Eternally Yours: Roxton Letters Volume 1 (14 page)

To be blunt, I do not like the man. His presence disrupts the daily routine, not only of the estate, but of the household. Lady Mary is obliged to treat him as a guest, and I am obligated to allow her to do so. He acts above his station, and because he is here on your business, he acts as if he himself is a duke come amongst us. Though I confess to never having met a duke, so would not know one if I fell over one. I mean you no disrespect, Your Grace, but I am for plain speech, and as co-executors, I will treat you as my equal, with politeness and verisimilitude, nothing more, and nothing less.

You have raised again the matter of the guardianship of Sir Gerald’s only child, and that you and your dear duchess have Lady Mary’s blessing for Theodora to be reared at your estate with your own children. You feel, and let me quote from your letter, ‘Theodora would have the upbringing she deserves amongst her own kin, and want for nothing as my ward’.

That is all well and good for you to wish it, but it was not what Sir Gerald wanted. In fact, you know as well as I that my cousin’s will stated that he expressly forbade his only child from being brought up amongst his wife’s relatives. He did not state why, but he was emphatic in this matter, and while I could speculate as to his reasons, I will not, nor should you. I cannot account for the working of Sir Gerald’s mind in appointing a man who has never married, and who is childless, as the best guardian for an eight-year-old child, a girl child at that. Sir Gerald entrusted his daughter to my care until she married or turned five-and-twenty, whichever was the sooner, and thus I will do my duty by her and him. It would be best for all concerned, but most of all for Theodora, if this matter were now let to drop altogether. I will not change my mind in this, and Lady Mary knows I will not.

In respect of Theodora’s future, I request—no, I demand, as is my right as her guardian—that you refrain from further overtures to Lady Mary in seeking her blessing to remove the child from my care. Not only is gaining such a blessing worthless because I am intractable on the matter, but by approaching Lady Mary you have no doubt caused her unnecessary anxiety. Naturally, she would wish to acquiesce to your request—I doubt anyone has refused you—but she knows my thoughts, and thus she must naturally be torn between your demands and my intractability. For her to give you her blessing as to her daughter’s care can only be wasted wishful thinking.

In that same letter you were candid enough with me to publicly voice your concerns for the welfare and well-being of the Lady Mary. Let me do you the same courtesy. As Lady Mary is Theodora’s mother, and for as long as the child needs her mother, Lady Mary may continue to consider Abbey Wood her home. As such, she will be accorded every courtesy in that capacity and not, as I am sure you would prefer me to do, because she is the daughter of an earl and cousin of a ducal house. I am well aware Sir Gerald was one for preening for his wife’s titled relatives, and spreading his conversation with lashings of his noble connections, but under my stewardship Abbey Wood is a working farm. As such there is no room, and I do not have the time, to indulge such artifice.

And on the subject of Lady Mary and your generous proposal to supplement her allowance so that it is commensurate with her birthright, again I decline on her behalf. Please do not put the offer to me again for I will again refuse you, which will, no doubt, become something of an embarrassment to a nobleman such as yourself who expects unquestioning obedience. And just so you are aware, I have made it plain to Lady Mary that if she were to accept such an allowance from you, she may also take up your offer to reside with you and your good duchess, but her daughter remains here with me.

I neither seek or want your good opinion, Your Grace. Nor do I need your patronage. I am a free agent and intend to remain that way. That does not mean we cannot be civil to one another and strive for the same goals. I have two: That Theodora grows into a well-mannered, happy young woman; and that the heir to Abbey Wood, Sir John Cavendish, inherits a property upon his twenty-first birthday that is worthy of his birthright and allows him to live as a gentleman. I am certain Your Grace wishes for nothing less.

I remain Your Grace’s humble servant,

Christopher Bryce, Esq.

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The Honorable Charles Fitzstuart, St. James’s Mews, Westminster, London, to The Right Honorable Major Lord Fitzstuart, Fitzstuart Hall via Denham, Buckinghamshire.

St. James’s Mews, Westminster

April 1777

Dearest brother, by the time you read this I will have absconded to France with Sarah-Jane Strang. Eloped more belike, though I hope to seek her father’s blessing for our elopement before we leave. You are not at all surprised, are you? I can hear your loud laugh from here, Dair! You are shaking your head and wondering why it took me this long to get up the courage to do both.

You knew long ago, did you not, that my political leanings and my conscience were all for the rebel cause in the colonies, and yet you never said a word against me. Indeed you could have turned me in to Shrewsbury as a spy and a traitor, and you did not! That you never once quizzed me, I am a thousand times grateful.

You who are fiercely loyal to king and country, who risked life and limb a hundred times over for both, who has led men into battle (a bloody business)—and I have heard Mr. Farrier tell of some of your shared exploits—you are a hero to so many, and to me, your little brother. But what must you think me but a traitorous dog, and I do not blame you.

Whatever your thoughts of me, you must know I will always love and admire you most sincerely and devotedly. No one could ask for a better, a more honorable big brother. And I will be the first to raise a glass in a toast when you finally inherit the earldom, which is nothing less than you deserve. I don’t care what others think of you, that they call you an arrogant blusterer and a care-for-nobody, or that my republican sensibilities cannot be reconciled to your monarchist principles, you are my flesh and blood, you are my brother, and my heart knows you for a good and decent man. I am proud to tell anyone who asks that my big brother is a noble man, not only by birth, but by word and deed.

And did you not do me a good deed by giving me the shove I needed to declare myself to Miss Strang? When did you suspect I had fallen in love with my dear heart? You have such a wider experience of women, and you know your little brother well, that I am sure it did not take you many minutes in our company to discover my feelings for her!

I confess to you now, and hang my head in shame that I was in an agony that you had your eye on Miss Strang, for her considerable inheritance. Now I realize you were being my big brother and trying to ascertain if her feelings for me were genuine and reciprocated! Sarah-Jane has told me so, and was not a little indignant that you suspected her for a fickle female! But she has forgiven you and begs yours in return.

We plan to settle in the town of Versailles, and I will take up the post of interpreter and translator to Mr. Benjamin Franklin. An honor indeed, which Cousin Duchess will confirm, as she has the highest opinion of Mr. Franklin’s mind, if not his politics! I hope one day to make you as proud of me as I am of you, dearest brother. I mean to strive every day in this endeavor.

Please give my love to Mother and to Mary. I suspect you are grinding your teeth at the prospect of having to explain my behavior to Mother, but perhaps it will be her melodramatic reaction to the news I am marrying the daughter of a nabob that will be more devastating and send her into sobs, prostrate on her couch. Yes, I am heavily in your debt.

Keep an eye on Mary, and her situation. She is a widow now, and well rid of her pompous husband, who was beneath her in character and situation—I know, I have bravely written in ink what we both thought of that match, but neither of us was of an age or in a situation to do anything about it at the time, were we? Now, at least you can. Again, it is all left on your shoulders, which are wide enough to carry the burden of family.

I wrote to Father with my news. I know that means less than nothing to you, but it is a courtesy I felt beholden to undertake. Look upon it as one you now do not need to perform. Thus I have saved you the obligation!

Write when and if you can. I will miss you.

Until we meet again, and we will.

Your loving brother,

Charlie

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Mr. Jonathon Strang Leven, c/- Lawson and Gower Chambers, Gray’s Inn Road, London, to the Honorable Mrs. Charles Fitzstuart, c/-The Honorable Charles Fitzstuart, 21 Rue du Peintre Lebrun, Versailles, France.

c/- Lawson and Gower Chambers, Gray’s Inn Road, London

May 1777

Dearest Sarah-Jane, I am leaving these few pages with Mme la Duchesse to be posted upon my departure for Scotland. I did not want this letter to perhaps overtake you, and to arrive before you had time to settle in your new home in Versailles, and in your new role as wife.

I know you and Charles will be happy together. He is a good man and will be the best of husbands. Your most difficult task as a wife will be to rally him from a deep-seated seriousness, so that upon occasion he can find the laughter in life, and perhaps enjoy the moment for its own sake, rather than always considering the grand scheme of things. But, he will tell you so himself, he is changing history, and for the better of the majority. He will be caught up in many a political machination as secretary and interpreter to Mr. Franklin. I do not envy the heavy burden of responsibility that will be placed upon his young shoulders to put Mr. Franklin’s arguments to His French Majesty as to why he should support the rebels, for it will bring with it war with England. And war is never a good thing, for either side.

I have told you often enough but I shall ink it down again, how very proud I am of you, as my daughter and as a female in your own right. I am proud of myself, too, in how well I have raised you, for your mother would surely be proud of me! Your papa is ever the tease, is he not, my darling girl?

Let me be serious a little longer, and tell you that tonight I go to the theater in company with Mme la Duchesse, and so by tomorrow morning, the news will be all over town that we are lovers, and it is the truth. You know it is so, and possibly she told you so herself when you had your private interview before your departure. She is ever truthful. Thus you cannot be shocked to see it written here. But we are more than lovers, much more. We are soul mates. I believe this with my whole heart.

I am in love with Antonia Roxton and have been since I first set eyes on her. Something happened to me that night of the Roxton Easter Ball that I cannot explain. I just knew from that moment forward I had to be with her, would die for her if need be, that she is the only woman with whom I want to spend the rest of my life. I tried to tell you this upon numerous occasions, and at first you would not listen to your Papa. I tried to understand why you could not, and reasoned to myself that your youth and inexperience must account for it, but also perhaps you were a little jealous your Papa is so in love?

Now you are married and your eyes opened to love in all its forms, and you are loved in return, you see that it is impossible to understand the heart as one does the mind. Thus it is best to let the heart have its way without argument. I know it worries you that I am in love with a woman who is a decade older than I. But our ages are nothing but numbers. How old we are is more about how we act, how we see, and what we feel. If you were to use your mind and not your heart to assess the man you love and have married, you would surely see him differently, perhaps as others here see him—a man who committed treason by trading secrets with the rebels about the British war effort in the colonies. Yet, this is not how your heart sees him. Your heart tells you here is a man of conviction and purpose, who believes in a higher calling, who is doing what he believes is right and just for the future of the American colonies, and thus he has your respect and your love. And he loves you.

Antonia Roxton loves me. I am as sure of this as I am that the sky is blue and the grass is green. I mean to marry her before I head north. I am also utterly convinced that our marriage will be blessed with children. So you are no longer to worry about your Papa, for he will never be lonely again. And you certainly can be very happy that he rides north to fulfill his destiny. Most reluctantly, as you know, but fulfill it I must. You may have married a republican, but that should not make you any less proud your papa has ascended to a Scottish dukedom.

And so, my fair cherub, this will be the last letter I write under my own name, and from London. I will send you tidings from north of the border, when I arrive in Edinburgh. From there you will receive a letter from His Grace the Most Noble Duke of Kinross, sealed with the ducal coat of arms. Do not hide your joy from Charles. If I know anything of that young man, he will be as pleased as you to know his father-in-law is safe and well. And of course he will be overjoyed when you tell him his cousin is now the Duchess of Kinross, and in truth his mother-in-law. Ah, the complicated lives we lead!

Do your Papa the favor of writing to my new duchess and bestow your blessing upon our marriage. I have convinced her that in time you will come to love her, and yet who can blame her for her apprehension, particularly as she is fully sensible to how much I love you and value your good opinion? I know Charles will do so, but her mind will not be easy until she sees your blessing in your own hand, whatever Charles may write on your behalf. Here are my thanks in advance, sealed with a kiss.

I look forward to hearing all your news, and how your French language classes are progressing. I trust Mrs. Spencer is proving her worth as your companion, and you are both enjoying the lovely Spring weather. Pass on my regards to my son-in-law, and if Charles would like to write to me, I would be honored.

It is time for me to dress for the theater and there meet my future relations, my other son-in-law, to be precise! His Grace of Roxton has a box, and your Papa cannot wait to see that nobleman’s features as I take my place beside his divine mamma. I predict poor Dick Sheridan’s new play will then become a mere sideshow to unfolding events amongst the noble audience. Yes, that is the sound of your naughty papa rubbing his hands together with glee! Until Scotland.