Eternally Yours: Roxton Letters Volume 1 (5 page)

Now I must not write another word. Gabrielle has been in to me twice as Charlotte is due here to take me away to her brother’s house. I will send this from that house, not this one, as I suspect my letters are being read, or so Gabrielle suspects. I do not know for certain if that is so. I hope to have your reply within the month. In the meantime I will make plans for my departure.

Love and kisses,

Antonia

S
EVEN

Renard, Duke of Roxton, to Antonia, Duchess of Roxton.

[Left on Antonia’s dressing table the morning after the wedding night.]

Antonia, I love you. Three simple little words, and yet never uttered or inscribed in ink by me to another living soul, only to you. I will never love another as I love you. I will never cherish another as I cherish you. I will always love
only you
.

This is the happiest day of my life. For it is the first day of the rest of my life, with you. Not yesterday when we were married, with witnesses in attendance, up before parson and reciting what others have done before us and will do after us. Me nervous, and you serene and steadfast. I could not wait for the ceremony to be over with, and our guests to leave. Yesterday was still the getting there, but today, now, here, just the two of us, today I am your husband and you are my wife. It still leaves me dazed to write such words, for I truly believed I would never marry. And then into my life you stepped, or should I say twirled, in your whirlwind of silks and smiles…

You sleep peacefully in our bed, while I cannot sleep at all. I fear falling asleep and waking to find you gone, of finding myself alone. I am sure this apprehension will ease with every night we spend together as a married couple, until one night I will fall asleep with you in my arms, and wake to you still snuggled in my embrace, and think it the most natural state in all the world. But do not ever think for a moment I will take you or our marriage for granted. It is precious; henceforth I pledge to nurture our union for the rest of my days.

You told me that once we shared a bed you found you could no longer sleep without me. I can no longer live without you. For with you I am truly who I am meant to be. I wonder now if I have been walking about as one dead, or as a specter, with sight, hearing and touch, but without the ability to feel. It is as if I have floated through life without experiencing any of it. When did I become like this? How have I walked the halls of kings in such a paralyzed state: Eating without tasting, looking without seeing, touching without feeling. And all the time with a heart that was disdainful, and a soul that was wasted. Until you.

I have always considered my birthright a burden to be endured, and in the most arrogant of ways. I am well aware of my preeminent place in this world, and I own to being conceited and vain. I have often taken without a thought for the consequences to others, and without giving freely in return. I am by nature wary and reserved. All this you know and accept, and have never been in awe. Nor have you ever doubted my right to be as I am. You love me unconditionally, and for that alone I am blessed. You have given me a wondrous gift.

You have always been prepared to see the good in others, first and foremost, and only want the best for them. I marvel at how you find joy in living each day to the full. To look on you, to be with you, to experience life in your company, is to be complete.

For you alone I strive to be a better man; to live a better life; to know its joys and its pleasures; to never disappoint you; and never will I squander a single moment of the life that is left to me—with you.

With this letter I enclose some lines of verse, with apologies to the seventeenth century poetess for taking liberties with her poem.

You have my whole heart, my body, and my soul.

I am eternally yours,

Renard

Oft I’ve conjured thee to appear

By youth, by love, by all their powers,

Have searched and sought thee everywhere,

In silent groves, in lonely bowers:

On flowery beds where lovers wishing lie,

In sheltering woods where sighing maids

To their assigning shepherds hie,

And hide their blushes in the gloom of shades.

Yet there, even there, though youth assailed,

Where beauty prostrate lay and fortune wooed,

My heart, insensible, to neither bowed.

In courts I sought thee then, thy proper sphere,

But thou in crowds were stifled there,

Interest did all the loving business do,

Invite the lovers and maids too.

Thy mighty force through every part,

What god, or human power did thee create

In me, till now, unfacile heart?

Yes, yes, my love, I have found thee now;

And found to whom thou dost thy being owe,

’Tis thou the blushes dost impart,

’Tis thou that tremblest in my heart.

I faint, I die with pleasing pain,

My words intruding, sighing break

When e’er I touch thy beauteous form,

When e’er I gaze, when e’er I speak.

Thy conscious fire is mingled with my love,

As in the sanctified abodes

Forevermore…

E
IGHT

APPENDIX

[This supplementary letter is included here, at the end of the first set of letters, and not inserted chronologically, because it was not amongst the correspondence discovered in the secret stairwell at Treat, but was always in possession of the Earls of Strathsay. It was generously offered for copying and inclusion in this volume by the Lady Violet Fitzstuart, eldest daughter of the 8
^th
Earl of Strathsay, and sister of the present (and 9
^th
) Earl. It adds immeasurably to understanding the earlier years of Antonia Moran before her marriage to the 5
^th
Duke of Roxton, when she resided in Venice with her father, the esteemed physician and Professor of medicine, the Chevalier Frederick Moran. The Chevalier wrote this letter just before he died of his final illness, which left his young daughter an orphan.]

Chevalier Frederick Moran, Moran Il Palazzo, San Marco, Venezia, to The Right Honorable Countess of Strathsay, Hanover Square, Westminster, London, England.

Moran Il Palazzo, San Marco, Venezia

February, 1743

Madam,

Undoubtedly a letter from your estranged son-in-law after an absence of communication of more than six years must come as does a bolt of lightning, unexpected and unwanted. Indeed, I have written to you upon only two previous occasions. I do not choose the word ‘correspond’ because I received nothing by way of a reply from you. And that came as no surprise to me.

Thus, I am not in expectation of a reply to this letter. I will merely assume you are in receipt of it and, as you possibly did with my previous letters, consigned my words to the flames in your grate. However, I am in no doubt you are reading this missive, for how could you not? You are a female of shallow mind and outlook, thus all letters must be read regardless of the feelings for the correspondent—curiosity compels you.

To the flames you may put my letters, but you will have my words on your conscience forevermore. Of that I have not a shred of doubt. But let me satisfy your curiosity as to why the husband of your daughter and the father of your only grandchild would bother to waste ink writing to you—you, Madam, who failed to provide an ounce of motherly affection or love for your daughter or mine.

I write as a courtesy, nothing more. For while you may not have the decency to acknowledge your own flesh and blood, honor forbids me falling into the gutter to join you.

I have it on authority your son is a decent man, and so it seems your two children received their sense of honor and depth of feeling from their father. If not for the fact my wife had your flaming red mane, and my daughter has inherited your exceptional physical beauty, I would have doubts you brought forth children via your birth canal, and not via a warming pan introduced into your bed!

I wrote to you on the joyous birth of our first and only child, a daughter, Antonia Diane. She was so wanted and her birth eagerly awaited. She has never disappointed. She is a blessing and has been a joy from the moment of her first cries. And what she has inherited in beauty she has ten times in intelligence, curiosity and compassion. Call it an eccentricity of my own intelligence, but I have always decried the stupidity of not allowing a superior intelligence to reach its full potential through study at our universities, regardless of family circumstance or gender. Antonia would have made an excellent scholar and no doubt followed in her father’s footsteps and become a physician, had she been allowed to fulfill her intellectual potential. I have taught her as best I can, and employed tutors as if she were in fact my male heir, and she has exceeded my expectations. She can speak, read and write in Latin, Greek, French and Italian, as well as English. She is a voracious reader, and as inquisitive. And all this at just fifteen years old! I wish I had been granted more time on this earth to bear witness to her as a woman. But I digress upon a subject that is of no interest to you.

Did you, Madam, offer one ounce of praise or of welcome upon your granddaughter’s birth? Did you even enquire after the welfare of your only daughter after a long and tedious labor? Not a drop of ink from your quill did you spare, heartless creature!

The only other time you have had the privilege of seeing my handwriting was to learn of your daughter’s death in childbirth. My dear sweet Jane did her best to give me a son, only for her and the child to die in the attempt. I did not even have the consolation of holding my dead infant son in my arms. I wept for both, but most bitterly and long for the untimely demise of the love of my life at the tender age of only two-and-twenty. I have missed her every day since her passing. And my daughter has grown up without benefit of a mother’s love and devotion. You would have seen my tears mingled with the ink in the letter I sent informing you of her death, and not one word of consolation, not one ounce of compassion, nor of understanding and shared grief could you spare us.

So why do I attempt to shake your conscience into action upon this occasion? Because, Madam, I am dying. I do not want or ask for your sympathy. I am in pain, yet I do not fear death. Death will release me from earthly feeling and reunite me with my wife and son. But I shall resist my demise with every fiber of my being until I am certain my daughter’s future is secure. Antonia will be left an orphan, and I am certain it will be before her sixteenth birthday. She will be alone in the world, but for her grandfather—your estranged husband, you, and your son—her uncle.

To Antonia you are all strangers, and because you are devoid of maternal feeling, Madam, she would be better off were I to consign her guardianship to the rag-and-bone man at the steps of our villa!

While I have every faith her grandfather would come to her aid, he is old and frail, and I am also told he will exit the world before I do. And thus I have reached out a hand to one who I know will do his duty as Head of his family, the family to which my daughter belongs, and take it upon himself to be executor of my last will and testament. I speak of His Grace the most Noble Duke of Roxton, your cousin.

And with the Duke as executor, I have made your son, Theophilus Fitzstuart, the 2
^nd
Earl of Strathsay (for he will soon inherit the title), my daughter’s guardian until her twenty-first birthday, whereupon she will inherit my considerable estate.

You must be wondering why I confide such mundane and, to you, unnecessary details. Because I forbid you to interfere in my daughter’s future in any way. You have not made an attempt to enquire about her in my lifetime, so do not make an attempt to ingratiate yourself into her life once I am gone. I know you better than you think—if you thought there could be a way of using my daughter as a weapon against your estranged husband, you would do so.

Know this—I have written to his lordship and given your husband my full support should there be any dispute as regards my daughter’s guardianship and her inheritance. Under no circumstances are you to involve yourself.

My one concession to you, call it a parting gift, is that I have not poisoned my daughter’s mind against you. She remains ignorant of your reprehensible behavior and I hope always will. I did this for her benefit, not yours, and permitted her to grow up with the fairytale that she was possessed of kind and loving grandparents and a loving uncle, all of whom care about her welfare—albeit from the distance of English shores. You possibly scoff at my stupidity, but make no mistake. I have every faith in my daughter’s intelligence. Five minutes in your company, Madam, and she will undoubtedly form her own opinion of you that will faithfully mirror mine! She is no fool. You would do well to remember that, should you ever meet.

I know we shall never meet again. My conscience and my life are without blemish and thus I am destined for Heaven. I am very sure my eternity and yours are set for different paths.

Your ladyship’s son-in-law,

Chevalier Frederick Moran

F
AMILY
T
REE