Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (54 page)

“No. Not I!”

“No. Your tastes lean toward the—er—
uninitiated
, do they not, my dear cousin?”

There was the slightest pause before the Comte let out a forced brittle laugh. He tapped the Duke’s velvet sleeve with the silver sticks of his fan. “That is as well or our paths would cross, and that would not amuse me at all!”

“You may rest easy, my dear,” said the Duke smoothly, quizzing-glass allowed to dangle on its silk riband. “I have never yet had the urge to play nursery maid.”

Salvan flushed in spite of himself. He changed the topic immediately. “You saw Richelieu? He has been back at court this past week. They say he and the Tournelle plan to oust the dull sister as soon as it can be contrived. De Mailly is ignorant of the whole! She will see herself banished before she knows what she is about and—”

“My dear, this is old news,” interrupted the Duke. “But perhaps it is new to you? You need to spend less time lurking in corridors and a good deal more between the sheets—”

“As you do?” Salvan snapped before he could help himself.

Roxton swept him a magnificent bow. “As I do,” he confirmed.

“Ha! A novel approach. Do not tell me you expend any energy in conversation.”

“I was not about to tell you anything of the sort, my dear,” came the insolent reply. The Duke’s black eyes watched a storm cross his cousin’s ravaged face and he laughed softly and changed the subject. “Madame sends her regards,” he said politely. “She asks when next you intend to visit Paris. She longs to hear the latest gossip of court which I cannot bring myself to repeat. I said I would petition you on her behalf and beg you go to her. I beg and have done my duty. I leave it in your hands. Sisters weary me.”

The mention of the Duke’s lovely sister instantly transformed the Comte de Salvan, as Roxton knew it would. He clapped his hands in delight. “Estée has asked to see me? You do not jest?” he said expectantly, and fell in beside the Duke as he walked out of the Appartement and crossed the Hercules Room and went down the staircase. “Is she in good health? Does she pine away in that dreary hôtel of yours? You are most cruel to her, Roxton! Such beauty deserves to be admired, to be fawned over, and cherished. She has not been to court now in seven years or more. She the widow of Jean-Claude de Montbrail, the most decorated of Louis’s Generals. If he had not been cut down in his prime Estée would now be at court.”

“Yes, I forbid her the court. That is my right.”

“Even in the face of Louis’s displeasure?” whispered the Comte de Salvan, taking a quick, nervous look over his padded shoulder. “I cannot forget your private audience,” he continued with a shudder. “Me, I fainted. I expected a
lettre de cachet
at the very least. I praise God it did not happen so. You are still barely tolerated by l’Majesty. He never forgives or forgets such slights, mon cousin. He might relent a little if you were to allow your sister to return to court—”

“I have not the least interest in Louis’ opinion of me.”

“M’sieur le Duc! Please!” Salvan gasped in a broken voice. “Not so loud. I beg you!”

The Duke paused in the vestibule that led out into the Marble courtyard to permit a lackey to assist him into his many-capped roquelaure. “I repeat, what your king thinks of me or my actions is of supreme indifference. You forget I am of mixed blood. Only half is French, and that my mother’s. My allegiance is to a German-born King who sits on the English throne. Regrettable as that circumstance may be to many, it serves a purpose. And as I am a peer of that realm, and not this, I need not hold my actions accountable to your liege lord and master. If my presence at this court unnerves you, my dear cousin, I am happy for you to disassociate yourself with my family.” He bowed politely. “Versailles is no place for those of noble character, such as my sister.”

The Comte de Salvan tottered outside after him, a servant with a flambeau quick to follow on his heels. “And what of the rest of us?”

“Those of us of noble birth and no character amuse ourselves as best we can. I bid you a good night.”

Halfway across the courtyard two figures moving in shadow caught Salvan’s eye and he drew in a quick breath. Instantly, he tried to divert the Duke with some inconsequential tale about a notorious female and her present lover, all the while conscious of the raised voices travelling across the expanse of open air from the dark recesses of the Royal courtyard. But the Duke of Roxton was not diverted. He listened to his cousin’s chatterings as he slipped on a pair of black kid gloves then abruptly changed direction and sauntered toward the voices. His cousin made a protesting sound in the back of his throat and followed as best he could in red high heels.

A slim youth, richly clad in puce satin under a heavy coat thrown carelessly about his shoulders, and a girl, her gown concealed under a shabby wool cloak too large for her small frame and allowed to trail in the mud, were huddled under a red brick archway. In the light cast by a flickering flambeau, they were in heated discussion, the youth with an arm out-stretched to the opposite wall to block the girl’s exit.

The Duke did not go so near as to disturb them, yet he showed enough interest to put up his quizzing-glass. He was soon joined by the Comte de Salvan, who had hobbled across the pebbles in his high red heels, was chilled to the bone for having left his cloak indoors, and was mentally heaping curses upon his father’s memory for having permitted his name to be forever allied with a family of heretical Englishmen whom he blamed for all his past and present misfortunes.

“Permit me to explain,” Salvan rasped, catching his breath.

“Explain?” purred the Duke. “There is no need. Your so devoted son is of an age to defend his own actions.”

The Vicomte d’Ambert despaired of making Antonia see reason. He gave an impatient grunt and looked away into the black night. “I tell you it is impossible!” he declared. “What do you not understand? The moment you leave the palace I cannot protect you. You have managed to avoid him until now. I say we wait for word from St. Germain. When we know how your Grandfather fairs something will be contrived. I promise you.”

“It is you who do not understand, Étienne!”

“Antonia, I—”

“My grandfather is dying,” Antonia announced flatly. “He has gone to St. Germain to die, not to hunt or debauch but to die. He is old and infirm and his time has come. So be it. You think me unfeeling to speak the truth? Well, it is best I understand how it is and not allow silly expectations to fill my head. And do not tell me otherwise! Do not say I must hope because I know you only say so because I am a female and think to shield me from the truth. Such gallantry is wasted on me, Étienne.” When he kept his silence and refused to look at her she tried to rally him. “Do not sulk. You know what I say is the tr—”

“—the truth?” he repeated angrily. “Yes, it is the truth. I wish it was not so!”

“If you would convey me to Paris then I know I could make my own way to London. Your father will not find me in Paris, it is too big a city, and I have the money Grandfather gave me—”

“—to what?” The Vicomte threw up a hand in a gesture of hopelessness. “It is madness, Antonia. You, a pretty girl alone in Paris with not even a maid as chaperone? God grant me patience! You would not survive a day.”

“So you think? I am not afraid of a big city. Father and I lived in many strange cities and we enjoyed ourselves hugely.”

D’Ambert laughed. “Only an ignorant child would give me such an answer.”

“You are eighteen years old, does that not make
you
a child?” retorted Antonia.

He ignored the truth of this. “Have you been to Paris?”

“What does that signify?”

“Have you ever taken a diligence on your own?”

“No. But I am not so spiritless as to shy away from using public conveyances.”

“And once you took the diligence to Calais and by some miracle boarded a packet for Dover, what then? Assuming none of these journeys put you in the slightest danger—another miracle—what then? You have never visited England. I doubt you can speak the barbaric English tongue.”

“Wrong! I can,” Antonia announced proudly. The Vicomte’s sneer made her blush. “It is a very long time since I used the English tongue with Maman, but—but—I can
read
Grandfather’s English newssheets. And it is not as if I do not understand what is being said. That is the least little problem.”

“That is very true for no sooner set down in a Parisian street than one of a thousand scoundrels would abduct you. Before nightfall you would be clapped up in a brothel and your favors sold to the highest bidder by a fat bawd. Is that what you want?”

“No worse a fate than will befall me should I remain here.”

The Vicomte’s mouth dropped open at this statement, but there was nothing he could say in answer to it. He knew very well his father’s scheme and it sickened him. He blamed the Earl of Strathsay for all his present troubles. The old man should have left Antonia in Rome with a strict governess until his return. A convent better befitted girls of her breeding, where they were safe from lechers such as his father. But what convent school would take her when she stubbornly refused, in the face of her grandfather’s wrath, to embrace the one true faith?

He wished his hands would stop shaking. He felt hot and damp in his coat despite a bitter cold wind whistling through the archway. His manservant held a taper closer to cast light on his pockets whilst he rummaged for a snuffbox. Two pinches of the mixture and in a short while the shaking would cease and he would feel calmer, better able to think what to do next. But what could he do? What was he to do? Never mind Antonia was beautiful and young; there were many such girls at court. Why couldn’t his father find another diversion to occupy his time? But the Vicomte knew the answer. Antonia’s great beauty was equalled by a strong will and a naïve exuberance for life. And she was a virgin. A rare commodity in a place like Versailles. Strong attractions indeed for such a jaded roué as his father. And his was not the only jaundice eye that had been cast in Antonia’s direction, thought d’Ambert with a growing depression.

Antonia touched his arm. “So you will take me to Paris?”

“You know why I cannot. My father has threatened a
lettre de cachet
.”

“That I will not believe. He is your father, not your jailer. Why should he do such a thing? You are his only son. It is unbelievable.”

“Would I lie to you?” he demanded.

Antonia looked at him frankly, clear green eyes searching his damp face and shook her head. “No. You would not lie to me, Étienne. He is quite abominable to threaten such a thing. Would it mean the Bastille?”

“Or any other fortress so named in the warrant. The stinking subterranean dungeons of Castle Bicêtre, if it suited his purpose. There everything is complete darkness. A living death! And at the King’s pleasure. I could not endure it.”

“He would never send you there,” Antonia said with confidence, though the thought of such places of torture made her inwardly shudder.

“Salvan will stop at nothing until he has what he wants,” said the Vicomte discouragingly. “He wants you and he says I must marry you. Mayhap—”

Antonia blinked. “But I do not want to marry you at all.”

“You could do worse than marry into my family!” Étienne flared up.

Antonia chuckled. “Oh, do not look so offended. When you pull that face you remind me of the Archbishop of Paris.”

He blushed and smiled. “I am sorry. It is just—If it was not for my father’s schemes perhaps you would consider?”

“No,” she stated. “I do not love you, Étienne. I am sorry. When I marry it will be for love. My father and mother married for love and I will not settle for less.”

The Vicomte bowed mockingly. “M’sieur d’Ambert thanks mademoiselle for her frankness. Mademoiselle has a most novel approach to marriage. Perhaps it is my person which offends? I am not tall enough? Too young? Do you prefer brown eyes to blue? Or does mademoiselle look higher? My name and lineage are impeccable, but I will only inherit the title of Comte. Perhaps it is a tabouret you crave? Yes! It is a Duke you want! Eh?”

“Now you are being childish,” said Antonia without heat. “It is when you are like this I dislike you.” She went to walk off but he blocked her exit. “Let me pass, Étienne. It is late and Maria will scold me if I do not return before she goes to mass.”

“Childish, am I?” he demanded and caught at her arm under the cloak. “You, who go at the beg and call of a whore—”

“Maria is no such thing!”

“No? She is your grandfather’s mistress?”

“Yes...”

“Yes?”

“She loves him, Étienne.”

“You are a child. A whore is a whore. Maria Caspartti is a whore! A Venetian
whore
.”

“Let me go! You are hurting me!”

“Perhaps little Antonia has a particular nobleman in mind?” taunted the Vicomte with a sneering smile, twisting her arm. “Is that why she so easily dismisses me? Let me think who might take your fancy…”

“You do not even care for me,” said Antonia in exasperation. “Only three weeks ago you were ears over toes in love with Pauline Alexandre de Rohan. She is a very beautiful and accomplished girl and I know if you had pursued her your father could not have objected to such a match. She cared for you too—”