her, for she had failed to notice there was anyone else in the library. This was the reason he remained standing.

  The Duchess of Kinross had swept up to stand beside her son. Lisa instantly shot up off the settee and down into a curtsy in one motion, heart beating even harder to think she was to be interrogated not only by Henri-Antoine’s brother, but also by his mother. She was sick to her stomach and so nervous she wondered if she was about to be ill.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ALITTLE WHILE earlier, while Lisa was being escorted to the library, the Duke and his mother were already ensconced, grim-faced and concerned.

  “If this is to be done properly, then you must do as I ask,” the Duke stated, watching his mother pace before him.

  Antonia threw up a hand and kept pacing. Roxton was tired and after the previous day, with the wedding celebration and then the ball, he had hoped to enjoy a morning of doing nothing more than sharing it with his wife. And now this… Watching his mother walk back and forth in front of his desk made him even more tired. Did she never weary?

  “Maman—”

  “Yes. Yes. Naturally we will do it the way you say, Julian. It is just—It is just—”

  “—unpleasant. For everyone. But we must think of Harry—”

  “He is all I am thinking about.” She met her son’s gaze. “Be gentle with her. She is young. And this—” She swept an arm in a wide arc. “—all of this it is overwhelming to our friends, so imagine how it must be to a girl from her background. Incomprehensible, yes?”

  “I will strive to be as gentle as I can, given the circumstances.”

  Antonia was unconvinced. “That is what worries me, Julian. The circumstances.”

  Roxton resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He lifted his buttocks off the edge of his massive desk and stood straight.

  “And what worries me, Maman, is that you will attempt to soften the blow. That will not work in this instance. Miss Crisp is not a stray kitten in need of a bowl of cream. She has—by all accounts—a brain, and I will call upon her to use it so that she understands the gravity of her situation. She must. For all our sakes.”

  Antonia wrung her hands, but when she nodded, Roxton sighed his relief.

  “So you must resist interfering—”

  “Interfering—?”

  “—for Harry’s sake. I know you. You are too kind, too emotional. You want everyone to be happy—”

  “And there is something wrong with that?”

  “Not in the least. I love you for it. But there are times when kindness won’t work. Please, leave this to me.”

  “I do not know how it is you can be so-so—indifferent.”

  Roxton gave a bark of laughter and shook his head.

  “And this from a woman who was married to the most inscrutable nobleman of his age!”

  Antonia pouted. “But your father he was never like that with me.”

  “No. He was not. But just like him, it falls upon me as duke to put the planets of our world back into alignment. So. You will play your part and say not a word?”

  Antonia nodded again. “I will. For Henri-Antoine. It will be difficult, but me I will do it.”

  “Good. That is all I ask. Then we are all agreed.” Roxton looked over her head towards the fireplace. “I only hope you will thank me in the end…”

  ~ ~ ~

  “PLEASE SIT, Miss Crisp,” the Duke stated. He waited for his mother to take her place on the sofa, then flicked out the skirts of his frock coat and sat beside her. His gaze remained on Lisa. “Now that the wedding is over, and so, too, the ball, I wonder at your plans?”

  “My plans, Your Grace?”

  “I suspect you must be eager to return to Gerrard Street and your duties there. I do not doubt Dr. Warner has missed your assistance. And his patients requiring the services of a scribe must be lining the footpath waiting for your return.”

  Lisa moved a little on the settee, but kept her back very straight. She glanced at the Duchess, then looked to the Duke in some surprise.

  “You know about-about my duties at the dispensary?”

  “I do.” The Duke smiled. It was not pleasant. “I know everything there is to know about you, Miss Crisp.”

  Lisa cocked her head in curiosity. “Then… surely… Your Grace does not need to ask about my plans?”

  Antonia’s fan shot up to her mouth to cover a smile, and she cleared her throat to stop a laugh and quickly lowered her lashes. Roxton ignored her and did his best to ignore Lisa’s question, though he did not think her being impudent.

  “Indulge me, Miss Crisp.”

  “Very well, Your Grace,” she replied calmly, though her fingers tightened in her lap; her only sign of nervousness. “Upon my arrival here, I had every intention of returning to Gerrard Street to resume my duties but-but my—circumstances changed—

  “—and so you no longer wish to assist the sick poor or continue writing letters for the poor…?”

  “I do, but I hope to help many more than just those who attend Warner’s Dispensary by assisting in the work of the Fournier Foundation—”

  “—from Bath. To be precise, a manor house on the outskirts of town?”

  “Y-yes, Your Grace.”

  “My brother’s house to be precise.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “Where you intend to live and assist in the work of the Fournier Foundation? And how precisely will you do that from Bath?”

  “I-I do not know exactly, Your Grace. The-the particulars have yet to be worked through with His Lordship—”

  “My brother, with whom you intend to share this manor house on the outskirts of Bath?”

  Lisa dared not look at Antonia, but she bravely met the Duke’s gaze.

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “And you fully intend to live in sin with him.”

  “Your Grace, I-I… It may look to you as-as—”

  The Duke sat forward. “I understand perfectly, Miss Crisp. I am a man of the world. And in the lofty circles in which I live, it is commonplace. You’ve been made an offer of a far better life, and so you have made the hard-headed decision to change your vocation from dispensary assistant to prostitute.”

  Lisa could not have been more shocked had he struck her across the face. Her cheeks drained of color and then glowed pink.

  “A-a prostitute? No! No! No, Your Grace. That is not how—”

  “And why not?” the Duke continued smoothly, as if she had not spoken. “You’re very pretty. Why would a taking little thing of beauty want to toil away helping the poor, the diseased, and the dying? That must be the fastest route to losing your looks. God knows what diseases you could catch from such a hell hole! And how could you ever hope to escape such a place if not through the—um—patronage of a wealthy gentleman? What luck for you you happened upon my brother—

  “It wasn’t like that. I am not like that.”

  “—whom I hear you tended with your own fine hands. He was grateful for your assistance, and of course when he saw you again, he could not help but notice your beauty. He is a mere male after all. Is that when you formulated your plan to ensnare him? Knowing you would be attending the same wedding? You must have thought all your Christmases had come to you at once.”

  “Excuse me, Your Grace, but I did no such thing as-as ensnare His Lordship. For the longest time I did not even know who he was. I only knew that—that it was—that it was fate that had brought us together—”

  “Fate?” The Duke scoffed. “Come now, Miss Crisp! That is the stuff of fairy tales.”

  “Pardon, Your Grace, but Treat is the stuff of fairy tales for someone like me, and yet here I am.”

  The Duke’s features hardened. “Yes. Here you are. How
old are you, Miss Crisp?”

  Lisa took a deep breath and was inclined to tell him that he knew the answer to that question, as he did all the other questions. But she suspected these questions, indeed this entire interview, was designed to humiliate her into thinking twice about being Henri-Antoine’s mistress and make her return to Gerrard Street. What the Duchess thought of this, and her, she could only speculate. But she did not want to do that, because it would only make her sadder than she already felt. Best to answer the questions, and hopefully she would then be able to flee the library as soon as possible.

  “I am nineteen years old, Your Grace.”

  “Nineteen?” The Duke looked genuinely surprised, and then he pulled a face and dared to look her over as if she were a prize filly with an eye to purchase. “Nineteen… Then I’d say you’ve a few years to enjoy that fine house on the outskirts of Bath. But I wouldn’t become complacent. If you want my advice, I’d trot off to town upon occasion, best when my brother is here or in London, so you can scout for potential suitors to replace him when—”

  “Replace him? I have no intention of—”

  “Your intentions are irrelevant, Miss Crisp. All I care about is my brother. He will tire of you, and he will move on to something younger and fresher, so you had best have your wits about you, and a new lover waiting for you in the wings. For I will not countenance him spending one penny more on you than is necessary.” He smiled briefly. “I dare say, a pretty girl like you, who has had a smattering of education, will have no trouble in attracting a new lover—”

  Lisa shot to her feet, furious. It was the phrase smattering of education that burst the dam of her tolerance and circumspection. She could not defend the indefensible. The Duke could call her prostitute if he so wished, under the circumstances. She was sharing Henri-Antoine’s bed and she had agreed to be his mistress. But she was proud of her education, and there had been nothing shoddy in her schooling. Besides, she would not have Blacklands maligned before the one person who had been instrumental in her gaining a good education.