Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (20 page)

“Of course! Of course!” muttered Muraire. “An imbecile! Pothier you are an imbecile for suggesting such a thing!” he admonished the flunkey with a vigorous wave of his handkerchief. “Why do I listen to you? It is preposterous to suggest Monseigneur he would ever contemplate marriage with a bourgeoisie whore! That is her object is it not? Did I not tell you so? What we must do is get to the girl to interrogate her,” he continued in a level voice, taking a tottering turn about the book room in his steepled shoes. “But her home it is an impenetrable fortress! Her father he lets no one in and no one out without his express command. The place it is crawling with thugs who pretend to be servants.”

“With all due respect to Monseigneur, the girl she has given an intimate description of his—er—
equipage
to the Lieutenant of Police,” Auguste Pothier said with a nervous snort, addressing himself exclusively to his esteemed colleague, not daring to look in direction of the nobleman. “I realize that this is not proof in itself that Monseigneur offered the girl marriage so that she would allow him to share her couch, but is a damning piece of evidence nonetheless.”

“Do not be an ass, Pothier!” M’sieur Muraire threw at the flunkey contemptuously, another luxuriant sniff at his heavily scented handkerchief. “Again you are acting the idiot! Why do I put up with you? So this silly wench, this mademoiselle Lefebvre, is able to describe to Sartine M’sieur’s sizeable
telum
. But what does that prove, eh? It proves, Pothier, that she is a calculating little
putain
. And that is all it proves.
Enfin
.” He turned on a high heel of his damask covered shoes with their enormous buckles and came away from the window where the Marquis stood staring out at the knot of trees at the far end of the drive. “A young lady who claims to have permitted her lover to take full liberty of her person only after he had promised her marriage, and then goes on to describe her lover’s sizeable genitals with glaring clarity to the Lieutenant of the Police, she is no seduced innocent but a seasoned whore who willingly opened her legs to a nobleman in the hopes of entrapping him into marriage.”

“
Voilà
!” Auguste Pothier declared, all admiration for his colleague’s emotive reasoning, but the appreciative light died in his little eyes when their noble client spoke from the window without turning around.

“I don’t give a damn one way or the other,” Julian said with bored indifference. “What I want is this distasteful episode dealt with.”

“Of course. Of course,” Pothier the flunkey murmured nervously and addressed himself to his esteemed colleague. “There is the rumor, unsubstantiated you understand, that Monseigneur has impregnated mademoiselle Lefebvre. Leaving aside her claim of breach of promise, penetration can lead to impregnation. A pregnant mademoiselle Lefebvre would surely win the sympathy of a judge.” He burst out with another of his annoying nervous snorts. “
Enfin
. That too then is a problem worth considering, is it not, M’sieur Muraire?”

The lawyer exchanged a meaningful look with his noble client before the Marquis turned again to the view. Muraire bent and whispered in Auguste Pothier’s large florid ear a piece of intimate information the Marquis had shared with him but which had so far been denied the flunkey. It sent Pothier into a spasm of embarrassed choking.

“Poor Auguste! His rudimentary skills at being pleasured by a whore do not run to the imaginative.” M’sieur Muraire sniggered with a shake of his powdered head. “Perhaps if Monseigneur would be so kind as to write him out an introduction to Mme Celeste’s cathouse in Saint-Germain, one of her sweet-mouthed sapphists would be only too willing to broaden his education?”

No sooner had the lawyer said this than he instantly regretted such free and easy speech, for it was immediately apparent by the rigidity in the tall nobleman’s wide back that such unguarded remarks had crossed the deep social divide that separated them. But before the lawyer could rectify his social solecism he caught sight of a vision of loveliness framed in the doorway. That Auguste Pothier saw her too and had stopped his choking fit convinced Muraire that he was not witness to an ethereal apparition.

Deb hesitated on the threshold in embarrassment and uncertainty, oblivious to the sight she presented to these strangers. Without the services of a maid and not in expectation of receiving visitors, she had dressed for comfort. Without the requisite wide hoops the layers of yellow cream silk fell naturally about the curves of her tall voluptuous figure and in such a revealing way that she invited open admiration: Her dark red hair cascaded in unrestrained waves to her thighs, her face was delicately tinged with color and the string of lustrous pearls about her neck drew the eye down to a deep and inviting décolletage. She appeared to the two French lawyers a statue of a Greek Goddess come to life.

Both Frenchmen instantly doubled over. Pothier upsetting the pile of documents spread out on the table as he made Deb a hastily executed bow, and Muraire bowing until the lace at his wrists swept the carpet. They were all appreciative smiles of such beauty, but their appraisal was not at all respectful of her rightful position, for they assumed she was the latest and almost certainly the freshest in the English nobleman’s long line of beautiful mistresses.

The unnatural quiet caused Julian to turn into the room again, and he saw at once the reason for the Frenchmen’s distraction. They stared at his wife in mouth-gaping silence, their silly, lascivious grins widening as they dared to visually strip her bare. Ill at ease and embarrassed at being so openly and carnally admired, Deb’s usual self-assurance deserted her and Julian was witness to the red stain of embarrassment that spread across her white breasts and throat; evidence she was aware these Frenchmen thought her a whore.

For Deb, it was the look on her husband’s ashen face that completely unnerved her. For although he had bathed and shaved after his exhausting morning ride and was dressed immaculately in clean linen shirt, buff breeches and oyster silk waistcoat, his green eyes were dull and hollow, circled by the deep shadows of a sleepless night. His mouth was set in a hard line; gone was the friendly smile and there was something altogether cold and aloof about him. To Deb he could very well have been a handsome stranger.

Julian’s anger at these Frenchmen who dared to openly appraise his beautiful young bride was so intense that it inflamed a jealous and covetous anger that was new to him and not at all welcome. Yet it never occurred to him to correct the Frenchmen’s presumption, and his pride would not allow him to offer up an explanation he did not think they deserved. His one thought was to remove Deb as quickly as possible from an embarrassing situation. He strode forward, pushing both men aside. But before he could act, Deb came further into the room, speaking French in her clear strong voice, long fingers plucking at the string of heavy pearls that fell between her breasts; the only sign of her nervous embarrassment.

“Monseigneur,” she said, taking her lead from the way the Frenchmen addressed her husband, “I thought perhaps you would care to introduce me to our guests before we are called to nuncheon?”

She may be embarrassed but Julian was quick to see the spark of defiance in her brown eyes and knew at once she must have been standing in the doorway for a considerable time. He addressed her in English.

“I am sorry, my dear. This tiresome legal matter is taking longer than anticipated.”

“Oh? Perhaps I may be of some assistance?”

He frowned. “It need not bother you in the slightest.”

“Need it not?” Deborah replied swiftly, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice. She shot the Marquis an angry look as she went over to the window and out of earshot, saying in English, “Need it not bother me that my husband and his lawyers see fit to discuss the finer points of his—of your—Discussing you as if you’re a prize bull put out to stud!” She gave a halfhearted laugh of unconcern but inside she was falling apart. “To think that the most intimate of personal details are the stuff of a written deposition taken from a French whore. Is that what you call a tiresome legal matter that should not concern your wife? Perhaps they would care to take my statement, or do they wish to measure for themselves
Monseigneur’s offending implement
?”

“Madame has no right to speak on matters she knows nothing about!”

Deb gave a practiced sigh and lowered her gaze in a gesture of mock humility, her interest seemingly on the long strand of pearls. “That is very true, sir. After all, I am only your ignorant little bride, and as such am unable to make the necessary comparisons. No doubt the whores of Saint-Germain would be only too willing to give a glowing report of your-your—
telum
.”

“Enough,” Julian growled as he took a stride toward her.

Deb stepped back, a hand about her burning throat and made herself look him full in the face. She could feel the hot tears behind her eyes but she willed herself not to cry. If she started crying she would soon be sobbing. And she didn’t want to cry, she wanted to make sense of what she had overheard. She wanted Julian to tell her, to reassure her, that she was mistaken, that these Frenchmen were talking about someone else, anyone else but her husband. But he did not reassure her, nor did he speak. He just glared at her in mute anger. She gave a little laugh that broke in the middle and said archly,

“Oh? I had no idea it was perfectly acceptable to discuss such intimate details with flunkeys but not with your wife, who has enjoyed you in all your glory.” Just as Julian reached her, face livid with acute embarrassment, she turned to the two Frenchmen and said lightly in their own tongue as she put out a hand, “Will you not introduce me to these charming gentlemen?”

The Marquis turned to the two bright-eyed lawyers, thankful they were ignorant of the English language and said in an arctic voice that wiped the appreciative and lewd grins from their swarthy faces, “M’sieurs Muraire and Pothier, I give you my wife: Mme la Marquise de Alston.”

Muraire was so overwhelmed he wondered if he had heard right and he staggered back and dropped his perfumed handkerchief, quickly readjusting his features into a look of respect as he executed a bow fit for a royal audience at Versailles. Pothier was just as shocked, and to think he had dared to openly appraise the girl’s magnificent breasts in front of her noble husband! He bowed until he fell to his knees to pick up the dropped documents littering the carpet for want of something to cover his state of agitated embarrassment. Both men respectfully averted their gaze.

“Mme la Marquise de Alston?” Muraire repeated in shocked surprise as he bent over the long white hand extended to him. “Indeed! Of course! How delightful! How enchanting!”

“Delightful! Enchanting!” Auguste Pothier mimicked, his bulbous nose amongst an armful of creased parchments.

The lawyer looked expectantly at his noble client as if he was entitled to further explanation but Julian ignored him. He was staring fixedly at Deb who had snatched back her hand and turned to glare at him as if he was an apparition, her shock far outstripping anything the two Frenchmen felt at their social faux pas. The mixture of disgust and angry incredulity on her white face did not surprise him. He had been dreading the coming of this moment for months, had thought about the best way of approaching her with the truth and had managed to convince himself that perhaps after two and a half months of marriage it wouldn’t now matter to her that Julian Hesham and the Marquis of Alston were one and the same gentleman. But it did, he could see that it mattered to her a very great deal. His own acute discomfort and bitter disappointment made him sound supercilious.

“I see that you are not best pleased to discover you are Marchioness of Alston.”

Deb was so paralyzed with disbelief that she could not move or speak for several moments. She was numb from her toes to her ears.

“This is a cruel jest!” she finally blurted out, looking at him in frantic expectation that he was merely play acting for the benefit of the Frenchmen, or that she had misheard his pronouncement that she was the Marchioness of Alston, wife of the heir to the Roxton dukedom.

But he did not look down at her and wink away her worst fears. In fact he was not looking at her at all but took snuff by the window with all the nonchalance of a gentleman attending a card party. He nodded to the two French lawyers as he pocketed his gold snuffbox and came to stand beside her, saying near her ear as he took hold of her upper arm, “I suggest we continue our
tête-à-tête
without an audience,” and began to propel her towards the door.

She tried to shake him off as she fought to keep a grip on her dignity as the full force of her predicament hit her in a wave of denial and angry disbelief. No. Her husband could not possibly be the Marquis of Alston. Her husband was Julian Hesham. It was utterly absurd to think she had eloped with a conscienceless libertine. But the sordid details she had overheard in this very room merely confirmed the rumors about the Marquis’s disreputable reputation. Why had she put her faith in such intangibles as instinct and intuition? Why had he eloped with her? It set her brain reeling, and with the hideous new knowledge that he had married her for any number of reasons known to himself but that love was certainly not one of them. Ruminating on this she realized another startling piece of information, one that made her feel sick to her stomach: Not once, at any stage in their time together, be it at the height of passion or in the quietest of moments, had he ever declared his love for her.

Her married life collapsed in on itself and turned to dust.

She tried to remain upright, to not let the two Frenchmen, who watched from under hooded eyes, and this nobleman she now did not know in the least and who jostled her to the door, know that she was ill and empty and panic-stricken. Her bones felt as brittle as burnt paper and her heart ached as if it had been stomped under foot. And then the enormity of her situation became all too much. Her knees buckled and the carpet rushed up to meet her.