Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (53 page)

The Roxton series continues in Book 2
Midnight
Marriage
, the story of Roxton and Antonia's son Julian, Marquis
of Alston and his bride Deborah Cavendish

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Brant books...

Deborah woke from a deep sleep to the sounds
of a hasty late night arrival in the cobbled courtyard below her
bedchamber window. Commands were barked out at drowsy-eyed stable
boys and carriage wheels spun and slid to an abrupt halt. At first
the girl thought it all part of her dream but the clip clop of
horses hooves on uneven stone did not seem possible in the cool of
a forest clearing. Otto was making beautiful music with his viola
while she swung higher and higher on the rope swing, her silk
petticoats billowing out between her long stockinged legs. She was
sure if she swung higher her toes would touch the clouds. They both
laughed and sang and it was such a lovely sunny day. Then the sun
went behind a cloud and Otto disappeared and she fell off the swing
at its highest point. Someone was shaking her awake. Fervent
whispering opened her eyes and she blinked into the light of one
taper held up by her nurse.

Before she had time to fully wake, nurse
pulled back the warm coverlet and threw a dressing gown over
Deborah’s thin shoulders. Then with shaking hands the woman pushed
a tumbler into her hand and guided the cup to her lips, telling her
to drink up. Deb did as she was told. She grimaced. The medicine
was the same foul-tasting brew she had been given just before
bedtime. It had put her into a deep, deep sleep. So why was she
being got out of bed if she was meant to fall asleep again?

Nurse evaded the question. She straightened
the girl’s lace edged night cap, brought forward over one shoulder
the single long thick plait of dark red hair, needlessly
straightening the white bow; all the while muttering for Miss Deb
to be a good girl and do as she was told and her prayers would be
answered.

Drowsy and barefoot, Deborah was abandoned
by her nurse at the door to Sir Gerald’s book room. The passageway
was dark and cold and the book room was no better. At the furthest
end of this masculine sanctuary blazed a fire in the grate but it
did not beckon her with the prospect of warmth and comfort. She
went forward when ordered by her brother Sir Gerald, a glance at
the two strangers taking refreshment after a hard ride. They had
divested themselves of their great coats but the tall gentleman
with the white hair and strong aquiline nose still wore his sword,
the ornate hilt visible under the skirts of his rich black velvet
frockcoat with silver lacings.

Deborah could not help staring at this
imperious ancient stranger, whose close-shaven cheeks were etched
with the lines of time; his hair and eyebrows as white as the soft
lace ruffles which fell over his thin white hands. She had never
seen an emerald as large as the one in the gold ring he wore on his
left hand. She imagined he must be a hundred years old.

When he turned bright dark eyes upon her and
beckoned her closer with the crook of one long finger she
hesitated, swaying slightly. A sharp word from her brother moved
her feet and through a mental fog that threatened to overwhelm her
she remembered her manners at last and lowered her gaze to the
floor. When she came to stand before this imperious ancient
stranger she shivered, not from fear because she did not know what
or whom to fear, but from the cold night breeze coming in through
the open window. She made a wobbly curtsy and placidly waited to be
spoken to first, gaze obediently remaining on the Turkey rug.

The stranger’s voice was surprisingly deep
and strong for one so old.

“What is your age, child?”

“I had my twelfth birthday six days ago,
sir.”

He frowned and over his shoulder said
something in French to the little gray-haired man who stood at his
elbow. He was answered in kind and the ancient stranger nodded and
addressed Sir Gerald in his own tongue.

“She is far too young.”

“But—your Grace, she is of age!” Sir Gerald
assured him with an eager nervous smile. “The bishop raised no
objection. Twelve is the age of consent for a female.”

“That is true, Monseigneur,” agreed the
little man. “But it is for your Grace to decide… I do not know of
an alternative.”

“Surely your Grace has not changed his
mind?” whined Sir Gerald. “Bishop Ramsay was not pleased to be
summonsed here, your Grace, and if the ceremony is not to go
ahead…”

“Your sister is not fifteen as you led me to
believe, Cavendish,” enunciated the ancient stranger in an arctic
voice.

Sir Gerald gave a snort that ended in a
nervous laugh. “Your Grace! Twelve or fifteen: three years hardly
matters.”

Deborah glanced up in time to witness the
look of disgust that crossed the lined face of the ancient
gentleman and she wondered what he found to fault in her. She knew
she was only passably pretty. Sir Gerald despaired of her plain,
brown looks, but she was not disfigured and her features were
unremarkable. She was considered tall for her age but she was not
so awkwardly big boned that this stranger had the right to pull a
face at her in her own home. And why did her brother wear such a
silly smile on his round fleshy face and stare expectantly at the
arrogant ancient man as if his whole dependence rested on his will?
He was acting as one of his own lackeys did before him. She had
never seen her brother bow and scrape to anyone. It was strange
indeed.

Deborah felt the black eyes regarding her
from under heavy lids and she forced herself to look the ancient
gentleman in the face without blinking. But she could not stop
herself blushing when his gaze dropped to her bare feet and
travelled slowly up the length of her nightgown to the brush tip of
her single thick plait of dark red hair which touched her thigh,
then on up over the swell of her budding breasts to rest on the
lopsided bow tied under her chin that kept her nightcap in place.
He then looked into her brown eyes again and she met his gaze
openly through eyes that felt filled with oil and thus did not see
clearly because the medicine she had drunk was beginning to take
effect. A small crooked smile played on the ancient gentleman’s
thin lips and Deborah wished she had the courage to tell him his
manners were lacking in one so old. His question to her brother
bleached her cheeks.

“Has she commenced menstruating?”

Sir Gerald was dumbstruck. “Your—your
Grace?”

“You heard the question well enough,
Cavendish,” prompted the grey haired companion of the ancient
one.

But even though Sir Gerald’s mouth worked he
could not speak.

Deborah, feeling as if her head was full of
cotton wool, sluggishly answered for him. “Two—two months ago.”

All three men turned and looked down at her
then, as if finally acknowledging her mental as well as physical
existence. Sir Gerald frowned but the ancient stranger and his
friend smiled, the ancient one politely inclining his white head to
her in thanks for her response. He seemed about to address her
directly when a commotion in the passageway distracted them all.
The gray-haired companion disappeared into the shadows and out of
the room. He was gone for several minutes and in the interval no
one spoke. Sir Gerald brooded; once or twice looking at his sister
with mute disapproval while the ancient stranger calmly waited by
the open window and fastidiously took snuff from a gold and enamel
snuffbox.

Into the book room came a gentleman dressed
in a cleric’s robes, but these were no ordinary robes; they were
edged in ermine and were of velvet and gold thread. He carried an
ornately decorated Bible and wore a magnificent, old-fashioned,
powdered wig with three curls above each fleshy ear. Deborah knew
this to be Bishop Ramsay. He had arrived at the house earlier that
day and set the servants on their ears with his imperious demands.
Nurse said Cook was at her wit’s end. The bishop took one look at
Deborah in her nightclothes and put up his bushy brows. He ignored
his host in favor of the ancient stranger over whose outstretched
hand he bowed deeply. Deborah thought it odd that a bishop should
bend to this old gentleman; he must be someone very illustrious
indeed. Just then the little gray-haired man came out of the
shadows looking worried.

“They’ve dragged him out of the carriage,
your Grace,” he announced then hesitated.

“And… Martin?” asked the ancient gentleman
with uncanny perceptibility.

“He’s downed another bottle, your Grace,”
Martin apologized.

“Then he will endure the ceremony better
than the rest of us,” came the flat reply.

“The marriage is to go ahead as planned?”
Sir Gerald asked eagerly.

The ancient stranger did not look at him. “I
have no choice.”

He said this in such a weary tone that even
Deborah, for all her youth and inexperience, heard the deep note of
sadness in the mellow voice. She wondered what troubled him. The
fact that these men were talking about a marriage ceremony barely
registered with her. After all, no one had spoken to her of
marriage. And everyone knew that when a girl was of marriageable
age she had to leave the schoolroom and be launched in society
during the Season and attend plenty of balls and routs and meet
many eligible gentlemen, one of whom she would fall in love with
and hopefully he would be the one who asked her brother for her
hand in the usual manner. Marriages did not happen in the dead of
night, between strangers. And they certainly did not happen in
nightgowns after taking a measured dose of laudanum. There were
formalities and mysterious things called settlements and a proper
order to such a momentous step in a girl’s life.

But Deborah was wrong and knew she was
terribly wrong when her brother led her to the bishop, who called
her a little sparrow of a bride and pinched her chin in a fatherly
way, saying what a great honor had been bestowed upon her and her
family for she had been chosen to be the wife of the Duke of
Roxton’s heir.

Her first thought was that she was asleep.
It was the medicine Nurse had woken her to take had changed her
beautiful dream with Otto in the forest to this nightmare in which
she appeared to be the central character of a Shakespearean
tragedy. Perhaps if she tried hard enough to think about waking it
would happen and Nurse would be there with a glass of milk and
soothing words. She closed her eyes, swaying and dry in the mouth.
But she did not wake up from the nightmare. She was so bewildered
she could not speak nor could she move. Panic welled up within her.
She wished with all her heart that Otto would come home and save
her. She wanted to cry. There were hot tears behind her eyelids but
for some reason she was incapable of crying. So why was she
sobbing? She soon realized it was not her. The quiet sobbing came
from the doorway and distracted her enough that she momentarily
forgot that she was in a nightmare.

A tall, well-built youth with a mop of tight
black curls was being supported at each elbow by two burly servants
in livery. He was not so drunk that he could not walk and so he
told his captors in a growl of angry words. But the more he
struggled to be free of them, kicking out his stockinged legs and
balling his fists, the harder the grip on his elbows and he soon
gave up the fight and returned to weeping into his velvet
frockcoat.

An awkward silence followed as the boy was
brought to stand beside Deborah. A languid movement of dismissal
from the ancient gentleman and the burly servants retreated into
the shadows.

Deborah stole a blinking glance at the
weeping boy but he had turned away from her to face the ancient
gentleman and addressed him in French, his voice breaking into sobs
between sentences. He spoke faster than she could ever hope to
understand but he used the words
mon père
: Father, over and
over. Deb could not believe that this white haired old man could
possibly be this boy’s father. Surely he meant
grand-père
?
And as she continued to stare at father and son, the boy suddenly
broke into English. His words were so full of hatred that Deborah’s
face was not the only one to brighten with intense
embarrassment.