Betina Krahn (9 page)

“The most strenuous things they have to do are stir their morning chocolate”—he whirled a finger daintily around in an imaginary cup—“and decide whether to wear the yellow bonnet today or the blue.”

The laughter, both male and female, that welcomed his summary of women’s work outraged Antonia, but she knew that to show her anger here would only play into his hands. He flaunted his contempt for women under the guise of humor, making light of his views in order to make hers seem heavy-handed and puritanical.

What a perfectly devious man he was, she realized. And how delicious it would feel to bring him to his clever male knees!

“Then your
experience
, like the size of your female acquaintance, must be rather limited. Understandably so, considering your hostile attitude toward women and the home.” She took a step toward him, outdoing his smile with a fierce one of her own.

“The women of
my
acquaintance work every bit as hard as their husbands,” she continued, her eyes flashing. “Or harder. Few have more servants than a maid-of-all-work or an elderly house couple. And even fewer can afford a nurse for more than a few weeks past a lying-in. They manage their homes and their children by themselves, and seldom have to worry about whether their morning chocolate has settled or if their yellow or blue bonnet would suit better … for they have neither morning chocolate nor an abundance of hats.”

“Females who actually work? It gives one pause to consider
just what sort of women you consort with, Lady Antonia.” He stepped still closer and looked down his straight, aristocratic nose at her. “No lady of my acquaintance would be caught dead with a mending needle in her hand, wiping a child’s nose, or dealing firsthand with sweaty tradesmen. They prefer to languish on their divans, spend money as if pound notes fall from the sky like raindrops, and complain endlessly that their husbands spend too much time at their clubs. To my way of thinking it would do women a world of good to have to learn some of the stern realities of the world outside their pampered nests.”

“Pampered nests?” She nearly choked on the words. “I fear, my lord, that you are in dire need of an education where women are concerned. You haven’t a clue as to what women’s lives and women’s work are really like … for if you did have, you would never spout such drivel about women and their place in our nation’s homes. And you would certainly never air such monumental ignorance in public.” There were several gasps, a few titters, and a hearty chuckle or two from the guests around them.

“Oh?” He poured his dark, liquid gaze over her in a way that made her send a trembling hand to cover the buttons that trailed down her waist. “Ignorant and in need of an education, am I? And just who do you propose should educate me in the work and contributions of women?”

She hoped her pleasure wasn’t too obvious. He had walked right into her trap!

“Me.”

“You?” He glanced around him with widened eyes that elicited suggestive murmurs and chuckles from the men present; then he focused his unsettling attention on her. “An intriguing possibility, I will admit. But I am afraid I must decline, madam. I am long past the schoolroom regimen,
and I haven’t the slightest desire to apprentice myself to a skirt … no matter how fetching it may be.” He slid an appreciative glance down the side of her panniered skirt, and there were gasps and titters. Her pulse fluttered disconcertingly, but she pressed on.

“I would never suggest anything quite so rudimentary as a schoolroom for you, my lord. What I propose for your education is more along the lines of … a wager.”

“A what?” He leaned back on one leg with a surprised but wary look.

“A wager, sir. A bet. A gamble. The risk of something of value upon an uncertain outcome.” She glanced archly at the men around them. “Come, come … surely you’ve heard of it. It is my understanding that the gentlemen of London fritter away a majority of their time and money concocting and carrying out wagers of one sort or another.”

He frowned. Clearly, he had not expected this. “What sort of wager?”

She smiled, hoping that none of her vengeful urges showed in her expression. “Two weeks of your time, my lord.”

His frown deepened. “Against what?”

“Against two weeks of mine.”

The rumble of consternation around them gave voice to the confusion in his expression. For a brief moment her heart all but stopped. Everything hinged on his next words. Was he arrogant enough or sufficiently challenged by what had passed between them to consider such an involved undertaking?

“Two weeks of my time?” Interest edged into his scowl. “Doing what?”

She had him!

“
Women’s work
, my lord.”

All went silent around him while he blinked, stared at her, then dissolved into a surprised laugh. “Women’s work?
You wish me to lie around all day, eating chocolates and ordering servants thither and yon?” The tension around them erupted into laughter. Antonia also smiled, though from a very different cause.

“What I propose, my lord, is that you do
an average woman’s work
each day for a fortnight. If at the end of that time you have changed your mind about women’s place in the home—if you have learned how varied and arduous the average woman’s duties truly are—you will say so publicly and give wholehearted support to the Marriage Bill.”

“And if I haven’t changed my mind?” he asked, folding his arms over his chest and tilting his head to study her.

“Then I will agree to do men’s work for a fortnight.”

An even more raucous wave of laughter went through their audience, and he grinned as he gave voice to their common thought: “And what makes you think you could
do
a man’s work?”

Antonia was prepared. “Oh, I don’t think I should have any difficulty doing men’s work. After all, what is so difficult about going to an office by ten and quitting it at two, to spend the rest of the afternoon at the races? And if it comes to that, I think I would have no problem spending evenings at the club, swaggering, bragging, and wagering.” She lowered her voice to a confidential tone, and when she leaned forward, so did their audience, straining to catch her words. “Though I will admit that smoking cheroots may take a bit of getting used to.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully with her closed fan. “And I am willing to admit that hefting a glass of Scotch whiskey and shifting chips back and forth across a playing table may indeed be more taxing than I have imagined.”

The laughter her comments generated was almost exclusively feminine. Her tart portrayal of upper-crust men’s habits was a bit too close to the mark, and the gentlemen present showed considerably less humor concerning their
own peccadilloes than they did concerning women’s. Lord Carr was no exception. He stood with his arms crossed over his unfashionably broad chest, glowering as he considered her challenge.

After a taut silence he raised one hand and stroked his generous bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger. Back and forth … those long, neatly tapered fingers slid over that velvety surface, drawing her gaze. It was an unconscious thinking gesture on his part, but it caused her own bottom lip to tingle wildly. Back and forth. Those supple fingers … rubbing, stroking … Her discomfort grew, and after a long, intolerable minute, she raked her teeth over her lip to make it stop.

His expression abruptly changed. It was as if the sun came out in his face, and Antonia felt a hot clutch of embarrassment, as if her instinctive movement and his decision were somehow linked.

“I shall accept your wager, madam,” he declared. “I will do your
average woman’s work
for a fortnight … for no other reason than to prove my own point.”

Looming above her, he stared down into her eyes, testing her resolve, plumbing the depths of her resolve. Then his gaze began to wander over her face, and his slow, knowing smile sent a quiver through her. “I fear you have made a difficult bargain. I have been a long time in acquiring my particular views on women and domesticity, and I will not be easily swayed from them.”

“I did not expect it would be
easy
, my lord. Only
possible
,” she said, barely containing a surge of exultation. “And I will warn you, I am a woman who makes the most of a possibility.”

In the pin-drop quiet, they faced each other, their gazes locked, each taking stock of the other’s cleverness and determination. The other guests watched between them with bated breath, marking what an incendiary match they
made: he the epitome of strident, uncompromising bachelorhood, and she the defender of righteous, all-assuming matrimony. Like air and phosphorus primed, they awaited only a small movement one direction or another to ignite them.

“This is all perfectly scandalous!” Lady Constance inserted herself into the fray, her face flushed with excitement. She seized first Antonia’s arm, then Remington Carr’s, turning them both toward her buffet table. This titillating challenge, issued under her roof, had just made her reputation as a hostess for the rest of the season, and she was buoyant. “What on earth has gotten into you, Antonia? Wagering like a tar in port! And you, my lord … have you given any thought to the consequences of so reckless a course? Whatever will people say?”

Antonia hadn’t the faintest idea what people would say; public opinion was the furthest thing from her mind at that moment. She was scrambling to understand the ramifications of getting exactly what she came for: Remington Carr’s cooperation in his own comeuppance. When she looked up, her adversary was taking a glass of champagne from a tray and holding it out to her. Glancing around, she found Constance and William Ellingson and a number of their guests with goblets in their hands, waiting for her to accept.

“You may as well begin your education in the ways of men now, Lady Antonia. We men share a drink together to seal a wager. One of our more civilized habits.”

“Ummm,” she said, considering, then accepting the glass. “And how do men handle the paying off of a wager once it is
lost
?”

“It depends upon the terms of payment. Most meet at a prearranged place and time … at the winner’s convenience.”

“If you’re determined to carry through with this madness,
you can meet here,” Lady Constance said. “I’ll have another little evening two weeks from next Saturday, and you can announce the results then.”

“Good enough,” Antonia said, assuming the victory would be hers and taking the winner’s prerogative. “Two weeks from next Saturday.” When he did not object, she raised her glass in salute and smiled confidently at him. After the toast she set her glass aside and unfastened the wrist buttons of one of her gloves, drawing out a calling card bearing an engraved address.

“Be there at nine o’clock Monday morning, Lord Carr, ready to assume your new duties,” she said, presenting it to him.

He seized her hand and pulled it toward him just as she began to rebutton her glove. She stiffened and tried to pull it away, but he held her securely, then turned her hand palm up to look at the neat little buttons and the pale skin of her wrist, visible through the opening in the leather. She held her breath as she felt his warm, liquid gaze traveling up the long row of buttons on the inside of her arm.

“I cannot help but wonder, Lady Antonia, what else you might have tucked away in that glove.” He raised his eyes to hers, searching her in a way that made her tongue seem to stick to the roof of her mouth. Then he raised the card in his other hand. “What is this place you summon me to?”

“My house in Piccadilly,” she managed, though with a betraying thickness to her words. When he released her, she lifted her chin and turned to her hostess. “Thank you, Constance, for a most profitable evening. As you might imagine, I have a busy time ahead. I shall bid you a good night.”

With a nod to her bemused host, she sailed out the drawing-room doors. As the butler slipped her short cape over her shoulders, she heard the sounds of a delayed
reaction breaking out in the dining room. She had just scandalized them beyond words: exchanging thinly veiled insults with a peer of the realm, challenging him to a wager, then pressing him into veritable servitude in her own house for a fortnight. She could scarcely believe she had done it herself!

By the time she settled on the seat of the hansom cab and the door closed behind her, she was weak and trembling with excitement. Her heart pounded as if she had run a footrace, and her mind flew from one detail of her plan to another, savoring the surprises in store for him. But beneath her breathless feeling of triumph emerged the unsettling thought that it had gone perhaps too well. Why on earth had he allowed himself to be maneuvered into such an outrageous situation?

He was not a stupid man; he must know that she intended some powerful and even underhanded persuasions. And though it was true that she had publicly challenged him, he was not a man who allowed the threat of public censure or embarrassment to trouble him. Saving face could not be his motivation. Then he must believe he stood to gain something in such a contest. But what?

Thinking on that, she took a deep, cleansing breath and rubbed her temples. Her eyes fell on the still unbuttoned wrist of her glove, and she paused, staring at that pale slice of revealed skin. In the dim light of the cab she seemed to feel the heat of his hand on hers again. With a slight turn of thought she again saw his dark, velvety eyes trained upon her … traveling up her glove buttons … fastening on her face with cloaked speculation. She shivered in response. Devilish eyes. Hungry eyes. Her body reacted instinctively to the appetite in them, going taut and expectant.

Instantly she knew. Every penetrating look and each
double-edged comment had held a clue. Taken together, the evidence was irrefutable.

He intended to seduce her.

Like most men of his class, he enjoyed the chase. She had roused his male instincts for combat, she reasoned, and with a man like him, any challenge from a woman must ultimately be brought down to a personal—thus, carnal—level. Set in that logical framework, his seductive banter and his acceptance of her wager made perfect sense. The cad intended to use his wagered fortnight to worm his way into her favors, thinking access to her passions would somehow give him a victory over her and her ideals. How typically male of him.