Betina Krahn (45 page)

The women of Paxton House read the
Gaflinger’s
account and were speechless as Antonia entered the dining room for breakfast that morning. She felt their eyes searching her, and halted, checking her buttons, her hair, and her bustle with a frown of confusion.

“What is it? Have I forgotten something?” she asked.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Toni dear?” Aunt Hermione said with a worried look. “I should have stayed with you yesterday, I know, but I honestly thought—”

“What
are
you talking about?” Antonia poured herself a cup of tea at the sideboard and carried it to her chair at the table. She set it down and took the paper Eleanor offered her, frowning at the sight of that vile masthead. But her eyes widened when they fell on the article about her. As she read the outrageous account, she paled, her jaw loosened, and she sat down on her chair with a plop. The others exchanged worried looks as they watched her shock turn slowly to outrage.

“How dare they?” she erupted, cramming the paper into one hand and shaking it as if she could somehow dislodge and rearrange those hideous words by physical force. “Distortions, misinterpretations, and outright lies—every bit of it!”

“It is?” Pollyanna said, melting with a relief that was shared by the others around the table.

“Well, of course it is! You don’t honestly think Remington would be capable of such callous, ruthless—” She halted, reading in their faces that they had indeed thought it. It escaped her, momentarily, that she had thought it as well,
and as recently as yesterday
. Just now all she could think was that her ladies had worked side by side with him, entertained him, and shared their stories with him, and they should know better. Looking around at their wary gazes, she realized that if they believed such stuff just because it was printed in the wretched newspapers, then how much more would other people, who had never set eyes on him?

“Remington Carr is most certainly an arrogant, devious, and relentless man,” she declared, coming to his defense. “But he would never force a woman into brute labor … without a very good reason.”

Antonia’s sentiment, however, was not shared by the occupants of London’s leading residence. A number of papers bearing accounts of the earl’s ungentlemanly behavior had found their way into the family apartments of Buckingham Palace. Try as they might, there was no way the queen’s daughter, secretaries, and personal staff could keep her from seeing at least one of them.

“Wha-a-at?” she roared, coming up out of her chair. “He’s done what?”

“Apparently he’s insisted the lady fulfill her part of that ‘Woman Wager,’” her secretary said, grimacing at the sight of his sovereign’s rising ire. “He has put her to work. Men’s work, according to some; brute labor, according to others.”

“The ignoble churl.” Victoria strode to the window and narrowed her eyes as she looked out over the busy courtyard,
as if to pierce the distance and rebuke the offending earl. “He continues with his hideous campaign to revile and degrade both that unfortunate lady and all other members of her sex by association. It would seem our wishes and our expectations regarding his nuptials are being ignored.” Her round face took on the aspect of rose granite.

“He had best beware … or he shall find the rope we give him just long enough to
hang
him.”

Promptly at nine o’clock that morning, a cab drew up before Paxton House, and the driver announced that he was there to convey the lady of the house into the City. Antonia deliberated a much shorter time than previous mornings before
changing into a tailored gray skirt and fitted jacket
and selecting her best black velvet hat and matching Swedish kid gloves. Aunt Hermione declined to accompany her, saying there were too many things that demanded attention at home, and so Antonia entered the cab alone.

But inside that hire coach she found Remington waiting with a satisfied look that made her cheeks heat. “Only an hour,” he said, glancing at his watch and tucking it back into his vest pocket. “Considerably better than yesterday,” he added, dropping his voice to an intimate murmur. “I do believe we’re making progress.”

“Don’t count on it, your lordship,” she said, straightening her spine. “I simply don’t think either your reputation or mine could withstand another embarrassing incident just now.”

“Well, there is a way to be sure there are no further incidents, Antonia,” he said, letting his eyes drift over her.

“Indeed there is,” she said tartly, knowing just where
that
comment was leading. “I could move to Pigworth on Taunton and wear a bag over my head in public.”

He threw his head back and laughed—a free, deep-chest
sort of sound that caught Antonia by surprise as it invaded her skin and hummed along her nerves. She couldn’t hold back her smile, though she did manage to turn it toward the window. When he sobered, he settled a searching gaze on her.

“Marry me, Antonia,” he said quietly.

She looked at him and found him relaxed against the seat. Only his eyes hinted at the intensity behind that question.

“No,” she said, turning away to look through the smudged cab window. For some reason she felt a need to soften that rejection. “Marriage has nothing to offer a woman in my situation.”

“Nothing?” he said with a hint of exasperation.

“Nothing I don’t already have.”

“Except passion,” he said with a sensuous husk to his voice that made her very glad she wasn’t looking at him. After a moment she heard him expel a heavy breath that might have been either disappointment or disgust. “And, of course, protection.”

“Neither of which I need.”

They had come full circle, and in a mercifully brief time they arrived at the offices of Carr Enterprises. She escaped the tension of the cab, only to find herself thrust into a very different kind of tension inside the offices. The casual air of the other day was gone; everything was brusque and quick this morning. There were decisions to be made and deals to be transacted. Antonia felt a subtle change in Remington, a watchfulness, a tension, as if he were somehow at the edge of his senses, continually poised on the brink of reaction.

Markham and Hallowford and the others she had seen yesterday asked to have a word with Remington straightaway. He informed them he would be leaving soon, to escort Mrs. Paxton out to New Market and the site of the Sutton Mills construction; but they prevailed upon him to
delay his trip. There were several urgent matters concerning the Sutton Mills transaction that required his personal attention. He thought a moment, looking at Antonia, then came up with an alternative plan. He escorted her down the hall and introduced her to another kind of work for the morning: learning the indispensable new skill of typewriting. He assigned a young man named Collingwood to instruct her, then disappeared into his office with his managers.

Antonia sat staring at the mechanical contraption before her with a dubious expression. It was a black metal box, cut away on one side to reveal a maze of long finger-like levers that were fitted with round tabs bearing the letters of the alphabet. Collingwood leaned over her shoulder, fitted his long fingers to the “keys,” and punched several of those tabs. Levers jumped up and smacked a paper wrapped around a rolling pin, and in a moment she was staring at her name in neat black letters: MRS. PAXTON. She smiled and looked up at Collingwood.

“Can I try?”

He showed her how to press the keys, then how to place her fingers on the proper letters, and asked her to key some additional words. Out of her deepest recesses came words and she typed them, once, twice, then again and again, each time with more confidence and precision. After a few moments she paused and held up the paper to find that she had typed the words “MARRY ME” fourteen times.

Collingwood sputtered and reddened and she shrank and blushed … and snatched the paper out of the machine. “I-I think I should try again. Something else.”

He nodded and nervously began to talk as he fitted clean paper into his machine. “They say the queen hates these machines … won’t allow typewriting in her sight. But, it’s the coming thing, you know. They’re even training women to be typewriters, now. The government has a program
to teach young ladies to do it. They say women have good fingers for it—what with all the fine work they do and such. And Carr Enterprises is right in the thick of it—we have a school for typewriters, too.”

Antonia typed “YOU DO?” by pressing one key at a time. She pointed and he read it, then smiled.

“We certainly do. A number of the factory girls take the classes after work each day.”

She typed: COMMENDABLE.

And he laughed, delighted. They carried on that rather unusual conversation for a few minutes, with Antonia’s responses getting longer and more involved. And finally Collingwood decided that she was a good candidate for real training. He showed her how to hold her hands and which keys to strike with which fingers, then gave her several words and phrases to practice without looking at her hands.

The minutes slipped by and quickly became one hour … then two. Antonia was so intent on her work that she scarcely heard it when young Collingwood announced it was time for his dinner and excused himself. On the periphery of her senses she detected a drop in the noise level in the offices, but dismissed it. Minutes later she heard a faint click and felt a draft of air; the door had closed. Then someone touched her shoulders and she gave a startled cry.

“No, don’t let me disturb you,” Remington said, spreading his hands over her shoulders, resting them there. It was an unusual touch, intensely personal yet devoid of sexual content. “Collingwood says you’re coming along very well.”

“He’s a good teacher,” she said, trying to contain her runaway heart. “It’s a little like playing the piano, only here you make words and sentences instead of melodies. It’s … interesting.” She both heard and felt the rumble of his
laugh, and realized he was leaning against her chair. She felt him sliding down, probably to his knees.

“I can make it even more interesting, sweetheart.” His low murmur near her ear set her tender fingertips tingling. He slid his hands down her arms and lifted her hands to the keys again.

Her fingers splayed over the keys and his fingers slid over hers, curling, fitting themselves to their curve. Slowly, deliberately, his fingers coaxed hers to press the keys, one at a time. Over and over he stroked her fingers; over and over she yielded him control. She could feel his body pressing against her back, his breath moving her hair and brushing her ear. She could feel the warmth of his body melting her determination … turning it into a deepening pool of desire.

Then he stilled, and after a moment drew his hands back up her arms and rested them on her shoulders.

“Read it,” he whispered into her ear.

She managed to scroll the paper up and focus her eyes on it. There, in bold type, were the words: DO YOU LIKE THIS?

She sat staring at them for a minute, feeling tension collecting, then releasing. And she put her hands to the keys again and typed: YES.

She could almost feel him smiling. He slid his hands down her sides, warmly caressing her waist, asking, “And do you like this?”

She typed: YES.

He blew softly in her ear, and then nibbled it, and finally tongued it with long, luxurious strokes. “And this, sweetheart? Do you like this?”

YES.

He slid his hands up her corseted ribs to her breasts and circled his palms over them slowly, again and again. “And do you want more of this?”

YES.

Then his fingers found her buttons and gingerly pried them free. She could scarcely breathe as her jacket parted and her blouse buttons began to give. Finally her chest was bare, and his gentle, rousing fingers dipped into the cups of her corset to tease her nipples. She squirmed against the chair as he rolled them between his fingers and thumbs and managed to vibrate cords of sensation that reached down into her warming, tightening hollow.

“And this,” he murmured raggedly into her ear, “do you want this to stop?”

Of habit she typed: YES.

His hands withdrew from her aching breasts with a caressing stroke, and she nearly choked on her dismay. She opened her eyes and was mildly shocked to see her half-bare breasts. But she was even more surprised when her eyes focused on the three little letters that had put an end to the luscious pleasure she had been experiencing. Y-E-S.

She groaned silently. Why did he have to choose now to begin taking her refusals seriously?

“One more thing,” he said quietly, leading her fingers back to the keys. With his fingers guiding hers, they typed out: DO YOU LIKE ME YET?

She paused, feeling confused and excited and powerfully drawn to him. Here, in his world, he seemed the most reasonable of men. The most forward thinking and capable of men. She liked the loyalty he inspired and liked the way he put his values to work as policies in his businesses. And on a personal level she liked the way he laughed and the way he teased, and the way he was trying to make up for the hurt she had suffered. She had to admit … she was beginning to really
like
him.

She typed out “Y-E-S” again.

He spun her around by the shoulders and his eyes were glowing and his face was dusky with both arousal and
pleasure. He leaned forward, staring at her mouth, and she parted her lips, expecting a hungry and penetrating kiss. What she got was a quick brush of promise. Dismayed by how easily he had raised her sensual responses, she snapped straight on the chair and frowned at him. He smiled mischievously.

“Button up, sweetheart. I’m supposed to be taking you out for a bit of dinner.” His gaze dropped to the silky rose crescents peeping above her corset. “And if you sit like that much longer, I may change my mind and make you the main course instead.”

She liked him. It was a simple thing, really, he thought. More friendly than passionate. More affectionate than sexual. But it was vastly more pleasurable to him than anything else he had experienced with her, from the sweetness of her bed to that delicious little typing exercise.
She liked him.
That knowledge kept him smiling all through luncheon.