Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Read online

  “Roxton’s mother?” Jonathon rolled his eyes to the ornate ceiling, muttering, “A cantankerous old widow to contend with, and French into the bargain! Fabuleux. Un malheur n'arrive jamais seul! The weather is ever cold in this country and now it turns frigid.” He let out a sigh and squared his shoulders, giving Tommy Cavendish a nudge as he returned his gaze to the beauty, who said something to the Duke over a bare shoulder that made the nobleman clench his snuffbox and shut his mouth hard. That they were arguing couldn’t be more obvious had they been shouting insults at each other from opposite sides of the ballroom. “So who is she, Tommy, that Roxton dares let off steam in public?”

  Lord Cavendish made a noise in his throat that greatly resembled the sound of a startled pheasant. He coughed into his fist politely to find his voice.

  “The—um—beauty who has aroused your lust is the Duke’s—Lord! I can’t believe the first female to heat your blood since your return to England is the Duke’s—”

  “—cousin? Sister, distant third cousin, poor relation—”

  “Antonia, Duchess of Roxton. The cantankerous old widow as you so amusingly put it.”

  Jonathon swallowed hard.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered in utter disbelief.

  “And so you will be if you go near her.”

  Jonathon cleared his raw throat.

  “She’s not old enough, Tommy. Roxton must be my vintage if he’s a day.”

  “We were at Eton together. He’s turned thirty. His grizzled locks and the fact his mother is cursed with being absurdly youthful for her years don’t help.”

  Jonathon frowned his distaste. “Child-bride?”

  “Do you doubt it? She was snatched from the schoolroom. The fifth Duke was a notorious rake who reformed for her. They were devoted to one another until his death. Enough said.” Lord Cavendish waved to a gentleman across the room who was making exaggerated head movements in direction of the refreshment room. “Time to move on, Strang. Cards, conversation and comfits await us through those archways, and I for one intend to enjoy what’s on offer.”

  Jonathon stayed him; gaze still very much riveted to the Duchess. “Tell me you’re hoodwinking me, Tommy. Tell me the truth. Tell me that such an extraordinarily beautiful woman has no blood connection to Roxton. Tell me, Tommy.”

  Lord Cavendish let out a heavy sigh. “I wish I could. I cannot.”

  “Then tell me what you do know.”

  “Will you have done staring openly at her,” Lord Cavendish hissed, pulling at Jonathon’s velvet cuff. “Roxton’s glanced at us twice already, and no wonder with your eyes glued covetously to his mother. He’s damned protective of her, and who can blame him? The old Duke’s death signaled open season on his much younger wife. Her incredible beauty is matched only by her personal wealth, an inheritance left her by the old Duke to do with as she sees fit; the Strang-Leven inheritance amongst those riches, old dear. Roxton’s hands are tied while she is alive. So you see why he keeps her in a gilded cage. Well, that’s the line…”

  “And the unauthorized version?” When this was met with silence, Jonathon forced himself to look away from the Duchess, down at Lord Cavendish’s frowning countenance. “Oh, come on, Tommy! Tell me and then you’re free to stuff yourself from the buffet tables with abandon.”

  His lordship sighed. “You’re doggedly persistent.”

  He again took up his quizzing glass to pretend an interest in the dancing, for not only was the Duke regarding them under heavy brows but those who milled about on the edge of the dance floor were beginning to turn heads in their direction and whisper behind fluttering fans and perfumed lace handkerchiefs.

  “The old Duke died almost three years ago. He was three score years and eight and had been ill for a number of years, so his death was not unexpected. Except, that is, by his Duchess, who still mourns his passing as if it was yesterday. She is a divinely beautiful, sweet-natured creature who is to be pitied. Rumor has it sorrow has unhinged her. Sir Titus Foley, a dandified physician who’s made a name for himself in the study and treatment of female melancholia, has been summonsed to Treat by the Duke, and for the second time in as many years. It begs the question about the balance of Her Grace’s mind, does it not? And you didn’t hear this from me, old dear, for Kitty would surely have me trussed and spit-roasted.”

  Jonathon pulled a face of disgust.

  “The poor woman has lost her husband, who was the love of her life, her home and her exalted position in society, and her son keeps her under lock and key? Is it any wonder she’s suffering from melancholia? She has no life at all; bullied and badgered and totally misunderstood is my guess. She don’t need the peculiar attentions of a supercilious quack. What she needs is someone to talk to and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.”

  Lord Cavendish’s burst of high-pitched incredulous laughter was heard across the ballroom.

  “T-T-Talk to? Oh, S-S-Strang! You are my bowl of chicken broth; so necessary to my comfort. Your remedy? So appealingly uncomplicated that you have me almost convinced. I take it you’re going to do the manly thing and offer Antonia Roxton your own broad shoulder to cry on?” He wiped his watery eye on the lace ruffles covering the back of a shaking hand. “And for your efforts she’ll be eternally grateful and not only sign over the Strang-Leven inheritance to you, but vacate Crecy Hall forthwith, for you to do with as you wish?” He shook his powdered head in disbelief. “May I live to see the day!”

  Jonathon grinned. “Just watch me.”

  The Duke stood beside Antonia, Duchess of Roxton, and drew out his gold snuffbox. He tapped the enameled lid but did not flick it open. It was a deliberate gesture, aimed at giving him a moment to master his frustration and annoyance. He managed to keep his handsome face relaxed and to smile, as if he was enjoying the evening. His guests would never suspect that he had wished the ball over before it had begun when his mother arrived dressed all in black; even her fan and high-heeled shoes were black. Her hair was arranged without adornments, not even a riband; she wore no cosmetics and her wrists and throat were devoid of jewelry. Her stark display not only made her the most arresting woman in the room it proclaimed a willful disregard for her son and daughter-in-law’s efforts to host a social occasion at Treat that did not generate unwanted gossip.

  He should not have hoped that this time she would heed his advice and leave off her mourning. He wished he knew what he was supposed to do with her. With other members of his immediate and extended family, retainers, tenants and his servants, his word was law and rarely questioned. He liked to believe that he was a benevolent, and rarely dictatorial Head of the Family. But he felt completely ham-fisted when dealing with his mother. He was at a loss to know what else he could possibly do or say that he had not already done or said that would drag her out of the vat of grief and self-pity in which she was slowly drowning.

  What had happened to the once animated, happy creature who travelled through life like a brightly-colored spinning-top; a beautiful tiny whirlwind in pretty silk petticoats and soft perfume, with gold and diamond bracelets adorning her wrists, and enough precious stones showered upon her by his father that he hardly ever saw her in the same piece of jewelry twice? She had been the vital ingredient that had kept the family happy, warm and loving. Not even his father’s illness had flagged her spirits. She had been brave and good and so strong he had convinced himself that she had come to terms with the inevitability of his father’s passing. She would mourn for a time but then, being so much younger than her husband, would get on with her life, accepting of the fact that the old Duke had had a long and eventful life and his time had come.

  But when his father died so too it seemed had she.

  It was as if he had lost both parents on the same day and it saddened him beyond measure. The resulting fragile mental health of his mother was an unrelenting worry. He wished he could make her happy. He wished he could make her see that life was still worth living. Three years of gentle persuasion had failed. T
hus the time had come to try a different approach, one he was loath to employ but one the eminent physician Sir Titus Foley had assured him was the only way to shake his mother to her senses.

  He took a deep breath and pretended an interest in the couples assembling for the first of the country dances.

  “I thought we had agreed that come Easter you would give up your black?”

  He spoke in French; his mother’s native tongue.

  “No. That is what you wanted, Julian.”

  “Three years have come and gone, ma mere. Isn’t it time?”

  Antonia shrugged a bare shoulder, gaze remaining fixed on the entrance doors. “Time? What is time? Without Monseigneur time it is unimportant.”

  The Duke pursed his lips and mentally counted to five.

  “Putting off your black won’t diminish your grief but it will—”

  “—make my son and his wife more comfortable having a maman who does not grieve in public, hein?”

  “You know that’s not what I meant!” he said through his teeth, the gold snuffbox clenched in his fist.

  “But it is how you feel, is it not? You would prefer that your maman she keep her grief private. It would be more—seemly, yes?”

  “I would prefer that you not grieve at all!”

  Antonia looked up at the Duke, a flash of anger in her emerald-green eyes.

  “Comment osez-vous suggèrent une telle chose! Perhaps my son he would prefer that Monseigneur and I had never been in love? You would prefer your maman she rips out her heart so you need not endure the indignity of her grief?”

  At that the Duke turned and looked down at her with a mixture of angry embarrassment and indignation. It caused a momentary forgetfulness, that under the blaze of a thousand candles two hundred pairs of eyes watched and waited from behind fluttering fans and quizzing glasses and over the rims of champagne glasses to view the outcome of this frigid conversation between mother and son.

  “It offends me, Madam, that you dare suggest such a preposterous notion,” he enunciated coldly. “Particularly when you are well-aware that Deborah and I strive to emulate in every way the married life you and Father shared. Such outlandish comments offer further proof that you are in no fit state to make rational decisions.” He stretched his neck, as if the elaborately tied cravat of snow-white lace was suddenly uncomfortably bound about his throat, and returned to gazing out across the ballroom. “I have decided to recall Sir Titus—”

  “What?” she responded, a quick agitated movement of a slender wrist flicking open her fan. She suppressed a shiver of loathing. “You wish to force me into the care of a-a disgusting, fat-fingered quack? Incroyable.”

  “Then you have ceased spending endless hours up on the hill talking to yourself?”

  “I do not talk to myself,” Antonia said matter-of-factly, though color flooded her porcelain cheeks at being caught out. “I talk to your father.”

  The Duke rolled his green eyes to the ornate gilt ceiling and then down to the diamond buckle in the tongue of his left shoe. “I see… You think it quite acceptable behavior for a duchess to spend her idle hours in the family mausoleum—”

  “As acceptable as a duke permitting his servants to spy on his maman!”

  “—in conversation with a marble likeness?” the Duke finished flatly.

  Antonia turned wide innocent eyes up at the Duke. “Julian, it is absurd of you to believe your maman she talks to statues.”

  Again, the Duke mentally counted to five but his sigh of impatience was audible. He tried one last time to be reasonable. “Madam, if you agree to put off your black and accept life as it is now and not as you would like it to be again, I will gladly dispense with the services of Sir Titus Foley, despite his assurances that he can cure you of this excessive and unreasonable melancholy.”

  The Duke’s words sent a chill down Antonia’s spine and she visibly stiffened. Cure her? What was Julian talking about? As if grief at losing the love of one’s life was a dose of influenza that merely required plenty of bed rest and a physician’s foul-tasting tonic. She stared out across the ballroom, movement and color, laughter and light, all an inconsequential blur. She couldn’t stomach another minute in this house that had once been her home.

  “Call my carriage, Julian. Immédiatement!”

  “Put off your black, Maman, and the children may continue to visit you at Crecy.”

  Antonia caught her breath. “You would stop the children visiting me?”

  “Frederick is asking questions about—about his grandmère’s odd behavior.”

  When Antonia stared up at him in mute disbelief the Duke cleared his throat, awkward and uncomfortable under her steady gaze. This impromptu interview threatened to turn into a public scene, a circumstance he wanted to avoid at all costs. Again, he stretched his neck, the cravat tighter than ever.

  “You know as well as I servants will gossip before children, thinking them not of an age to understand. But Frederick is almost seven… He has an old head on his shoulders... He’s taken the gossip to heart. He worries about you. Frets. He’s questioned his mother. Thankfully the twins are too young, as is Juliana, but it won’t be long before… In short, Maman, if you continue to wear mourning, if you continue your daily visits to the family vault, you leave me no choice but to limit your contact with the children to public occasions.”

  Slowly, Antonia closed the sticks of her fan and picked up a handful of her diaphanous petticoats. Mustering up all her quarter of a century as a duchess in the public gaze, she mechanically held out her hand to her son in farewell. A glance over her shoulder at her ladies-in-waiting was all that was required to bring them to heel. “My carriage, Julian.”

  “Is it too much to ask,” he cajoled, raising her hand to his lips, “to put off your black and conform?”

  Antonia’s face remained a mask of indifference. Inside she was falling apart.

  Conform? The word wasn’t in her vocabulary. When had she ever been required to conform? She had always been just herself. When she had become the Duchess of Roxton two months after her eighteenth birthday, she was never compelled or felt the need to follow society’s dictates. Her husband had never expected it of her. Her spontaneity and exuberance were what Monseigneur had treasured most about her. Why did her son expect her now, as a widow, to conform? It was inconceivable. Cures and conformity. Such absurdities put her all at sea.

  She withdrew her hand.

  “Is this what Deborah wants too?”

  The Duke did not meet her eye. He looked over her fair hair. “Deb is four months with child and I will not have her upset.”

  Antonia felt tears at the back of her eyes. She must not spill them here.

  Did her son not realize her grandbabies were everything to her? Their twice-weekly visits to her dower house on the lake were the only sunshine in her otherwise grey lonely days. Without them, she would surely fade away. But perhaps that was for the best; perhaps that would solve everything. She knew she was a great burden on her son and his wife and that Julian was only doing what he considered right; what he thought his father would want him to do as Duke. Antonia could not blame him for that. She was well aware that as Duke of Roxton her son had inherited a heavy burden of responsibility and that he took his position as Head of the Family very seriously; in her opinion, rather too seriously. But that was not for her to comment. He was a loving husband and father and a benevolent master, which was all that truly mattered.

  “You have not told her.”

  The Duke did not answer. He motioned his mother’s ladies-in-waiting forward. “Her Grace is returning to Crecy.”

  Antonia turned to leave with eyes downcast. Her heart was so heavy, her mind and body so listless that it was as if she was wading through treacle. Yet, something, she wasn’t precisely sure what, perhaps the crescendo in conversations close to her or the flash of color and movement as the dancers scattered and their audience parted, made her pause and lift her gaze from the polished floorboards. Her
emerald-green eyes widened in surprise, for striding purposefully towards her was a loose-limbed giant of a man with a sun-bronzed complexion.

  Dressed in an unadorned, close-cuffed, dark velvet frockcoat, low-heeled shoes with plain silver buckles and with his own thick wavy hair bouncing about his shoulders and falling into his eyes in a most untidy fashion, Antonia wondered if he was a cleric; albeit a very tall and handsome cleric. But his one concession to fashion, a brightly colored embroidered waistcoat of rich peacock blue satin with matching covered buttons, made her dismiss this supposition. Clerics did not wear such beautifully tailored and exquisite fabrics. Still, the waistcoat was so incongruous to the starkness of the rest of his attire that she blinked, as if to assure herself she was not witness to an apparition.

  Perhaps he was drunk? Excessive alcohol would explain this sinuous stranger’s air of easy-going confidence amongst this gathering of society elite. And only a drunkard would dare stare at her so fixedly. He looked neither left nor right as he skirted the dance floor, the contingent of onlookers forced to scamper backwards in his wake. Not that he seemed to care that the resulting disruption caused the orchestra to break off their music playing. In the abrupt silence, dancers and onlookers alike huddled together, all eyes on this copper-skinned stranger who dared to boldly approach Antonia, Duchess of Roxton.

  As if to assure herself of the gentleman’s destination, she glanced over her bare shoulders, left then right. Apart from her son and the two ladies-in-waiting breathing down her back as always, there was no one else standing near enough to be considered in the stranger’s line of sight.

  She continued to stare at the unknown gentleman’s progress through the crowd, two-inch heels fixed to the floor and plumed fan let drop on its silken cord around her wrist, wondering what he could possibly want. And then her son stepped in front of her and blocked her view.

  “Her Grace does not dance,” the Duke stated in a flat drawl.