Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (27 page)

“Are you? I’m hoping Jack will teach Harry a thing or two.”

“Oh, no, no, my lord,” Sir Gerald assured him with a shake of his powdered wig. “I am hopeful Jack’s unpleasant overexuberance will be subdued while under this exalted roof. And in Lord Henri-Antoine’s superior companionship his manners can’t help but improve. My nephew has had a rather provincial upbringing,” he apologized, showing his distaste. “I cannot bring myself to say more for fear of offending your lordship. If you knew the circumstances your lordship could only agree with me.”

“I do not agree with you.”

Sir Gerald blinked. “I beg your lordship’s pardon?”

“I am delighted Jack has befriended my brother. His influence has considerably improved Harry’s somber outlook on life. In fact, their divergent personalities complement one another very well.”

“Do—do they indeed?” Sir Gerald stuttered with incomprehension.

“Your nephew is a fine young man.”

“He is? Well, yes, I suppose he must be. Yes, I’m sure he is!”

“A credit to his aunt, who has had the rearing of him since he was—five? Yes, five years old. But I’m sure you aren’t keeping me from my bath for the express purpose of discussing the merits of your esteemed nephew.”

“I—I—No! No, indeed, my lord! No. I besought this interview to make it known to you that Lady Mary—Lady Mary and myself—we—you—have our unconditional support regarding this—um—unpleasant and most tiresome business. To think it has gone as far as the publication of slanderous pamphlets shows what opportunistic little swine are these French tax collectors. That they dare think they can bring down a member of the nobility defies the imagination,” Sir Gerald blustered on, a glance up at the Marquis whose face remained infuriatingly inscrutable. “This tax collector deserves to be locked up! His daughter put in the stocks for her wanton and outrageous behavior. Of course, those of us who know you—”

“But you do not know me.”

“—would never seriously entertain the notion of the Marquis of Alston dangling after a mere tax collector’s daughter,” Sir Gerald concluded with a snort of bombastic self-consequence. “And as I told my sister, as the Marchioness of Alston she is obliged to ignore such inconsequential chatter, whether there be truth in it or not.”

“Told your sister?” Julian repeated and so quietly Sir Gerald wondered if he had spoken at all and continued on as if he had not, oblivious to the cold hard light that dulled the normally friendly and expressive green eyes.

“Before Lady Mary and I embarked on the voyage to Paris, I made a point of calling on Deborah in Bath.”

“And how did you find my wife upon that visit?”

Sir Gerald blinked again. “Find her, my lord?”

The Marquis came a little closer. “Her health. Her person. How did she appear to you?”

“To tell you a truth, my lord, she was not keen to see me. She sent down some lame excuse with her maid about being too ill,” Sir Gerald said confidentially. “But as I know she has not been ill a day in her life I thought the maid’s pronouncement that my sister was too weak and too ill to see anyone save her quack doctor a bit rich to swallow and my persistence finally paid off. But of course Deborah will play her tricks on her brother and when I was shown up to her boudoir I found her lying upon the chaise under a coverlet with a basin at the ready!” He forced a laugh but when the Marquis did not join in he quickly banished the smile and added gravely, “Upon reflection, I must own that Deborah did look quite green and she listened to my advice without one word of dissent, which is most unlike her.”

“Advice?”

“I made it clear to her that it was absurd to make more of a situation than was merited,” Sir Gerald stated confidently. “That when a nobleman seeks the favors of a French whore it should be of no consequence, in truth a mere nothingness, to a nobleman’s wife. I stressed to Deborah that it was beneath her dignity to even acknowledge the existence of such females. I told her it was time she stopped her pretense of outrage by remaining in Bath, and that feigning illness was merely delaying the inevitable. I let it be known that she could not expect a grain of sympathy or support from me and that it was her duty to be here in Paris at your side.” He smiled with satisfaction. “And I am most happy to report that Deborah took my advice for she arrived in Paris only last night.”

“You miserable worm,” Julian muttered, surveying his wife’s pompous prig of a brother with such an ugly pull to his mouth that he was the image of his ancient parent. “You have the barefaced audacity to tell me you took it upon yourself to lecture Deborah on her duty as my wife and that you spoke to her about a piece of trumped-up filth you know not the first thing about?”

“My lord? It was not my intention to offend you,” Sir Gerald apologized, completely misreading the direction of the Marquis’s anger. “Indeed, if you only knew to what lengths I have gone on your behalf to support you in this matter.”

“Your sister is no longer your concern. She is mine. Do you understand? Stay away from her!” With that Julian turned and strode through to the dressing room. The inviting sweet smell of the heated water caused him to breathe in deeply as he removed the diamond headed pin from the folds of his lace cravat, then tug restlessly at the intricate knot. “Frew? Frew!”

The valet came scurrying from one of the inner rooms carrying a pair of new high-heeled shoes just sent from the shoemaker. His master’s black mood did not surprise him. It was Frew’s considered opinion that the Marquis’s frequent black moods and restless nights could be blamed on the strained relations with his bride and that the sooner the couple resolved their differences and once again shared the marriage bed the sooner life could return to placid normality. But Frew kept his thoughts to himself and showed his master a perfectly neutral expression.

Julian fixed his scowl on the high heels and pulled a face.

“For the ball this evening, my lord,” the valet explained.

“Send those ridiculous affectations back where they came from!” Julian ordered and kicked off the high heels he was wearing. He tugged again at the tightly bound cravat as if it was choking him. “Get me a shoe fit for an
Englishman’s
foot, not some effeminate steepled creation only a midget should wear!”

“An Englishman’s shoe,” repeated Frew. “Very good, my lord.”

“In fact, toss out any shoe with a heel higher than the width of my thumb.”

“No higher than your thumb. Very wise, my lord.”

The Marquis strode over to the cluttered dressing table and sat down in his stockinged feet. “And, Frew, I won’t be wearing powder this evening.”

“No powder, my lord?” said the valet in accents of horrified outrage at the thought of such a social solecism. “But the ball…”

“What of it? I’ve had enough of this wretched grease and powder itching my scalp! No more powder!
Ever
.”

“No more powder—
ever
?”

Julian looked up sharply. “For God’s sake, Charles, are you a parrot?”

“No, my lord. Not a parrot,” Frew murmured, turned to scurry away and came face to face with Sir Gerald standing as a statue by the hipbath. If the valet was reeling from his master’s orders to banish the powder cone from the dressing room, he was goggle-eyed to discover a trespasser in this inner sanctum. But not as goggle-eyed as the time he had walked in on the Marquis sharing his bath with his bride. Since accompanying his master on his bridal trip to Cumbria, Frew determined that nothing or no one could ever again ruffle his valet’s feathers. So he took Sir Gerald’s presence in his stride, bowed to him and departed, leaving the round faced gentleman to face the Marquis’s wrath alone.

Anger made Julian speechless. He was incredulous that Sir Gerald had the stupidity to continue the discussion and worse, the social ineptitude to follow him into the inner sanctum of his dressing room. Sir Gerald took the silence as permission to speak; such was his overwhelming panic and selfish concern.

“My lord, I must tell you that no amount of cajolery on my part has persuaded Deborah to change her mind from a course of action that will be the ruin of her family name!” Sir Gerald declared on a nervous snort, feeling inexplicably hot under the Marquis’s steady gaze. “It will shock you to learn that she had the effrontery to ask for my assistance in seeking an annulment to your marriage!” When this dramatic pronouncement was met with icy silence he added, “When she expressed this wish I was as revolted into silence as you are now.”

“Liar,” Julian muttered, taking a step forward. “You put the idea of annulment into her head.”

“No, my lord! It was my lawyers! My lawyers advised that there was no other way out of an arranged marriage,” Sir Gerald said in a thin voice, backing across the deep rug as Julian continued to come at him. “I had no idea, no idea whatsoever, of the existence of the Act of ’42 until told by my lawyers. You must believe me, my lord!” He stumbled over the side of a wingchair and scrambled to pick himself up, adjusted his lopsided wig and immediately tripped over the carpet as he was backed against the door. “Deborah will attempt to use the Act to persuade a judge to grant her an annulment. That is why I came to warn you; to assure you of my undivided support. I warned Deborah that there is not a judge in the kingdom who would go up against your family to grant her an annulment.”

“You despicable piece of filth,” Julian seethed in white-lipped fury and gripped Sir Gerald by the narrow lapels of his velvet frock coat. “God knows what unnecessary distress you’ve caused her with your pompous self-important lecturing and interference!” He let him go with a shove and opened the door that led onto the passageway, saying flatly, “Tomorrow you will return, not to London, but to your estate, and stay there.”

Sir Gerald’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stepped out into the servant passageway, little realizing he had been relegated to lackey status. There came a distant rumble like thunder from somewhere further along the warren of narrow corridors. Far off a bell began tolling. Sir Gerald recognized that distant rumble; it wasn’t thunder but the scampering of a hundred soft-footed servants belonging to the Duke’s household. The tolling bell signaled that the Duke’s carriage and entourage had turned in through the black and gold gates of the Hôtel Roxton.

Sir Gerald blinked, distraction with the household goings-on evaporating as he realized the enormity of the Marquis’s order. “Tomorrow, my lord? To my estate? I am to be
banished
?”

“I never want to see your lily-livered face again. Frew? Frew!” Julian called out as he slammed the door on Sir Gerald and so hard that a small watercolor of Constantinople in a large ornate gold frame jumped off the wall and crashed to the parquetry.

~   ~   ~

A blank-faced footman in livery escorted Deborah to a large anteroom and politely requested she remain until summonsed to enter the library. She felt wretched and shivered with nerves. Although she had rehearsed what she intended to say to the Duke and Duchess over and over while confined to her bed in Bath, she dreaded forgetting her carefully crafted speech now she was to come face to face with her husband’s parents. She kept telling herself that she held the trump card; that whatever they said or threatened her with, news of her pregnancy was surely so momentous that they had to listen to her demands and ultimately agree to her request for a formal separation from their son. His behavior in Evelyn’s apartment merely confirmed that he cared nothing for her personally, only for what she could give him. So be it, but his dearest wish would come at a price.

As she paced the polished floorboards she caught sight of her reflection in an ornate gilded looking glass over an empty fireplace and noted with a frown that her hair, despite time spent arranging it herself, appeared to be in an imminent state of unraveling down her back. She hastily rearranged a number of pearl-headed pins before turning her attention to the sit of the square neckline of a new velvet bodice trimmed with tiny bows that was already too tight across her breasts. She really should have remained in the sacque back muslin gown she’d changed into in Evelyn’s apartment, but perhaps it wouldn’t do to be too comfortable in the presence of the Duke and Duchess; after all she needed to keep her wits about her.

Such was her nervous preoccupation with looking presentable that when the library doors opened and a footman appeared to quietly usher her within, it was the servant’s reflection at her shoulder that caused Deb to jump away from the looking glass. She went at his bidding, her slippered feet taking a moment to respond, hands clasped tightly in front of her.

The long book lined room with its heavy velvet curtains and gilded furniture, blazed with light despite it being the middle of the day. Every sconce held lighted candles and as the footman took her deeper into the room Deb peered nervously about at the three walls covered from parquetry flooring to painted ceiling with bookshelves crammed with leather bound volumes. She passed by a wide heavy mahogany desk and glanced at its surface where several opened picture books displayed maps and colored sketches of exotic lands. In the large ornate fireplace central to the room an inviting fire blazed. On the mantelshelf were propped gilt edged cards of invitation and pride of place over this carved mahogany mantel was a family portrait of the Duke and Duchess with their two sons and four faithful hounds. It was a recent portrait for Lord Henri appeared close to his nine years of age, yet the Duchess was painted as a young woman, closer in age to her eldest son and that could not be. Deb supposed the artist to be a flatterer for the Duchess was surely closer in age to the Duke?

Two wing chairs, a deep cushioned sofa and a large tapestry-covered ottoman were arranged on an Aubusson carpet near the warmth of the fireplace. On the ottoman was an ancient backgammon board with its ivory pieces still in play, a small leather bound volume with a silk riband between two pages to hold a place and several opened letters tucked in under a corner of the backgammon board. Nervousness gave way to curiosity as Deb took in this quaint domestic scene at odds with the surrounding masculine magnificence of the library, and it was only with the swish of stiff silk petticoats from the sofa that she realized that the footman and she were not alone in the library.