Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (5 page)

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mary! You are being ridiculous,” Deb said dismissively. “Would it be such a bad thing if Mr. Ffolkes offered for me again? After all, he is nephew of a duke and will one day be a viscount. Gerry should be pleased not worried. I could do worse.”

Much worse, thought Lady Mary, if the rumors about a certain Mr. Robert Thesiger pursuing her sister-in-law proved true. She wrung her gloved hands. The interview was not going as planned; how she and her husband had discussed it should progress if she was to convince Deb to remain in Bath. And the Pump Room was not the place to continue such a conversation.

“You’ll be late for your ride, Deborah,” she said quietly. “And you’re quite right. And I do not understand Sir Gerald’s opposition to Evelyn’s proposal.”

Deb put up her brows. She couldn’t remember the last time Lady Mary had openly admitted to disagreeing with her husband. And something must truly be bothering Mary for her to call her Deborah in such a formal manner. “Come for morning tea tomorrow. Jack is home for the holidays and would welcome a visit from his aunt. Now I must leave you for I can’t keep Joseph walking the horses forever. Oh, dear. Here comes Mrs. Overton with her toothy son. The Overtons are exceedingly well connected and Sir Henry left a plum, so I am told.
Au revoir
.”

With a sinking feeling Lady Mary watched Deb escape across the hall only to be waylaid by the one person whom she had come to Bath to warn Deb against.

Mr. Robert Thesiger was a broad-shouldered gentleman of average height and good looks who made the most of what God had given him with an exquisite sense of dress and exceptionally polished manners. He was resplendent in an Italian silk frock adorned with sprays of silk-threaded flowers on the close, upturned cuffs and hem of the short skirts, his midnight blue cashmere breeches fit him like a glove and a short waistcoat from which dangled many gold fob chains and seals was sure to start a trend. His highly polished black leather shoes with their enormous tongues carried a higher than average heel that was said to be all the rage in Paris. To romantically minded young ladies the mysterious dueling scar which cut the length of his left cheek elevated his masculinity to that of the swooningly handsome.

Yet, despite his charming good looks and prospects of inheriting an ancient title, Mr. Thesiger’s marriageability was severely compromised by his shoddy parentage. He was the acknowledged heir to his father’s baronetcy, a man of papist inclinations and Jacobite tendencies who had danced attendance on the Young Pretender in Rome and retired a semi-invalid to Bath; yet it was his mother’s scandalous reputation which had brought Robert’s pedigree into question.

A French Comtesse, at the time of her separation from Baron Thesiger Therese Duras-Valfons had publicly declared her only child not to be the son of her husband but the bastard offspring of an English duke, whose mistress she had been at that time. She had gone so as far as to proclaim that her son had been fathered by this notorious duke while on a Hunt with the King of France. Not many moons after impregnating his mistress, the English duke up and married a girl young enough to be his daughter.

Robert Thesiger did himself no favors by his devotion to his mother, a woman whose sordid reputation sank even further when she became the mistress of a French tax collector for mere pecuniary gain. Yet Mr. Thesiger’s frequent visits to his father’s bedside went a long way to redeeming him in the eyes of Society’s matrons, who looked upon him as a potential son-in-law for their daughters. That he was courting an Englishwoman, and none other than Deborah Cavendish who was worth fifty thousand pounds, was proof positive to all but Society’s sticklers that Baron Thesiger must indeed be the gentleman’s sire.

He had been watching Deb out of the corner of an eye while she spoke with Lady Mary Cavendish and merely awaited the opportunity to waylay her. He strolled about the Great Pump Room with the two Miss Reigates; the pretty but freckled twins of an impoverished viscount. Their mother, Lady Reigate, was just being complimented on their deportment when Robert Thesiger suddenly took his leave of the girls and presented himself to Deb Cavendish. Envious friends sympathized with Lady Reigate. After all, Deb Cavendish was always in her best looks in a riding habit; perhaps a little too masculine in cut, but how well it suited the young woman with the Amazonian stature and unusually dark red hair. What was Lady Reigate’s opinion?

“Miss Cavendish! One moment, if you please,” purred Mr. Thesiger, touching her arm. Startled into dropping her hat, he promptly restored it to her, pleased to have momentarily put her off guard.

“Oh! It’s only you,” she said bluntly. “I thought for a moment… No. How foolish of me. How are you, Mr. Thesiger?”

He smiled and bowed over her gloved hand. “My feelings are sadly bruised. Who did you wish me to be?”

“I can’t stay. Joseph is walking the horses.”

“A pity I’m not dressed to accompany you. Did you come looking for me?”

“I came to see my sister. She’s just arrived.”

“Ah. The lovely Lady Mary. She didn’t drag the very correct Sir Gerald with her, I hope?”

Deb laughed and, slowing her stride to a walk, allowed him to slip her arm through his. “Gerry leave his pigs and cows?”

“Then I shall pay Lady Mary a morning call,” said Mr. Thesiger with a quick smile. “I still maintain you came to find me. I can tell by the look in your eyes you are annoyed with me for not being at the recital.”

“How extraordinary you should say so,” she said conversationally. “It is a talent you need to perfect. I am not so foolish or so shallow.”

“You are piqued because business kept me in Paris longer than I anticipated.”

“Business with blue or green eyes?”

This made him laugh softly. “Blue,” he confessed. “The adorable Dominique is more beautiful than you, my dear, but she has none of your wit or fire. Jealous?”

“No. That requires an effort I do not feel inclined to exert on your behalf.”

He was not fooled by her light tone. That she kept her eyes straight ahead, never once looking at him told him what he wanted to know. “
Voilà
.” He smiled and bowed to a passing couple seeking his attention, saying to Deb, “These verbal sparring matches you and I indulge in are amusing, but it is time we progressed, Miss Cavendish.”

“What a fantasy you have weaved,” Deb answered lightly and withdrew her hand from his silk sleeve as they had come full circle and stood to one side of the front doors. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Thesiger, but I cannot give you the answer you seek.”

“You won’t disappoint me,” he said in an under-voice.

“Paris must have been dull indeed,” she commented, allowing her gaze to wander out the front doors onto the street.

“I am a patient man, but I am no saint, my dear.”

“You had my answer before you left for Paris. I own to being a fickle creature, but I have not changed my mind.”

Mr. Thesiger followed her into the morning sunshine, sidestepping an elderly couple being wheeled about by their attendants, and grabbed her arm before she could go to her groom, a short, stocky man of Italian extraction who now took a step forward at this cavalier treatment of his mistress. “It is not an answer I am willing to accept.”

“Do you imagine this is the way to go about getting what you want? What fine manners you have, sir!”

Mr. Thesiger recovered himself almost at once and dropped his hand to his side but not before raising it in a gesture of annoyance. “Forgive me,” he stated woodenly and retreated with a curt bow, saying as he straightened himself, “I am determined to win you, Miss Cavendish.”

“I admire such single-minded purpose, Mr. Thesiger. It does you credit. I only wish I knew my own heart half as well,” she apologized as she put on her hat, running a gloved hand down the length of the plume. “You may think it a female whim, Mr. Thesiger, but I cannot entertain any marriage proposal that does not—not engage my—my feelings.”

“And if I was to tell you that you and only you have engaged my feelings, Miss Cavendish?”

Deb regarded him with a lopsided smile. He was quite dashing and she should have been flattered but his words embarrassed her because she could not return his regard. She expected more, indeed knew there had to be more than mere fondness for the man with whom she would spend the rest of her life. She wanted a certain sort of unexplainable something to happen to her when a gentleman proposed marriage. Perhaps she was being stupidly romantic…? Still, it was the way she felt and she could not change. “No doubt you have these same feelings for blue or green eyes, Mr. Thesiger,” she quipped and left him standing on the footpath.

Deb and her groom were some distance from the town center when she slowed her pace to enjoy the open fields and morning air, free of the bustle and noise of town. She was thinking about what Lady Mary had said regarding Evelyn Ffolkes still holding a candle for her, and how she might feel when she saw him again. Four years had almost passed since those heady months spent in Paris with Otto and his musician friends and although she and Evelyn corresponded erratically she had not once thought more of him than as a dear friend; Otto’s closest friend. Then Joseph cantered up and rudely disturbed her peace.

“Been pressin’ you again, has he?”

“Who?”

“That prosy dandy.”

“Mr. Thesiger? He doesn’t press,” she answered mildly. “He merely persists.”

“What charmin’ manners he’s got,” Joseph said with a snort. That he spoke to his mistress with all the familiarity of a gruff uncle was due to the fact that he had known her from the cradle. He had been her brother Otto’s valet, and after his master’s untimely death had taken it upon himself to act as Deb’s major domo.

“Why do you dislike Mr. Thesiger?”

Joseph looked between his horse’s ears. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but he pretends to be more French than he is English, despite his papa being English to the core, and that’s enough for me!”

“That’s not reason enough to dislike him. He may make Paris his principal place of residence, after all his mamma is French, yet he goes to considerable effort to regularly visit his ailing father—”

“Eager to get his hands on that ancient Baronetcy, is my guess,” Joseph muttered.

“You judge him too harshly,” Deb answered stridently, “as does the rest of society.”

Joseph decided to keep his opinions about Mr. Thesiger to himself and they rode on in silence until turning into a laneway with a set of high gates proclaiming the entrance to a small estate set well back off the main road and surrounded on three sides by forest. Joseph jumped down to swing the gates wide. Mature oak trees lined either side of a drive that led up to a Queen Anne red brick house set in twenty acres of parkland. At the bottom of the well-cared-for gardens flowed the river Avon.

The house was in sight when Deb next spoke, a determined look on her face as she struggled to overcome a desire to ask after the injured duelist. To her annoyance, she often found her thoughts wandering in his direction and speaking about him never failed to heighten her color.

“Joseph… you did…you did inquire after my injured duelist with Dr. Medlow?”

Back astride his mount, Joseph cast her a sly glance and kept his features perfectly composed. “No sooner had Medlow tended him than along comes a carriage to take your duelist away, to who knows where. The sawbones didn’t recognize the arms on the door and none of the servants either. Vanished that’s what he’s done.”

“The carriage must have stopped at one of the respectable inns. He couldn’t have traveled far in that condition.”

“I inquired at the less respectable inns too. I know you said he’s a gentleman, but just cause he’s dressed in a duke’s garments don’t make him one.” He glanced at Deb again and said to goad her, “He could’ve won the fineries from some poor sot of an impoverished lord. Seen that done before. You’d be surprised how many coves go about dressed as if they’ve got two or three titles to their name! I remember in Turin—”

“Nonsense! He is a gentleman. He—His features are such…”

“Plenty of ’em come out on the wrong side of the blanket these days. If rumor is to be believed, so did Mr. Robert Thesiger. Shocking it is how the nobility have littered the countryside with their by-blows.”

Unconsciously Deb stiffened in the saddle. “The rumors about Mr. Thesiger’s shoddy parentage are hardly his fault. It can’t be easy for him, having a mother who is a notorious whore. But as the Baron owns him, I think we can safely ignore the rumors.” She glanced slyly at Joseph. “As for my injured duelist, you did give my description of him to the landlords?”

“To the word. And none have seen him. Though, if they had, I’ve no doubt about ’em rememberin’ your man. Now let me see… Tall with raven hair and the greenest of green eyes. And he’s got muscle and a very charming smile. Not to mention a great gaping hole in his side. No. I don’t think a landlord or his servants would miss a man like that, d’you?”

Deb felt she had to say something in her defense. “You needn’t think I’ve lost my heart to some nameless duelist! The notion is absurd. I’m merely curious to know how he got on. There is nothing unusual in that, given my exertions on his behalf. What a wasted effort if later he was to die of his wounds.”

Joseph helped her dismount and bowed, saying in a low voice, for their host had come out onto the gravel drive to greet them, “A damn shame, ma’am, as you say.”

Deb cast him a dark look and then turned to her host with gloved hand outstretched. “Ah, M’sieur, forgive my lateness. I trust I’ve not kept you waiting your breakfast?
Ma belle soeur
has newly arrived in town and I spent a little time with her in the Pump Room. It is not an easy place to escape.”

They spoke in French.

“
Jai regret
, it is as you say, mademoiselle,” the old gentleman answered, patting her gloved hand.

Soberly dressed and in his sixties, he nonetheless had alert, bright eyes and an upright gait. Deb did not know much about his background, only that he had been in the service of some magnificent personage whom from time to time he had mentioned as
Monseigneur
. Deb concluded his employer had been a French duc. She had met him in the Pump Room when she had first come to Bath and found they had a similar taste in music and painting. He spoke impeccable French and once, when she had lamented her inability to find a suitable native speaker of that tongue, he had offered his services. She had been coming to his house once a week ever since. She had not seen him in three weeks, he sending a note to say he would be out of town. Now, as they stood on the gravel drive she asked him about his stay away, and after looking at her blankly for a moment recovered enough to smile but change the subject.