Noble Satyr: A Georgian Historical Romance (32 page)

“Stare at me? But he—It’s at you—Well,
I—Thank—” stuttered Mr. Harcourt and brightened immediately. “You
do not care for my frock, Miss Moran?” he asked with concern.

“It is a very pretty frock. Though I do not
think yellow breeches suit you so well.”

“No?” he muttered, crest-fallen. “And my
muff?”

Antonia did not give him an answer. She was
diverted by the orchestra starting up and the cheers from the pit.
“I hope this actor Garrick is good.”

“One of the finest actors this country has
produced, my dear,” Miss Harcourt assured her and sat back to enjoy
the performance.

It was well into the first act and Antonia
was enjoying herself with all the enthusiasm of one new to Mr.
Garrick’s acting abilities when she turned to her uncle to make an
observation about the female lead and caught him smiling at her
with a curious expression on his face. She frowned, but he seemed
not to notice she was staring at him so she said nothing until the
curtain came down and the audience started to move about to stretch
their limbs, partake of refreshment, and pick up conversations with
acquaintances.

“I do not know in the least what is wrong
with you tonight, Theo,” she said at last. “If you keep looking at
me like a stunned
mouton
I will become enraged!”

“A sh-sheep,
chérie
?”

“A-a
mouton
—sheep? Yes, that is what
you look like. I do not like this expression at all, so you will
please stop.”

“If I remind you of a sheep I can understand
why!” Mr. Fitzstuart laughed quietly.

“Why do you look at me so?” she asked,
peering at him keenly.

“Oh, because you are very beautiful,” he
said.

Antonia’s fan shut with a snap. “That is not
an answer I believe!”

“I wonder where Lady Paget has run off to?”
he asked casually and scanned the length of boxes to his right then
returned to his niece who was still frowning at him. “If I tell you
you will think me a great bore.”

Antonia dimpled. “Better a bore than a
mouton or a rattlepate. Which is what
Grandmère
calls
Harcourt. That is one who is stupid?”

“Mamma has a nice turn of phrase.”

“Something happened while you were at
Treat,” said Antonia. “Me, I can see that. You have a secret! Do
you know Theo’s secret, Charlotte?”

“Secret?” blurted out Mr. Harcourt, all
interest in Mr. Garrick dissolved.

Charlotte shook her powdered head and
smiled. “Your uncle and I have not had the opportunity to speak
since his return, my love. If he does have a secret he has not
confided it to me.”

“He’s got a silly grin on his face too!” put
in Mr. Harcourt. “Dare say it’s the country air.” He shuddered.
“Pigs and cows and sheep. Ugh! Why! Lady Paget! You have finally
returned! My feelings were sorely wounded thinking you did not care
for our company.”

“Did I hear my name mentioned in the same
breath as a pack of farm animals?” asked Lady Paget. “What is going
on? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this box is receiving as much
attention as Mr. Garrick. Poor fellow! Oh, no! That wretched man is
waving at you again, Antonia. I did warn him.”

“Cumberland!” shrieked Mr. Harcourt and
leapt to the railing.

Antonia was not interested in the Duke of
Cumberland’s antics or in Mr. Harcourt’s performance as he growled
in the direction of the fat prince. She turned to Lady Paget who
stood behind her chair. “Theo has a secret. Charlotte does not know
it. My lady, do you think Theo has been acting a great stunned
sheep since he returned from Treat?”

Lady Paget chuckled behind her fan. “An apt
description, my dear girl!” Her brown eyes widened at Mr.
Fitzstuart. “I was somewhat stunned myself. Just now, in fact.”

“That so?” replied Mr. Fitzstuart surprised.
“I never thought—”

“In the foyer, dear boy,” confessed Lady
Paget, “Quite by accident. But it gave me a shock.”

Antonia looked at both of them. “I do not
understand at all what you are talking about! It is very unfair on
Charlotte and me for you to speak in riddles.”

“Too true, Antonia!” said Charlotte with a
ghost of a laugh at Mr. Fitzstuart. “Although, I know the secret. I
didn’t discover it in the foyer, but in the courtyard at Hanover
Square.”

This pronouncement angered Antonia and
finding the run of conversation baffling she went to join Mr.
Harcourt to peer at the audience and ask him what he thought of Mr.
Garrick’s performance. Lady Paget looked at Antonia thoughtfully
then handed Mr. Fitzstuart a scrap of folded paper.

“I am not at all sure what should be done
with this so I am giving it to you,” she told him. “You decide for
me. Your morals are much better than mine. If it was your mother’s
decision she would dispense with the formality and call me an
over-protective hen.”

Mr. Fitzstuart’s puzzled expression turned
to one of mirth as he read the missive. He gave it to Charlotte to
read. Mr. Harcourt looked over his sister’s shoulder, his
quizzing-glass tickling her ear as he strained to read the scrawl.
But before he had a chance to make out more than a few words his
sister folded the paper and returned it to Mr. Fitzstuart, who
joined his niece at the railing and gave her the note.

“I await your instructions, mademoiselle,”
he said with mock hauteur.

Antonia read the short note and calmly gave
it back to her uncle, a dimple in each cheek. “This M’sieur Garrick
is a very good actor I think, so he may borrow my fan.” She unwound
the silver chain from her wrist and put the fan on the cushion a
servant had carried into the box behind Lady Paget. “You must warn
m’sieur to take good care of my fan because it was a gift from
Vallentine who is a particular friend of mine,” she said to the
servant. “Never would I forgive him should it be damaged.”

The servant bowed his way out and Antonia
returned to the railing where Mr. Harcourt brooded. His pointed
chin was in the air, his arms were folded, and he swung the
quizzing-glass on its riband between two fingers.

“Do you want to see this?” asked Antonia
waving the note about. “It is from M’sieur Garrick.”

When the young man snatched the paper from
her hand there was much laughter from his friends, but he ignored
them as he scanned the note. He was the only one not to see the
humor in it. “Impudent dog! He and Cumberland both! Are your eyes
the same brilliant color as your emeralds?’ Indeed! Preposterous
and-and—forward! It is a wonder you allowed Miss Moran to hand over
her fan, Theo—”

“Come, Percy, it is but a piece of funning,”
said Mr. Fitzstuart.

Mr. Harcourt was not to be placated. “The
liberties these actors take—”

“Look at my eyes, Harcourt,” demanded
Antonia standing on tip-toe before him. “They are the same color as
my emeralds. We—Grandmamma, Theo and I—we all have such eyes. And
M’sieur le Duc, he especially chose these stones for me because it
is so.”

“M’sieur le Duc has excellent taste,” said a
soft masculine voice from the back of the box.

Powdered heads turned to see who had joined
them. But Antonia did not turn. She knew who it was and the joy and
disbelief of hearing that beloved voice for the first time in two
months held her fixed to the railing.

His Grace, the most noble Duke of Roxton,
dressed in his customary black, a solitaire in the folds of lace at
his throat, and with his raven locks pulled severely off his face,
held his quizzing-glass aloft to survey Mr. Harcourt’s little
party. To Lady Paget he had never looked more at his sartorial
best, nor so self-assured. He did not attempt to join the group but
stood in the light of a wall sconce, awaiting a response.

Mr. Harcourt was the first to go forward.
“It’s Roxton! Your Grace, what a surprise! We thought you
permanently fixed in Paris. Did we not, Theo? Well! Well! Welcome
home, Duke.”

“I must admit to a slight deception,”
confessed Mr. Fitzstuart.

“Yes, so you should,” Lady Paget scolded
playfully. “It was the Duke you went to see at Treat, I’ll
swear.”

“Did you?” asked Mr. Harcourt. “Is my
friendship worth so little to you, Theo, that you must keep
secret—”

“Hush, Percy,” said Charlotte watching the
Duke, who had eyes only for Antonia. She touched Mr. Fitzstuart’s
arm and he followed her gaze. “Now we know your uncle’s secret,
Antonia,” she said to the girl’s straight back. “But why he should
keep the news to himself…”

But Antonia did not hear the run of
conversation. She was so happy and excited that the English tongue
was forgotten in an instant. Before the Duke had a chance to utter
a syllable she was there in front of him, pressed against him in a
crush of velvet, and looking up expectantly into his face, a hand
clutching at one of the silver buttons of his waistcoat.

“It is you!” she whispered, tears in her
eyes. “I thought never to see you again. When did you come to
London? I have been so lonely without you. And it has been
such
a long time and I have so much to tell you! I had begun
to think that you really did mean what you said to me in Paris. You
never did answer my letters and—Oh! Mon-Monseigneur, now I am so
very,
very
happy!”

The Duke was so unprepared for such an
enthusiastic welcome that to receive the one response from her he
had so longed for left him utterly speechless. A hundred words
rushed from his throat only to be left unspoken. He swallowed hard,
but still could not bring himself to speak. Instinctively his arms
went about her small waist and he pulled her to him only to
instantly withdraw from her and step away, remembering that they
were not alone; that they were in a public place and that four
interested onlookers in this box, if not in fact the whole world
now seated in this theatre, scrutinized his every move.

“Antonia,” he whispered hoarsely, black eyes
staring unblinkingly down at her, “I beg of you, for the love of
God, don’t do this to me.”

She did not understand. All she saw was an
incomprehensible suppressed emotion in his ashen face and she
faltered. “But I thought…You are not pleased to see me?” she said
with a pathetic catch to her voice. “You didn’t miss me? You…You
didn’t come for me?”

The Duke’s black eyes continued to devour
her and he started to speak but again he failed to find words of
explanation. Finally, a flicker of movement over her shoulder
decided him. He grabbed her wrists and roughly put her away from
him, and stepped into the box. A moment, perhaps not a minute, had
passed between them, but it was enough to stun their audience into
embarrassed silence.

It was Mr. Fitzstuart who was quick to
repair any breach and he went forward, dragging Charlotte with him,
and introduced her to the Duke. She was self-possessed enough to
chatter away at him on an inconsequential topic which required no
response. Mr. Harcourt, however, was left out of his depth, and
unable to understand the behavior of Antonia or the Duke, yet
feeling curiously embarrassed by it, he turned to observe the
movements of the audience as they resumed their seats for the
second act.

Only Lady Paget seemed affected enough by
the emotional scene just witnessed not to ignore it. She could not
help staring anew at the Duke, seeing a side to him she had thought
he wholly lacked. She was not angry or jealous, nor did she feel
the slightest animosity toward Antonia for having won what she had
failed to in the year the Duke and she had been lovers. Curiously,
she felt closer to the girl than ever before. And it was she who
put a comforting arm about Antonia’s bare trembling shoulders.

“Shall you sit down, my love?” she whispered
soothingly. “Perhaps a glass of burgundy?”

Antonia could only shake her curls. She was
so stricken that her head throbbed painfully and all she wanted was
to be alone. She had never felt a greater fool, nor more certain
the Duke cared no more and no less for her than he did any of his
discarded mistresses. Without realizing it she blinked tears down
her face.

Her uncle came at Lady Paget’s signal,
leaving Miss Harcourt valiantly discussing the night’s play with
the Duke.

“I am taking Antonia home,” Lady Paget
advised him. “Will you call us a carriage?”

“I say! I’ll take you!” said Mr. Harcourt.
“You can stay here with Charlotte, Theo. I don’t care for Garrick,
m’self. Remember to collect Miss Moran’s fan. I don’t like actors
and I don’t trust ’em either. He’s likely to pawn the thing as soon
as he leaves the premises. Sorry to run off on you like this, your
Grace, but I’m sure you understand how it is. How is it, Theo?”

“Do be quiet, Percy,” said Mr. Fitzstuart
and shoved his friend toward the door. He took Antonia’s cloak from
a footman and put it about her shoulders.

Roxton took a step forward, so acutely
self-conscious that for the first time in his life he was at a loss
at what to do next. He was waylaid by Lady Paget.

“I’d have thought nine weeks ample time to
construct a suitable sentence the girl would understand,” she said
sympathetically. When he could not meet her gaze she squeezed his
arm. “Brandy is very good for settling one’s nerves. I intend to
give Antonia a measured dose. It will do her wonders, as will a
visit from you on the morrow. Good night, your Grace.”