Betina Krahn (2 page)

“Champagne, Hoskins!” Lady Antonia Paxton ordered as she swept into the spacious center hall of her house on Piccadilly. She handed the aged butler her gloves and reached for her hat pin. “A whole magnum of it … in the upstairs parlor, if you please.”

“A celebration, ma’am?” he said, turning to help Camille Adams off with her short cloak.

“Oh, indeed, Hoskins,” she answered, scooping her heavy veil up into her hat with a flourish. She was positively glowing. “Felicitations are in order. This evening our Camille has become engaged to be married to that most eligible Mr. Howard.”

“
Mr. Howard
, ma’am?” He raised one bushy white eyebrow, glancing between his mistress’s radiant countenance and the strained face of the bride-to-be.

“Surely you recall him, Hoskins. Mr. Howard is the Head Assistant to the Undersecretary of the Deputy Minister of the Board of Trade.” When he frowned and shook his head, Antonia paused in the midst of unbuttoning her mantle and leaned closer to him. “The tall, dark-haired gentleman who has called for Camille several times of late.” Still there was no spark of recognition. “Wears excessively sharp revers and walks with a bit of a swagger.”

“Ahhh.” Recognition finally flared in the butler’s eyes as
he helped his mistress off with her wrap and laid it across his arm. “Him what’s fond of striped green cravats.”

“The very one. Though, I must say, neither his cravat nor his swagger were much in evidence this evening,” Antonia said, with a mischievous smile at Camille, who blushed and looked down.

“Poor bastard,” the old fellow mumbled under his breath, shuffling off toward the cloakroom and kitchens. “Marriage ’as got to be a raging epi-demic around this house, of late.”

It was true; marriage had indeed become something of an epidemic at Paxton House during the past three years. A seemingly endless stream of women had arrived at the fashionable residence, stayed for a time, and then left to take nuptial vows in short order. And Lady Antonia Paxton, widow of the wealthy and altruistic Sir Geoffrey Paxton, was clearly to blame for the contagion. She had an abiding interest in stray cats, stray widows, and weddings … and a firm conviction that every widow, like every cat, should have a home of her own.

Smiling at the crotchet-ridden old butler’s reaction, Antonia picked up the branched candlestick on the center hall table and sailed off through the grandly arched hall and up the polished oval staircase at the rear. Camille hurried along after her, but before they reached the door to the upstairs parlor, the bride-to-be pleaded a headache and excused herself to her room on the floor above.

Antonia sighed as she watched her latest matrimonial project retreat up the stairs, undoubtedly to cry herself to sleep. She had been right to tell the girl nothing about her plans this evening. Too softhearted for her own good, that one, she thought. The little thing would have given herself utterly to the slippery and self-indulgent Mr. Howard, with nary a thought for her own security or future. Wagging her
head, she turned the other way and continued down the hall to the broad double doors of the upstairs parlor.

The densely furnished chamber was bathed in both the scent and the golden glow of numerous beeswax tapers, the use of which, every evening after nine o’clock, was a custom held over in memory of Antonia’s late husband. Heavy, fringed brocades were drawn over the lace curtains at the windows, and a fire had been laid in the iron grate of the marble fireplace to drive out the March chill. In the midst of polished mahogany, gilt-framed portraits, and silk upholstery slathered in crocheted doilies, sat a white-haired woman wearing a knitted shawl and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.

“Antonia!” The old lady lowered the book she was holding up to the light of a branched candlestand. “How did it go?”

“An unqualified triumph, Aunt Hermione,” Antonia announced, beaming as she went to the fireplace and stretched out her hands to absorb the warmth. “Our little Camille will be the new Mrs. Howard within the month.”

“Oh, excellent,” Aunt Hermione said, laying her reading aside, her delicately lined face brightening. “Just excellent.” She glanced around Antonia, toward the door, with a quizzical look. “And where is the blushing bride?”

“Busy
blushing
, I am afraid,” Antonia said tartly, untying the bow at her neck and loosening the top two of her bodice’s numerous buttons. “Where is everyone? I ordered champagne.”

“Oh, Prudence and Pollyanna had a few things to tidy up. They didn’t expect you to return so soon. The others went on to their beds some time ago. Come. Sit.” She patted the seat of the chair opposite her. “I want to hear every detail. Where did you find them?”

“The Bentick Hotel, of course. Those bounders from the bar at White’s always seem to use the Bentick. Rather
makes you wonder if that little weasel of a proprietor gives them some sort of a discount.”

“Not very imaginative,” Aunt Hermione said with a sniff.

“Men in rut seldom are,” Antonia retorted as she settled onto the chair. “But then, it is precisely that characteristic which makes them so marvelously easy to outwit.” The doors opened just then, and in hurried two older women wearing identical gray worsted day dresses and lace-edged caps.

“Back so soon? It must be good news!” said one of the Mrs. Quimbys, as the pair set about dragging parlor chairs toward the warm hearth.

“Have ye done it, then? Trapped another one?” said the other, her eyes narrowing behind tin spectacles as she perched on the edge of her seat.

“Yes, Pollyanna, I trapped another one,” Antonia replied with unabashed satisfaction, propping her French-heeled shoes up on the fence of the iron fire grate and plumping her well-padded bustle so she could lean back on it in her chair. “Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that he trapped himself, the cad. He certainly wasted no time. They hadn’t been gone more than three quarters of an hour, and he had her primed and plucked and pinned on her back in the middle of the ticking.” Her eyes shone as she relived the pleasure of witnessing Bertrand Howard’s shock. “You should have seen him … sitting there half-naked, jaw agape, gasping like a landed trout … with the most delicious look of panic on his face.”

“Scandalous,” Pollyanna said through pursed lips.

“Indeed it was,” Antonia agreed, burrowing pleasantly back into her chair.

“I meant your having to see the wretch
bare
like that,” Pollyanna corrected with an indignant scowl.

A laugh bubbled up inside Antonia. “Dear Pollyanna,
the sight of a man’s bare shoulders is not unknown to me. I am a widow, after all.”

“As are we all,” Pollyanna said primly, nodding to the others. “But I for one have never seen a man’s bare …
person
… and I hope never to see one.”

“Well, sister,” Prudence Quimby said with a matronly giggle, “if I had been married to Farley Quimby, I should have been most happy to remain ignorant of such a sight as well.”

Hoskins arrived just then, bearing a bucket of chilled champagne and several tall, fluted goblets. As he uncorked the wine and poured, Antonia detailed her part of the encounter: confronting the innkeeper, charging through the door, and expressing convincing horror. Then with relish she recounted Bertrand Howard’s reaction and his guilty acquiescence to his nuptial fate.

With a “harumph” and a narrow look at his mistress—his customary protest on behalf of his beleaguered sex—Hoskins handed out the last glass and shuffled back out the door, muttering, “Unlucky bastard.” Antonia indulged in a perfectly wicked grin and, when he was gone, raised her goblet to propose a toast.

“Here’s to husband number … number …” She paused, narrowing her eyes. “Good Lord. I’ve lost count of just how many there have been.”

“Twelve previous, dear,” Aunt Hermione informed her. “Mr. Howard is your thirteenth victim.”

“Thirteenth?” Antonia was genuinely surprised by the number. She lowered her glass to make a cursory count on her fingers, and confirmed it. “Thirteen. Good Lord, it’s true. And they call us the weaker sex!” She chuckled, and the old Quimby sisters chuckled and nodded archly to each other in agreement.

“And as to this ‘victim’ business”—she turned a good-natured reproach upon her Aunt Hermione—“may I remind
you, Auntie, that
they
were the ones who chose to seduce or entice the women of my household. I simply took advantage of the opportunity their baser impulses provided to lever them into decent and honorable marriages.”

It was true. Each of the thirteen men she had matched with her “protégées” had indeed cut a swath through London’s feminine landscape as an adamant bachelor. And it was also true that while she had contrived to introduce the women under her protection to a number of potential husbands, the actual choosing had been the work of the pair themselves. The knowledge that her “victims” always had a hand in selecting their own comeuppance made each bit of matrimonial justice all the more satisfying.

“Here’s to our Camille.” She raised her goblet again, seeing in the golden glow of the crystal and the wine the promise of her protégée’s future. “May she have a house in Mayfair … three lovely children … and all the pin money she could possibly want.”

“And a headache whenever she needs one,” Pollyanna added emphatically, drawing surprised looks from Antonia and the others. “Well”—she drew her chin back and frowned—“a woman can never have too many headaches.”

“Here, here!” Prudence seconded.

They laughed and drank more toasts: to the groom-to-be; to the toadying and bribable proprietor of the Bentick; to the weaker sex; and to the virtues of a well-made marriage. Then the subject of the date for the wedding came up, and they agreed that a month hence allowed a decent interval between engagement and vows.

“Sweet Camille,” Prudence said after a moment. “I shall miss her.”

“It’s hard to think that in a month she’ll be gone.” Pollyanna sighed wistfully.

In the brief silence that followed, the same thought struck them all.

“We shall have a vacant room!” Antonia spoke it aloud, snapping upright in her chair and scanning the tea table, the book stand, and the littered writing desk on the far side of the room. “Where is the latest
Cornhill
?”

“Oh, not again,” Aunt Hermione said with a groan. “Not already!”

“It’s not too early to begin planning our next project,” Antonia declared, spotting the magazine and jumping out of her chair to retrieve it from the desk. She thumbed through the pages until she came to the personal advertisements. “Here they are.”

She scanned them, her frown of concentration deepening as her eyes fell from one advertised tragedy to another. “Listen to this,” she said, positioning herself near the candles and holding up the magazine to read: “‘Mrs. F., thirty, husband in America, appears to have deserted her … will do anything.’”

“Oh, but you’ll want a genuine widow … not the ‘grass’ variety, surely,” Pollyanna offered.

“Then how about this one?” Antonia continued. “‘Mrs. G., aged thirty-seven, clergyman’s daughter, governess for seven years. Dislikes teaching. Is suffering in consequence of overwork. Desperate.’ Hmmm … it doesn’t say what happened to her husband.…”

“The clergy produce such sour, long-faced women.” Prudence frowned, confirming her opinion in Pollyanna’s wince of distaste. “I think you’ll be wanting someone with a bit of life left in her.”

“Oh, dear.” The words fairly leaped off the page at Antonia. “‘Mrs. A., widow. Husband speculated and ruined the family, which is now dependent on her. Four daughters, aged fourteen to twenty-three. Not trained to anything … imperfectly educated …’”

“Oh, that won’t do at all. A whole family.” Prudence clucked her tongue.

“All those unmarried daughters.” Pollyanna covered her mouth, looking genuinely pained. “Quite a tragedy.”

Unmarried daughters. A tragedy. That terse assessment caught Antonia’s heart unawares, rousing feelings she had thought well mastered. She, too, had been the unmarried daughter of a widow whose husband had “speculated,” then died, ruining the family. Her eyes slowly scanned the lines again, then again.