Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

“ T he entire matter was a misunderstanding caused by that drunken scoundrel Lord Oakley,” said Madeline defensively. “There is no reason to believe there was any impropriety of the kind Lord Oakley is threatening to sue for. If you truly witnessed the scene as you say, you should know that.”

“Oakley plans to sue the Duke?” gasped Lady Martin in horror at this news. “But he couldn’t, surely. What of Lady Juliette’s reputation? Her future? He told us that this was his only concern.”

“What indeed?” snorted Madeline, more concerned now for her own future, Charles’s future, and Cecilia’s. “It is unfortunate that you and Lady Bentham felt obliged to report a poorly judged but innocent scene to Lord Oakley in terms that he now plans to weaponize against us.”

“My dear Duchess, no!” Lady Martin protested, putting her hand to her heart in reaction to this accusation. “We did no such thing. It was only when Lord Oakley asked us directly what we had witnessed that we were obliged to tell him something. I thought he would use our intelligence only to better guard his daughter’s reputation. I had no idea it would lead to such a calamity as this.”

“He asked you directly what you had seen? But how could Lord Oakley know you had seen anything at all?” demanded Madeline with a frown, sensing that this story was even more complex than it first seemed. “He was drunk and disorderly in the corridor near the ladies’ retiring room at that hour.”

“He certainly was drunk, yes,” Lady Martin agreed. “That’s likely what led to the whole confusion in the first place. You see, a little earlier that night, he had told Lady Bentham that I wished to talk privately with her outside at that hour. He told Lady Bentham the same thing about me with the very same location. It was most odd.”

“So, you both met outside the yellow drawing room thinking that the other had summoned you on a private matter when in fact, it had all been orchestrated by Lord Oakley?”

“Yes, exactly, Your Grace. We even thought it might be a practical joke by our fellow guest although not a very amusing one. There was a cigar butt on the ground outside the French window when we arrived and a strong smell of fresh cigar smoke. We thought he might have waited there to laugh at our expense but then thought better of it.”

“Charles was summoned to the spot with a similar pretext but to meet Lord Oakley himself,” Madeline said thoughtfully. “But everyone knows where Lord Oakley was at that time of night. He can’t have been outside at that time too.”

Lady Martin tutted disapprovingly.

“Indeed. Disgraceful behavior! It is drink that is at the root of all this, isn’t it? What a shame that Lord Oakley’s own drunkenness has led to such a terrible situation. He was too inebriated to know what he was doing, and I suppose he now feels bound to go to law to expiate his own sense of guilt. Men!”

Madeline raised her eyebrows in disbelief at such naive ideas in a woman older than her own mother. It seemed more likely to her that Oakley’s drunkenness had been a device in the service of his scheming rather than the other way around. In her view, everything that had happened on the night of the ball had been by design, not accident.

“Whatever role inebriation may or may not have played, the question now is what can be done,” said Madeline bluntly. “I have only just learned of Lord Oakley’s plans from his daughter and must consult my husband. But tell me, would you lend your support to such a legal case? It seems to rest on the testimony of yourself and Lady Bentham.”

Lady Martin shrugged helplessly in the face of such direct questioning.

“If summonsed by the court, I might have little choice, Duchess Madeline. But wouldn’t it be better for all of us if this matter never reached the courts at all? I do feel that any positive resolution now rests on your shoulders as does Lady Bentham.”

“My shoulders?” queried Madeline, not understanding whatever Lady Martin was now trying to delicately imply.

“Yes, as the Duke’s wife and the feminine guardian of the virtue of young ladies at Huntingdon Manor, your best chance might be to throw yourself on the mercy of Lord Oakley.”

Madeline was speechless.

“It is not unnatural for a man to be led a little astray by a pretty face and a sweet nature like Lady Juliette’s. Assure Lord Oakley that the Duke’s attentions to his daughter were sentimental only and that you are perfectly capable of reining in His Grace’s appetite for beautiful young women. A woman’s persuasion and tact might work better on Lord Oakley than a man’s temper.”

“Lady Martin,” Madeline broke in, raising a hand to stall this unwanted advice, “you cannot know what you are saying.”

“Ah, you are still quite newly married if not so young as some brides,” nodded Lady Martin with imagined sagacity. “This must be the first time your husband’s eye has wandered. I’m afraid it won’t be the last. Even the most attractive women cannot hold their husband’s attention forever, you know, and the rest of us…”

Shaking her head, she regarded Madeline with unnerving pity and then resumed with a further sigh.

“For everyone’s sake, give my advice some thought, Duchess Madeline.”

Unable to tell her guest that the thought of prostrating herself before Lord Oakley made her feel physically sick, Madeline stood and made a brief, silent curtsey of farewell before marching back towards the house.

As she further considered Lady Martin’s words, her heart was sickened as much as her stomach. Was this how everyone else saw this marriage? A matter of fact and unemotional arrangement from which the handsome and strong-willed Duke of Huntingdon was bound to stray repeatedly, due to his wife’s plainness and unfeminine ways…

Or might it even be an accurate description of their marriage? For the second time, Madeline found her emotions swinging from security in Charles’s feelings for her to absolute self-doubt.

Maybe their marriage had been a horrible mistake for both of them. When he tired of the novelty of bedding her, Charles would grow bored and resentful, wishing he had never made such a cold-blooded deal with a practically minded woman. Society would pity both of them and whisper about their marriage in corners at balls and gatherings.

The emotions raked up by such thoughts were so powerful that Madeline felt buffeted as if by waves, lost in a dark sea with no sight of land. Instinctively she made for the kitchen garden entrance to the house via the servants’ quarters, hoping to reach her room via the back stairs, and take at least a few minutes in her rooms alone to recover her composure before tea.

“Madeline! Where are you going? Is something wrong?”

A pair of hands steadied her shoulders, and Madeline realized that in her blind rush, she had almost run into her sister.

“Oh Letitia!” she exclaimed, glad for the appearance of a friendly face and also that no one else seemed to be in this part of the garden. “Something awful has happened.”

“Is someone hurt? Or ill? Should we send for the physician or the local constables?”

“No! Nothing like that. But it may be worse. I cannot talk here. Come walk in the trees over there with me. I feel my head will explode if I can’t tell someone…”

Letitia gave a resolute nod and took her older sister’s arm.

“I will not hear this!” Letitia stated volubly and then stopped as Madeline held up a hand to her lips reminding her sister of the need for discretion.

“But what if Lady Martin is right? I cannot do what she recommends, but what if she is right about Charles and me? What if this is the true shape of our lives together? What if I should never have come here? If we had remained separated, I would not be in this position.”

“Madeline, you must not say such things to yourself. Listen to me. I understand human nature far better than old Lady Martin. You are the only woman Duke Charles has eyes for. The rest of us, his sister excepted, might walk off a cliff, and I doubt he would care or even notice. That includes Lady Juliette Barton and every other pretty little newcomer to the ton.”

“How can you be so sure of that? It is true that she is prettier than I am, just as you are, and my maid, Gabrielle, and a dozen other young women of our acquaintance. You cannot tell me I am wrong.”

“It is not only blonde hair, blue eyes, and small stature that makes a woman attractive, Madeline,” Letitia pointed out kindly. “Why compare yourself only to women of this physical type? Your husband appears to have far greater interest in a tall, strong woman with a good figure and healthy complexion. Honestly, Madeline, do you feel any such doubts when you are in his bed?”

“No. He is most attentive. Last night was…”

Madeline blushed fiercely, unsharable memories of their latest bouts of passion rushing back to her. Letitia had given good advice yesterday evening, and Charles had certainly responded positively to her advances. But all too soon, the ecstasy of their embrace had faded, and Madeline’s faith and understanding cracked once more under the bullets of reality.

“Last night, I really believed that he might…love me,” Madeline admitted and almost sobbed on speaking the words. “Now, I feel only foolish.”

“Nothing has changed between then and now, Madeline. Not for your marriage. So, do not make hasty decisions or fight with Charles over this. Work together, and don’t forget who the real enemy is. I certainly shall not and shall snub every one of the Bartons until they leave.”

“But what if everyone else thinks like Lady Martin and Lady Bentham? What if everyone else believes this is my fault, my responsibility? What can I do? I surely cannot stay here and pretend all is well.”

“Hold your head up, Madeline, and fight your corner. You’re good at that. Remember, I’ve never seen you lose a fight, much less run away from one.”

“I hope you’re right, Letitia. I think if I really believed Charles loved me, I could fight for him, fight for both of us. But what if he doesn’t? Maybe I should just go with you when you leave.”

Letitia put her arms around Madeline while the latter wiped tears from her eyes and rested her head briefly on her sister’s shoulder. More often, this little tableau of one sister comforting the other would be the other way round, but today, Madeline appreciated her sister’s sympathy.

“All will be well. You will see, I am sure,” Letitia told her reassuringly. “There is no need to go anywhere, Duchess Madeline.”

From the house, they heard the faint ringing of the gong for teatime. Madeline suddenly realized that her appearance might give rise to further talk.

“My face, my hair — are they all over the place?”

“A little. Go upstairs and repair yourself,” said Letitia, kissing her cheek. “Benedict and I will see to everything for tea. Come down when you are ready.”

Gabrielle was working in the dressing room when Madeline returned, emerging with a pale yellow bodice in one hand and a needle in the other.

“Duchess Madeline, there is fresh water at the stand,” she said, quickly putting down her sewing. “Shall I re-pin your hair?”

She seemed unsurprised by Madeline’s state although there was compassion on her face.

“Yes, please, Gabrielle. I hope my dress is not too disordered.”

“No, you look fine, Duchess. Five minutes, and I will have you restored to the appearance of the perfect hostess.”

As Madeline splashed the refreshing cold water on her skin, Gabrielle busied herself readying brushes, combs, and pins at the dressing table.

“I see that Lord Oakley’s carriage is being prepared for departure,” the Frenchwoman commented. “Duke Charles will no longer have him in the house, it seems.”

“Charles has arranged his departure already?” Madeline asked, this news coming as a surprise to her. “I have not had time to speak to him since breakfast. When did this happen?”

“ Oui. After luncheon, Your Grace, when you were resting upstairs. There has been no formal announcement, but Annie and several others heard an argument in the study. Glasses were smashing, and the door is broken. Monsieur le Duc called Lord Oakley a blackmailer. He set Mr. Lonsley to pack up the Barton family immediately.”

“Good God!”

Madeline turned to face her maid. She had hoped to speak to Charles before any such confrontation.

“Was anyone hurt?”

“I believe not. Only the brandy glasses.”

“Oakley means now to sue Duke Charles for damages because he was alone with Lady Juliette after the ball,” Madeline revealed to her maid. “It is blackmail of a kind. The encounter was brief and innocent, of course.”

“Of course, it was innocent,” sniffed Gabrielle, scornful of the idea that it could be otherwise and evidently angry on behalf of her mistress. “Your husband wants only you, Duchess Madeline. I have always told you this, and it is good that you went to his bed last night. He needs you. Lord Oakley is only a dog who judges other men by his own vicious standards.”

Between brushing and pinning sections of Madeline’s long, chestnut hair, Gabrielle produced a letter from her skirt pocket and placed it on the table before the Duchess.

“Read this, if you will, Duchess Madeline, and you will learn exactly what kind of man this Lord Oakley is. I hope you can be discreet with the name of my poor aunt, but our family is so far from society now, I think it can hardly matter.”

Curiously, Madeline opened the letter and read. In French and evidently from Gabrielle’s mother, its first page was only an outpouring of affection, family news, and hopes to meet again soon. Then, on the second page, matters took a different turn, and Madeline translated out loud in English to herself as she read the first line.

You asked me for the story of what happened to your aunt, my younger sister, Marguerite, at the hands of that vile fiend, Lord Oakley. I give it to you now in full although it pains me to write these words even after so long. I trust you will find a discreet way to make sure no other young woman must suffer as my sister did.

Raising her eyes in the mirror, Madeline met Gabrielle’s steady blue gaze and nodded before returning to the paper.

It seemed that Lord Oakley had visited Paris on business several times before the Revolution, welcomed into numerous noble families via letters of introduction. One of these families had been the Rohans, in which Gabrielle’s mother was the eldest daughter. Another was the D’Orsays, her father’s family.

“Your father is the Viscomte D’Orsay?” Madeline queried, astounded by this revelation. “Your mother’s father was the Marquis de Vogues?!”

Gabrielle only shrugged, entirely indifferent to her aristocratic origins.

“Perhaps that was briefly my father’s title, after Madame Guillotine removed my grandfather’s head and that of his oldest son, but my parents were off French soil within that month, and such titles mean nothing in France and even less in England now. By the time I was born, they were only Mr. and Mrs. D’Orsay. My father is a cloth merchant.”

Returning to the letter, Madeline continued reading the story it contained.

Lord Oakley was reportedly high-spirited as a younger man and was quickly adopted by the fast set of young noblemen in Paris, included in hunting parties, sponsored at clubs, and introduced into family gatherings. While all his companions drank, gambled, and visited high-class brothels to the same degree, the Frenchmen respected the line between such pursuits and domestic life. Oakley did not.

“He made a terrible bet,” Madeline translated aloud again. “A bet on the honor of a young woman of good family…”

“My aunt Marguerite,” said Gabrielle, matter of factly. “She was eighteen years old and only just out in society.”

“He bet his friends 500 livres that he would have her maidenhead…”

Their eyes met again at this shocking revelation.

“His friends said later that they thought it was only bravado and the drink talking and did not take him seriously. He was always a gambler and always in debt, despite his income. My aunt was a beauty, and many men wanted to marry her, but what Lord Oakley proposed was incredible.”

“I am appalled. They should have warned your family of this blackguard… Your poor aunt!”

Madeline had not thought it possible to like Lord Oakley any less than she did already, but her esteem continued to fall in tandem with the tale unfurling on these pages.

Now, Gabrielle was smoothing and tidying the bodice of Madeline’s dress, perhaps hiding the depth of her own anger at Lord Oakley for the injury done to her relative so long ago.

According to the letter, he had accosted young Marguerite in a garden one evening at the end of a major ball, having deployed a cunning ruse to separate her from her chaperone. Violating the girl before she knew what was happening, he had left her pregnant with his child. Then, in demanding payment of his bet from his friends, he had spread her name shamefully across Paris.

“A marriage might still have been patched up, but Oakley demanded an outrageous dowry, and Aunt Marguerite refused outright, even threatening to kill herself. Instead, my grandfather sent her to a convent in the countryside. I suppose she would have stayed there forever if the Revolution had not come. My parents took her with them when they fled. Oakley’s child died at birth, perhaps a mercy.”

“But did no one challenge him?” Madeline demanded with anger in her eyes for the young woman so badly used by Lord Oakley. “Surely her father and brothers might have seen justice done, one way or another? Why did no one defend her?”

“Lord Oakley claimed that Marguerite seduced him, and her parents chose to believe that. Only her sister — my mother — spoke for her. Since my mother was only married to a second son at the time, no one was interested. It was easier to toss the girl away and forget her. I have heard nothing good of my grandparents.”

“What a terrible story…I may tell Charles, I take it? There would be no one suing us from the Rohan or D’Orsay families if we had to cite any of this in court?”

Gabrielle nodded and gestured for her to keep the letter.

“I trust your discretion. Anyway, they are all dead except for my parents and Aunt Marguerite, who keeps a hotel now in Dover with her English husband. Madame Guillotine sometimes swings true.”

“To think, Charles invited this man into our home…”

Our home? Was Huntingdon Manor really that? Madeline ached at the thought that this might only have been a dream.

“I am only sorry I could not tell you sooner and save you these new troubles, Duchess Madeline. I thought I recognized Lord Oakley’s name from my parents’ stories of old Paris, but you have been so busy with your house party, and there was little I could be certain of before my mother wrote.”

“Do not reproach yourself, Gabrielle. You rescued Cecilia. Knowing what you did about him, you were very brave.”

“I was not raised to be an innocent young lady like my aunt Marguerite or Lady Cecilia. My mother took care to warn me of such men and show me the value of a high heeled shoe or a sharp hair pin.”

“Your mother was a wise woman, and I applaud her. But I am still sorry that you were put in that position. Whatever happens, I will feel easier when that man has left this house.”

“Your husband said he would throw the Bartons off the estate himself if he saw them here tomorrow.”

“Then I hope they have the sense to heed him.”

“And if they refuse to go?”

Madeline shuddered, imagining the scene and the subsequent uproar, guests perhaps even taking different sides…

“I shall speak to Lonsley before dinner and ensure their packing is on course.”