Midnight Marriage: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) (12 page)

“Down, Nero!
Down
!” Jack commanded and gave a tug on the puppy’s lead. He went on a knee and received a lick across his face. “Good boy! Good boy! Hello, Aunt Mary! Saunders told me you’d come to call.” He made her a bow. “Aunt Deb’s upstairs. We’ve been busy on a composition I wrote. This is Nero. My best friend Harry made a present of him. He won’t bite but he does jump. Aunt Deb says I must keep him on a lead when there are visitors, and because Alice doesn’t like dogs. But Aunt Deb likes him and Joseph promised to keep him while I’m away. Do you like dogs, my lady? Would you care to give Nero a pat?”

“Oh, no! That’s very kind of you, but no. I won’t, Jack. Thank you,” Lady Mary said with a smile that made Jack smile despite her refusal to touch Nero.

“He won’t bite or drool on your petticoats like Sir Gerald’s beagles. He’s a whippet and very well behaved.”

“There you are!” declared a voice from the doorway. It was Joseph. He took a step into the room, saw Lady Mary, and remembered his bow when Nero trotted up and nuzzled his hand. “Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady. Out with you and that brute, Master Jack.”

“Nero isn’t a brute. He isn’t even a dog yet.”

“He’ll be mincemeat for pies if Alice gets her hands on him. Cook is blaming your friend for the disappearance of a good chop. And by the looks of the wag on that tail he swallowed it all right! Sorry to be of bother to your ladyship.”

“We weren’t bothering you, were we, Aunt Mary?”

“No. Not at all, Jack,” Lady Mary responded with a smile, yet she was relieved to have the dog on the other side of the room.

“If you want to come along with me, we’d best be on our way,” Joseph told Jack. “And before Miss Deb changes her mind.” He bowed to Lady Mary. “Beggin’ your ladyship’s pardon for the state of things around here but it’s on account of our impending journey.”

“I’ve been invited to stay with Harry. Joe’s taking me there. He lives in a palace in Hampshire,” Jack explained excitedly, adding, “You mustn’t mind Aunt Deb. She hasn’t been very friendly to anybody in days. We’re hoping a letter from Paris will arrive to improve her mood, aren’t we, Joe?”

“Now that ain’t for anyone’s ears but ours, Master Jack,” Joseph was heard to say as he closed over the door.

Saunders appeared with the tea tray and informed her ladyship that his mistress would join her directly. Hardly had he shut the door when there was another commotion in the passageway; it seemed to travel out onto the street, then there was silence once again. Lady Mary sighed her relief only to sit bolt upright when the door was flung back and Deb sailed into the room.

“Well! Who’d have thought one little puppy would cause such a fuss!” she said with annoyance. She shut the door on the butler and rolled down the sleeves of a mannish white shirt that looked as if it belonged to a footman and which was buttoned over her bodice. “Did Jack show you his puppy? Friendly little thing. A gift from his school friend Harry, who has invited him to stay for a couple of weeks,” she rattled on as she poured out the tea into two porcelain dishes. She put the teapot back on its stand and set the milk jug and sugar bowl in front of Mary but did not sit down, preferring to stand by the window with its view of the busy street. “I couldn’t say no, could I? So our journey to Paris is put back yet again. Oh well, it can’t be helped. That should please you, Mary; that I remain in Bath…?”

“I came to tell you that Sir Gerald arrived in town last night,” Lady Mary said quietly, a keen eye on her sister-in-law who looked preoccupied. The fact she did not react to the news of her brother’s arrival was evidence enough that she was more than usually distracted. “Is anything the matter, dearest?”

Deb did not answer because there was a curious lump in her throat. She merely shrugged and looked out of the window, braiding and unbraiding a handful of the long deep red curls that fell forward over one shoulder. Her thoughts were a complete muddle and she hadn’t slept well in days. It was all the fault of her injured duelist and that kiss in the shadows of the Assembly Rooms. She was apprehensive and knew she had no good reason to be. He said he would return to Bath to take her for a drive in the park and it had only been a little over a sennight since their kiss in the shadows, so why should she worry he didn’t mean to keep his word? Eight days wasn’t very long at all. His parents might live the other side of England, for all she knew…

But with every day that passed her conviction grew that he had merely amused himself with her. Perhaps he was an adventurer out for her fortune? Her brother Gerry had spent years drumming it into her that men were interested in her for one reason and one reason only: she was an heiress. She was too tall; her walk too mannish; her eyes were the wrong color to be considered pretty, he said. She certainly wasn’t blonde, blue-eyed and petite like Mary. She should have known better than to lose her heart to a handsome stranger found in the Avon forest bleeding from a sword wound! Where had her wits been wandering? And Lady Mary was looking at her in such a forlorn way that suggested she felt sorry for her and that made Deb madder than anything.

“I really must see to the rest of Jack’s packing,” said Deb, tugging at the bell-pull. “If there is going to be any food to put on the table for dinner after this morning’s tantrums by Cook. So I’m sorry to cut short your visit. I expect you need to get home to Gerry—Good God! What has happened
now
?”

As she spoke there was a series of thuds overhead accompanied by a scuffle of boots and the familiar bark of Nero, and lastly a shout of laughter. Lady Mary was on her feet the moment the butler stepped into the room with his usual look of long-suffering on his marble countenance.

“Well, Saunders?” Deb asked, trying to glimpse into the passageway, but the commotion had moved on to another part of the house. “If you’re going to tell me Cook has taken a cleaver to Nero, or is chasing Jack about the pantry mouthing Gallic obscenities, I don’t want to know. Or are you about to give notice?”

“Not at all, ma’am.”

“It is a brave man indeed who can weather one grubby schoolboy and his faithful hound.”

Saunders ignored the sarcasm, saying, “There is a gentleman come to call, ma’am. He put his boot in the door and followed Master Jack and Mr. Joseph—”

Before Deb could answer Lady Mary interrupted her.

“You can’t possibly admit a gentleman to your parlor dressed-dress—”

“Mary, I don’t see why Bath should be denied a look at my olive-green petticoats. Don’t pretend to be shocked for Saunders’s sake,” Deb said with a sly glance at her butler. “If the visitor came into the house with Jack and Joseph it is probably Fotheringay or General Waverley. And as neither of those two elderly campaigners can walk without the aid of a Bath chair they are hardly likely to ravish me in these fetching garments.”

“Deb! Please—”

“Call Lady Mary’s chair, Saunders.”

Lady Mary sat down again. “I am staying. It’s what Sir Gerald would want me to do.”

“Well, Saunders? Don’t gape at me.”

The butler hovered in indecision and looked from one stubborn face to the other. He was prepared to wait out the argument until he was startled into moving away from the doorway by a soft word from the visitor, who had slipped into the room unannounced.

“It is most inappropriate of you to receive a gentleman dressed like a-a
bohemian
,” Lady Mary lectured with a sniff of disapproval, “You’ve not even put a comb through your curls. And
that
is a man’s shirt!”

“Can you guess to whom it belongs?” Deb teased.

“When you say such provoking things is it any wonder people are willing to believe the worst about you? Yesterday I had a visit from Mrs. Dawkins-Smythe—”

“My dear Mary, you really must learn to be politely rude. Toad-eating you again, was she?”

“Toad-eating?” gasped Lady Mary. “No. She was not toad-eating me! She came, she said, on a mission of mercy. She had the information from Lady Reigate and thus thought it best that I know that there is indeed truth in the rumor doing the rounds of Bath’s drawing rooms, so that I could prepare Sir Gerald for the worst.”

“Mary? I have no idea what you are talking about. Why do you have your handkerchief at the ready?”

Lady Mary sat up straight, the white handkerchief crushed in a gloved hand. “Deb, is there any truth to the rumor you were seen in the shadows of the Assembly Rooms last week with—with a—”

“—apparition?”

“You know perfectly well what Lady Reigate witnessed!”

“No, I do not.” Deb smiled wickedly. “I was rather preoccupied at the time to take notice, be it vision or no.”

“So it is true,” Lady Mary announced in tragic accents. “You allowed a-a—
lothario
to kiss you! How-how—
common
.”

Deb laughed, but her eyes were very hard. “Common? No. There is nothing common about him.”

“You think it amusing to have people ogle you, talk about you, think you
fast
?”

“Damn and blast what people think of me!” Deb growled, though this masked a genuine hurt that her sister-in-law was prepared to think the worst of her.

“Oh, Deb, when you talk like that I lose all hope of you making a good match. Is it any wonder Sir Gerald despairs of you—Oh! What—
You
?” Lady Mary stuttered and stared straight ahead as one who had seen a ghost, completely losing her train of thought.

Deb slowly turned from the window and came face to face with her injured duelist, dressed for riding in thigh tight buff breeches, dark blue riding frock coat with embroidered cuffs and highly polished jockey boots. His wide shoulders were up against the closed door and his arms were folded across his chest. There was an appreciable twinkle in his eye and although he bowed to both ladies, his eyes were all for Deb.

At the same time as the Marquis of Alston was being admitted to Deb’s townhouse, her brother, Sir Gerald Cavendish, was sitting down to a late breakfast of coddled eggs, bread and butter and strong cup of tea. Sir Gerald drank only green tea and from a cup, not a dish. He had especially ordered a porcelain tea service in mint green with gold trim, and the cups had handles: The latest thing; none of those old-fashioned oriental dishes. He was certain he would set a trend. He intended to send an identical tea service to his cousin by marriage, the Duchess of Roxton. If it found favor with Her Grace it would find favor with the Duke, and he so wanted to be looked on with favor by his exalted relatives by marriage. He smiled to himself at being so clever. Yes, the Duchess could not but be charmed by his gift.

He glanced at the clock on the mantle and frowned. Where was his wife? She should have returned from his sister’s house by now. How much time was needed to tell Deborah her brother had arrived in town and expected her to present herself in his drawing room at noon? He had wanted to send a lackey with the summons, but Mary had insisted on doing the errand herself. Some nonsense about Deborah taking the news of his arrival in a better frame of mind if Mary told her in person. Females. He would never understand them.

Two hours. What could be keeping her? He hated wasting time. At least his time last night had been well spent. He smiled smugly to himself. This year Mary must give him a son. If she did not…? That eventuality did not bear thinking about. But he did think about it. Constantly.

Without a son, his nephew, John George (Jack) Cavendish, the product of sickly Otto’s coupling with a filthy gypsy, remained his heir. That his half-breed nephew might one day inherit his baronetcy made him ill with worry. So did his sister Claudia Deborah Georgiana, who had grown into an obstinate and free thinking Amazon. Had his sister been obedient and docile and been guided by him he would have relished the task of one day informing her that it was all due to his efforts that she was destined to be a duchess. But Deborah had preferred rebellious Otto’s company and had run away to live with the family’s black sheep who lived with a pack of gypsy musicians in Paris.

Sir Gerald shuddered every time he remembered the Duke’s wrath for allowing his sister to bolt, and the humiliation he had endured finding her living amongst gypsies, with his brother dead and she on the verge of eloping with a musician! In a moment of distasteful weakness he had even permitted her to bring Otto’s orphaned brat back with them. Permitting her to set up house with Jack in Bath had been the carrot, not only to get her aboard ship, but also to settle down and remain on English soil until her husband returned from exile to claim her.

Sir Gerald thanked God the Marquis of Alston had finally come to his senses and decided to collect his bride, and before she became embroiled in any further scandalous episodes. After all, with a dowry in excess of fifty thousand pounds Deb attracted suitors. One suitor remained doggedly persistent and had impudently written to Sir Gerald on more than three occasions requesting permission to court his sister. The man had wealth and address, but his base parentage was enough that, had Deborah been unmarried, his suit would have been rejected as a matter of course. It was because of Mr. Robert Thesiger’s persistence that Sir Gerald found himself in Bath when he should have been seeing to important estate matters.

He put up a thick finger for a footman to refill his teacup and was sprinkling in a precise measure of a half-teaspoon of sugar when the butler slid into the room and announced a caller. Before Sir Gerald could order his butler to inform the unwanted visitor that he was not at home, the guest walked into the breakfast parlor as if he belonged there.

It was Robert Thesiger and the sip of tea on Sir Gerald’s tongue turned to tar.

The wide-eyed butler looked from his master to Robert Thesiger and back again. Sir Gerald put down his cup with deliberate slowness and tugged at the lace at his wrists with a long sniff of displeasure. It was an elaborate display of pompous superiority that masked a social uneasiness at coming face to face with this social pariah. His first thought was that Thesiger’s presence in his house must not come to the attention of the Marquis of Alston. The second was to find an excuse to get rid of him quick, before his wife returned and was forced to receive him.