Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (32 page)

“Oh, Julian, how could you when five minutes in your parents’ company is enough to convince a blind man they are so very much in love!”

The Marquis swallowed. “Well, I wasn’t blind, I was a sixteen year old prig eaten up with his own self-consequence! I did not try to understand my parents’ marriage. At that age, a boy wishes his parents to conform to the society to which they belong so he is acceptable to his friends. At Eton I was taunted mercilessly because my parents have an unconventional marriage by any standards. Theirs wasn’t an arranged marriage, a bloodless union for the transfer of property and wealth. My parents thumbed their noses at convention and eloped.”

Deb looked abashed, remembering the hurtful and totally unsubstantiated remarks about the Duke and Duchess she had hurled at her husband. “I admit to being astonished by your parents. I do not know of another exalted couple that have married for anything but dynastic self-preservation, certainly none who married for love. The last Cavendish to do so was Otto and he was banished from the family. My parents, Gerry, indeed most people I know have had their marriage arranged for them. But I have interrupted you…”

Julian stopped his pacing and stood before her, clenching and unclenching his hands. That he took a few moments before he spoke, that he cleared his dry throat and swallowed and looked at first anywhere but at her, but then found the courage to meet her steady gaze, color deepening in his cheeks, was indication enough that he still found it difficult to speak of that night without emotion getting the better of him.

“My mother was in her boudoir. The physician was with her. The scene that presented itself to me in my drunken state was such that I… God, I didn’t even see that they were not alone, that my mother’s ladies-in-waiting were in attendance! I let myself believe, after what Robert and Evelyn had told me, that the physician was my mother’s lover. I went into a rage. I overpowered the physician and dragged my mother, who was dressed only in her chemise and nightgown, out of the house and into the cold night…”

He sat down on the bench beside Deb, elbows on his silken knees and stared at the hedgerow, as if seeing the events as he retold them. “I remember there was a great deal of noise. People scurrying about with tapers. And there was shouting. There was lots of shouting. A gathering had formed at one end of the Square. They were held back from coming closer by our servants. The only person who wasn’t shouting was my mother. She hardly made a sound. She was crying but she never once shouted at me.” He turned his head into his shoulder and looked at Deb, a glaze to his eyes. “I called her a whore. I said she was a witch. I called her a
putain
and other foul names that I won’t sully your ears with. You get the idea. I denounced her to the world as an adulteress. I proclaimed to the mob that the child she was carrying was not my father’s but the ill begotten progeny of a bastard whoreson. And then it all went very quiet. No shouting. No one talking. No one moved. There was only the sound of my mother whimpering in pain. She had gone into early labor. It was then that I saw the-the blood on her chemise and I came my senses…

“And my father… He came home to a nightmare, a nightmare of my making. I may have been insensible with a rage fuelled by claret, but it was my father who was sent to the brink of madness. He punished me the only way he saw fit, and for that I do not blame him.” He smiled sadly. “One brief moment of madness should not consign a man’s entire life to Bedlam … Should it?”

Deb took the hand he held out to her and rose up to be enveloped in his embrace. Instinctively, she rested her head against his chest and was comforted by the strong beat of his heart. Her voice was barely audible. “No. No, it should not.”

They stood in the grotto, silent in each other’s arms, listening to the sounds of celebration and beyond the high brick walls that surrounded the Hôtel Roxton, the continuous rumble of carriage wheels and hooves on the cobbles of the Rue Saint-Honoré. And when she finally looked up at him wondering how best to respond to his heartfelt confession to assure him she understood, that she did not condemn him for his youthful folly, he bent and kissed her gently.

“Do you believe in fate?” he asked, nuzzling her neck, enjoying the scent of her perfume. “I never did, despite my mother’s belief that she and my father were fated to be together. But that day on Martin’s terrace, when you splashed wine on your petticoats, I knew our marriage was destined.” He took her silence for complicity and kissed her again, this kiss more urgent, more needful and he pressed her against him. “Since we parted on that most hideous of days, I’ve spent every day wishing you were at my side,” he confessed. “I’m lonely without you. I need you to make me laugh, to make me forget my cares and responsibilities, to just be there for me
Julian
.”

Deb so wanted to believe him, and she wanted
Julian
to kiss her again more than anything, but the specter of mademoiselle Lefebvre and the upcoming trial made her hesitate and to doubt his sincerity. She thought of the lewd pamphlet she had seen in Evelyn’s apartment, and of the stranger dressed as a French courtier just returned from Versailles, and she reasoned that there had to be a grain of truth to the scandal or why else would the Farmer-General insist on a very public trial? But even a grain of truth was one grain too many for her. She did not want to share her days, least of all her nights, with such a creature as the Marquis of Alston.

She looked up into his eyes. “And while Julian spends his days with his wife, forgetting his cares and responsibilities, with whom does the Marquis of Alston spend his nights?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He looked as if he had no idea to what she was alluding that she was almost convinced. But not enough that it did not stop her from pulling out of his arms and brushing down her silk petticoats with an agitated hand.

“I forgive you your youthful folly. You were only a boy, and misguided by others. I understand that your parents have a marriage that is not in the common way, and I applaud them for that. But I cannot forgive the Marquis of Alston for deceiving me into his bed, just as I cannot forgive the Marquis of Alston for deceiving mademoiselle Lefebvre in the same way!”

He baulked. “You dare to make such a comparison? You are my wife. She is nothing but a tawdry French harlot who would do anything to catch herself a titled husband.”

“Which gave you permission to seduce her with impunity?”

Julian did not blink. “I have maintained all along that I did not seduce her. I will say again: I did not seduce mademoiselle Lefebvre. My word should be good enough for you to believe me, for
my wife
to believe me.”

His arrogant self-assurance made her blurt out, “You are vastly mistaken if you believe I am the sort of wife who will meekly sit in a big house by a lake waiting for the occasional visit from her philandering husband so he can impregnate her. I will not be used as a-a—
vessel
to beget your children!”

“For pity’s sake, Deb! Stop this self-torture at once!” he demanded and sighed as if she was making a scene about a trifle of a thing. It was the handkerchief that he held out to her that was the last straw. “Take it and dry your face. We are expected at the ball any moment. Take it!”

“I saw the pamphlet distributed by M’sieur Lefebvre. Have you? It boasts a cartoon of the Marquis of Alston with the biggest organ not housed in a church. Imagine!” she said on a note that was half hysterical laugh, half sob. “You and your French cronies must find such notoriety vastly entertaining, my lord.”

Julian’s face fired red and he scowled. “Don’t be absurd, Deborah.”

“Oh? Don’t tell me you’re
embarrassed
to be so compared? Most men would be flattered.”

“Now you are being unreasonable and hysterical.”

She was being slightly hysterical but she could not help herself. She blamed her pregnancy for this newfound desire to self-castigate, and plunged deeper into recrimination.

“I dare say you must feel some sort of male pride knowing your wife derives just as much satisfaction from your body as any whore of your acquaintance?”

Julian’s jaw locked hard and he turned his head away, as if she had slapped his face. Deb interpreted this action as the mute obstinacy of a noble husband’s right to keep his sexual life to himself. So be it. She had had enough of the Marquis of Alston. She picked up her petticoats and turned to depart, when he grabbed her elbow and spun her back to face him.

“If it’s a confession you want, if nothing else will convince you, then you shall have a full and frank declaration of your husband’s whole sordid sexual history. But, by God, you will say not one word until I’m done!”

“Beggin’ your lordship’s pardon,” Joseph muttered with a cough into his hand and a bow. He came further into the grotto with a sheepish half-smile. “Wouldn’t have interrupted you for the world but… Lord Henri-Antoine is missing.”

“Missing?” Deb and Julian said in unison.

“No one’s seen him since the circus folk left half an hour ago. Jack says his little lordship wanted to see a bear and when the circus folk didn’t bring one with them he went off in a bit of a huff to—”

“—to sulk? Yes, that sounds like Harry,” Julian agreed, concern for his brother masking any embarrassment at the old retainer’s interruption.

“The house and grounds are being searched,” Joseph continued, a sidelong glance at Deb, “and the guests have all been herded into supper none the wiser. Her Grace remains on the lawn but says she can’t do so for much longer without raising the Duke’s suspicions. She sent me to find you.”

“I will go to her at once,” Julian answered, and with a quick nod to Deb disappeared through the trees.

A handful of liveried servants were combing the avenues of chestnut trees when Deb and Joseph followed the Marquis out of the grotto. Jack was darting in and out amongst these servants, and when he saw the Marquis, his aunt and Joseph he waved a hand high above his head and ran to them as fast as his long thin legs would carry him.

“Alston!” Jack called out as he finally ran up to them, out of breath and dry in the mouth. “You’ve got to come
now
! Harry
needs
you!”

“Thank God,” murmured Deb as her nephew fell into her arms. She cuddled him to her saying with a smile, “That’s good news, Jack. I knew Harry wouldn’t be far away.”

Julian squatted beside the boy, realizing he was crying into his aunt’s petticoats. “Where is Harry, Jack?” he asked gently, and when the boy flung an arm out in direction of the lawn added, “In one of the tents with his mother?”

“He’s by the walled gate,” said Jack with a sniff, turning his head out of his aunt’s silk petticoats and dashing a sleeve across his eyes. “He’d followed the circus, wanting to know about the bear. I’m sorry I’m not being a man about it but he gave me a fright, y’see. He was on the ground. He’d had one of his attacks. But he’s all right now, I think…”

“Shall we go and see how he is?” Julian suggested with a smile, though he felt anything but calm. He held his hand out to Jack. “Don’t worry about Harry. Bailey always knows what to do.”

Jack looked up at his aunt and then at Joseph before moving out of Deb’s embrace altogether to speak to the Marquis in a confidential tone. “There’s a gentleman… He came in the gate just as Harry fell down. He said he’d keep an eye on him while I fetched Bailey. But I remembered what you said about strangers outside the gates, and so I wouldn’t leave Harry until Bailey was fetched.”

“What gentleman, Jack?” asked Deb.

The boy looked up at his aunt as if she should know the answer. “You know the one. He was always calling at our house in Bath and Saunders was always sending him away with some lame excuse. Well,” he glanced at Joseph, “we thought it was lame, didn’t we, Joe?”

When Deb looked none the wiser, the boy added, “You must remember him, Aunt Deb. He has a dueling scar on his cheek.”

“
Parbleu
.
Non
,” Julian muttered in French and in two strides was off running up the avenue of chestnut trees towards the lawn.

He did not have far to go. At the entrance to the furthest marquee the Duchess stood in silent vigil, a lady-in-waiting pacing at her back, while, striding across the cobbled courtyard from the direction of the tradesmen’s entrance gate, and carrying Lord Henri-Antoine to his chest, was Robert Thesiger. At his side, Dr. Bailey and five liveried footmen tried to keep step. The Marquis was at his mother’s side by the time Robert Thesiger entered the tent and placed the limp little figure on the divan.

The attack had passed and had not been as severe as the previous one some months before. That was Bailey’s opinion as he felt the boy’s pulse, and it received a collective sigh of relief from those surrounding the divan. The physician’s diagnosis was born out by the patient himself who managed a weak smile when the Duchess sat on an edge of the divan and put a cool hand to her son’s bloodless cheek.

“They promised me a bear,” Lord Henri-Antoine complained weakly. He turned his head and blinked at Robert Thesiger. “He says there’ll be a bear at the Tuileries tomorrow.”

“I do not doubt it,
mon chou
. There are many wondrous sights throughout the capital to honor the Dauphin’s marriage. But we cannot see all of them,” the Duchess said with a smile and kissed Henri-Antoine’s forehead, her heartbeat slowing knowing her young son was out of danger. She stepped back to allow the physician to apply lavender drops to her son’s temples. “Now you must rest and I will thank this gentleman on your behalf for bringing you back to me, yes?” And in a move Julian found admirable, she turned and bravely looked up into the blue eyes of the son whose mother the Duke had discarded in order to marry her. “Thank you, M’sieur, for restoring to me my son.”

Robert Thesiger met her gaze, face devoid of emotion, and rudely turned his back and left the tent without comment or according her the low formal bow her status demanded.

“You’re damn impudent showing yourself here!” Julian snarled at his back.

Robert Thesiger looked up from brushing down the creased sleeves of his sapphire blue embroidered silk frock coat and, over the Marquis’s shoulder, saw Deborah coming across the lawn with her groom in tow. “Show some proper gratitude. After all, I did restore the little pup to his bitch—Steady!” he added with a nervous laugh as he jumped away from the Marquis who took a stride toward him, fists clenched. “You wouldn’t dare bruise your own flesh in the house of our father, now would you, Juju?”