Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (10 page)

“Precisely! A barbarian!”

Lord Vallentine held his tongue, knowing it
was useless to argue with Madame when she was in one of her
passions. He sipped his wine and wondered what could be keeping his
friend. He was beginning to feel uneasy so sent for the Duke’s
valet hoping the servant could put his mind at ease.

“Tell me about this female my brother has
ensnared himself with,” said Estée sullenly.

“Listen, Estée,” said his lordship
soothingly, “would your brother bring one of his-his—one of those
females here, to a house he shares with his sister? He may be lax,
damned lax, but he knows what is due his name. If she was that sort
of female he’d take her to—to…”

Madame raised perfectly arched brows.
“Yes?”

Vallentine sighed. “You might as well know
as not. One more sordid detail about your brother’s lifestyle can’t
make you blush. He has a petite maison on the south side of the
Seine for the purposes of—um—entertaining.”

“Indeed!” snapped Estée. “Then one wonders
why he must needs also visit the Maison Clermont!”

His lordship smiled sheepishly. “You know
Roxton. He becomes bored so easily.”

There was a scratch on the door and Hélène
admitted the Duke’s valet Ellicott. He bowed to his lordship, face
devoid of expression, although only half an hour earlier he had
received a severe tongue-lashing from Madame.

Vallentine knew him to be devoted to Roxton,
to have shared in many an amorous adventure with his master and
never to have whispered to servant or friend about Roxton’s female
excesses. Thus he was unlikely to divulge the slightest shred of
information upon this occasion. Vallentine only hoped Ellicott
would tell him what the Duke was not up to. He decided to
interrogate the man in his own tongue, which would undoubtedly
bring Madame’s wrath down upon him but hoped it would make the
valet more at ease and inclined to confidences.

“You look fagged unto death, Ellicott.
What’s amiss?”

The valet glanced fleetingly at Madame de
Montbrail who sat bolt upright at his lordship’s use of English,
points of color in both her cheeks.

“I could not say, my lord,” he said
cautiously.

“Who or what is his Grace’s guest?”

“His Grace did not take me into his
confidence, my lord.”

Lord Vallentine decided a bolder approach.
“Is she some whore he picked up at the masquerade?”

“As I explained, my lord,” said Ellicott
woodenly, “I could not say.”

“Cagey bird, ain’t you? Look, Ellicott. You
know me. I’m the Duke’s closest friend. I’m worried. His sister is
worried.”

“You are stupid to even try and talk to this
barbarian!” Estée flung at Vallentine. “He will tell you nothing!
All Roxton’s servants are the same. Sly and insolent and-and
baboons; all of them! He has trained them too well. I am leaving to
attend to my face and hair but I will return and you will be good
enough to tell me everything this barbarian tells you.”

Lord Vallentine watched her flounce from the
room then turned expressionless to the valet. “Out with it. What’s
the old fox up to?”

“I do not know precisely, my lord,” said the
valet truthfully. “If your lordship would permit? I am concerned
for his Grace’s well-being. The journey from Versailles normally is
not over an hour and usually less with such horses as his Grace
stables.”

“Don’t think he has stopped off at that
petite maison on the Rue St. Dominique, do you?”

Ellicott held Lord Vallentine’s enquiring
look without a blink of recognition. “I have prepared the Duke’s
rooms here, my lord, as he requested.”

“And you can’t tell me anything about this
female who is with him, eh? Hey! What’s this?” he said going to the
window.

He heard a carriage over the cobbles in the
courtyard below and flung back the heavy curtains. It was the
Duke’s carriage and the usual commotion and activity which
accompanied its arrival was taking place. His lordship noticed
nothing out of the ordinary in the scene presented him and was
about to let the curtain fall but Madame came rushing up at him and
demanded to know what was going on. It was then that he noticed the
absence of the Duke’s usual driver.

“Did Baptiste drive Roxton tonight?”
Vallentine asked Ellicott in French.

“He always does, m’sieur.”

Lord Vallentine’s noble brow furrowed.
“That’s odd. He ain’t up on the box.”

The valet gave a start. “May I—”

“Go! Go!” said Vallentine with a wave of his
hand, his nose pressed against the window pane. “He’s not come down
yet, Estée. The door is open—Well, that’s odd—”

“What?
What
?” demanded Estée clinging
to his lordship’s shirt sleeve and not daring to look over his
shoulder.

“I think I best get down there,” said
Vallentine. “One of the footman jumped up into the carriage and
hasn’t come down. Now another has followed and this one’s out and
running like a rabbit and shouting for a horse. Duvalier’s come
outside onto the step—”

“
Mon Dieu
!” groaned Madame de
Montbrail and fled the room, Lord Vallentine close behind.

The Duke came into the foyer just as his
sister and Lord Vallentine bounded down the curved staircase to
greet him. That he was deathly pale and carried close to his chest
a bundle wrapped in his roquelaure, a bundle from which protruded
two small muddied, stockinged feet, did not seem to register in the
minds of sister or friend. They were just glad to see him alive and
unharmed. But Estée was not blind to the fact her brother was in
his shirt sleeves, and that the white lace ruffles at his wrists
were stained with blood and mud. She ran up to him, blocking his
path, chattering away, half-crying, half-laughing with relief.

“Where have you been?” she scolded. “We were
so worried. You are never usually late and when your valet came
with a note, and then you did not come and—Oh! There is blood on
your hands! Are you hurt? Are you—”

Vallentine disengaged sister from brother.
“Let him pass, love,” he said softly, taking in the whole at once.
“The physician been called?” he asked the Duke, following him to a
drawing room where a servant was already attending to the grate and
another had arrived with pillow and coverlet.

“He’s been sent for,” said the Duke.

“Physician?” demanded Estée looking up at
his lordship. “Why does my brother require a—” and shut her mouth
tight as the Duke gently deposited the bundle on a sofa and put out
a hand for the pillow and coverlet.

“Send the servants away,” ordered the Duke.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked Antonia, who nodded, her eyes wide
and looking about her with interest despite the unbearable
throbbing in her shoulder. He watched a spasm of pain cross her
dirty face and said sharply, “Do not try to move. Stay still until
the physician arrives.”

“This is indeed an elegant mansion,
Monseigneur,” she observed. “It is just as Papa described it to me.
May I please have a drink of water?”

“Estée. Water,” the Duke commanded over his
shoulder. “I am pleased mademoiselle approves and is not
disappointed,” he said with a bow. “The doctor will be here very
soon.”

“Good. The pain, it is very bad,” said
Antonia and closed her eyes.

The Duke stood up and faced his sister who
had not moved. She was staring fixedly at the female wrapped in her
brother’s cloak. She did not like at all what she saw. The girl—for
she was not a woman whatever the heavy cosmetics on cheeks and lips
proclaimed to the contrary—the girl’s hair was a tangled mess of
powder and mud and blood, the small oval face smeared with the
same. Despite the little nose, high forehead, and beautiful curve
to the full lips, Estée could draw but one conclusion as to the
girl’s vocation. Thus she recoiled from the sight of her and
confronted the Duke with a face of furious outrage. None of this
was lost on Lord Vallentine and he mumbled something about fetching
a pitcher of water and seeing to other liquid refreshment and left
the room.

“You are wrong, Estée,” the Duke said
wearily.

“You should not have brought the creature to
this house,” his sister answered curtly. “Remove her. Take her—take
her to that petite maison you keep as well stocked as any fish
pond!”

The Duke’s face hardened. “I remind Madame
that this is my house.”

“Then I shall leave if that,” and she
pointed a long well-manicured nail at Antonia, “is not removed at
once. I do not know what is wrong with it—”

“She has been shot.”

Madame laughed bitterly. “The company one
does keep!” But she cowered when the Duke took a stride toward her.
“Do you wish to strike me? Dear me, M’sieur le Duc! The creature
obviously means more to you than your own flesh and blood!”

Lord Vallentine entered upon this scene with
a tray holding a pitcher of water and a decanter of brandy, and
almost overset the lot when he looked up. “Jesus! Roxton! The
girl!”

The Duke swung about to find Antonia swaying
on her feet. With a supreme effort of will she had forced herself
to stand. The pain in her shoulder was blinding as she attempted to
cover the makeshift bandage and her naked breasts with the remnants
of her tight bodice the Duke had torn to her waist in his haste to
staunch the blood.

“You little fool!” hissed Roxton as he
scooped her up and dumped her back on the sofa. He threw the
coverlet over her. “Move again and not only will your shoulder
hurt!”

“Shall I not sit down for a week?” asked
Antonia with a chuckle that totally disconcerted him and he moved
aside to allow Vallentine to administer a shot of brandy. The fiery
liquid burned her throat but warmed her stomach and she thanked the
handsome gentleman. “M’sieur hopes to get me drunk, Monseigneur,”
she said and pushed the glass away. “That is not such a bad idea
but burgundy would be better. I like burgundy.”

“Do you, by Jove!” smiled Vallentine.
“You’re too young for either, I’ll wager.”

“I am not! I am—I will be—
twenty
in a
month’s time!”

“Oho! Such a great age!” laughed Vallentine
and looked up at his friend to find him frowning down at Antonia.
“She’ll live. There is too much spirit in her.”

“Of course I will live,” retorted Antonia
and grimaced. She was close to fainting with the pain and opened
her eyes with an effort. “I-I am not so badly wounded as Baptiste.
He is Monseigneur’s driver and his arm is broken, we think. Don’t
we, Monseigneur?”

“Yes, we do,” he said with an unconscious
smile and looked at his sister who stood immobile by the
fireplace.

Antonia followed his gaze and spoke to Lord
Vallentine. “That is M’sieur le Duc’s sister? I am sorry to be such
a nuisance.”

“Don’t you worry about her,” whispered his
lordship and patted her small grubby hand. “She’ll come about,
you’ll see.”

Estée heard this exchange and went to the
door with her nose in the air. “If it was because of you that she
was shot then I am truly sorry for her,” she said coldly. “Still,
you should never have brought her to this respectable house.” With
that she swept from the room and almost collided with Duvalier who
came to announce the arrival of the physician and his
assistant.

The fat little physician in bob-wig and
black, his assistant following with a large black bag full of
instruments and medicines, hurried into the room and bowed to all.
He clicked his fingers and immediately the assistant opened the bag
and began to arrange ominous looking surgical instruments on a low
table by the sofa. He then issued several orders to Duvalier and
went to Antonia’s side and smiled down at her.

“So this is the Chevalier Frederick Moran’s
little daughter?” he cooed, not a blink at her odd clothes and
heavy cosmetics. “Your papa, he was a great doctor of medicine. But
you have nothing to fear in my hands for I am just as great.
Gentlemen, if you will permit...?”

Lord Vallentine and the Duke made to leave
but Antonia caught at the Duke’s hand. “You will stay?” she asked
in a small fearful voice.

“I will only be in the way,” muttered the
Duke looking at the fingers that clung to his.

The physician glanced up from contemplating
the table laden with the tools of his trade and gave the Duke to
understand by a gesture that the decision was his. Antonia smiled
and closed her eyes but she did not slacken her hold.

“If the sight of me offends you, M’sieur le
Duc, then by all means take your leave of me.”

The physician patted her dirty cheek and
then turned his mind to the task of extracting the bullet from her
flesh. He did not leave the hôtel until some two hours later, when
the house was in complete quiet, and with Antonia tucked up between
clean sheets; her shoulder expertly bandaged and a large dose of
laudanum administered to dull her sufferings and allow her to get a
decent night’s sleep. He informed the Duke his patient was not to
be moved for at least three weeks and that he would visit every day
to follow her progress. With that the fat little man took his
leave, tired and satisfied he had performed another surgical
miracle.