Betina Krahn (15 page)

Fitch and his damnable article. The wretch had already ruined his breakfast by delivering a copy of that scandal sheet to his front door so that he wouldn’t miss it. It was bad enough just to see his name in print in that scurrilous rag; now Fitch’s inflammatory scratchings had unleashed a whole pack of scandalmongers upon him!

They spotted him coming down the street and descended on him in a rush. “Back for another day of women’s work, yer lordship?” they wanted to know. “Do you really intend to scrub floors and empty slops for a whole fortnight?” “What sort of work does the lady make you do? Anything …
special
?” “Is it true about the corset?” “How did you like wearing it, your lordship?” And worst of all: “Are you wearing it now?”

His hands clenched at his sides and his face glowed dusky red, but he managed to stride on toward the front door of Paxton House, in patrician silence. During the walk from his house he had steeled himself for this very possibility. The only way to deal with these muckrakers, he knew, was to ignore them. Anything else was not only undignified,
it was potentially dangerous; they had an appalling tendency to twist words toward the sensational.

He pounded on the door with his fist and it opened instantly, just wide enough and long enough for him to slip inside. When it was securely closed against the clamor outside, he resettled both his coat and his composure and handed off his hat to old Hoskins, who just stared at him for a moment, then shuffled away mumbling, “Pitiful bastard.”

“Well, it appears you made it through the gauntlet outside the door,” Antonia greeted him moments later. She paused some distance away, looking fresh and well rested and abominably blue-eyed.

“And why shouldn’t I?” he said curtly. “I have nothing to hide. I am doing this to make a point, after all.”

“As am I,” she said primly. “But making
my
point does not require publicizing our wager all over London.”

“Nor does making mine,” he said in bristling tones.

In the silence that followed each took stock of the other’s determination.

“What’s done is done,” she said. “This morning you will work with Eleanor Booth, who is in charge of our cleaning and maintenance. She’s waiting in the linen room upstairs.”

“Lead on, Lady Antonia,” he said with a sardonic edge. “I am positively itching to get my hands on a feather duster.”

She led him down the upstairs hall toward yet another set of stairs, pointing out the upstairs parlor, the tiled bathroom, and the various bedchambers. When she sailed past a pair of ornate double doors, he paused and asked what was behind them. A hint of pink appeared in her cheeks as she indicated it was her own bedroom and private bath. His smile, which implied a great deal even while appearing
the epitome of politeness, stayed with her all the rest of the way down the hall.

The linen room was a well-lit chamber on the third floor, at the back of the house. It smelled strongly of wax and freshly starched linen, and was lined with shelves that held a variety of linen and household gadgetry and equipment ranging from warming pans to rug beaters and pillow fluffers, from shoe trees to darning eggs to candle snuffers. He strolled around the shelves, trunks, fire screens, and assorted boxes that littered the floor, wondering if he had a room like this in his house … and if so, why he’d never seen it.

“Eleanor must have stepped out for a moment,” she said, wrapping her arms around her waist as she watched him prowl the working heart of her house. He was purely devastating this morning in his black coat and fawn-colored trousers with matching vest. He seemed to be made of one long, smooth piece of timber. With her gaze riveted on his cloth-covered vest buttons, she felt a rustle of disquiet, and it was a moment before she understood why. Something was missing.

“Your corset, your lordship,” she said, straightening and confronting him with her most potent stare. “You’re not wearing it.”

He leaned back on one leg and gave her an innocent look. “Am I not?” He glanced down at his middle. “Are you sure? How can you tell?”

“Well, I cannot …,” she began, then halted.

“See it?” he finished for her. He smiled. “Neither can I see yours. I presume you
are
wearing one.” He paused, waiting for her to respond.

“But I can tell by the way you …” She halted again, sensing the danger in admitting that she had scrutinized his movements so closely. “You’re not wearing it.”

“Ahhh … you require proof, do you?” His face was
the very picture of male sensual cunning: relaxed, half smiling. “I can see there is only one way to satisfy you.” He opened his coat to her and his voice lowered. “Come, feel for yourself.”

The subtle purr of suggestion in his voice stroked every nerve in her body, and she reacted with a private shiver. Feel him … her cool hands against his warm body … searching him, feeling his ribs and rising up the slope of his chest … Both her curiosity and her fingers itched to accept that scandalous offer of access to his person. He swayed nearer, and nearer, and the snare of temptation was suddenly within arm’s reach. All she had to do was extend her hand … touch those vest buttons …

Her breath came faster, and in a last burst of confusion she looked up and caught the faint glint of triumph in his eyes. It set off a quiet alarm in her that froze her in place, giving cool reason time to combat his heated allure. A moment later she stepped back with her face aflame. The wretch! To prove him wrong, she’d have to touch him, feel his body. And even if he wasn’t wearing it, she sensed he still would have won.

Were they going to touch or weren’t they?
Eleanor stood watching, just outside the linen-room doorway. Then Antonia stepped back away from him with a scorching look, and the moment was past. Eleanor sighed and charged through the door, seeming breathless and apologetic.

“Here she is, at last. Eleanor will instruct you in the many tasks a woman must perform to keep a house in fine fettle,” Antonia said curtly. Then with a nod and a “Good morning,” she sailed out the door.

Remington ruefully raised one eyebrow and began to rebutton his coat.

“Oh, you needn’t fasten your coat, your lordship,” tall, plain-faced Eleanor declared as she lowered her nose to
peer at him above her spectacles. “You won’t be needing it for a while.”

Eleanor knew whereof she spoke. No sooner had he deposited his coat on a peg by the door, than she thrust a slate into his hands and began to tie a long apron around him.

“Each day of the week is given over to a specific task,” she explained. “Monday is for sweeping and mopping. Tuesday is turning, beating, and dusting day. Wednesday is for scouring, scrubbing, and washing. Thursday is for polishing … Friday for seasonal tasks like window washing, and curtain cleaning, and so on.” A twinkle came into her eye as she leaned a bit closer. “This being Tuesday, the first thing we do is dust.”

When he turned to the vase full of feather dusters on a cabinet by the door, she stopped him with a tug on the apron. “Oh, no,” she said. “Nothing as outmoded as that. We use
this
instead.” She threw back a sheet that draped a mechanical contraption that contained elements of what appeared to be a cherry pitter, a fireplace bellows, a rubber hose and funnel, a gear box of some sort, and a canvas laundry bag. She watched him expectantly, waiting for his comment.

“What the devil is it?” was the best he could summon.

“A dusting machine,” she announced, glowing with pride.

“A what?”

“A
dusting machine.
I used to call it a ‘dust sucker,’ because that is precisely what it does: suck up dust. But Lady Toni suggested something a bit more genteel. Just wait until you see it work!” The unwieldy-looking thing was mounted on a barrellike stand on wheels. She rolled it straight for the door, and when he hesitated, she called out, “Well, don’t just stand there—come on!”

He helped her roll the machine across the passage and
then carefully nudge it down the narrow steps, one at a time. Once in the broad upstairs hallway, Eleanor set a breakneck pace for the upstairs parlor, leaving him to push it along by himself. In the parlor she threw back the curtains to let in plenty of light, then unwound a long rubber tube, which had a ring of feathers attached to one end, from the body of the machine. She ordered him to turn the crank handle, and the leather bellows heaved, the contraption wheezed, and the canvas bag fluttered, then inflated. Eleanor brushed the feathery end of the hose over the top of a parlor table.

“Crank harder,” she said, scowling at the residue of dust left on the wood. And when the machine wheezed louder and pulled harder, her dismay turned to relief. “See there … it’s working!”

Lo and behold, it was. The machine was inhaling the dust swept up by the feathers and was somehow ingesting it. The table was left as clean as if it had been dusted by a rag. She went from table to desk to lamp, raising dust with her feathers, then whisking it away with her hose. As she worked, she explained the parts and the mechanical principles to Remington, whose chest soon began to heave from the exertion of providing power to the machine.

Before the parlor was dust free, he had to switch hands. And he switched back when they did Aunt Hermione’s room, then again when they did the Quimby sisters’ rooms. When they reached the hallway and Eleanor bustled along toward yet another room, Remington arched his back, flexed his aching hands, and glowered after her.

“Wouldn’t it be a great deal less trouble simply to use a rag or a feather duster?”

She halted and turned back with an expression that branded him as a pure Philistine. “Where would the world be if people all went about doing things the same way they’ve always done them? How would inventors ever perfect
their machines, if they were only looking for the easy way? It takes a great deal of hard work to make something that saves us labor. Someday this machine will make women’s work easier by half, and I believe that’s worth a bit of sacrifice in the here and now.”

It was then that Remington realized it was not just her machine, it was her
invention
. The glow that lit her face as she talked about its potential to save hours of odious labor suddenly made sense—and unsettling sense, at that.

By the time they finished the second floor and trundled the machine down to the ground floor, his shoulders were aching and he was getting blisters on both hands. He was more than willing to rest for a few moments while Eleanor showed him the one room they wouldn’t be dusting with her machine, Sir Geoffrey’s old study.

They entered a large, paneled room, filled ceiling to floor with porcelain figurines. Every square inch of horizontal surface was covered by a piece of Staffordshire ware portraying some famous person, work of art, or landmark event in British history. Some of the pieces were well-done and artistic, and some were cheap, gaudy—even grotesque—imitations of finer imported pieces. Every one of them, Eleanor informed him, belonged to old Cleo Royal—her sole legacy from thirty years treading the theatrical boards with her famous actor husband. Lady Toni had set aside the room for Cleo’s precious things and allowed Cleo to tend and dust them herself, by hand. There was a near reverence in the way Eleanor led him around the room and pointed out specific pieces in hushed tones. And when they left, she closed the door softly, the way she would on a sleeping child.

Remington shoved the pathetic scene from his mind as he returned to work. With genuine relief he accepted Eleanor’s offer to let him handle the dusting hose while she turned the crank. But picking up dust with the contraption
wasn’t as easy as it looked. And when he looked back, he was chagrined to see Eleanor spinning the crank quickly and steadily, with no visible duress.

When the dining room and rear parlor were finished, Eleanor brushed her apron and informed him it was time they went down to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

“Tea?” he said sharply. “At this hour?”

“We aren’t as young as we once were, and tea is quite stimulating, you know,” Eleanor said, her eyes twinkling. “We take a bit of liberty with the ‘usuals and propers,’ in this house.”

More than a bit of liberty, Remington bit his tongue to keep from saying. Visibly reluctant, he followed her back through the house and down to the kitchen, where they found Gertrude and the aged Esther hard in the throes of dinner preparations. Gertrude smiled broadly when she saw them and took time to brew them a pot of tea. While they waited for it to steep, Eleanor perched on a stool at the end of one of the long worktables and invited him to do the same. He settled stiffly, listening to Gertrude and Eleanor chat about how well he was doing with “cleaning.” Then when the tea was poured, Eleanor sighed as she sipped.

“If only I could find a better way to power my machine.” She sent him a rueful smile. “It’s a beast to turn, I know. I should have warned you. I forget because I’m used to it … I always have to turn and dust by myself.”

Remington felt an odd sinking in his stomach and sat straighter to compensate. He stole a glance at his stiff, aching hands. She expected him to believe she usually did it all by herself, when he was wilting after just part of a morning’s work?

“Someday I’ll find a proper way to power it,” she went on. “I believe there’s a great deal of promise in this ‘electricity’ business. They say it will run engines someday … power all sorts of new inventions. There’s talk of electrifying
part of London with those French lamps—arc lamps. And there’s that American fellow, an inventor named Thomas Edison. He’s just made a special glass bulb that will allow them to bring electrical light right inside houses.” She looked positively transported at the prospect.

“Imagine flipping a switch and having instant light. No gassy vapors, no hiss, no messy oil or wicks or kerosene. Just clean, beautiful light.” Her face softened, and in that moment she was transformed from a plain, spinsterish-looking woman into a creature filled with the light herself, the glow of learning and curiosity and drive.

“I wish my Edmond had lived to see it. He was a brilliant man, you know. An inventor, too. He held a patent on his self-inflating fountain-pen bladder. I used to help in his shop.…” Her voice and her gaze trailed away to some former place and time. And she smiled lovingly at whatever—whoever—she saw there.