Betina Krahn (59 page)

She paced and thought and examined each suggestion they made. Hotels were too easy to check, their country houses and clubs were too obvious, and none of them could afford to involve their relatives. They were at a loss until Hermione, who had sat listening to it all, suggested:

“What about Remington’s house? Paddington was just saying that he ought to look in today, to let the staff know what is happening. The house is empty except for staff. And who would think to look for Remington’s accusers in his own house?”

It was nothing short of brilliant.

Antonia smiled for the first time in more than two days.

A knock came at the kitchen door of Paxton House that same night, and Gertrude crept through the half-darkened kitchen to open it. In stepped Rupert Fitch, in his natty new pin-striped coat and black bowler. “Hello, gorgeous,” he said, doffing his hat with a glint in his beady black eyes. “Got your message. Now what’s all this about ‘needin’ to see a bit of justice done’?”

“Aw, Rupert,” Gertrude said, sniffling and looking at him as if he were the light of her life. “It’s terrible—what that man’s done to our laidy Toni. It’s jus’ one scandal after
another. She’s plum heartsick.” She buried her nose in a handkerchief and took a deep, shuddering breath. A moment later she dabbed at her eyes. “Will ye help ’er, Rupert? Will ye listen to ’er side o’ the story and see its gets told straight in the newspapers?”

“Her side, you say? Th’ whole story?” He could scarcely contain himself. “Of course, Gertrude,” he said wrapping a cozening arm around her. “You just lead me to her and I’ll see it all gets written and reported, straight ‘n’ true.”

“Oh, thank ye, Rupert!” Gertrude’s joy was utterly sincere. “I knew I could count on ye!” She looked around, searching for some way to repay his largess. “Say—have ye eaten? I’ve got a tasty stew and some berry pie, and I expect I could find a spot o’ wine.”

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.”

The next morning the headline of
Gaflinger’s
read:

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:

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 embarrassment 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!”