Betina Krahn (49 page)

“It can’t be,” she said, groaning. She began to pull things from the bottom of the closet and found Hermione’s leather valise missing, along with her best clothes and shoes. Most of her jewelry, her underclothing, her best corsets were missing from her drawers, and the top of her dressing table was virtually clear … a telling detail. Hermione always liked her things sitting out in view, what she called “a healthy bit of clutter.” But most devastating of all the four miniatures that always sat on the top of her dresser, portraits of her beloved husbands, were gone.

“It can’t be,” she said, backing away from the sight of those empty drawers and hangers.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Eleanor asked from the doorway.

“Aunt Hermione has apparently eloped to Gretna Green,” Remington answered with a broad smile. “With my Uncle Paddington.”

Eleanor gasped and disappeared out the door. The sound of her voice calling the news to the other ladies drifted back into Hermione’s room as Antonia stood looking at Remington’s grin with growing horror.

“How can you smile at a time like this?”

“Because I think it’s wonderful,” he said, reaching for her. She shrank back, her eyes widening.

“It’s not wonderful, it’s horrible! Aunt Hermione—good Lord—at her age—” She darted for the door and was down the hall and around the gallery before he caught up and snagged her by the elbow.

Chaos was erupting all around them. Women were running up the stairs, down the hall, and along the gallery, converging on Antonia. “Is it true?” “When did you hear?” “How did you find out?” “Did they really elope?”

“We have to go after them—bring them back—talk some sense into them—” Antonia insisted, frantic to free her arm from his grip.

“We’ll do no such thing,” he declared, holding her back. “They’re two mature, reasonably responsible people, and if they’ve decided to marry and live out the rest of their years together, then more power to them. Uncle Paddington has always needed someone, and I’ve never seen him happier than he is with Hermione. He’s like a young boy again.”

“No doubt he is,” she snapped. “That’s precisely the trouble. Young boys require care—lots of it—and Aunt Hermione has already provided more than her share. She worked her fingers to the bone for her precious husbands and had nothing to show for it when the last one died—not
even a roof over her head.” The pleasure he took in this awful elopement struck her as callous in the extreme. “She needs the trouble of another husband about as much as a mackerel needs shoes!”

“Trouble?” he said irritably. “Well, apparently she doesn’t agree!”

“If not, it’s because she isn’t thinking clearly. She has property now, and a bit of personal freedom, and peace of mind—she doesn’t need to have to cater to a man and truckle after his needs and be his unpaid servant, ever again. She doesn’t have to put up with the annoyances and restrictions of marriage. She has me—I’m her family. I’ll take care of her in her declining years, instead of making her work and worry herself into the grave caring for some old man!”

Remington stared at her with disbelief. “Work and worry and exhaustion—is that all you believe she’ll have? Is that what you think marriage is about?” he demanded, releasing her. Then it struck him; was that what
her
marriage had been about—worrying over and taking care of a man more than twice her age? “If so, then it’s no wonder you avoid it like the plague yourself,” he said, running his hands back through his hair in frustration. “Has it not occurred to you that she might also find companionship and caring and laughter and warmth with my uncle? Did you never think that he’s a wealthy man who could hire hundreds of servants and nurses to ease his final years … and hers? How is it that the Maven of Matrimony, the Avenging Angel of Marriage, and the Defender of Domesticity now speaks of marriage as if it is a
trap
?”

“Because it is,” she declared fiercely, waving a hand toward the clustered faces of her Bentick brides. “Just ask them! I levered them into marriages with men of property and position and vigor, men who supposedly desired them … and still they found themselves ignored, deprived,
overworked, and maltreated. I’ll not allow that to happen to my aunt Hermione. She deserves better. She deserves to be here with me, where I can take care of her and keep her safe and secure.”

“Ahhh, I see.” He shoved his face into hers. “She deserves to have to stay here with you for the rest of her days, does she? Could it be you’re just angry and frustrated at losing Hermione? Who is being selfish now, Antonia? I’ll tell you this—I’m glad to have had a hand in introducing your aunt to my uncle. And I’m delighted that they’ve run off together like two starry-eyed adolescents!”

“You had a hand in—?” She stared at him as if truly seeing him for the first time. “You did it on purpose.” Without giving him a chance for rebuttal, she built one conclusion on top of the other: “You deliberately introduced them, hoping to marry her off, didn’t you? What was this … another of your nasty little schemes for revenge?” She was suddenly hurting, trembling all over. “Did you plan to marry them all off? To strip me of all my family? Who was next? Eleanor? Gertrude? Or maybe Maude?”

Turmoil broke out around them, everyone talking, reasoning, chiding, and pleading at once. Some took her side; some took his. But suddenly everyone in the house was on the gallery or the stairs voicing an opinion full force. That storm of emotions unleashed the anger and frustration that her suspicions generated in him.

“No, I did not
plan
this, Antonia!” he roared, clenching his fists as he towered over her. “It just happened. People do meet and do fall in love sometimes, without schemes or plotting or ulterior motives. But I wouldn’t expect that you would know anything about that!”

For one stark moment her distrust of him met his anger at her.

Neither would give.

He turned on his heel and stalked down the stairs, weaving around the ladies who stood on the steps, in shock. The sound of the door slamming reverberated around the hall for a full minute. After another moment passed, in which not a breath was taken or expelled, turmoil broke out a second time.

In the midst of all that confusion, Cleo, who was near the top of the steps, grew agitated and confused, staggered, and then crumpled into a heap on the floor.

Antonia saw it happening and stood paralyzed with shock. She couldn’t get to Cleo fast enough to keep her from hitting the floor, and couldn’t free her frozen throat to cry out to another to intervene. Then time resumed its normal pace and a ripple of panic freed her voice and jolted her to action.

“Cleo!” she rushed to the old woman’s side and lifted and cradled her head. “Cleo—can you hear me?” She thought Cleo might have groaned in response, but then she was still—so very still.

Reaching deep within for control she hadn’t realized she possessed, Antonia began issuing commands, carving order out of the panic around her. She sent Hoskins for the doctor and directed others to help her carry Cleo to bed. In a short while they had Cleo in her bed and were bathing her aged face and smoothing her thin silver hair.

Moments before, rancor and frustration had driven the residents of Paxton House apart; now they were bound together by the hush of shared grief. A few of the ladies stayed in Cleo’s room, waiting for the doctor, dabbing at tears. Others went to the upstairs parlor or down to the drawing room to talk in quiet tones of shock and disbelief. All waited anxiously, for there was not a resident of Paxton House, however long or brief her stay, who had not felt old Cleo’s influence.

When the doctor arrived in a rush, Antonia met him at
the top of the stairs and bustled him into Cleo’s room. He listened to Antonia’s description, examined Cleo, and determined that she had suffered a stroke.

“How bad is it?” Antonia asked anxiously.

“Hard to say, really.” The doctor wagged his head. “But the first forty-eight hours will usually tell. I’m afraid there’s not much we can do but give it time.” He left a few instructions with Antonia and said he would check back the next day.

And the vigil began.

Through the afternoon they watched and waited, giving her water and keeping her warm. Cleo’s words of that very morning ran hauntingly through Antonia’s head:
None of us has forever
.

The others came and sat in her room in shifts, but Antonia never left the old lady’s side. In quiet moments she would talk to Cleo, pleading with her to get well and promising her all sorts of fanciful things if she did. As she watched Cleo lying so still, looking so frail and vulnerable, she began to feel that way herself inside. Vulnerable.

If only Hermione were here, she thought desperately. Hermione was one of those rare and special people who seemed to make wine sweeter, candles brighter, days sunnier, and hearts lighter wherever she was. Nothing ever seemed hopeless or impossible with her around. Hermione’s presence in Antonia’s life had somehow compensated for the disappointments and heartaches she had endured. Now the anguish her absence caused was so intense it caused a crushing tightness around Antonia’s heart.

She looked down at the sparrowlike woman who was so light she barely made an impression on the feather mattress beneath her. She had lost Hermione. She had lost the fragile trust that had been developing between her and Remington. And now she was losing her beloved Cleo.

She had never felt so alone in her life.

The bar at White’s was always noisy and crowded at nine in the evening, but it was especially so that night. Remington squared his shoulders with grim anticipation and forged into the room, meeting all eyes, both widened and narrowed, head-on. He was intent on having as many drinks, civilized or otherwise, as it took to get roaring drunk. There was a knot in his belly, a crushing weight in his chest, and several weeks’ worth of frustration twitching in his frame. And there was no better way to get rid of all that than to put his knuckles into some annoying bastard’s face. All he needed was a little Dutch courage and a few annoying bastards.

He didn’t have to look very far.

In the corner, at the very same table where he had been recruited into their mad revenge scheme, sat five of the six men who had all but ruined his life.

His face was flinty as he strolled to the center of the bar and smacked the polished wood with an open palm, sending the clap vibrating through the room. Those intrepid enough to turn and glower glimpsed the violent glint in his eye and quickly thought better of confronting him. He ordered his usual brandy and tossed it back, savoring its potent afterburn.

Basil Trueblood lifted his gaze from the brown study of his drink and caught sight of him. He reddened and
grabbed Carter Woolworth’s arm, then Albert Everstone’s. The sight of him positively galvanized them. They lurched to their feet and stumbled toward him. Remington braced and doubled up both fists, anticipating the delicious surge of satisfaction he would feel upon landing that first punch.

“Landers—where have you been?” Woolworth said frantically, then lowered his voice to a forceful whisper when several men turned to stare. “You’ve got to do something!”

“It’s as much
your
fault as ours,” Everstone declared, widening his stance to steady himself.

“If you had just married her and kept her on a short chain, none of this would have happened,” Trueblood whined, glancing nervously over his shoulder.

“We cannot go to the courts without a public scandal,” Bertrand Howard hissed with a desperate look. “And they have no family to appeal to—you’re our only hope!”

Remington stared at their drink-flushed faces, stunned, his anger momentarily deflected by their bizarre charges.

“It’s my fault? What in bloody hell are you talking about?” he growled, straightening, his shoulders swelling. “I ought to thrash the lot of you within an inch of your worthless lives for what
you’ve
done to
me
—invading my house in the dead of night and turning my life upside down—”

He smacked his glass down on the bar and made to leave, but they closed ranks around him, and Everstone got up the courage to grab his arm. Once he had it, not even Remington’s steeliest glare could make him release it.