Taster; the Reconnaissance

 This one started out as a fanfiction on Heyer's 'The Masqueraders' to be the next generation but I reworked it.

 

Chapter 1

 

“Are you looking forward to coming out and appearing at a London Season, my love?” Lady Chistermere asked Antonia Foyle.

“No, not really, Aunt Agatha,” said Antonia. “Society is so very circumscribed, and I fear falling prey to some fortune hunter. Being an heiress with no male relative to my name is tremendously worrying.”

Lady Chistermere sighed.

“I fear that is so,” she said.  “But what can one do?”

“I was thinking,” said Antonia, “That if a male country cousin of mine were to go to town first, and meet with the young men who might be supposed to be seeking a wife, he would see them in their own milieu and be able to have a better idea of who was hanging out for a wealthy wife, and who was likely to be genuinely interested in me as a person.”

“My dear, such would be ideal, if only we had a country cousin,” said Lady Chistermere.

Antonia took a deep breath.

“I was thinking of dressing as a man and pretending to be my own cousin,” she said.

“My dear!” cried Lady Chistermere, shocked.

“And you, of all people cannot gripe at me, for did you not dress as a boy whilst your own father was involved with the Jacobite army before he managed to inherit a title and gave up a lost cause to accept German George?” said Antonia, tartly.

Lady Chistermere blushed under her white lead.

“My dear, I had no idea you knew,” she said.

“Why, Grandpapa was always ready to tell the stories,” Antonia said. “How you had a duel forced on you, and winged your man while he missed you entirely.”

“That was altogether too trusting of Papa,” said Lady Chistermere. “Why who knows who might have overheard!  It was not so long after ’45 when he was living with you, and telling you such stories; and what did he tell you about your Papa?” she asked in sudden consternation.

“That he spent two years as a smuggler to avoid German George’s men, and then became a highwayman for a while,” said Antonia. “I swear, ‘tis prodigious exciting as a tale for a moppet barely old enough for the schoolroom, but I have no intention of living quite so outrageous a life as you and Papa.  He would let me do it, I feel sure.”

“I fear you are probably right,” said Lady Chistermere.  “Dear me, since I married Chistermere, I put all that behind me.  But it is hard to deny my dear niece anything, especially when you were so cruelly robbed of a grandpapa, Papa and Mama in one fell swoop with that terrible influenza outbreak. But my love, who would teach you how to go on? And how would you manage with having to have a valet?”

“Why, dear aunt, I thought you would teach me. As for a valet, I wondered if you would like to resume the role.”

“Lud, my child!  I’ll teach you, but I’ll not resume my breeches. I am too fat these days, and ‘twould be a travesty.”

“Then what about Cicero?  You gave him manumission to be your footman when he grew up, and he and I were playmates after I came to you when I was orphaned, for as your page, he had as much licence as if he was your son.”

“Are you certain?”

“Why, ‘tis for appearances; he can help me with my neck-cloths and to put my coats on; he will not see me naked as a footman would do of a master who is a man.  I am capable enough, I think, to bathe and dress by myself on the whole.”

“He is devoted to you,” said Lady Chistermere. “I do wonder if I did him a disservice in having him  educated with you, and as extensively as any young gentleman.”

“The disservice you did him was in making him a footman, not buying him a commission, or sending him to sea as a captain’s servant to work his way up to officer, or ... or adopting him.”

“My dear! Think of the scandal if I adopted a black boy! Everyone would say I had had an affair with someone on Chistermere’s plantations!”

“More likely they would think he was Chistermere’s get,” said Antonia, dryly.

“Whichever, it would create a terrible stir!” said Lady Chistermere.

“You are too nice about such things these days,” said Antonia, severely. “Why, grandpapa said you wanted to free all Chistermere’s slaves when you first married him.”

“There is a difference between ideals and practicalities; and moreover there is a difference between a Christian desire to aid one’s fellow beings and in having a black son,” said Lady Chistermere.

“I found him a perfectly amiable playmate and companion,” said Antonia. “He was no different to any little boy, I wager, and better-natured than some.”

“I hope you will not permit him to be too familiar,” said Lady Chistermere

“He has to be familiar enough to be a true enough friend for me to carry off the imposture,” said Antonia.

“Oh, my dear girl, do be careful not to think of him as a friend; he is, after all, a servant,” said Lady Chistermere.

Antonia looked down and smiled dutifully. For all her youthful lack of convention, Lady Chistermere was as hedged about by convention as any other woman her age.  Antonia had played with Cicero without considering either his skin colour or that he was a slave, when they were both children. His friendship had gone further in assuaging her grief in losing her grandsire, father, mother, older sister and baby brother in one fell swoop than all the slightly suffocating embraces to her aunt’s rather stiflingly ample bosom.

“I do not need to worry what people will think, you know,” she said.  “After all, an heiress is never insane, merely eccentric.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so,” said Lady Chistermere.  “And you are my heiress too, as I did not have any offspring before Chistermere died, and Chistermere was only knighted for services to trade in any case, so no worries about titles.  My dear, will not people think this country cousin seeks to inherit your Papa’s title?”

“I can make it clear I have no interest in it,” said Antonia.  “Which I do not, and as there is no son to carry on the entail, the king can pass it to whomsoever he wishes. I have no desire to see Foyle Place ever again. It has too many sad memories for me.”

“Well, my love, I know you too well and I know that you will do exactly as you wish,” sighed Lady Chistermere.  “And I will go up to town claiming to have left you with a governess while I oversee refurbishing Chistermere’s town house.  Which is not unreasonable.  Then I will be there for you.  But you can break it to Cicero!”

“I am happy to do so; I have not seen him since I came back from school,” said Antonia. “I will ring and ask him to attend.”

“And I will let you explain, and withdraw,” said her aunt.

Antonia was not about to complain, for she would have felt constraint speaking to her old friend in her aunt’s presence.

 

 

 

“You rang, miss?” Cicero himself answered the bell. Antonia regarded him critically.  He was a youth perhaps two years her senior, and had grown tall and well-built, and of a complexion so dark that Antonia thought he looked as though he might have been hewn out of ebony.  She thought some scorn on her aunt’s protestations regarding scandal, for it was plain Cicero had not a drop of white blood in him.  He was dressed in the livery of her aunt’s house, scarlet and laced with gold, which looked very fine against his dark skin, but the powdered wig did not, thought Antonia, suit him.

“You were used to call me ‘Toni’ when we were little, Siz,” she said.

He regarded her with a bleak look.

“That was when I was twelve and you were ten, miss,” he said. “Before we understood how the world works, and before I realised that my lot was always to be a servant, and that I was not permitted to be a friend to a free white girl.”

“Well, I disagree with my aunt’s decision to make you a footman when she could have sent you to university, or into the navy or any number of things your education and intellect suited you for,” said Antonia, indignantly.  “Why have you stayed to be humiliated by being a footman?”

His eyes would not meet hers.

“I had no other place to go,” he said.

“Siz! Do not lie to me; I still count you my friend,” said Antonia. “I remember how you showed me the carp in the pool, and a squirrel’s dray, and all manner of things when I came here, alone, frightened, grieving.  You made life worth living again.”

“I am glad I was able to perform such service,” he said, his voice lifeless.

She stamped her foot.

“Is it that my aunt has told you that you may not enter into the easy camaraderie we used to enjoy?” she asked.

“I am given to understand that you would not welcome too much familiarity,” said Cicero, and there was a snap to his voice.

“Oh Siz! You are my friend! You always understood what nobody else did, and you were there for me.  My aunt ... she has betrayed all her principles.  I always thought she planned to adopt you, so you would be my cousin.”

“An English lady does not adopt a black child,” said Cicero.  “How could she have a child with a fanciful name like Cicero, and endure the mockery, especially if he ever wanted to be a barrister?”

“Do you?” asked Antonia.

“I don’t know; I have buried all ambition,” said Cicero. “Once, before I was brought to cold England to be a page, pampered and petted until no longer cute, like a kitten or a puppy which grows up and is relegated to the stables, I was named Will before then, and I made an effort to remember that.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

“I was afraid you would tell you aunt, who might punish me for wanting my own name back.”

“Well! You can call yourself anything you like, now; are you Will to the others?”

“No, they are used to me being called Cicero.”

“Have you taken a surname?”

“Yes; I call myself Will Cicero Libertus, because the Latin for freed man seemed appropriate.”

“Well! I was hoping that for friendship and for sport you would be ready to aid me,” said Antonia.

“I would do anything to aid you, any time, Miss ... Toni.”

“You’d better hear what I propose first; you may think it too madcap.”

“I have always gone along with your madcap schemes.”

He did not say, because it served no purpose to distress her unnecessarily, that he had been beaten for some of them.

“I am supposed to have a Season in London,” said Antonia.  “And I am afraid, because I am not knowledgeable about the world, that I will be bedazzled and taken in by some fortune hunter. I purpose to dress as a boy, pretending to be my own cousin, Anthony Foyle, and see what the young men on the town are really like.  And I will need a valet.”

“You are insane!  Your aunt will never permit it.”

“But she has agreed – and I want a dear friend to be my valet, and to help me to go on in town. But I do not want to coerce you to do so.”

He regarded her, his dark eyes fathomless.

“And when you have found out all you need, and have returned to being a woman; what then? Do I just return to being a footman, thank you, Will, forget your taste of freedom and friendship?”

“Of course not!  I would do my best to help you fulfil whatever ambition you have! I have a considerable allowance, and I could pay for you to go to university, or enter Chambers, or set up in business or whatever you want.”

“And if what I want is unobtainable?”

“You will have to compromise like everyone else does,” said Antonia.  “Like I am told I have to marry someone in order to produce an heir for my late father, which I don’t care about, the king can always award it to someone deserving if you ask me, but there are difficulties made over a woman administering her own money. But if I must marry, it must be to someone I like and respect.” 

“And that is hard to discover in the constrained atmosphere of social meetings,” said Will. “I understand.  I will help you to find your husband.  Will you tell him the truth?”

“If he cannot handle the truth, how could I respect him?” asked Antonia.

He smiled, carefully trained now not to show his brilliantly white teeth.

“Indeed,” he said.