Betina Krahn (64 page)

“Your honors!” the prosecutor was bellowing, “this is an outrage! They’ve made a mockery of the court and the legal process! The Crown requests an immediate ruling and a conviction!”

“Your honors!” Kingston Gray matched his volume in a powerful, booming bass voice. “We ask the tribunal to understand the special circumstances of this case … to right the injustice already done to the defendant, and to set aside the charges and exonerate Lord Carr of all wrongdoing!”

Remington and Antonia looked up to find three hoteyed magistrates glaring down at them. “Order!” the chief justice roared, banging furiously, then pointing at the pair of lovers with a gavel that was trembling. “You—both of you—stay right there! Bailiff—see that no one so much as moves a foot!”

The justices withdrew to the rear of the bench and could be seen arguing heatedly for several minutes. Antonia looked up at Remington with a worried expression and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry. I just had to hold you.” He smiled and lowered his head to her ear.

“I love you, Toni, and you love me. What else matters?”

She slipped both arms around him, heedless of the glares and gasps around them. “I do love you, Remington Carr. With all my heart. And I’m going to marry you.”

“Even though I’m not the last bachelor on the face of the earth?”

She laughed and let her face fill with the love rising from her heart. “You’re my last bachelor … that’s quite good enough.”

Minutes later the justices returned to their places, looking stern and forbidding as they banged for order. Attention quickly focused on the bench, and on the justices’ obvious displeasure. Remington released Antonia and together they faced the bench, with Gray beside them.

“We have reached a unanimous decision, and rather than delay and waste more of this court’s valuable time, we will deliver the ruling and pass sentence now.” He looked down his nose and down the bench to the glowing pair of lovers. “In the first charge the evidence is ponderous and convincing. It is the finding of this court that the defendant is
guilty
of advocating and promulgating ideas injurious to both the common moral will and the common good, to wit: views and opinions denigrating the holy and majestic institution of marriage.”

Guilty
. The verdict staggered Antonia. She looked up at Remington and found his face set with equal parts of determination and dread. She slipped her hand in his and tried to ignore the clamor of outrage coming from the gallery.

“Order!” He hammered for silence again and got a lowering of the roar from the back instead. “And in the matter of the second charge, the Crown’s evidence is found woefully insufficient. The defendant is found not guilty.”

Remington looked at Antonia with a bit of relief, then squeezed her hand.

“Now as to the sentence. A prison term is generally called for.…”

Antonia’s stomach sank.

“However, seeing that there were special circumstances
in this case … and that the miscreant has already been
more than rehabilitated, we have decided upon a more fitting sentence. Remington Carr, Earl of Landon, this court sentences you to life—in marriage with one Mrs. Antonia Paxton. The sentence to begin this very day, in this courtroom.”
And he bent down over the bench toward them with a bit of fire in his eyes. “And may God have mercy on your souls.”

Remington broke into a stunned grin. “I believe, Your Honor, He already has.”

In seconds they were being hugged and embraced by Paddington and Hermione, who fought their way through the bailiffs to stand up with them. The justice sent for the rector of the church down the street and gave them a few moments to prepare. Antonia’s ladies were permitted down on the floor of the court with them, and among them they managed to find something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. Some romantic soul outside located a flower vendor down the street and sent a nosegay of flowers through the crowd and up the court to Antonia.

By the time they were ready, the rector arrived, the special license was issued, and in a few short minutes they were indeed married. For better or worse. For richer or poorer. In sickness and in health. For the rest of their lives.

There was hardly a dry eye in the courtroom when he took her gently in his arms and kissed her.

Shortly, they were barraged with handshakes, hugs, and congratulations. Among those who came down to wish them well was Sir Henry Peckenpaugh and his wife, Rosamund Garvey Peckenpaugh, the sixth and last of Antonia’s Bentick brides. She hugged Antonia and answered Antonia’s question of how she was getting on with a beaming smile. “Henry and I are … expecting,” she whispered. “And, Lady Toni, it’s made us do a lot of thinking and talking. It’s getting better every day.” Antonia laughed, feeling her spirits rise at the realization that perhaps some of her protégées had found happiness. It seemed the perfect thing to set her own happiness in her new marriage.

Together they fought their way through the crowd to the church down the street to register their vows, then managed to find a cab and escape to Remington’s house for a while. Antonia’s ladies, the Bentick couples, and Hermione and Paddington went with them. And with Gertrude’s help Remington’s overwhelmed cook managed to put on a simple but tasty wedding dinner. Toasts were drunk, music was made, and Remington’s mansion was duly explored and admired by the ladies of Paxton House. But when it came time for the guests to leave for their respective homes, the host and hostess were missing.

Paddington roused himself to go look for them, but Hermione pulled him back down on the settee. “Don’t bother, Paddington dear. I’m sure they’re somewhere perfectly safe … learning to play footsie.”

The sun was high in the sky the next morning when Antonia awakened in her grand new bed … to the feel of something sliding sinuously over her naked hip. It felt wonderful, and she knew without opening her eyes who was responsible. After a few delicious moments she opened them and found Remington tantalizing her skin with a lock of her own hair. She turned from her side onto her back, smiling up at him.

He was wearing the most indecent smile—something between saturated with pleasure and ravenously aroused. “Wake up, Countess. I have a present for you.” He took her left hand and placed on her ring finger an exquisite cut diamond set in an intricate bed of gold and polished rubies. “It was my mother’s ring … and my grandmother’s. It has been worn by several generations of Landon countesses. I didn’t expect ever to give it to anyone.”

“It’s breathtaking,” she said softly, her eyes shining as
she turned her hand to admire it. Then she glanced flirtatiously at him from beneath lowered lashes. “If I’d known there were so many benefits to being your countess, I might have said yes to you earlier.”

“It would have saved me a bit of grief, sweetheart. You know, of course, that the queen—” But he halted. Maybe he’d save the news of the queen’s marriage ultimatum for another time. He quickly substituted: “… may never receive us at court.”

“I’ll try to bear up under the disappointment.” She laughed wickedly and turned toward him, rubbing the side of his bare leg with her foot, luxuriating in the sensual feeling it roused between them. “I just hope we won’t be totally shunned.”

“I suspect we’ll live it all down … in thirty or forty years,” he said, nuzzling her shoulders and drifting up her throat toward her mouth. She frowned and bit her lip and he looked up to see the beginnings of real worry in her face.

“Constance Ellingson will probably be the only one who will invite us.…”

Remington groaned as if in pain. “That settles it—I won’t be stuck with Lady Constance and her interminable soirees. As soon as it’s decently possible—in two or three months, when the season is well under way—we’ll throw a huge, lavish ball to celebrate our marriage. And their curiosity about the beautiful and sensuous Countess of Landon and the ravening, depraved beast she rescued by marriage will overcome their proper and prudish impulses. They’ll come. And they’ll see how you’ve tamed and changed me. And we’ll be positively in demand.” He grinned down into her glistening eyes. “Sound better?”

“Ummm. Much.” She slid her hands over his chest, admiring her ring, then transferring that admiration to the
smoothly muscled skin beneath it. She kissed his chest lightly, then with soft, lingering strokes of her tongue.

He rolled onto his back, pulling her atop him, and as his hands slid over her bare back and buttocks, he murmured hotly, “Come here, Countess, and let me thank you once again for making a married man of me.”

Epilogue
D  E  C  E  M  B  E  R        1  8  8  3

Landon House was richly decorated for the Christmas season, resplendent with fragrant pine boughs and crimson velvet ribbons, and warmed by the light and the scent of beeswax candles. A quiet evening’s entertainment was under way in the great drawing room, while Phipps and his staff laid out a simple buffet in the dining room.

Antonia sat in her favorite crimson tea gown—the one that still covered her greatly expanded stomach—listening to Victoria Bentley’s strong, clear voice leading the others in Christmas carols. In recent months she had cut back on her entertaining a great deal—her sole concession to impending motherhood. She glanced around the room and felt her heart swell at the sight of her Paxton House ladies sitting like aged cherubs among their other guests. She had insisted they continue on at Paxton House in her absence, though in truth they were at her house in Hyde Park nearly as much as they were at home.

There had been a number of changes since her marriage a year and a half before. Cleo had finally joined her beloved Fox Royal, after another severe stroke the previous winter. Old Hoskins had decided to retire, on generous pension, only to become the caretaker in a monastery. The ladies of Paxton House had taken in three more widows, and now Eleanor and Pollyanna oversaw the day-to-day
running of the house. Paddington and Hermione had decided to travel and spent the better part of the last winter on the Mediterranean. This year they were waiting until after Christmas and the imminent birth of Antonia’s baby before making the journey to their rented villa in the south of France.

Remington slipped into the room, spotted Antonia, and tiptoed to the back of the group to join her on the settee. He put an arm around her and pulled her close, giving her a lingering kiss. His lips were that odd combination of outer cold and inner heat that spoke of his long ride home in an ill-heated carriage. He had spent the day visiting his Sutton Mills project and whispered an apology for the delay.

“That narrow bridge … traffic was terrible,” he whispered, taking advantage of the fact that the others hadn’t seen him yet to nuzzle her ear.

“Ummm. I shall have to speak to my local MP about the disgraceful condition of this nation’s roads,” she said with a hum of contentment. Then she glanced at Albert Everstone, who was downing yet another glass of champagne. “Later, however. How were the mills faring?”

“Your investment is doing splendidly. With the new machinery they’ll double production easily.” His eyes glowed as he toyed with a strand of hair from the nape of her neck. “Clever woman, deciding to strike a deal with that handsome fellow from Carr Enterprises and loan him the money to clinch the deal.”

“Clever man, agreeing with your wife’s insistence that she keep her property in her own name and handle her own investments. She’s made you money, you know.”

He chuckled and glanced around before claiming her lips with a good bit more than fiduciary interest. “She’s made me more than money,” he whispered, staring into her eyes. “She’s made me happy.”

And that happiness had been responsible for Remington’s wholehearted support of the Married Women’s Property Act, passed a year ago. He was still working to provide support for women’s suffrage and emancipation, though with an entirely different motive from before.

She caught sight of Phipps standing in the doorway, scouring the room for her, and waved silently to him. Remington sat straighter and released all but her hand as the butler hurried over with a look of dismay.

“I’m so sorry, my lord.” He wrung his hands. “But there is someone here to see you. I’ve told her you are busy, but she is most insistent.”

Remington’s eyes narrowed at the word “her.” “Who is it, Phipps?”

The butler winced. “Miss Hillary Fenton, sir.”

“Damn.” Remington set his jaw and made to rise, but Antonia grabbed his sleeve and held him back.

“Remmy dear,” she said in a falsetto voice. “I’ll handle it.”

Soon she was floating through the center hall toward the morning room. Shortly, Hillary arrived—in a state, as usual. One glimpse of Antonia and she halted just inside the room. “It’s you. I specifically asked to see Remington.” She huffed irritably and put away the handkerchief she had ready.

“Good to see you, too, Hillary. What is it this time?” Antonia said with a tart smile that was more warning than pleasantry.

“It’s the Christmas money. The settlement-house roof developed a major leak, and we had to use the Christmas money to fix it.” Since Remington’s marriage Hillary had been converted to the cause of downtrodden women and had thrown herself body and soul into the redeeming work of helping the poor, unfortunate women who had fallen prey to the appetites of men. She was a member of the
board of the Magdalen Society. “Our funds are so short we can barely provide food, much less a decent Christmas dinner. And some of the women have children. Oh …” Out came the handkerchief after all, and she dabbed at her eyes. “It breaks my heart to see the little ones going without.”

Her sidelong look—half-accusing, half-imploring—had been perfected through long years of employing feminine wiles to get what she wanted from men. This time it fell to Antonia’s middle. Antonia was going to be a mother, it said. How could she bear to think of any child in need?

Antonia stood there, feeling protectively and motherly and embarrassingly blessed by happiness and good fortune—which was exactly what Hillary had intended. She usually drew a hard line with Hillary and Carlotta and their theatrics and demands, and Remington was content to let her handle them, woman to woman. But it was Christmas. And the thought of any child in need was difficult to bear.

“How much?” Antonia said, planting her hands on what was left of her waist.

Hillary brightened instantly. “Five hundred should do.”

“Five hundred?” Antonia gasped. “That’s enough to buy a dozen children clothes and food for a year.”

“Yes, it is,” Hillary said with a look that, for the first time in Antonia’s memory, held a genuine bit of warmth and concern. “And I’ll see that it does.”

Antonia sent Phipps for her bank book and wrote out a draft.

“Thank you, Antonia,” Hillary said warmly, before retreating behind her inner walls again. “Well, I must be off and leave you to your precious party.”

As the sound of Phipps letting Hillary out the door drifted back down the hall, Remington stepped into the room.

“That a girl … be tough with them. Let them know
they can’t wheedle and manipulate and push you around,” he said, quoting her. As she glowered at him, he chuckled and came to take her into his arms and kiss the scowl from her face.

“She caught me in a weak spot … children and Christmas,” she said a bit sheepishly. She raised her mouth to his and sighed as he kissed her lavishly. “If she shows up next year on December twentieth, I’ll let you handle her.”

He grinned and escorted her back toward the drawing room, feeling a bit mischievous. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” he teased. “Hillary is a nice name for a little girl.…”

Antonia stopped in the center hall and grabbed him by both sleeves, scorching him with the fire in her eyes. “
Not Hillary
!” she demanded, with such force that he burst out laughing.

“Well, we’d better think of a name soon. She’ll be here before we know it.”

“I already have a name.” She released one sleeve and touched her mounded stomach. “I’ve been meaning to bring it up. It’s not very fashionable, but it has wonderful associations for me … and I think for you, too.”

“Oh?” He drew her into his arms again. “And what name is that?”

“Cleo,” she said, then bit her lip, watching his reaction. The sudden luminosity to his eyes made her catch her breath. And for a brief moment they felt a curious, glowing warmth waft through their senses and wrap around their shoulders. Memories, the past, dragged across the strings of their joined hearts.

“Cleo it is, sweetheart,” he said softly.

And he kissed her.