Betina Krahn (63 page)

“I believe so,” she said.

“Mrs. Paxton,” Kingston Gray said, smiling in such a disarming way that she was caught totally off guard by his next question, “has the Earl of Landon ever proposed marriage to you?”

She gasped silently. If ever there was a time to faint, this was it. And yet there she stood—with her eyes wide,
her knees turning to jelly, and her hands icy inside her gloves—without a vapor in sight!

“Yes,” she managed to say.

“How many times?” he said. She glanced at Remington and found him watching her with his eyes luminous and his frame tensed and focused on her. And she suddenly understood—this was to show Remington’s change of heart toward marriage. She took a deep breath and answered as best she could.

“I haven’t … kept count,” she said.

“More than once, then?” When she nodded, he continued counting. “More than three times? More than five times?”

“Perhaps four or five times.” There was a clamor in the gallery and she clung to the railing for support, feeling a bit stunned by her own admission: Remington had proposed marriage to her at least four or five times. And every time he had meant it. Suddenly the questions came fast and furious.

“And you refused him those four or five times. Why? Was it because you find him loathsome and personally repugnant?”

“No.”

“Is it because you find him callous, arrogant, prejudiced, and narrow-minded?”

“No,” she said, glancing at Remington, wishing with all her heart she could take back those refusals.

“Was it because you found him greedy or miserly or dishonorable?”

“Certainly not.”

“Was it because you believed him insincere in his desire to marry you?”

Her answer was so hushed that everyone in the courtroom leaned forward in their seats to hear. “No.”

Gray nodded. “Would you please look at the defendant,
Mrs. Paxton.” She stiffened and leaned heavily against the railing as she turned to Remington. His dark eyes reached out across the court to touch her and search her response, while his lawyer stopped her heart with a simple question:

“If he proposed to you here and now, Mrs. Paxton, would you accept?”

“I object!” The prosecutor was on his feet in a heartbeat, while the courtroom erupted around them. “Your honors—this is an outrage! The Crown objects to these tawdry theatricals! None of this is relevant to the charges—”

“But it is entirely relevant to the earl’s defense, your honors!” Kingston Gray intoned in a commanding voice, above the chaos he had unleashed. “The earl’s willingness to marry Mrs. Paxton is proof that he is not and never has been universally opposed to matrimony!”

Conferring with his associates, the chief justice banged his gavel and declared, “Objection overruled!”

But when some measure of order was restored, Gray glanced at Remington, then turned back to Antonia, who stood with her eyes lowered and her cheeks crimson and withdrew the question. He rested and took his seat, leaving Antonia in the hands of the hostile prosecutor.

“Just one question, Mrs. Paxton,” the choleric prosecutor said, spitting out each word. “If you truly believed he had changed his opinions of women and that he was sincere in his proposal … why did you not marry him?”

Antonia lifted her head and took a deep breath. “For the best reason in the world, sir: because I did not want to be married.”

“You, a known advocate of marriage and women’s place in the home … did not wish to marry?” He faced the justices to pose his question to them, even as he posed it to Antonia. “Why did you not want to be married?”

“I believe that is
two
questions, sir,” she said, thinking
frantically for an answer that would not reflect on Remington. And she hit upon a surprising truth, albeit a half truth. “Because I had been a widow for some time and am used to managing my money, my time, and my household as I please. I found the idea of surrendering my considerable property and my right to direct my own affairs intolerable.”

“It had nothing to do with the earl or his views of women or marriage?”

“It did not,” she said with all truthfulness. “It had to do with my views of marriage … and men.”

“Specifically with your opinions of
one man
, did it not?” The prosecutor, sensing a possible stroke for his side, grew impassioned. “Since it was Remington Carr you refused, it must be Remington Carr you objected to in some way. Just what was your opinion of the earl when you rejected his repeated proposals, Mrs. Paxton?”

Antonia drew a deep breath and told the absolute truth. “I believed the earl to be a complex and interesting man, an honorable, clever, and often considerate man. I believed him to be a man of strong principle and strong passions, who put his principles into action in his business and financial concerns.” That raised a murmur in the court. “I found him desirable and utterly fascinating. But I did not wish to marry … him or anyone. I confess; I had come to see marriage as something of a trap that deprived women of their freedom and property. I, too, had a great deal to learn.”

She scarcely recalled the trip across the courtroom and to her seat. All she knew was that another two steps and her legs would have given out. Paddington and Hermione put her down between them on the bench and held her icy hands. A moment later the justices were adjourning the court for the midday recess. She recovered enough to catch the smile Remington aimed in her direction and watch him exit with Kingston Gray.

“Did I do all right?” she asked Hermione and Paddington as they fought their way through the courthouse crowd.

“You did just fine dear,” Hermione said, patting her hand.

“Excellent. Top-notch,” Paddington said, then frowned slightly, looking a bit confused. “Now … were you testifying for or against him?”

There wasn’t much testimony left to hear, Paddington told them when he came back to the gallery after conferring with Remington’s lawyer. “That’s good,” Antonia said limply. “I don’t think I could stand much more. When do you think they’ll hand down a ruling?”

Paddington shrugged. “Tribunals sometimes rule straightaway, sometimes choose to deliberate. Hard to say.”

And it was harder still to say how the evidence and testimony was being viewed from the bench. The justices’ faces looked as if they were carved of stone. Even during the most unruly outbursts from the back, they scarcely raised an eyebrow. Both prosecution and defense would have to wait until the judgment was handed down to hear the justices’ opinions.

When the court was reconvened, the chief justice asked the prosecutor whether his final witness, Rupert Fitch, had been located. The prosecutor shifted and stalled and asked for a bit more time. The justices granted it, providing they could locate him before summation of arguments. Then they instructed Kingston Gray to call his next witness. He called Remington Carr, Earl of Landon to the stand.

Antonia sat straighter, watching Remington move from the prisoner’s dock to the witness box. He looked a bit solemn as he took the stand and swore to tell the truth. When he looked toward Antonia and she smiled, some of
his aristocratic reserve seemed to melt and he became more accessible.

“My lord, we have heard much made of your previous views on marriage … and of your change of heart regarding matrimony. Would you please tell the court, in your own words what the intent of your writings on marriage were.”

“It was my intention to raise questions and to provoke thought … in some small way to contribute to the debate on the idea that women should be granted full legal rights and responsibilities as citizens under the law. It was also my aim to express my opinions freely and responsibly.”

“And in light of what you have learned and experienced over the past month, would you retract any or all of your writings and speeches on the matter?”

“I would not retract them.” Remington paused. “I would
revise
them.”

“To what, my lord? Would you revise your stand on the emancipation of women?”

“I would not. Though my reasons for believing in it have certainly changed.” He glanced at Antonia. “But I would most radically alter my writings about marriage.”

“What do you say of marriage now, my lord?”

Remington grew thoughtful, then glanced at the justices before pinning his gaze on Antonia. And the courtroom settled into a hush.

“I have been wont in the past to judge marriage by its worst, rather than its best, examples. Of late I have come to see the folly in judging a thing solely upon its deficits. I pray the good justices hearing my case share that insight.” Gentle laughter swept the gallery, damping the instant he continued.

“Marriage, I have learned, is not a cold, social abstract;
it is a warm, living encounter between two people. Yes, it has societal ramifications … but if the relationships between married couples are good, then the resultant harmony can only be good for society at large. In these last weeks I have discovered marriage to be all those things that you have heard described by my friends earlier. Marriage is cleaving to one another first and always, sharing time and resources and the events of life, bearing with another’s imperfections, supporting one another in times of triumph and defeat, and sometimes making sacrifices for the good of each other. But I have also learned more.” And he gazed at Antonia with his heart in his eyes, willing her to see, making her know that he was speaking for her … to her.

“Marriage is not ownership of another, but a partnership … a full and equal partnership, built on mutual trust and need, on respect and affection. But it is a partnership where the two become one … one flesh, one heart, and at times even one mind. It is a joining in which giving everything that is in you somehow never leaves you feeling empty. A dear friend of mine describes a loving marriage as ‘two hearts beating as one.’ And she couldn’t be more right.”

A friend.
Cleo
. Antonia felt a shiver and came to the edge of her seat, clasping the railing before her. She watched him calling to her, resurrecting memories with his gaze, and with his words. As he continued to speak, she focused tightly on his face, and the rest of the courtroom gradually faded to the edges of her awareness.

Suddenly she could see in his dark eyes reminders of a thousand “touch me’s” he had said without speaking, of the endless words of desire he had poured into her ears and sent wrapping around her heart … of cherries and cream, of buttons clattering across the floor, of red wine
and candlelight, of corsets and trousers and ties. She could see “I need you” glowing in every line of his face. She could hear “I want you” clinging to the underside of every word he uttered. She could feel again the gentleness of his hands as he caressed and comforted her and pleasured her.

“Marriage is holding each other into the night, drying each other’s tears, letting passion flow to sweeten the bitter knowledge that you do not have forever … only now.”

He was recalling the same thing—that night when they sat with Cleo. She felt again that wild, precious swell of love in her heart.

“Marriage should be a nest, not a cage. It can ground us and make us more stable, while freeing us to explore the depths and heights of our hearts.”

She understood somehow: the rootedness, the stability that marriage could provide, and the paradoxical way it could allow a heart to soar, to stretch, to become.

“Marriage forces you to look at who you are and what you believe. It makes you think beyond yourself, grow beyond who and what you have been. It enlarges your experience, your ideas, and your heart … by two.”

And that was exactly what she felt … her heart had enlarged … grown … filled with …

“Marriage can be hell on earth—or heaven. And the thing that makes it one or the other is love. Love with the right person. And I never would have known that if I hadn’t gone to Paxton House.”

In the silence she felt him reaching for her, felt the pull of him in the very marrow of her bones. Through his testimony he had recalled all that had happened between them and had poured it out across the landscape of benches and robes and trappings of governmental power, using it to woo her in a shameless and breathtaking courtship. She pushed to her feet and stood gripping the gallery railing.

“My lord,” Kingston Gray said in a solemn voice, “that is indeed a marvelous statement. But the true test of your views on marriage must be whether or not you will marry yourself. Given the chance, would you marry?”

“In an instant. You see, I’m very much in love with the right person. I’m in love with Antonia Paxton.” Remington watched Antonia’s glowing face and saw the tears collecting. Her chest was heaving, like his. He could see the emotions swirling in her beautiful blue eyes and warming her rosy skin … he had touched her with his words. But would it be enough? He took a ragged breath and then took the biggest risk of his life.

“Toni, will you marry me?”

For just one second she was frozen. Joy, disbelief, anxiety, relief—she was paralyzed by the explosion of feeling inside her. Then from behind someone gave her a nudge, and she heard the choked word: “Go!”

And she started to move … to the aisle … down the stairs … blinded by tears but guided by unfailing instinct. She didn’t care that they were in Court One or that the one she was rushing to embrace was on trial … all she knew was she had to be with him, to touch him, to hold him when she said
yes
.

He flew out of the witness box and opened his arms just in time to catch her and her exultant: “
Yes—yes—yes. I’ll marry you
!”

He picked her up and whirled her once around, laughing. And when her feet touched the floor, his lips touched hers and it was somehow just like the very first time he had kissed her. The softness, the wonder, the warmth of her engulfed his senses. She was life and sustenance and pleasure, the woman meant to complete his heart.

For that moment nothing else mattered; not the courtroom erupting in joyful turmoil, not the justices furiously
banging their gavels and sending the clerk for more bailiffs, not even the prospect of being convicted or the specter of being parted. And it was some time before Remington heard his name being called and raised his head, though he refused to relinquish his hold on her.