Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (54 page)

“It’s
all
your fault!
Your
fault,” the boy screamed at the ancient gentleman, his fists
clenching and unclenching with rage. “Why should
I
be
banished for
your
sins? Does my presence make you
uncomfortable,
Monseigneur
, now that I know the sordid
truth? You can’t bear the truth about yourself, there’s the irony!”
he added bitterly. “Poor Maman. To think she’s had to live with
your-your
disgusting
secrets all these years—”

“Alston, that will do,” cut in the
gray-haired companion. “You’re drunk. In the morning you will
regret—”

The boy tore his tearful gaze from his
father to stare at the man at his side. “
Regret?
Regret
knowing the truth about
him
? Never!” he spat out, lip
trembling uncontrollably. “You’ve known all along, haven’t you,
Martin? Why didn’t you tell
me?
I’m his
heir
. I have
a right to know. A-a
right
.” He began to sob again and
dashed a silken sleeve across his wet face. “
Mon Dieu
, I’m
cursed.
Cursed
.”

“It’s all in your head, my son,” the ancient
gentleman said quietly.

This made the youth give a bark of
hysterical laughter that broke in the middle. “In my head? Then
it’s a lie? A lie that His Grace the most noble Duke of Roxton,
my father
, has littered the land with ill-gotten
bastards
—”

The slap across his face knocked the boy off
his feet and left the Duke nursing a smarting hand. Deborah watched
him turn his back and walk into the shadows while at her feet the
boy picked himself up to his silken knees, a hand to his stinging
cheek. The gray-haired gentleman known as Martin put an arm about
the boy’s shaking shoulders and with a glance at Deborah said in a
soothing voice,

“If you ever want to see your mother again,
marry this girl. Then you and I can be on our way to France.”

The youth gripped Martin’s arm convulsively,
his tear-stained face close to his. “If I do as he wants may I see
Maman before we sail? May I, Martin?
Please
. I must see her
before we go. I
must
.”

Martin shook his head sadly. “The early
birth of your baby brother has left her very weak, my boy. She
needs time to recover; the rest is up to God.”

The youth broke into fresh sobs. “He’ll
never let me see her again! I know it, Martin.
Never
.”

Deborah’s brown eyes widened and she held
her breath, awaiting the gray-haired gentleman’s response. When he
looked over the youth’s bowed head of black curls and smiled at her
kindly she felt a great relief. Though why she should feel anything
but panic and dread at the prospect that lay before her she could
not explain. Perhaps it was because she did not believe any of this
was real. It was a laudanum-induced dream and soon she would wake
up. If only she could shake her head free of cotton wool.

“After the ceremony, I am taking my godson
to France and then on to Rome and Greece,” Martin told her in a
confiding tone, adding for good measure, as if living up to the
promise of his smile, “We will be away for many years. Do you
understand,
ma cherie
?”

Deborah nodded. There was something oddly
reassuring in Martin’s smile, as if he would protect her from this
strange sad boy and the consequences of this hasty midnight
marriage. France was over the water. And Greece and Rome were so
far away that it took months and months of travelling to reach such
exotic countries; Otto had told her so. Suddenly she felt safe.
Soon she knew she would wake up. All she had to do was lie still
and wait for Nurse to wake her with the breakfast tray. This boy
was going away for many years. She would never see him again after
tonight. The sooner the bishop performed the ceremony the sooner
she would wake up and forget this bad dream ever happened.

Martin’s words of reassurance had an effect
on the boy too for he pulled out of the man’s embrace and dashed
the curls from his eyes. The bishop quickly came to stand before
these two children with his bible open and proceedings began in a
rush; as if there was no assurance the boy’s capitulation would
last long enough for the exchange of vows, or that the girl who
swayed on her feet and had a gaze that seemed incapable of blinking
would be able to stand upright for very much longer. The bishop’s
fears seemed justified when all of a sudden the boy began to
chuckle under his breath, disconcerting the bishop enough for him
to pause on two occasions, and Deborah to blink uncomprehendingly
up at the boy to see what he found so amusing. Finally the boy had
to share his amusement with his ancient parent who stood behind him
like a sentry made of marble.

“
Monseigneur
. Is this plain, awkward
bird witted
creature the best you could find to marry your
heir?” he threw over his shoulder in arrogant bitterness. “Surely
my lineage begs better?”

“Her pedigree is as good as yours, my
son.”

The youth sniggered. “What an illustrious
union to be sure! Something of which you all must be very proud.
Pshaw
,” and snatched up Deborah’s hand when requested by the
bishop. Obediently he repeated the words that would make them
husband and wife. Deborah too had repeated the words after the
bishop but she had said them without comprehending and had no idea
what this boy’s Christian names were, despite there being a string
of them, because she could not take her eyes off his face. Her
nightmare had unexpectedly turned into a wondrous dream. Her
youthful husband was the handsomest boy she had ever seen in paints
or real life; but it was his eyes that held her mesmerized. They
were green, but not just any green, a deep emerald green. The same
color as the large square cut emerald on the thin white hand of the
ancient stranger Deborah was convinced had to be a hundred years
old.

Julian Hesham thought he had died and gone
to Heaven. But angels did not punctuate their harp playing with
damns
and
blasts
. He supposed the music in Heaven to
be a gentle plucking of the strings, the melody more
largo
than
allegro
. He was not musically inclined but the
cacophony that assaulted his ears was a frenzied piece of playing,
irritating to the nerves. If he was to slowly bleed to death, much
better to do so in the peace and quiet of a spring morning, with
only the attendant sounds of an awakening forest. He wished the
musician a hundred miles away. That the fiddler might prove his
salvation did not cross his mind. It did not occur to him to call
out for help. But for the jarring musical cords of the
apostrophizing fiddler he may very well have slipped into an
unbroken sleep.

He was slumped under a birch tree. To the
casual observer he had the appearance of a gentleman sleeping-off
an evening of heavy drinking. Long, muscular legs were sprawled out
before him, neckcloth and silk embroidered waistcoat were
disorderly, boots muddy, strong, square chin rested on his chest,
and a lock of thick black hair, having escaped its ribbon, fell
forward into his eyes. His right arm was limp in the leaf-litter
beside which was his discarded rapier. His left hand he had shoved
inside his flowered waistcoat to hold a folded handkerchief to a
place just under his ribs where a thrust from his opponent’s foil
had entered deep into the muscle.

Suddenly the music stopped. The wood was
again at peace. Julian sighed his relief. In the silence there was
the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked, and this brought
his chin up. Standing only a few feet away at the edge of the
clearing was a youth in a blue velvet riding frock, not holding a
pistol but a viola. Julian guessed he was about nine years of age;
the same age as his much younger brother.

When the boy-musician jammed the viola under
his chin and set bow to strings again, Julian shook his head and
brought the recital to a halt before it began. He was not about to
be a willing audience to more screeching, however curious to know
the musician’s next move.

“I’m certain you’re very good on the night,
but couldn’t you rehearse elsewhere?” he asked conversationally.
When the boy-musician spun about on a heel, almost dropping his
bow, he added, “At your feet.” And smiled weakly when the boy took
an involuntary step backward. “Do me the favor of fetching my
frockcoat. It’s behind you… There’s a flask… In the right hand
pocket…”

The boy-musician took the viola away from
under his chin. “What do you want with a flask? You look as if
you’ve drunk enough.”

“What deplorable manners you have,” Julian
complained, adding when the boy-musician continued to hesitate, “I
mean you no harm. And even if I was a footpad I’m too knocked about
to attempt to do you a mischief.”

This speech was an effort and Julian’s
breathing became labored. The boy-musician watched a spasm of pain
cross the handsome features and wondered what he should do. The
man’s face was too pale, the strong mouth too blue and the
breathing now short and quick. It was then that the boy-musician
saw the dark spreading stain seeping out from under the soiled
waistcoat.

“Good God! He’s injured!” came the cry and
in such an altered voice to that of the boy-musician that Julian,
through supreme effort of will, looked up. A pair of damp brown
eyes regarded him with concern and a cool feminine hand touched his
forehead.

Julian grinned and promptly fainted.

“Damned fool!” muttered the young woman,
laying aside her pistol and hurriedly unscrewing the lid of a
monogrammed silver flask handed to her by the boy-musician. She
glanced up at her nephew. “Jack. Take Bannock and fetch Dr. Medlow.
Tell him a man’s been injured. Don’t mention it’s a sword
wound.”

The boy-musician hesitated. “Will you be all
right left alone with him, Aunt Deb?”

She smiled reassuringly. “Yes, I’ll be fine,
Jack. I have my pistol, remember?” And watched her nephew scurry
off before turning her attention once more to the injured duelist.
Gently, she tilted back his head and slowly dribbled the contents
of the silver flask between his cold and parched lips. “It won’t be
my fault if you die,” she admonished him as one does a naughty
child. “But it would serve you to rights for being foolish enough
to fight a duel!”

“No. It won’t be your fault,” Julian
murmured at last. “Thank you. Another sip, if you please.” He let
his head fall back into the circle of her embrace and looked up
into a flushed face framed by an over-abundance of dark red hair.
“Does he always play his fiddle punctuated with oaths? It adds
color but it would offend Herr Bach.”

“It’s not a fiddle, it’s a viola. And not
Bach but Herr Telemann. And the oaths were mine, not Jack’s. I’m
out of practice. He’s not.”

“And the—er—pistol?”

“Mine,” Deb admitted truthfully and promptly
changed the subject. “What did you think of the composition we were
rehearsing?”

“I didn’t like it at all.”

She laughed good-naturedly, showing lovely
pearly-white teeth.

“Perhaps in another setting, after a few
more days of practice, and…” Julian paused, distracted by the faint
feminine scent at her white throat. “That’s very pleasant,” he
announced with surprise. “As a rule females wear far too much
scent. Is it lavender or something else? Rosewater, perhaps?”

“You’re a lunatic. How can you talk
pleasantries while you’re bleeding all over me?” She gently sat him
upright against the tree trunk and brushed down her petticoats as
she got to her feet. “Don’t laugh; it will only make your suffering
worse. If I don’t do something to staunch the bleeding you’ll die,
and I’ve enough to worry me without a corpse adding to my
difficulties.”

“My dear girl, don’t put yourself to any
trouble. I’m sure I’ll last until the saw-bones arrives.”

Deb wasn’t listening. She was thinking. The
last thing she wanted was for this gentleman to die on her.
Besides, she would be enough trouble explaining away to her
stiff-necked brother what she and Jack were doing in the Avon
forest, alone, and with their violas. Sir Gerald loathed their
music making nearly as much as he loathed Jack’s very existence.
What could she use to make bandages? She groaned. She supposed
she’d have to sacrifice her shirt (it was one of Otto’s anyway). To
cover her nakedness she’d borrow the gentleman’s frockcoat. “I’ll
have to use his cravat, too,” she said aloud as she unbuttoned the
mannish shirt at her throat and promptly pulled it up over her
head. She scooped up the gentleman’s discarded frockcoat and
disappeared behind a tree.

“H-how old did you say you were?” Julian
asked conversationally, an appreciative audience to her undressing
and disappointed that he was only permitted a view of her lovely
narrow back and straight shoulders in the thin cotton chemise.