The Last Bachelor

by Betina Krahn

  Fitch grinned. He never got food like Gertrude’s cooking. Hell—he scarcely got meals at all! A scoop of a story and tasty victuals all at the same time—tonight was indeed his lucky night. He sat down to eat and drink while Gertrude hurried upstairs to fetch Lady Antonia. He finished his food, but couldn’t help going back for seconds, and then third helpings of that delicious blackberry pie. He had settled back at the table for a bit of a smoke when Lady Antonia appeared, looking pale and distraught and, oh, so lovely.

  Fitch pulled out his yellow pad and his most solicitous manner, and as she began to speak of the way the earl had provoked her to that vile Woman Wager, he began to scribble notes.

  “Are you writing it all down on that little pad?” Lady Antonia asked, her sapphire eyes wide and so very innocent.

  “I take notes first, then I’ll write out the full story later,” he said.

  “Oh. And will the story be in the paper tomorrow?” she asked with the most musical lilt to her voice. He felt a curious rumble in his stomach and sat straighter.

  “You bet it will.” That made him stop to think: to be sure of a good spot, he’d better warn the night editor that he had a late-breaking scoop for the front page. He asked Lady Antonia if she had a footman or anyone who could carry a message to his paper, and she said her butler would do so. He promptly wrote out a note and handed it to the old boy, who shuffled off to deliver it.

  “Now, where were we?” Fitch asked. And as he poised his pencil over the pad, he felt a growl of discomfort in his belly. By the time he had written two or three pages of notes, his belly was heaving and cramping. At five pages of notes it felt as if someone were tearing him in two. He grabbed his stomach and held tight; then, when he couldn’t bear it, he jumped up and headed for the back door.

  They found him doubled over in the service yard, where he had emptied his stomach, and they helped him back inside.

  “Dearie me,” Gertrude said, frowning. “I hope it wasn’t nothin’ ye ate.”

  Fitch gamely declared he was feeling better and sat down to continue. But in two minutes he was rolling on the bench by the table, clutching his belly and groaning.

  “I hope that stew weren’t a bit offish,” Gertrude said, going to sniff the pot.

  Fitch asked to lie down a moment, and they helped him into the servant’s hall and onto a bench by the hearth. He had never felt so bloody awful in his life. And before long he was ready to embarrass himself yet again. Afterward he opened his eyes to find several women standing around him, with solicitous smiles.

  “Feeling awful, Mr. Fitch? That’s a nasty bit of something you’ve got,” one said.

  “Like comin’ to like, I reckon,” said another.

  “You needn’t worry about a thing. We’ll take care of you,” said a third.

  Then Gertrude’s face appeared in his swarmy vision … smiling with a vengeful glint. “A pity you won’t be able to finish Lady Toni’s story, Rupert. But I tell ye what.” She patted him. “We’ll just finish it for ye.”

  Squalling with both pain and alarm, Fitch tried to rise. “You can’t … do that!” But he quickly found himself on his back, writhing in pain.

  “Oh, it’s no trouble,” Gertrude said with a smile of genuine pleasure. “After all ye done for us … we owe ye one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The next morning the headline of Gaflinger’s read:

  THE WIDOW TELLS HER STORY!

  And under the byline of the infamous Rupert Fitch was the tantalizing subheader: “Allegations Against the Earl Totally Unfair.” The lengthy article reported an interview with Lady Antonia Paxton, the lovely widow who had challenged the Earl of Landon to the wager that had set London’s tongues a’wag. And there was plenty in the report to set tongues wagging anew: the lady’s discussion of the earl’s early skepticism, praise for his diligence in performing the “women’s work” required of him, and the tantalizingly worded evidences of his gradual change of heart.

  Through it all the insightful Fitch glimpsed and reported Lady Antonia’s deep-felt respect for the earl—especially in the face of the hideous things that were being said about him in the papers. And with a final, dramatic flourish, Fitch detailed the lady’s horror and heartache at the ugly rumors that had been stirred in the papers about her personally, as a result of an unfortunate story involving another infamous pair of the London elite. In an unprecedented act of journalistic sensitivity, Fitch admitted that he was the very writer who had reported that story and offered her a gallant apology for the distress its vagueness had caused her.

  The article was an immediate sensation. Gaflinger’s—whose editor had been flabbergasted by Fitch’s story, but in desperation to fill the space he had held, had printed it anyway—had to go back to press with an afternoon edition to supply the demand for papers. Not a small part of the sensation was the hint of even greater revelations the next day, when a second article was promised.

  Antonia sent Hoskins out to buy several copies of the paper, and shared one of them with Rupert Fitch, who had been installed in an unused servant’s room on the fourth floor of her house. He had begun to recover and felt well enough to take nourishment. Whether from the food or from the sight of the article he hadn’t written, he quickly suffered a relapse into the illness that had struck him down the night before.

  Once again Antonia helpfully put pen to paper to help him meet his deadline.

  Fitch’s article, sensational as it was, had stiff competition from reports in the Telegraph and the Evening News, both of which quoted the earl’s solicitors as saying that he was being unfairly prosecuted for his political and social views, and that the earl was far from the radical opponent of marriage that he was painted to be. Opinion articles resurrected the notion of the Woman Wager and speculated on whether doing women’s work had changed his attitude toward women and marriage. And the papers ran companion pieces analyzing and discussing his published papers, from an Oxford don, a leading suffragist, and an expert in social theory from the Royal Society for the Study of Eugenic Living.

  Then the following morning Rupert Fitch’s second article appeared, and the speculation raised in the other papers was satisfied by yet another scoop by the gritty little correspondent. Newsboys selling Gaflinger’s Gazette were fairly mobbed by people eager to have a copy of the piece titled:

  THE “WOMAN WAGER” WON BY THE WIDOW!

  According to Fitch, the infamous wager was conceded by the earl to the widow and—even more spectacular—it had resulted in a true change of heart in the archbachelor. And the article divulged that Lady Antonia, seeing the great change in him toward women and marriage, had agreed to fulfill her side of the bargain of her own free will.

  Then came what the entire countryside had waited for: the revelation that the Earl of Landon had actually proposed to Mrs. Paxton, offering her his protection in the light of certain damaging publicity. The article detailed how she had tearfully declined, not wishing to burden the gallant earl. And in a disarmingly candid statement, she declared that the earl had proved to be a man of honor and generosity and great kindness. She had nothing but the highest respect and the warmest regard for him, and she was distraught at the government’s attempt to malign and discredit him.

  In the palace the queen’s ear for intrigue detected the buzz of scandal, and when she demanded to know what was afoot, Fitch’s article was produced by her red-faced secretary. Victoria sat listening to it, growing more choleric by the paragraph.

  “Enough!” she said, waving her secretary to a halt. “That poor creature, Mrs. Paxton, having such lies attributed to her. We are to believe that Landon proposed and she declined—what fools do these news writers think we are? It’s clear he’s paid the little wretch to print it, hoping to draw sympathy in his favor. Well, it will not work!” She picked up her drawing pad and continued sketching the nude figures frolicking by a stream in a scene from her favorite Winterhalter painting. “Sympathy or not, he’s a scandal and an embarrassme
nt to the Crown, and I want to see the immoral beast get exactly what is coming to him.”

  In his jail cell, still awaiting his release, Remington read the article that Paddington had brought him, and sat stunned for a moment. He couldn’t imagine what had gotten into the venomous Fitch—or where he had gotten hold of such stunningly accurate information—unless it was from Antonia or someone in her household. But after a moment he jumped up on his rickety bed and leaned his ear toward the barred window. As he listened, he fancied that he could hear on the wind the sound of the queen once again screaming for his head on a platter.

  “Six bloody days in that hellhole!” Remington declared the minute the coach was under way. He looked back at the crowd they left behind and the news writers running after them, still shouting questions. Then he settled irritably back into his seat, scratching vigorously beneath his coat. “I think I’ve lost half a stone and I’m sure I’ve got fleas! What took so bloody long?”

  Herriot and Uncle Paddington explained the monstrous delay: finding a magistrate who would handle the request for release. Remington’s case was a political hot potato and no one wanted their fingers burned. Then there was endless wrangling over the requirement of bail money, which was a callous attempt by the liberal element in government to show that the courts were unbiased and no respecters of person. When bail was finally agreed, it had taken a while to collect the shocking amount of money required to guarantee his appearance in court.

  Both prosecution and defense had pulled out all the stops, employing stall tactics and shouting matches—all that on just the matter of his freedom for the two days that remained until the trial started.

  The explanation only served to deepen Remington’s irritation. “How dare they require surety of me—I’m a sitting member of the Lords!”

  “Our point exactly,” Herriot said tersely. “The papers have taken note, I’ll tell you, and it’s raised a bit of a stir. A stroke of luck for you, actually.”

  “It is?” Remington snarled, burrowing back into the seat.

  “Absolutely, my boy,” Paddington inserted, handing him a newspaper with a headline reading:

  OUTRAGEOUS BAIL REQUIRED FOR LANDON!

  Beneath it was a subheader declaring: “Does Government Prosecute or Persecute Controversial Earl?”

  “The papers have come down on your side. Called it irregular and vindictive. The Telegraph and Evening News both have said it was the queen’s undue influence, and that, since she doesn’t ‘bother’ with public life, she ought not to ‘bother’ the courts, either. The Lords passed a bill of protest, and there have been a number of fiery speeches in the Commons.”

  “There have?” Remington scanned the paper and his tense frame relaxed. “This is certainly a novelty—seeing my name in the papers without the words ‘radical,’ ‘woman hater,’ or ‘depravity’ linked to it.”

  It was dusk when they arrived at his home. There was a small crowd of news writers loitering on the street outside. As the coach slowed to enter the carriage turn by the front steps, the writers swarmed after it, waving and shoving to get onto the steps ahead of him. He battled his way toward the doors, growing steadily more indignant at their relentlessness and furious at the way they invented what they couldn’t—

  “Come on, yer lordship—give us somethin’ to print!” one called out plaintively.

  It struck him like a bolt out of the blue, stopping him in his tracks. They invented things because they needed something to publish. Then why didn’t he just give them something—something he wanted to see in print?

  “You want a quote? Then try this,” he said, turning to them with a calculated smile. “These charges are totally spurious … brought to punish me for speaking my mind and publishing my views.” He struck a pose of subtle drama. “We enjoy a vigorous and independent press in Britain, one that promotes and encourages the exchange of ideas. But it will not remain free much longer if we who dare to think new thoughts and publish them are arrested for being a danger to society.

  “I have dared to ask questions about that most basic of institutions: marriage. And in my questioning I have learned a great deal. When I walk into that courtroom a few days hence, I alone will not be on trial. The institution of marriage will stand trial with me.” He paused. “Now, if you will excuse me, I would like a bath and a bit of decent food.” He managed a wry smile. “Scotland Yard accommodations, gentlemen, leave a good bit to be desired.”

  They tossed additional questions at him, but he turned and shoved his way past them and through the opening doors. They stood outside for a while, watching, hoping he would relent and speak again. But when one correspondent decided simply to use what the earl had already said and left, the others saw him hurrying off to his paper and soon followed.

  “My lord!” Phipps met him looking uncharacteristically flustered. “How good to have you home, my lord! We didn’t expect you so … that is … we thought …”

  He took the hat Remington held because he hadn’t wished to put it on with his hair so filthy.

  “A bath, Phipps. And while Manley is preparing it, I want something to eat,” Remington ordered, heading straight for the stairs leading down to the kitchen. “Whatever you have on hand will do—I’m famished. I’d have starved if it hadn’t been for Antonia’s hampers. Uncle Paddington, show Mr. Herriot where the liquor is.”

  “Really, my lord—” Phipps hurried along after him, paling a bit more with every step Remington took. “Truly, I can bring you a tray in just a few minutes—”

  Remington went charging into the kitchen before he could be stopped. But once there, he stopped dead. At the table—his kitchen table—were five faces he had sworn to put his fist through the very next time he encountered them.

  “What in hell are you doing here?” he demanded, stalking toward them with his fists clenched.

  “We’re … we’re …” Trueblood put down the glass in his hand and backed away from the table.

  “Eating,” Everstone supplied, pushing back from the table and rising, his cheeks bulging with ham and roast potatoes.

  “I can see that!” Remington roared. “What in God’s name are you doing in my kitchen eating my food?”

  Woolworth swallowed what was in his mouth with some difficulty, then shoved to his feet. He glanced at the others and then squared his shoulders manfully and confessed: “Dodging subpoenas.”

  Remington closed his eyes for a moment as he gathered strength. His association with these pathetic “ruined bachelors” had proved to be the very low point of his life—and with each new encounter that point seemed to sink a bit lower. This was probably yet another catastrophe in the making.

  “Let me get this straight,” he said, suddenly fixing them with a glare. “You’re hiding in my house … from the people who are trying to serve you subpoenas to testify against me?” When they nodded, he momentarily lost control.

  “Good God—wherever did you get such a harebrained idea?” he thundered. It was Woolworth who assigned the blame.

  “From Lady Antonia.”

  “She and her aunt thought that this would be the last place they would look for us … and since you weren’t here …” Howard tried to explain.

  Remington closed his eyes. Antonia. He should have known. Devious woman. First she worked a little magic on Fitch to turn things around in the newspapers, and now this. Maddening woman. Interfering woman. Delicious woman. She was undoubtedly worth every bit of trouble he was going through to win her.

  Paddington and Herriot came rushing downstairs to see what all the commotion was about and halted behind Remington, wide-eyed at the sight of five gentlemen sitting in his kitchen in shirtsleeves and braces. Remington came to life, snatching up a slab of bread and a hunk of ham and somebody’s glass of wine, then ordering the lot of them upstairs, to sort it all out. When introductions were made minutes later in Remington’s study, lawyer Herriot went perfectly gray in the face.

  “Dear Lord—these are the men named in
the charges against you!” When Remington nodded, he grew frantic. “Then you’ve got to get them out of here! If they’re found here, it will look as if you’re trying to influence their testimony!”

  As Remington stared at the lawyer, his mind raced. Then a slow, inexpressibly wicked smile stole over his handsome face.

  “Oh, no! You cannot let them stay,” Herriot declared, watching a scheme being born in Remington’s expression. “It’s … irregular … possibly criminal!”

  “So is the government’s case against me,” Remington responded. “And perhaps it’s time to fight fire with fire.”

  When asked to relate how it had all come about, the five husbands spun yet another tale of their marital woes. Their conjugal fate had now been linked to the success of his defense, they informed him. Their wives, under Lady Antonia’s influence, refused to come home to them until he was free.

  “What are we to do, Landon?” Woolworth demanded, looking shaken. “If we testify, our marital troubles will be splattered all over London! I’m already on thin ice with my family—my uncles have already paid me a call over this business with my mother. I can’t stand another brouhaha.”

  “If we don’t testify—it will look as if we’ve something to hide!” Trueblood whined.

  “Because we damn well do!” Everstone ground out. “I may have to stand for reelection at any time. Can’t have my troubles with Margaret made grist for the political mill—I’d be finished!”

  “And if we do testify, our wives won’t speak to us for months—years!” Howard declared. “This just gets worse and worse! You’ve got to do something, Landon!”

  “On the contrary, gentlemen,” Remington said, settling into the chair behind his desk, munching his ham on white bread and looking perversely pleased. “This time I’m afraid it is you who will have to do something.”