Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (6 page)

“Forgive the intrusion, M’sieur le Duc,” he
said finally and with a sullenness that did not go undetected. “One
forgets that although M’sieur le Duc is our cousin and his mother a
Salvan he is not, nor is he French. If he was he would
understand.”

Roxton replaced the poker on its stand.
“Yes, one must remember that.”

“Why indeed should you care what happens to
me. Or to a girl not quite twenty!”

“Twenty?” The Duke paused at the door. “Are
you certain?”

“Yes, M’sieur le Duc.”

“And your age? Remind me, d’Ambert.”

“I am eighteen years and two months old,
M’sieur le Duc.”

For a fleeting moment, the Duke looked
startled. “
You
have turned eighteen?”

“Y-yes, M’sieur le Duc.”

“Do you want her?” asked the Duke, and
smiled crookedly when the Vicomte hesitated. “Salvan could have had
his way with her before now had he wanted to.”

“That would be rape. She loathes him.”

“And you. You do not—er—desire her?”

“Must all men want to seduce a pretty girl?”
asked the Vicomte with disdain. When the older man merely raised an
eyebrow in reply he colored painfully. “Pardon, Monseigneur,” he
said quietly and went out of the room, his host holding wide the
door.

Lord Vallentine met them in the hall. He
greeted the young man with a warm smile and gripped his hand. The
Vicomte was polite but showed no desire to linger in conversation
with his lordship although he liked him well enough. His horse was
called for and he quickly excused himself.

“Got a serious disposition that lad,” said
Vallentine with a frown, a footman helping him into a wool
overcoat. “Not much like old Salvan, is he?”

The Duke collected a pair of black deerskin
gloves from the hall table and took his sword and sash from the
butler. He declined for his carriage to be called saying he would
walk. “He is his mother’s son,” was his only comment as they
stepped out into the courtyard.

“Handsome lad,” remarked Lord Vallentine. “I
seem to recall his mother was a beautiful woman. Small blonde
blue-eyed thing. Fidgety, though. Ain’t she the one who hanged
herself?”

“Poison,” stated Roxton.

Lord Vallentine failed to hear the edge to
his friend’s voice. “That’s right,” he said as they set off at a
good pace up the Rue St. Honoré. “Whatever the means, she did away
with herself as I remember it. Caused a scandal, didn’t it?
D’Ambert must’ve been only a boy.”

“He was twelve.”

“Remarkable memory you’ve got, Roxton.”

“Quite as remarkable as yours is
lamentable.”

Lord Vallentine sidestepped a street
sweeper. “So I said hanged and not poisoned. What of it? Suicide is
suicide, ain’t it? Why did she do it?”

“I have not the least notion,” said the Duke
and turned down a dark side-street.

His companion kept his silence, hands dug
deep in the pockets of his coat and square chin tucked in the folds
of a silk stock. It was an unusually cold night for the first days
of autumn and so he commented but the Duke did not hear him, or did
not want to hear. Rossard’s, the fashionable gaming house of the
Parisian nobility, was at the end of the avenue, flambeaux lighting
up the elegant entrance.

“I know why,” stated his lordship.

“Know what, my dear?” asked the Duke, waving
aside a persistent link-boy.

“Why she killed herself,” said his friend.
“It was rumored at the time she overdosed. Well, she was an addict.
One supposes opium or some derivative an apothecary can concoct.
She wasn’t a very stable creature at the best of times. I remember
on one occasion when I was at the embassy and—Well, that don’t
matter now. I didn’t believe then she overdosed for no reason,
neither did many people.”

“Did they not?”

“No! She had a lover.”

“What lady of fashion does not?”

They went up the steps to the front door and
were admitted by two liveried footmen.

In the small gilt hall, ablaze with light
and bustling with activity, two more footmen met them. Lord
Vallentine considered it prudent, after handing over his coat, cane
and gloves, to continue in English, confident none present would
understand the run of conversation. He followed the Duke up the
narrow staircase to a suite of gaming rooms on the second floor,
their progress consistently interrupted by the greetings of friends
and acquaintances.

“I know all fashionable ladies take a
lover,” whispered his lordship with annoyance. He watched his
friend sweep the crowded and noisy room with his quizzing-glass.
“But she wasn’t discreet about it at all, was she?”

“Must you pester Claudine-Alexandre beyond
the grave, my dear Vallentine?” asked the Duke, a slight rigidity
in the deep voice. He swept a magnificent leg to a gentleman in a
blue powdered toupee who had hailed him with a wave of a scented
handkerchief and lounged on the back of a spindle-legged chair at
the far side of the room. “There is no need to exert yourself on
her behalf.”

“Thing is,” confided his lordship, close to
the Duke’s ear, “I seem to recall her lover is someone we know
intimately. Damme if I can remember his name! Must’ve put it out of
my mind. Don’t know why. It would be unforgivable if I happened to
be chattering away to Salvan and mentioned the wretched fellow’s
name. I mean, it might evoke unsavory memories for him. It wasn’t
so long ago as to be completely forgotten. And if he loved his
wife—Did he love her?” he asked.

He accepted the glass of burgundy being
offered by a blank-faced waiter and drank to his friend’s good
health. “This is the reason I come to this over-priced
establishment with you, Roxton. The wine is always first-rate!
Can’t complain. I don’t think he did love her all that much.
Salvan’s as cold as a snake. It was quite a scandal all the same.
Her letters strewn all over the place. Jesus! And leaving that note
when she died, heaping all the blame on that poor fellow for ending
the affair. Naming his long list of conquests, past and present.
That circulated the salons faster than any political pamphlet. Well
I don’t blame him for being rid of her, I can tell you that.”
Vallentine shook himself. “Damned dreadful business.” He broke off,
seeing the Duke absorbed in the play at the table closest them.
“Who was he?”

Roxton did not take his eyes from the
players. “Who was whom, my dear?”

Lord Vallentine frowned. “Not listening,
aye?”

Cards were returned to the bank, the rubber
concluded. Gentlemen began to shift in their seats and more wine
was called for before the next deal.

“The lover. Surely you know his name.”

The Duke turned his quizzing-glass on his
lordship with a grin of his perfect white teeth.

Lord Vallentine blinked, breathed in, and
gulped a mouthful of burgundy at one and the same time. “Jesus!” It
took him several seconds to control a fit of coughing. A waiter and
his fellow hurried to his assistance with profuse apologies and a
cloth to sponge down his lordship’s exquisitely embroidered
waistcoat of gold thread. The hum of conversation descended to a
murmur then started up again almost at once. Play resumed. The Duke
did not stir. He continued to observe the deal at the table closest
him, oblivious to one and all.

It was the following afternoon before the
Vicomte d’Ambert departed Paris and returned to Versailles. He had
spent a restless night at the residence of his grandmother, Madame
de Salvan, in the Place Royale. Had he not looked pale and troubled
and more fidgety than usual when he went to take his leave of her
she may well have asked him nothing out of the ordinary. That his
father was just as frightened of her as he was the Duc de Roxton
gave him hope and he poured forth his visit to the English Duke. He
also told her something of his father’s mad schemes. The old
dowager Comtesse loved her grandson more than she loved her son,
and hating to see him in any distress, assured him that she would
do everything she could to set matters to rights.

What an infirm old lady of sixty years could
do to help his predicament he had not the slightest idea but he did
not let that bother him. Her reassurances were enough to put a
spring back in his step, and as soon as he was within the palace
grounds he went in search of Antonia.

His scratch on her door was answered by
Maria Casparti’s tire-woman, a fat jolly woman of Italian-French
origin. With a wide smile she ushered him into the small cluttered
room and asked him to wait while she enquired if mademoiselle was
able to receive him.

D’Ambert looked about with distaste. There
were portmanteaux, band boxes, and upturned trunks all bursting
with various articles of clothing. A half-eaten supper covered the
table, and chairs were piled with hats, shoes and jewelry boxes.
Pannier frames and discarded tissue paper were shoved in a dark
corner, along with dyed plumes, crumpled capes and mounds of silk
ribands. The room was unaired and stank of overpowering perfume and
dog urine. He prayed
Signora
Casparti was not in.

The fat tire-woman beckoned him into the
second room, which was smaller than the first and served as a
bedchamber. It was in the same state of disarray but the offensive
odor was not present, possibly because this room had a tiny window
and it was open. The fire had died in the grate so it was cold
within these walls, whereas the day had been warmer than it had
been in weeks. The Vicomte shivered despite his wool cloak and went
to pull the sash.

The tire-woman made a protesting sound which
brought Antonia’s head out from behind an ornate dressing
screen.

“If you close the window it will be as bad
in this room as the next,” she said and disappeared again.

The Vicomte pulled the sash but left a tiny
gap between it and the sill. “It is a wonder you have not turned
blue,” he called out. “And gone numb! What are you doing back
there?”

“Do not be impertinent, Étienne. I cannot
very well dress before you! A few more minutes and I will be done.
I need only to be laced up. Then I will make you one of Maria’s
special coffees and you will forget the cold.”

D’Ambert looked about for a chair. He found
one over by the canopied bed piled high with soiled stockings and
garters. He threw these off and sat down in the middle of the room.
He took out his snuffbox. “How can you tolerate this pig sty?” he
asked with a grimace. “It is disgusting. Why does the fat woman not
clean it up?”

“She does. But what is the use when Maria
will only destroy her good work when searching for a particular
thing? I don’t think she can function except in chaos and grime. At
least her temper is not so bad when the rooms are this way. Besides
I am only too grateful for a place to sleep. You heard
Grandfather’s apartments have been given to the Marquise de
Durfort’s third cousin?”

“No. I am sorry to hear it,” said the
Vicomte quietly, for he knew such an action would not have been
taken by the King, who was known to be fond of the old Jacobite
General, unless all hope of recovery had been given up. “Where is
the Casparti?”

“Where do you think. In the chapel where she
has been this past week.”

“Why are you dressing at this hour?” he
enquired and became suspicious when Antonia laughed in response.
“Why has that woman taken a powder cone and dusting jacket behind
the screen? What are you up to, Antonia?”

“M’sieur le Vicomte is of a sudden
inquisitive,” she scolded playfully. “Be patient. You shall see.
Where have you been? I sent a note to your room this morning. If
you had been there to receive it you would know what I am
about.”

He took another pinch of snuff and watched a
fine dust of loose powder rise in a cloud above the screen. There
was another, then the tire-woman came out to fetch a looking glass
and a jar of something from the cluttered dressing table. She
disappeared behind the screen again. He shifted uneasily on the
upholstered chair and pulled at the points of his damask waistcoat.
There was more movement from behind the screen then the tire-woman
left the room to make the coffee.

“I went to Paris,” he confessed. “I stayed
the night at my grandmother’s house. I only came back today because
I am expected to attend this wretched masquerade. I know it is
going to be tedious. I wish I did not have to attend but Salvan
will note my absence,” he said gloomily. “Why should he care when
the place will be overrun with all sorts of riffraff, and in
dominoes and masks and the like. He will be too intent on catching
the eye of some whore to worry if I am there or not.”

“Have you considered entering a monastery,
Étienne?” asked Antonia as she came out from behind the screen
fluttering a fan of gouache painted chicken-skin at her bare bosom.
“Most youths of your age would be eager for the chance to dance
attendance at one of the King’s masques. Think of the fun of it! No
female recognized until the unmasking at midnight. All guessing who
the other is. And everyone able to talk as freely as they wish
without fear of detection. I am going to enjoy myself hugely!” She
poked a tiny silk shoe out from under her wide hooped petticoats of
salmon-pink silk and shimmering silver tissue. “Do you like these
buckles? They are Maria’s. They are not paste, but diamonds.
Grandfather gave them to her many years ago. It took me two days to
convince her to let me wear them. They complement my earrings, do
you not think?”