The Last Bachelor

by Betina Krahn

  Into that hive of femininity burst three intrepid males with fists and shoulders flexed defensively. They halted to take their bearings, disoriented by the candlelight and shadows and the clamor of so many women’s voices. “Here—you can’t barge in here like that!” Hoskins bellowed, tottering forward, brandishing his candlestick.

  “It’s all right, Hoskins,” Antonia said, hurrying forward to restrain him. There in the light stood Albert Everstone, Basil Trueblood, and Bertrand Howard, reeking of two-day-old shirts and recent whiskey.

  “Where are they?” Everstone demanded. “Where’s my wife, woman? I demand to see my wife!”

  “And mine. I know she’s here!” Trueblood declared hotly, looking up at the bevy of women around the gallery. “Alice—you come down here this minute—I’m taking you home!”

  “Camille!” Bertrand Howard followed Trueblood’s lead. “I have a few words to say to you! Show yourself!”

  Antonia felt a bolt of outrage racing up her spine as she heard their half-drunken demands. For the second time that day, in defense of those she cared about, her hands clenched, her face reddened, and her shoulders swelled with righteous fury. As she stalked forward, she was transformed from a mere female into the fire-breathing dragon that had once descended on them as they sat in a woman’s bed.

  “How dare you enter my house under cover of darkness and threaten and bully my guests!” She advanced on them, her eyes glowing eerily in the candlelight.

  “W-we come to get our wives and take ’em home where they belong,” Everstone declared, falling back a step and looking to the others for support.

  “They belong to us now,” Trueblood declared. “You saddled us with them!”

  “And we want them back,” Bertrand Howard said, from behind the others’ shoulders.

  “Well, you cannot have them!” Each word seemed ripped from the bottom of her soul. “Your wives, gentlemen, want nothing further to do with you. They are not your property or chattel; they do not belong to you! From this day on they and they alone will decide where and to whom they belong. They have left your callous, indifferent, and despicable clutches for good reason. And in doing so, they have allowed me to redress the wrong I have done in shackling them to the likes of you.”

  She forced them back a step as she advanced on them with feminine anger burning brightly at her core.

  “Go home and count yourselves the most fortunate of men. For this day you are relieved of the burden of an unwanted wife. Hoskins, the door!”

  “I won’t stand for this!” Bertrand Howard declared, darting around her for the stairs, shouting, “Camille—come down here!”

  The others moved to join him but stopped dead in their tracks as they watched him run into a line of older women, standing shoulder to shoulder on the stairs, in their nightclothes. Before their disbelieving eyes the women descended, step by step, a formidable wall of experienced femininity forcing Howard back and down the steps.

  “You won’t get away with this! Can’t keep us from our own wives—there’s laws, you know!” Albert Everstone shook his fist at Antonia, but only as he was backing toward the open door.

  “There’s also justice,” Antonia said with regal poise, sweeping them before her, out the door. “And that’s exactly what you’re getting right now.”

  The doors slammed shut and the locks were thrown again.

  It took some time before the household settled once again into the night and into a jittery stillness. In the hush of their darkened room, in the sleepless hours that followed, Camille Howard smiled to herself and whispered to Alice Trueblood:

  “Did you see that? They came for us.”

  WOMEN PROTEST EARL’S DEPRAVITY!

  The headline that greeted London the next morning, on the front page of Gaflinger’s, was sensational in the extreme. But the titles other papers gave their articles were not much better. “Earl Unfair to Fairer Sex,” “Suffragettes Protest Earl’s Actions,” and “Women Demand End to Degrading Labor!” were among the more restrained assessments applied to the incident.

  Apparently there had been a few checkered coats and brown bowlers in the crowd outside Remington’s building, after all. They had scrupulously recorded every word said, but had been considerably less conscientious about presenting those words in the context in which they had been uttered. A number of the stories were spiced with the shocking mention of “white slavery,” “bestial carnal activities,” and of women “attacked” and “kept shackled.”

  Antonia saw the Gaflinger’s headline at breakfast the next morning and could scarcely eat a bite afterward. She paced the small parlor downstairs, until several of her Bentick brides invaded the room, looking for a place to do some stitchery. She excused herself and fled to the study, where she picked up a feather duster and began to dust some of Cleo’s memories, while trying to sort out her thoughts. After a few minutes Cleo came tottering in and found her staring at the much-dusted figurine of the beautiful waltzing couple.

  “That’s me and my Fox in Vienna, you know,” she said loudly, coming to take it from Antonia.

  “Yes, I know,” Antonia said, watching the old lady’s cloudy eyes collecting memories from the colors and lines of the porcelain statuette.

  “How that man loved to dance.” Cleo appeared to be sliding off into her memories, but came back to the present with a vengeance. “You ever waltz, Toni girl?”

  “I … um … no,” Antonia said, feeling unsettled by the admission.

  “Ever seen the sun come up in a man’s arms?” Cleo demanded in a softer voice. There was no room for evasion, despite the unthinkably personal nature of the question.

  “I … no,” Antonia answered after a minute, feeling her face grow hot.

  “Ever been so wild in love that you felt drunk … without touchin’ a drop?”

  Antonia shook her head.

  Cleo sighed and placed a knotty hand on her arm. “You got a lot of livin’ yet to do, my girl. Don’t wait forever.” She raised that hand to pat Antonia’s cheek. “None of us has forever.”

  Antonia watched her wander into the midst of her memories and felt a haunting emptiness opening in her. Taste life and savor it. Live. That was exactly what Aunt Hermione had said to her, again and again. But coming from Cleo, it sounded almost like a divine imperative. Don’t wait forever.

  She stood by the door for a moment, watching the morning sun glinting on old Cleo’s faded finery. Seized by a rising urgency that she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to examine, she called for Hoskins and ordered him to summon a cab.

  “Don’t need to go for one,” he said with a disgusted look. “Been one sittin’ outside the door for the past quarter of an hour.”

  Antonia flew to her rooms, hurriedly changed her dress, and soon rushed back down the stairs, properly hatted and gloved. She left word with Hoskins for Aunt Hermione—in case more of her protégées should arrive during her absence—then hurried out to the cab. And it was a genuine disappointment to find it empty.

  Remington paced his offices, waiting for her to arrive and hoping that the incident yesterday and the hideous things they were saying about him in the papers wouldn’t combine with her lingering mistrust of him to keep her away.

  The women’s demonstration yesterday had genuinely shocked him. He was used to people disagreeing with his radical notions of equality; he had certainly had enough slings and arrows flung his way. But it usually happened in print or on the floor of the House of Commons, and was generally done by stodgy old men. Until yesterday he had counted the suffragists among his allies.

  Antonia had blamed it on the newspaper stories about them, and he realized she probably was right. He had ignored the news writers, assuming—in error—that a flame that wasn’t fed would soon go out. He hadn’t imagined that their wretched appetite for scandal was so tenacious it would find a way to feed itself. Nor had he counted on the possibility that others would take their absurd ramblings so seriously. Judging by the women’s reacti
on yesterday, half of London now considered him a pillaging opportunist, a brutal oppressor of women, and a hopeless profligate!

  God knew how many more demonstrations, rebukes, and outrages he would have to bear before Antonia finally relented and agreed to marry him. The fortnight the queen had given him was almost half-gone, and—

  The queen. His stomach contracted sharply.

  Did Britain’s dour sovereign read newspapers, too? Victoria had been outraged, thinking him a despoiler of virtuous widows. He groaned and rubbed his cramping stomach. Now that he was publicly accused of attacking women in the streets and forcing them to do brute labor, now that he had almost been arrested and had women demonstrating in the streets against him … His face turned gray. She was probably screaming for his head on a spike!

  Frantic to see Antonia and settle this thing once and for all, he stalked to the outer office, into the main corridor, and stood glowering at the stairs as if he could somehow make her materialize there. Then he retraced his steps, pausing to rake a glare over the accounting room, and then stopping by the door of the room where Collingwood labored over his typewriter.

  “Your lordship.” Markham approached him as he stalked into his office. “A moment, please. The gentlemen from the bank have not arrived to finalize arrangements for the loan on the Sutton Mills stock transaction.”

  Remington frowned; the good gentlemen of the Bank of England were never late. You could set a timepiece by them. As he thought of what might have caused such an unprecedented delay, he paled. There was nothing bankers liked more than newspapers—they positively devoured them of a morning! The Gaflinger’s morning headline popped into his mind: “Women Protest Earl’s Depravity.” There was nothing bankers liked less than “depravity,” unless it was “depravity” exposed—scandal!

  Just then the sound of voices in the outer office drifted down the hallway and through his open door. He held his breath, and there was Antonia’s musical soprano. He went charging out of his office to greet her.

  She was wearing her fawn-colored silk with its graceful panniers, and pert little bustle. He called her name, and when she turned, there were rows of new buttons down the front of her bodice. Her hat was a matching fawn-colored felt with a demiveil and pheasant and egret feathers. Her hair seemed a bit brighter, her form a bit curvier, and her aspect a bit more feminine in that delicate color.

  He stood gawking, then reddened slightly and reached for his pocket watch. “Only a half hour late,” he said huskily. “You show steady improvement.”

  “As do you,” she said, removing her gloves one tantalizing finger at a time. Before he could react to that provocative statement, she had unpinned her hat and was swaying past him down the hall, headed for Collingwood’s office. “I’ve decided I really may have a knack for business, after all. And I believe I should learn all I can.”

  Steady improvement. His heart gave a thump in his chest and started to beat again. And as he watched her disappear into the secretary’s office, he felt as if he were not only running a footrace, but that he might also be winning … until Markham brought him back to earth.

  “Should I send round to the bank and ask what is keeping them, sir?”

  Remington came back to reality with a thud. “The bankers—good Lord.” He scowled and thought for a moment. “Where the hell is Uncle Paddington? He could go to the bank and find out what’s going on. He’s an old schoolmate of Sir Neville Thurston’s.”

  “He hasn’t been in for the last two days or so, your lordship,” Markham said.

  “Then send round to his town house—he’s spent the last night or two there. Better yet, go yourself. Explain and tell him I need him to do a little ‘banking.’ He’ll know what I mean”—he paused, then added—“I hope.”

  Antonia felt his eyes on her from the doorway, and her heart beat faster as she looked up. His arms were crossed, and he was leaning a shoulder against the door frame with a determined expression.

  “I think it’s time you were promoted. Come with me.” He took her by the hand and led her into the conference room, where he seated her at the table and proceeded to lay out his diversified empire on the table, using the charts his staff had shown her two days ago.

  As he talked, she watched his mouth move and her skin grew warm and sensitive beneath her bodice. She saw his hands move and his shoulders flex as he picked up one chart and laid down another, and she couldn’t help wondering if he knew how to waltz. Her gaze fastened on his chocolate eyes, and she felt a sweet shiver and wondered if they had ever seen the sun come up while lying in a woman’s arms.

  “So you see, I have a good many assets,” he said, laying the last chart aside.

  “Yes,” she said with a telling bit of thickness, “I can certainly see that.”

  “And I take a hand in the management of every one of my interests.”

  “Ummm,” she said sweetly. “That must keep your hands very busy.”

  “Quite.” He smiled nervously. “Though not too busy to add additional interests … which brings me to my point. I am thinking of making an acquisition.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something along the lines of a merger, actually.” He settled one thigh on the edge of the table, half sitting, leaning toward her. “Something that would require considerable time and energy. A highly personal transaction. And I wonder if you might be interested in hearing more?”

  He was testing the waters, asking her feelings about the possibilities between them. Her heart beat faster.

  “I have no need of a merger, your lordship. In fact, a union of the sort you refer to would effectively strip me of all my assets and place all of my worldly property into other hands. Where women of substance are concerned, marri—merger always works to a man’s advantage. By law the moment a woman enters into such an agreement, her property passes over to her husband in its entirety, and he is free to do with it whatever he wishes. Married women share this dismal lack of property rights with children, criminals, and the mentally insane.”

  “My desire for you is anything but fiduciary, Antonia.”

  “So you say, your lordship. But I am of a mind to think the law may have a bit of wisdom in it, after all. It is possible that there is something in marriage that drives women to desperate acts or renders them childish, imbecilic, and sometimes irrational.” She smiled with a bit of mischief. “I suspect that thing may be men.”

  Caught back, he was about to reply when Hallowford came rushing into the conference room, out of breath.

  “Your lordship—thank heaven you are still here!” he gasped out.

  “What is it, Hallowford?” Remington said, rising and frowning at the man’s harried state.

  “News from New Market. Bridgeman has made a preemptive offer to purchase Sutton Mills, and unless we can exercise our option and complete the transaction by week’s end, the owner intends to accept Bridgeman’s offer.”

  “He can’t do that!” Remington declared, going rigid in an attempt to contain his ire. “We had an agreement. I was to buy controlling interest—convert the ownership to a stock basis and issue a solicitation for additional shareholders. The mills need an infusion of money and equipment in order to take advantage of the rising market for—” He halted and narrowed his gaze on something only he could see. “I believe I need to pay Sutton a visit—refresh his memory on just how binding a handshake can be. Hallowford, send round for my carriage.”

  He started for the door, turned, and caught Antonia by the hand. “Get your hat, sweetheart. You’re coming, too.”

  The ride to New Market took the better part of two hours, and in that time Antonia watched Remington and his men, Hallowford and Evans, plotting out a strategy for confronting the waffling owner of the mill that was slated to become a pillar of Carr Enterprises’ holdings. It was an ambitious project, socially as well as financially, for there was a certain reorganization involved that would permit a number of employees to participate in the ownership through the sale of ear
marked shares. It was also a project in which Remington and his staff had already invested considerable time, money, and entrepreneurial pride. And now the entire project was threatened by the entry of a well-heeled spoiler into the picture. Loss of the project would mean the loss of thousands of pounds and of some face in the financial world.

  “Sutton, my friend!” Remington said, boldly offering the fellow his hand when they were shown into the owner’s offices. After handshakes and introductions they were offered seats and coffee, both of which they accepted. Then Remington came to the point. “I understand you’ve received another offer for the mills. Not surprising, really.” He glanced admiringly around him. “There is a great deal of opportunity here.” Then he pierced the rotund and moist-faced Sutton with a sharp look. “What did surprise me was word that you were seriously considering it.”

  “Well … a man must … surely look to his best interests in such important matters,” Sutton said, straightening and stretching his neck as if his collar bothered him.

  “True,” Remington agreed, with a smile crafted of burnished steel. “But a man must first look to his honor, else he will find others regard his word with the small respect that he shows for it.”

  What followed reminded Antonia of a chess match: move and countermove. A demand thinly cloaked. A concession adroitly made. A suggestion, then an assertion; provocation, then conciliation. She watched in fascination as Remington’s mien went through every conceivable permutation of human emotion: anger, outrage, determination, calculation, condescension, pleasure, confidence, sympathy. It was a highly charged and competitive game. And in the end Remington won.

  After two hours of wrangling, posturing, negotiating, the final price was fixed, and papers—which Remington had already prepared for a future meeting—were signed. They departed with an air of triumph … which gradually deflated as the carriage lurched along, carrying them back to London and to realities Remington dreaded.