Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (64 page)

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Alec Halsey accepted Sir Charles Weir’s
dinner invitation on the assumption he was the only guest. Now,
standing in the politician’s drawing room surrounded by a dozen
unfamiliar faces, he found himself in the midst of a party
political dinner. The other guests were all in some way connected
to the government, come together to celebrate the fifth anniversary
of Sir Charles’s election to Parliament, not a career diplomat in
the Foreign Department like Alec. The guest of honor, the Duke of
Cleveley, twice First Lord of the Treasury and the present Foreign
Secretary, had yet to descend amongst them, and Alec supposed this
was why the double doors to the dining room remained closed.

Wine glass in hand, Alec sidled to the
window that overlooked Arlington Street, and turned his back on the
crowded and noisy room. He disliked gatherings of this sort. Too
intimate. In a faceless crowd, one could remain anonymous and still
enjoy the evening’s entertainment. Here everyone knew his family’s
history, had devoured every scandalous detail in the London
newssheets about the macabre circumstances surrounding the murder
of his estranged brother. Despite the coroner’s open verdict, it
was Alec society blamed for his brother’s death, thus condemning
the newly elevated Marquess Halsey to a lifetime of suspicion.

Why had he returned to the city? He should
have remained in Kent where he had spent the seven months since his
brother’s death resurrecting the family estate. He should be
visiting his tenants and seeing to their needs, not time-wasting
rubbing shoulders with over-fed, opinionated politicians, and their
parasitic hangers-on, all of whom avoided his eye. There was so
much for him to do and learn about his unwanted inheritance that he
hardly knew where to begin.

He sipped at the wine and stared down at a
sedan chair come to rest on the steps of Horace Walpole’s
townhouse, and ruminated on fate. He had spent most of his adult
life on the periphery of Polite Society, a diplomat on the
Continent speaking in foreign tongues. His estranged brother’s
untimely death changed his well-ordered life forever. Did he want
to run an estate and take his seat in the Lords? He knew so little
about either that a winter posting to St. Petersburg held more
appeal. What was he supposed to do with a Marquessate he did not in
the least want and one his peers considered he did not deserve? Yet
he had been compelled to accept with good grace the newly created
title. As if his elevation from the family earldom of Delvin to the
Marquessate Halsey would somehow miraculously expunge from the
collective memory of Polite Society his connection to a murdered
brother who had hated him with a passion bordering on mania. To
Alec’s way of thinking, thrusting a Marquessate on him considerably
complicated his life, and merely heightened suspicion.

Perhaps he would request a second posting to
Constantinople?

He was roused from these musings at the
mention of his name in loud whispered conversation over his left
shoulder. Overhearing the rest was unavoidable.

“I don’t know why Weir invited
him
,”
whined a weak male voice. “He’s not one of us. And when one
considers what he did to poor Ned—Well!”

“Sir Charles has a motive for everything,”
mused his female companion. “I wonder…”

“Obviously Charlie fails to see the matter
as we do, my lady.”

“He’s rather handsome in an angular sort of
way. Big bony nose and large—”

“
What?
No powder and a scrap of lace
makes
him
handsome?”

“—deep blue eyes,” Lady Cobham finished with
a crooked smile, appraising Alec from well-muscled calf to coal
black curls.

“You’re blind! He could very well be
mistaken for an
American savage
.”

“Yes. That old rumor about—”

“
Rumor
?”

“—his real papa being a black lackey who
took my lady Delvin’s fancy has stuck, hasn’t it?”

“It’s stuck, Caro, because the swarthy
devil’s a-a
half-breed
. One only has to look at him to see
that!”

The woman sighed deeply. “Yes, just look at
him. Common report says he’s as virile as a savage…”

There was a snort of contempt. “You’re for
Bedlam, Caro!
Egad
. The man’s uncouth, uncivilized,
and
disrespectful. The Duke won’t like him being here
tonight; not one bit!”

“I dare say your father won’t like it,
George, but given the Duke’s continued mourning for the Duchess I
doubt Cleveley will care who Sir Charles has invited to dine. Can
savages have blue eyes?”

“Be reasonable, Caro,” Lord George Stanton
tucked his chins in his stock and said gravely, “Father is thinking
of stepping down from the leadership.”

The lady gasped. “You can’t be serious? He
said so in jest!”

“The Duke, my dear Lady Cobham, does not
jest
. Neither do I. And don’t think Father’s grief has made
him blind to the world. He will certainly have a word with Weir for
his lack of moral decency in inviting a man everyone knows but
cannot prove murdered his own bro—”

“Oh, look! He’s finally here!” burst out
Lady Cobham. She gave a nervous titter behind her fluttering fan
when Alec stared straight at her. But when Lord George faced the
doorway she lowered the fan of carved ivory to underscore her
thrust up breasts before turning to admire the full-length portrait
dividing the windows. “I wonder if that’s a Reynolds…?” she mused
to no one in particular, a sly sidelong glance of open invitation
at Alec.

A commotion in the doorway had everybody
looking that way. The Duke of Cleveley had arrived. It said much
about the man’s formidable political and social influence that his
mere entrance caused the room to hush. He was soon surrounded by
the party faithful, all wanting to be noticed, and Alec had the
satisfaction of seeing the great man snub his stepson, Lord George
Stanton, in favor of a clergyman in tattered collar and cuffs. At
least the Duke was not about to allow an arrogant nature to dictate
to sense, he thought with a wry smile.

The meal itself was not the ordeal Alec had
anticipated. In amongst the twelve courses there was much political
discussion and many an impromptu speech praising Sir Charles’s five
years as Member of Parliament for the rotten borough seat of
Bratton Dean. And as Alec was seated between the scruffy clergyman,
who ignored him in favor of conversation with the gentleman to his
right, and Sir Charles, who sat at the head of the table, he began
to feel more at ease. And with the comings and goings of the two
footmen with the various courses on offer, he took the time to
glance about at the other guests.

The Duke of Cleveley sat directly opposite,
looking supremely bored. His Grace had said little throughout the
discussions, ate sparsely from the many dishes put before him, and
continued to drink steadily, although this fact did not affect in
any way his political acumen. Alec observed that whenever the Duke
tired of the conversation he fiddled with his snuffbox and that his
fellows took this as a sign that they could lower their guard, but
no sooner did they do so than the great man would offer up some
scathing criticism guaranteed to send the diners into a spin of
counter arguments. Alec would never agree with the Duke’s politics
but this did not stop him admiring the great politician at work.
Now he knew why his uncle Plantagenet found the Duke such a worthy
and infuriating opponent, and it made him smile contemplating what
that old gentleman would have to say at breakfast the next morning
when he learnt just who had been at Sir Charles Weir’s dinner
party.

Sir Charles leaned toward Alec.

“It’s all rather a bore for you, I’m afraid.
Don’t worry, with the ladies gone to the drawing room we fellows
can have a good port and a rest.” He patted Alec’s upturned velvet
cuff. “I’m glad you came up to town.”

“I should’ve remembered. At school you had a
way of getting what you wanted by fair means or foul.”

Sir Charles raised his glass. “That’s what
makes me such an effective politician, my lord Halsey.”

Alec flinched. Seven months was not time
enough to be comfortable being addressed as “my lord”. Annoyed with
himself for letting such a social trifle get the better of him, he
downed the rest of his wine in one. Looking up he encountered the
Duke’s penetrating gaze. He stared back at him and the heat in his
face said it all because the Duke put down his glass, took up his
snuffbox, and offered it across the table.

Alec shook his head. “Thank you, your Grace,
but I don’t dip.”

The Duke inclined his powdered head and put
the little gold box back on the table. “One of your uncle’s many
eccentricities is a hatred of tobacco. I read his pamphlet on the
subject with great interest. You were raised by him, were you
not?”

“Yes, your Grace. Raised by him to form my
own opinions,” Alec replied, surprised the Duke had bothered to
read anything his uncle had written. “I simply don’t find snuff to
my liking.”

“Ah,” said the Duke, dismissing the topic
with a long sniff, as if suddenly bored by it. Alec found the
mannerism annoying. “Tell me your opinion of the Midanich
question.”

“Is there a question, your Grace?” asked
Alec. He knew the rest of the diners had broken off their
conversations and were listening intently. “I presumed that little
corner of Europe now put to sleep. After all, the principality’s
minor border skirmish with France was ended, in no small part, due
to your efforts.”

The Duke tapped the lid of his snuffbox and
flicked open the filigree lid with one finger. His gaze remained on
Alec, weighing up his remark, deciding if it contained any hostile
insinuation. After all, his government’s handling of the English
response to Midanich’s dispute with France had not been popular;
many said it was an unwanted interference on England’s part to
offer Hanoverian troops to the Margrave of Midanich to enable the
closing of the principality’s borders to French invasion. “I shall
allow that remark to stand, Halsey.”

“As was intended, your Grace,” Alec answered
politely.

There was a long silence broken only by the
sound of the Duke taking snuff. It was left to Sir Charles to
interpret the mood and he pushed back his chair and gave the nod to
his butler; a sign for the ladies to take their leave to the
drawing room. The rest of the gentlemen stood, still silent,
waiting a cue from the Duke who was oblivious to the tension
hanging about him.

With the door firmly closed on the ladies’
backs, Lord George Stanton made his way to the far end of the long
room where Sir Charles stood at the sideboard refilling his
snuffbox from one of a number of ornamental jars kept on the top
shelf of an ornate mahogany cabinet. The rest of the gentlemen had
undone the top button of their waistcoats and were settling down to
the good drop of port the butler had placed on the table in large
crystal carafes.

Alec went to stretch his legs by the windows
opposite the sideboard, escaping the intense gaze of several
gentlemen who were diverted when the scruffy clergyman invited
himself to sit beside the Duke. The cleric’s familiar behavior
annoyed these men who had waited this opportunity to make
themselves better known to the
great man
. Alec noted that it
also annoyed the Duke’s stepson, who could not hide his contempt
for the old cleric. And two bottles of claret had loosened his
tongue.

“Listen to me, Charlie,” Lord George hissed
loudly and hiccupped, “I thought you were going to do something
about
him
.”

“What do you suggest I do with a cleric, my
lord?” Sir Charles answered with heavy sarcasm.