Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (33 page)

The morning after the excursion to the
Theatre Royal was cold and a fog lay low to the ground and
threatened not to lift until late morning. Gabrielle woke her
mistress an hour earlier than usual. She put the breakfast tray on
the table by the window as she always did and drew back the heavy
curtains to admit the muted light of a winter’s day. A soft-footed
chambermaid knelt at the grate to restore the fire and then lit the
tapers in the dressing room and the small sitting room. The sounds
of an awakening city drew Gabrielle to peer out of a frosted
window.

The distinctive calls of the numerous
sellers, the rumble of carriage wheels on the cobbles and the cries
of herdsmen attending their animals to market made the girl
homesick for Paris. But there was more immediate activity in the
courtyard below the sitting room window. Stable boys went about
their chores with a whistle as they inspected for damage a mud
spattered and filthy travel-worn carriage come in the night before
from Ely.

Gabrielle hesitated to wake her mistress.
She knew she had not slept at all well. But then, ever since they
had left Paris, there was not a night that her mistress did not
spend part of the dark hours awake, curled up in the window seat,
hugging her knees and staring desolately out at the stars. Gone was
the infectious, buoyant spirit of youthful optimism. It was as if a
great burden had descended upon her mistress’s young shoulders, a
weight so heavy that it threatened to crush the life out of
her.

Gabrielle had a fair idea what that burden
was and who had inflicted it. It saddened her beyond measure. And
although she was a good honest God-fearing girl who had always
believed that a female who sinned deserved a very public
humiliation for the fruits of her sin, she prayed daily that this
would not happen to her young mistress. She hoped with all her
heart that there was some other explanation why the girl no longer
had an appetite, was paler than usual and had not had her womanly
courses since leaving Paris. Any reason other than the one
Gabrielle feared most.

This of all mornings her mistress slept
soundlessly, after a particularly restless night, and if they were
not travelling to Twickenham Gabrielle would not have woken her had
the King of France been at the door.

She left Antonia to pick at her breakfast
alone and went to see to her bath.

Dressing was accomplished in silence.
Antonia showed no interest in the choice of a suitable travelling
gown nor in the tying up of her freshly washed curls. Gabrielle did
her best and chose a simple open-robed gown of velvet with
petticoats in a matching shade of lavender. Gabrielle would have
liked to apply a dusting of rouge to the girl’s high cheekbones,
and given her full mouth an application of red lip paint, for the
little heart-shaped face in the looking glass was too pale and
forlorn. Instead she painstakingly braided the long damp honey hair
into very fine plaits, wound several close to the girl’s head and
the rest she caught up at the nape of her neck in a silver net set
with semi-precious stones, affixing the whole in place with long,
pearl-headed pins. The result was breathtaking, but when Antonia
looked in the hand mirror held up to her she did not see her
reflection and mechanically complimented Gabrielle on her work.

A footman called for the portmanteaux and
Gabrielle left Antonia seated at the dressing table, placing the
slices of bread before her, which she had left uneaten on the
breakfast tray. When she returned the bread remained untouched and
Antonia was composing a letter at the walnut secretary.

“Have you been to Venice, Gabrielle?”

“Pardon, my lady?”

“I am going to Venice to live,” announced
Antonia and put the quill back in the standish. “Will you come with
me?”

“But, my lady, I—I have never been outside
Paris, until we came here to London. I—I cannot speak their tongue
and—”

“You cannot speak English, either, but here
we are in England,” argued Antonia sealing her letter with a wafer.
“We cannot go back to Paris because I will be forced into a
wretched marriage I do not in the least want. And I might see
M’sieur le D—
him
somewhere, anywhere, and that I could not
endure… Papa has friends in Venice, and Maria she is there now. She
will not mind at all about the b—And I certainly cannot stay here
because poor Uncle Theo he would never recover from the shock of my
disgrace. If you do not want to come with me, me I will understand
and you are free to return to your mother and your sisters.”

Gabrielle blinked at this speech but thought
it best to agree to anything, such was her young mistress’s present
unbalanced state of mind. “No, my lady. You cannot go alone. Who
would look after you and care for the b—Of course I will come with
you.” She handed Antonia a sable muff and a pair of lavender kid
gloves. “Mademoiselle Harcourt and m’sieur are in the hall.”

There was the faintest scratching on the
outer door and Charlotte Harcourt came in unannounced.

“Good, you have a muff,” she said brightly.
“Percy has warmers in the carriage but you will need your gloves
and muff. It is cold but I think the sun may just show its face
before too long. If only the fog would go away. Then our drive
would be perfect. I insisted Percy leave the pink carriage in
London so we are to travel in the relative obscurity of a
cornflower-blue chaise. Thank goodness I have the good sense in the
family!” She glanced at the sealed letter on the table. “Oh, have I
interrupted you? Shall I go away…”

“No. I have finished and Gabrielle she will
leave my letter for posting with the butler,” said Antonia
quickly.

“Very well. I hope your girl packed a riding
habit,” said Charlotte with false cheeriness, for she saw the
darkness under the girl’s eyes and the whiteness to her cheeks. “I
can’t wait to show you our house and the grounds. It is Percy’s
pride and joy. He is still renovating one wing but it is going to
be quite Gothic when it is all finished. I hope you will disregard
the carpenters and bricklayers and workmen. It all adds to the fun!
Come along then, we mustn’t keep Percy waiting or—”

Antonia stopped abruptly on the second
landing and touched Charlotte’s arm. “I apologize for being
such—such a-an
imbécile
at the theatre.”

“Don’t think on it. We don’t regard it in
the least.”

“But I was an
imbécile
.”

“Nonsense! It was very ill-mannered of him
to act so—”

“No,” said Antonia firmly and looked down at
her muff. “He—He cannot abide bad manners, and it was ill-mannered
of me to act like a child in such a public place. It would have
made him very uncomfortable, this unthinking behavior of mine.”

“Hush, dearest,” said Charlotte with a
smile. “You mustn’t regard it. Whatever your manners, his were no
better. Not that we think you were the least ill-mannered. It was
only natural you would—But there, this is not the way to start our
week’s excursion! We have left Percy kicking his heels in the hall,
poor man.”

She took Antonia by the arm and continued
down the stairs. But on the first landing Antonia stopped again and
would go no further. Charlotte had heard the voices below in the
hall, too, and so she peered over the balustrade. Only the butler
and a footman were in view.

“It is only Hawthorne,” she assured Antonia.
“Most likely it is Percy talking to your uncle. He did particularly
want to say farewell to you.”

“No. It is M’sieur le Duc,” Antonia
stated.

Charlotte was skeptical but she humored the
girl. “So you think? Shall we slip down the servant’s stair to the
courtyard?”

Antonia shook her head. “I am a fool, but I
am not a coward,” and followed Charlotte down the remaining flight
of stairs to the wide hall.

It was indeed the Duke. He was dressed in a
black velvet riding frockcoat with silver lacings and thigh-tight
buff colored riding breeches, one dusty jockey-boot on the first
step and an elbow on the balustrade in which gloved hand he carried
a riding crop.

Charlotte curtseyed and said a
‘good-morning’, but was barely acknowledged for the Duke’s gaze had
remained fixed on Antonia since her descent from the top step of
the main staircase. Charlotte did not know whether to stay by
Antonia’s side or step back. Undecided she hesitated, a glance up
at the nobleman’s starkly handsome face that was inscrutable as
ever. Charlotte might not approve of this arrogant nobleman and his
nefariously predatory habits but she saw no harm in his speaking to
Antonia in such a public space as a main foyer and so withdrew to a
discreet distance to stand by a group of sofas adjacent to the
stairs.

Antonia attempted to follow her but the Duke
blocked her path. Her gloved hand hard-gripped the banister rail
and she felt her pulse quicken, and yet she felt curiously numb.
She had rehearsed what she would say to him if the occasion ever
presented itself and she resolved she would say her piece without
emotion. Having Charlotte as a silent witness helped, but nothing
could keep the color from her cheeks.

“I must speak with you,” demanded the Duke
in an under voice. “Alone.”

“Good morning, your Grace,” Antonia replied
calmly, gaze leveled at the diamond pin in the folds of his lace
cravat. She spoke in her curiously accented English, though he had
chosen to address her in French. “If you will excuse me, I am just
going out with Charlotte. So if you would—”

He took a step closer and gripped her elbow.
“Listen to me, Antonia. It is important that I explain myself to
you—”

She pulled her arm free and dug her gloved
hands deep within her muff. “It is quite unnecessary for you to
explain anything further to me, your Grace. You made yourself very
plain that morning in Paris and I should have heeded your words
then—”

“I did nothing of the sort,” he contradicted
and couldn’t resist brushing her cheek with the back of his hand.
“I treated you abominably.”

“Please, your Grace, the Harcourts are
waiting to take me to Twickenham,” she stammered, feeling her face
flame at his touch.

“Your English pronunciation has come along
very quickly since you left me,” he complimented, a smile at her
blush, “but I much prefer that we speak in French. Will you not
allow me five minutes of your time,
mignonne
? The horses can
wait…”

Antonia hesitated, glanced up and caught his
indulgent smile. She was not only confused by it but it served to
make her forget her English and the well-rehearsed lines, repeated
nightly in the privacy of her four-poster bed. The sound of voices
on the portico, and the fact the butler had come up to Charlotte
and both hovered close by, instilled in her a sense of urgency,
that she may not get her opportunity again to say what was on her
mind and her determination to be unemotional vanished. She spoke in
a rush of French.

“You need not feel guilty in the least,” she
assured him in a low voice. “You did nothing wrong. Nothing more or
less than I asked of you.”

“Guilty? But I wish to explain my—”

“There really is no need. I understand. I
do. When you took me to Paris in your carriage I should have known
then that it was merely a small kindness to a distant cousin and
not—”

“Kindness? My actions had nothing to do with
kindness. It was because even then I—”

“Please, Monseigneur! You must allow me to
finish,” she said with a moment’s imperial aloofness that caused
him to suppress a grin. “If you do not I will muddle the lot and
that would never do because I have a great many things to say to
you.”

“Very well. Go on,” he said patiently and
leaned an elbow on the balustrade.

“I realize now that in Paris you showed me
many little kindnesses and I should’ve treated them as such.
Instead, being very naïve and stupid I put my faith in my feelings
and dared to hope that you felt as I did.” Fleetingly, she bravely
met his gaze. “That you do not is hardly your fault and so I
forgive you.”

He swallowed. “I hardly deserve—”

“Please! Please do not interrupt. It is very
difficult for me to say these things,” Antonia demanded in a
whisper. She cleared her throat, moved a little closer so only he
would hear and continued. “I want you to know that whatever
happens, you are not to feel obligated to me because of what
we—what we—what—
happened
between us. That is in the past,
and the consequences are mine entirely. And if you had had the
courtesy to give me the benefit of a reply to just one of the many
letters I wrote you then me I would not now be standing here
explaining myself to you because I would know that you understand…
But at the theatre you made yourself very plain to me, Monseigneur,
and so I feel we do now understand one another. I will not bother
you again. Now please allow me to pass.”

He did not stand aside and she made no
immediate effort to go. Despite the activity all around them, it
was as if they were the only two people in the vast hallway. The
Duke slowly lifted her chin to look in her green eyes. “I am what I
am, Antonia,” he said gently. “You have always known that. I have
never sought to hide my life from you, even the more sordid
aspects, and still you believed me a better man. I don’t deserve
you, not least after the unforgiveable way I treated you. But since
we shared a bed I find that I cannot—that I need—What I am trying
to tell you is—”

“There you are!” exclaimed Theo Fitzstuart,
coming in through the open front doors and striding straight up to
the Duke. “Percy’s in a devil of a temper over the horses. They
won’t hold much longer. Charlotte? Antonia? Are you ready? Ah, your
Grace! I’ve interrupted…”

The Duke had turned a shoulder away from
Theo to hide a face ablaze with heat and Antonia knew the moment
was lost. With her uncle looking at her expectantly, and Charlotte
coming across to join her, she quickly picked up her petticoats,
bobbed a curtsey to the Duke and fled across the expanse of hall
out to the waiting carriage.