Betina Krahn (25 page)

“It’s been a most educational day, Antonia,” he said, cradling her hand in his and using it to draw her closer. “And most enjoyable.” Then in forgivable violation of his new courtly manner, he bent his head and brushed a kiss lightly across her palm. And with an openly desirous glance at her tightly buttoned bodice, he strode out.

Antonia stared at the closed door, feeling as if every bone in her body had just melted.

This
, she thought helplessly,
this
was being seduced.

Dreading a repeat of what happened between them, Antonia absented herself from Paxton House the next day, leaving Remington to spend the day with Gertrude in the kitchen, implementing the menus he had planned the week before. She spent the day at Walther Place, the settlement
house for destitute widows that was operated by the Widows’ Assistance League, and arrived late for supper.

“How good that you could clear your busy schedule to join us,” Remington said with a caustic edge that caught her back for a moment. Strained silence ensued as she hurried to the table, saw the unused china, and realized they had waited for her. Lifting her chin, she allowed Hoskins to hold her chair, then gave him the nod to proceed with the serving. When she looked up, Remington was giving her a dark look indeed.

“Gertrude has had his lordship working hard all day to lay on this supper,” Hermione explained, catching Antonia’s eye with a mildly accusatory look.

“The lettuce will be wilted,” Remington said in a scathingly patrician tone. “And my peas will have turned to mush.”

Antonia chewed the inside of her lip to keep from smiling at the irony of the high-handed Remington Carr sounding for all the world like a neglected housewife. Collecting herself, she looked straight at him and smiled.

“Sorry I’m late. We had several new arrivals at Walther House and I lost track of time.” She allowed some of her humor to warm her expression. “But I’ve always liked wilted lettuce salad. And I’ve always been a bit suspicious of peas that are too … round.”

Early the next afternoon Remington found himself being tutored on the finer points of making and preserving marmalade and jam, a lesson in patience if there ever was one. And patience was one thing he was running precariously short of just then. He slogged his way through peeling and cleaning and squeezing, washing glass jars and straining pulp through colanders, all the while growing more and
more annoyed. He hadn’t seen Antonia alone since their encounter in the upstairs parlor nearly two days ago.

He was beginning to regret his decision to take the high road in dealing with her, expecting that his gallantry would lull her into another delicious indiscretion. Somewhere at the bottom of his strategy was the assumption that her own intensely sensual nature would help create the appropriate opportunity. He paused in the midst of chopping a mountain of orange peel and scowled at his recent memory.

Cocky bastard, he thought, expecting that her desire for him would prove so overwhelming that she would make it easy for him to seduce her again. In her actions and demeanor he could see no trace of the passionate and vulnerable creature who had taken such pleasure in his arms. When she had given him a cool, civil smile down the dinner table two hours earlier, it had taken every bit of his self-control to keep from snatching her out of her chair, throwing her down between the salt cellars and the sauce bernaise—and kissing her until she melted into a searing hot—

He came abruptly to his senses as Gertrude gave his arm a shake.

“I said ye’ve got a caller, yer lordship,” she repeated with a quizzical look.

“A caller?” He straightened, put his knife down, and began to wipe his hands. “Who could possibly be—”

His brow smoothed and his eyes narrowed. Would Hillary dare intrude on him again? Ripping off his apron, he donned his coat, and in a moment was bounding up the stairs with fire in his eyes.

He stopped dead in the middle of the hallway, staring at an ample woman wearing a flame-red dress and a hat with the dimensions of a beach umbrella. She was fidgeting with silk flowers on the shoulder of her dress until she caught sight of him from the corner of her eye.

“Remmy … darling!” She extended a fashionably gloved hand and floated toward him as if propelled along by something other than human limbs. “So
this
is where you’ve been keeping yourself!” She cast an appraising gaze around her at the understated elegance of the hallway. “I just had to see, darling. You’re in all the papers, you know. Such a naughty boy. Such outrages …”

“Carlotta?” he growled, reddening. “You?”

“But then you always were headstrong and full of surprises,” she carried on, ignoring the warning signs of his temper as she swayed voluptuously to his side and threaded her arm through his. “Tell me, Remmy dear … I’m dying to know …” She lowered her voice and winked seductively. “Does she make you wash out her unmentionables?” Halfway through her next cooing laugh, she choked. “Ohhh! Remmy, w-what’s gotten into you?”

He had grabbed her by the arm and was hauling her at breakneck speed toward the drawing-room doors, where he thrust her ahead of him into the empty salon and turned to slam the doors behind them. When he turned on her, she was adjusting her hat with a coquettish wriggle of her overblown curves.

“My, my. We are in a temper, aren’t we?” she crooned.

“What in bloody hell are you doing here, Carlotta?” he demanded, jamming his fists on his hips in a way that thrust his shoulders forward ominously.

“But I just said, Remmy.” She smiled up at him. “I simply couldn’t stay away. I’ve read every article they’ve written about you and your little
arrangement
.”

“Now that does surprise me,” he replied. “I didn’t know that reading was among your …
accomplishments
.”

“Oooh, we are testy,” she declared in a husky voice, swaying closer and giving his body a thoroughly insulting examination with her kohl-rimmed eyes. “All overheated
and sweaty. Goodness, doesn’t she know to give a thoroughbred a rubdown after a good hard ride?”

He seized her by the arm, his eyes narrowing to burning slits. “Enough, Carlotta. How dare you come here?”

“Well, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get to see my Remmy, would I?” she said with exaggerated petulance, pressing the arm that he held against her breast so that his hand was trapped against her pillowy softness. “Spank me purple if it hasn’t been more than a month since you came by. And you know how lonely I get.” She wriggled suggestively against his hand and sent him a through-the-lashes look.

Her daring eyes and hennaed hair, her avid, rouged lips and excessive cleavage, were caricatures of what had once been sexually mesmerizing attributes. In former days her exquisitely sensual face had commanded male passions, her scandalously ribald talk had titillated the most jaded of male sensibilities, and the sultry sway of her opulent curves had set proper society on its ear. She was a woman who loved carnal sport as much as men did, and who didn’t mind playing by their rules—hot and consensual sex, no holds barred, and no grudges or obligations. To a number of London’s elite she had been a ravishingly good ride, the carnal adventure of a lifetime.

But to Remington she was merely a ravishingly huge pain in the neck.

“I’m not your ‘Remmy’!” he ground out, ripping his hand from her and jolting back a step. Rising fury temporarily choked off his speech.

“Oh, but you are,” she said, scowling resentfully at him. “And in one way or another you always will be mine. You can’t escape it, Remmy dear. And it strips the drawers off my rosy bottom why you would even want to. I mean, it’s not as if you have a wife or a reputation at stake.” Beneath her playful and seductive manner the glint of determination
showed through. “You’ve already abandoned all that—”

“Don’t say another damned word,” he ordered. “How I live and who I see is my affair. I want you out of here”—he pointed toward the door—“now!”

“Well, now that you’ve brought it up,” she said, slipping back into her provocative teasing. “I want something, too.”

His countenance turned to granite and his hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Madame Pernaud’s bill was returned unpaid, and Galtier Brothers actually tried to reclaim those cases of Perrier-Jouet champagne I ordered.” She oozed coquettishness. “They said your offices refused payment, and I just knew it had to be a mistake. So I thought I’d come and have you straighten it all out for me, Remmy.”

“It is no mistake,” he declared tersely. “I sent back the bills myself. You get a stipend—a damned generous one, at that. Learn to live within it, Carlotta.” He seized her upper arm and propelled her toward the door. “If you cannot, then find some other poor wretch to badger and stick with your bills.” He halted with his hand on the door handle and glared at her wriggling, sputtering form. “From now on you will contact me only through my solicitors. Harass me again and I swear I’ll have you in the courts before you can say ‘Spank me purple’!”

“B-but Remmy … darling!” she cried with genuine alarm as he threw open the doors and escorted her forcefully toward the exit.

“Don’t you ‘darling’ me,” he shot back, refusing to watch her theatrical protests. Hurrying her down the steps and into a waiting cab, he bounded back up and through the door, then strode furiously back into the drawing room, where he slammed the doors shut behind him.

How dare she come here, importuning, demanding,
crassly bartering her “services” for a raise in benefits? He stood staring at the doors, panting for air, roiling with unspent anger. Then he strode to the window overlooking the street and heaved a sigh of relief that both the cab and the wheedling female in it were gone. Closing his eyes to regain his internal bearings, he leaned a shoulder against the window frame.

When he felt his sense of balance returning, he turned to go and was startled by the sight of Antonia coming toward him from the far side of the room. Her eyes were dark and the train of her skirt brushed the floor, back and forth, like an angry cat’s tail.

“W-what are you doing here?” he said, looking at the door and realizing with a sinking feeling that he hadn’t heard it open or close. A glance at the corner behind her revealed a sewing basket and a number of pieces of stitchery spread over a table. Good God—had she been there the whole time?

“May I remind you that this is
my
house,” she said with strained calm as she wrapped her fingers around the back of a parlor chair. “You might think of that the next time one of your ‘lightskirts’ charges in to
negotiate
for better terms.”

It was a credit to Antonia’s upbringing that she managed to appear cool and controlled, for inside she was in turmoil. She had been finishing some needlework for stretching when they burst into the room, and unable to leave, she had been forced to witness the entire scene. The sight of the woman hanging on Remington, the demands she made, and the contemptuous way he treated her—everything about the ugly encounter had stunned Antonia. Loss, hurt, and anger had mounted in her as she watched Remington’s disregard for women being focused and trained on a woman whose claim on him was appallingly obvious.

In recent days, under the benign influence of her ladies,
he had seemed to be softening his harsh attitudes toward women. And her attitude toward him had warmed and gentled in response. She had begun to see him as a person, to see positive aspects in his nature, to glimpse the warmth that lay in his well-guarded heart. Now she felt betrayed by both his deceptive charm and her own vulnerable response to him. Underneath, despite his moments of need and tenderness, he was a treacherous and self-seeking
bachelor
after all. The thought was somehow devastating to her.

“I had no control over her coming here, Antonia,” he said in ragged tones.

“Obviously,” she said with more heat than she had intended. In spite of her determination to remain cool and ladylike, each word thereafter grew more impassioned. “But then, perhaps you would have more control if you paid either a better wage or better attention to your ‘lights of love.’ You do surprise me, your lordship; I wouldn’t have taken you for a stingy man”—she swallowed hard against the humiliating tightening in her throat—“or a cruel one.”

“Dammit, Antonia,” he said, stalking toward her, his eyes hot with frustration.

She had no idea what he intended; she only knew that she couldn’t bear the thought of his touching her, not after seeing his callousness and disdain for women in its fullness—not after seeing him with his mistress. As she veered around him and started for the door, the thought bloomed in her head:
another of his mistresses
. This was the
second
such visit he’d had from a member of the disreputable demimonde. And who knew how many more were yet to come? Good Lord—he might have an entire harem of cast-off paramours languishing around the city!

He lunged, snagged her by the arm, and hauled her back toward him.

“Take your hands off me.” She dug in her heels and just managed to keep from being pulled hard against him.
“How dare you treat me like one of your …
women
!” The words halted him momentarily.

“One of my—”

“I won’t be manhandled the way you did that poor wretched creature.”

“That ‘poor wretched creature’ doesn’t object to being
manhandled
in the least,” he retorted, refusing to release her. “In fact she’s been
handled
quite thoroughly by virtually every
man
in London.” When she slowed her struggles to spear him a contemptuous glare, he absorbed that visual thrust in his gaze.
“Except me.”

Several heartbeats passed as his dark eyes and heated declaration penetrated the volatile haze in her senses. He hadn’t bedded the woman? A flash of longing that it was true streaked through her, replaced quickly by a more worldly bit of disdain for so obvious a lie. And she traded him lie for lie.

“It doesn’t matter to me whom you
handle
, your lordship. As long as you keep it out of my sight and out of my house. Now, if you would be so good as to release me.”