Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (16 page)

“Vallentine, you will tell me please,” said
Antonia skipping up to him. “Is Thérèse Duras-Valfons M’sieur le
Duc’s latest whore?”

This forthright question made his lordship
stammer an incoherent reply and Estée’s eyes to widen in horror.
Antonia repeated the question unabashed at their response but both
deigned to ignore her.

“
Parbleu
! Where does she get such
notions?” whispered Estée.

“Your brother is hardly one to be discreet.
The chit’s been at court. She has eyes. And you know what it’s like
at Versailles. A nest of vipers. Unsavory company for a young girl,
that’s certain.”

“I shudder to think what vices she has been
exposed to left in the care of that whore Maria Casparti.”

“M’sieur le Duc says it is more polite to
call Maria Casparti Grandfather’s mistress, not his whore,”
lectured Antonia with a mischievous twinkle which had Vallentine
grinning. “There is a difference, yes?”

Madame de Montbrail only heard her words.
She did not see the mischief and stormed off ahead of her
companions, remaining silent on the short return journey to the
hôtel while Lord Vallentine and Antonia continued their playful
banter all the way home. Her mood did not improve once in the
relative warmth of the hôtel’s foyer and she announced she had the
headache so would go to her rooms to rest for an hour or two before
dinner. Lord Vallentine offered his escort, but this was bluntly
refused, and she left Antonia and his lordship to stare after her
in contemplative silence.

When Vallentine suggested Antonia follow
Madame’s example she declared she was not the slightest bit tired,
despite a dull ache in her shoulder which annoyed her when she made
a sudden wrong movement. She coaxed his lordship into playing at
backgammon. Not only did he acquiesce but allowed her to persuade
him they should spend the early afternoon by a fire in the Duke’s
private sanctum, his library.

And so they spent an enjoyable hour playing
at backgammon on the deep carpet in front of the fire. When his
lordship declared he was tired of losing he ordered hot chocolate
and coffee. And this Duvalier deposited on a heavy silver tray on
the carpet before them, taking his time to depart, an ear to
Antonia and Vallentine’s heated discussion concerning the various
merits and demerits of particular Italian states they had visited.
When he took his leave he was more than ever convinced the Duke’s
friend, although closer in age to his master, had a brain
well-suited to the companionship of children.

When she had finished her chocolate Antonia
curled up on the large leather chair closest the fireplace and
settled on the velvet cushions with a slim volume selected from the
book-lined shelves. His lordship was quick to point out she was not
to sit on that particular chair because it was the Duke’s favorite,
and that the book she had selected was not fit for a lady’s eyes.
Besides, it was in Latin and he did not believe for one minute a
chit from the schoolroom could read Latin; if so it was scandalous.
His entreaties fell on deaf ears and he was forced to concede
defeat, and retreated behind the pages of a day-old English
newssheet.

The Duke entered the library not an hour
later. He found it deserted despite his butler’s assurances Lord
Vallentine and Mademoiselle Moran were within. Duvalier followed
him and placed several dispatches on the desk. He began to tidy the
chocolate tray when a rustle of movement caught his attention and
he almost overset the silver pot and mugs. Roxton glanced up from
the pile of correspondence, instantly saw the reason for this
distress and waved his butler away. Only with the door closed on
the servant’s back did he dare approach his favorite chair.

By the turned leg of the chair was a pair of
silk-covered shoes and a leather-bound volume, propped on its spine
and with a silk riband tucked between two pages to hold a place. He
scooped up a discarded shoe with its large diamond and emerald
encrusted buckle and inspected its workmanship. And with it still
in his hand he leaned on the high back of the upholstered chair to
peer down at its occupant.

Antonia was fast asleep, her face turned
away from the dying fire, one arm caught in a quantity of tangled
curls, the other resting limp across her bodice. The layers of her
silk petticoats surrounded her like a soft pink cloud and exposed
her small stockinged feet to the warmth of the fire. He couldn’t
recall the last time he’d had the leisure to admire the prettily
turned ankles of a sleeping beauty. The sensation was new to him
and made him smile.

He wondered what would be his next move, now
that he had taken possession of the sweetmeat his cousin so
desperately craved. The smile broadened. Poor Salvan, he thought
without sympathy, he must be going out of his mind that the
singular object of all his pent-up lust was recuperating in the
house of his noble English cousin whose wealth and way with women
he envied to the point of loathsomeness.

Yet, as he continued to watch Antonia sleep,
he became absorbed in the rhythm of her breathing, and the smug
smile of triumph dropped into a frown on the more sobering thought
that now he had the girl what was he to do with her? Whisking her
away from the masquerade had been an instinctive reaction, of
grabbing the prize out from under his cousin’s nose; the
consequences ignored.

And then Antonia had totally put him
off-balance by not being the least wary of him or his intentions.
She seemed to have every confidence that he meant to rescue her
from that consummate libertine Richelieu and every other lecherous
dog at Court. That she regarded him as some sort of knight in
shining armor and not of the same mold as his friend Richelieu
completely disconcerted him. As did a niggling doubt that the girl
had orchestrated the entire escape, he merely a pawn in
her
plans.

After all, she had pestered him with letters
and lingered on the fringes of his social circle at Court for so
many weeks that her presence became an unwanted intrusion on his
liberty. He was not immune to her striking beauty. He had noticed
her on her very first day at Court and been intrigued. But beauty
coupled with the inexperience of youth and a lack of sophistication
had never appealed to him. He had always preferred seasoned
beauties, whose sexual proclivity was equal to his own and who had
an understanding husband lurking somewhere in the background ready
to offer a padded shoulder to cry on when boredom dictated he move
on.

When discreet enquiries about Antonia
revealed she was in reality one of his needy, distant relatives out
to seek his help, he quickly consigned her to the latrine of
annoying liabilities that came with his title and wealth. He went
out of his way to ignore her. Yet, why at the first sign she might
be out of her depth, attending a masquerade dressed as a whore was
certainly way out of a young girl’s depth, had he not only exerted
himself to snatch her away from Richelieu, but by such action
showed the world that she was his responsibility; a circumstance he
had spent the previous three months trying to avoid?

And now, as he continued to watch the
flicker of the fireplace shadows play upon her lovely profile, it
was patently clear that any satisfaction he had derived from having
Antonia away from Salvan had evaporated when considered against the
responsibility that was now his in seeing the girl fully recovered
from her ordeal and safely placed in the care of her grandmother in
London.

He was still contemplating the burden of
these new found responsibilities when Lord Vallentine strode into
the room, a coverlet over one arm, and tapped him lightly on the
shoulder.

“She would fall asleep in your chair,” he
whispered apologetically. “I didn’t have the heart to wake her so I
thought it best to fetch this myself. Don’t want her taking a
chill.” He arranged the coverlet to his satisfaction and glanced up
at the Duke. What he saw gave him a start. “Jesus, Roxton, what’s
amiss? You’ve not taken ill? I’ll get Duvalier to fetch up a
bottle. Hey, Duvalier,” he hissed, “a bottle of M’sieur le Duc’s
finest and be quick about it!”

The butler hurried away and Vallentine
followed Roxton to a set of sofas in the middle of the room. The
fact his friend still had Antonia’s shoe in one hand made him
smile. When he commented upon it the smile widened into a grin
watching the Duke awkwardly dispose of the article.

“You’ve got yourself a little minx in that
one,” said Vallentine in English as he sprawled on a chair opposite
the Duke.

“Indeed?” said Roxton in his native tongue,
the color back in his cheeks.

“Yes, indeed!” laughed his lordship. “She
beats me at backgammon and reversi every time. I’ve tried all the
tricks. None have helped me! She told me her dear father taught her
how to play. I could throttle the man for that alone! And ever
since she’s been on the mend there’s no holding her chatter. And
argue? Oho! With me until I’m blue in the face. She’s more subdued
with Estée, but only because Estée will get in one of her moods and
threaten to create a scene if the chit don’t behave herself.”

“Her manners are atrocious,” the Duke said
with annoyance.

“Oh, there’s no spite in her,” Vallentine
assured him. “She’s just a bundle of mischief. It’s refreshing.
Sometimes it puts Estée out of all patience. If you ask me that’s
just feminine jealousy.”

“You amaze me.”

“I ain’t as cotton-headed as you think me.
Sometimes I warrant I ain’t the most acute observer but when it
comes to females, well, I have a fair notion of what does and what
don’t make ’em irritable. Your sister is a beautiful woman, a
damned beautiful woman, but Antonia, well,
she’s—she’s—unusual.”

“My dear, your tongue trips you up. Unusual
in what way?”

To Lord Vallentine’s extreme discomfort he
found his face warming. He was relieved when Duvalier sought to
interrupt at that moment. A glass of claret helped his color but
the Duke awaited his answer with an irritating lift of his black
brows.

“You needn’t look at me in that way! I ain’t
in love with the chit if that’s what you’re thinking,” confessed
his lordship. “I admit I find her company a delight. And I ain’t
blind, so don’t sneer at me! I can see she’s a little beauty. But
she don’t try and use it on a man either, as most females are want
to do. She’s just—she’s just herself. In fact,” he continued
belligerently, “I find her adorable! But that don’t mean I want
her; not in that way. Besides, she don’t want me, or that young
puppy of Salvan’s.”

“No?”

“She ain’t in love with d’Ambert, that’s
certain. He’s come calling once or twice and she won’t see him.
Said she wasn’t well enough to receive visitors. Though I think
he’s fooling himself if he thinks he ain’t in love with her.”

“So you think?”

“Yes, so I think. And another thing. Any
attempt on my part, or Estée’s, to say a word against you and the
little lovable minx turns into a hellcat.”

The Duke frowned. “What have I done to
deserve such adoration?”

“You can be indifferent if you like,” said
Vallentine sarcastically. “I suppose you’ve done nothing out of the
ordinary, except it must seem out of the ordinary to a girl
Antonia’s age. Quite the hero rescuing her from Salvan’s slimy paws
and shooting two ruffians dead on the Versailles road, not to
mention tending to her hurts with your own fine hands.”

“My dear Vallentine, if I did not know you
better I would hazard I have inflamed your jealousy.”

“A man has the right to be a little
envious,” admitted his lordship. “After all, I’m the one whose been
visiting the sick-room every day, taking her sweetmeats and
newssheets, and losing at backgammon! What do I get for my troubles
and attentions? An ear-full of you. Damn you! Why, I couldn’t take
her for a walk in the Tuileries without coming across you with the
Comtesse Duras-Valfons, and Antonia asked some damned awkward
questions. How am I supposed to answer ’em? She’s a mere babe in
the woods when compared to the ferocious felines you usually
associate with.”

Roxton’s brows drew sharply across the
bridge of his nose. “I hope you were sensible and kept your tongue
in your head.”

“Didn’t have to open m’mouth,” said
Vallentine primly. “She knew precisely Thérèse’s vocation without a
word from me.”

“My lord has become paternal of a sudden,”
taunted the Duke. “If the girl was affronted by the company I
keep—”

“Affronted?” scoffed his lordship. “Antonia?
Affronted
? Much you know about her! She called Thérèse your
putain
, and had the nerve to ask Estée for confirmation!
Aye? What’s this?” he asked, turning at the sound of rustling
petticoats. “Methinks the minx awakes.”

Antonia took a sleepy peek over the chair
back and when she saw the Duke her eyes widened and she smiled. She
flew out of the chair not caring to smooth down her crumpled
petticoats, forgetting to cover her stockinged feet, and ignoring
the fact the clasp that held her curls up clattered to the floor.
She ran to the sofa and dropped a curtsey at the Duke’s feet.