by Charlie Lane
“Carson!”
“I’ll keep it nicely trimmed.”
“Beards are not in fashion. They are unhealthy and redolent of moral laxity.”
“But I like it. I saw a man with one last week and thought I’d give it a try.” He actually didn’t like the beard. It itched like the devil. How Mr. Brooks carried it off, he’d never understand. But it had looked sporting and fierce on the boxer, so he’d given it a try to his valet’s and now his mother’s dismay.
Besides, the plan required a beard. He needed to show Allison he could change, that he had changed, that he could challenge his mother’s edicts and live his own life. He’d do what it took to convince Allison to marry him. Even grow a damned itchy beard.
“And you’ve still not told me what happened to your arm.”
Carson looked down at his arm in the sling. It had been healing until the encounter with Allison a few days ago. The intensity of their encounter had irritated it. He’d take the pain if it came with such pleasure.
Why the hell had she left though? It made him nervous. He stood on the edge of a cliff, about to reveal his true self to everyone in sight, and the last he’d seen of her, she’d been resting on his naked torso after having given herself to him completely, passionately. He’d all but told her his plan, to give her the type of proposal she deserved, a proposal as bold as she. He wanted to marry her, damn it, give her more of life than she’d seen thus far. And still she’d left! He’d been content, so pleased with the unexpected miracle, he’d fallen asleep. Asleep! Like a dozing babe. He swallowed his disgust.
“Your arm, Carson. What happened to it?” his mother demanded.
The carriage pulled to a stop, and Carson looked out the window. The Baron Grantly’s townhome rose before him. Allison waited inside, along with, presumably, all the attendees of Lady Grantly’s weekly Moral luncheon.
He stepped onto the pavement and helped his mother down while scanning the streets. Near the park, a hackney coach waited. A grinning face appeared in the window and a hand waved. Damned Hellwater, didn’t he know anything about discretion? At least everyone was in place. He breathed deep. He’d lived almost a decade of his life secretly, trying to be the man his mother wanted him to be. No more.
The decision to come out of hiding scared him more than he thought it would. But as he escorted his mother into Lady Grantly’s parlor and saw Allison seated, still as a statue by the window, he knew—he’d reveal every secret he held if it meant winning Allison’s hand and heart.
“Oh, my dearest Lady Hemsworth! And Lord Trevor! Welcome, welcome. Do come in. Gunthry is just bringing the t—”
“Excuse me, Lady Grantly, but how is Miss Shropshire? The last we met she was indisposed.”
His mother’s fingers tightened around his arm. “Carson! How inexcusably rude to interrupt our hostess! What has gotten into you?”
He glanced toward Allison instead of answering his mother. She stared at them, her head cocked slightly to the side. He wanted to stride across the room and kiss her. Not yet.
His mother shook his good arm as if he were a young boy. “Carson, answer me.”
“I will, Mother. But it’s a long story. You’ll want to have a seat.”
“Excuse me?”
“All of you, take a seat!” he bellowed. Loud voices in the entry hall turned everyone’s attention to the door. “Right on time. Allison, love, could you help rearrange the seating the way it was at Hellwater’s?”
When Allison retreated into the curtains framing the window, Carson shot her a challenging look. “I would ask one of the other ladies to assist, as you are the guest of honor to this very special production, but they weren’t at Hellwater’s matinee last week, so they don’t know how it’s to be done. Now—” He pointed to the back of the room. “Here’s where the stage is to be. I must change. I’ll be right back.” He bounded from the room, leaving a cacophony of exclamations and questions behind him and ran right into Hellwater’s large form. Hellwater grinned from ear to ear, and Carson knew his face mirrored the earl’s.
“Are you ready, Romeo?” He looked at Carson’s arm, the jacket hanging limply over the bandaged appendage. “I approve of the sling. Pitiful, yet dashing.” Carson nodded as Hellwater eased his jacket from his shoulder and mussed his hair. “Your valet will kill me for this, I think.”
“I won’t tell him if you don’t.”
“Keeping more secrets?”
“Sorry, it’s become too much of a habit with me, but a habit I mean to break starting today.”
“Have Mary Sillas and Jake arrived?” Carson asked as Hellwater tied a sash around his waist and hung the fake sword from it.
“Oh, yes. Just running through lines once more.”
“We’re here, Lord Nice Lips!” Mary Sillas bustled the silent Jake through the doorway, pushing the exasperated butler to the side. “We was invited, you muttonhead! I’ma guest!”
“It’s true, it’s true,” said Carson, rushing to reassure the butler. “They’re my guests. I’m terribly sorry for inviting them without warning. Quite necessary though. I’ll save you some wedding cake for your troubles.”
“Wedding cake?” the butler repeated.
“Not enough? Fine. A bottle of wine. Of brandy? What’s your favorite?”
Hellwater spun Carson around and pushed him toward the parlor door. “No time, Romeo! Sooth the domestics later. Go woo the girl. There’s no better way to the heart than through theater.”
“I hope you’re right, Hellwater.” Carson wasn’t at all sure this plan would work. Yes, she’d made love to him at the Wickersham ball, but she’d also left before they could talk. His relationship with Allison felt shaky, tenuous. He’d once thought it would develop easily, naturally, that he could woo her silently with a few well-placed books and properly-timed conversation. “Idiot,” he mumbled, opening the parlor door and striding through.
Placing the last chair in a line, Allison looked up as he entered and strode toward him. “What is this all about? Our mothers have been rotating between swooning, reviving one another with their smelling salts, and demanding to know what I was doing with you at Hellwater’s Devil’s Palace, as your mother calls it.”
“Has a ring to it.”
Allison’s lips quivered as she held back a smile. “That is neither here nor there, Lord Trevor. What I need to know is—”
“Not Lord Trevor. Carson. Your Carson. Isn’t that what you called me two nights ago?”
She lowered her voice so only they two could hear. “Yes, yes, of course. But you don’t have to do this. Don’t do this, Carson.”
“Do what? You have no idea what I’m about to do.” He grinned and bopped her nose with his index finger. “Now have a seat, love.”
“No!” Allison tugged his arm, and he allowed her to pull him across the room. Dropping her voice, she said, “You’re right! I’m completely confounded. You said you wouldn’t propose to me. And I understand why. I do. But I’ve decided your secrets don’t matter. I want to marry you. We can live as you wish, leading double lives. It doesn’t matter as long as we love one another.”
Had she just proposed to him?
Joy washed through him, and for a moment, he felt weightless. He wrapped both hands around Allison’s upper arms and held her gaze. “Thank you. But I’m doing this for me. You’re right. I need to be my own man. I don’t want to live in secret anymore. Now, will you please take a seat?”
She nodded, and he escorted her to the front row of the makeshift theater, sat her in the middle chair, then jumped atop the wooden crate Hellwater had placed on the “stage.”
“Carson Allworthy!” his mother cried. “I demand to know what this is about right now!” Her voice broke with a sob, and Carson’s heart pinged. He would have to hurt her today, but hopefully, he would show her that being impetuous, adventurous, and passionate weren’t the same thing as immorality.
“It’s all right, Mother. It’s just a play. It will be over shortly
, and your virtue will not have been hurt a bit.”
Her shriek suggested otherwise, but Lady Grantly and Lady Ann, smelling salts at the ready, rushed to comfort the wailing woman. His mother fainted into good, sympathetic hands, and he was in no position to judge her dramatics, especially since he planned to indulge in dramatics of his own.
Time to start the show.
Carson’s voice boomed across the room. “This afternoon, for one performance only, I bring you a tale of love and secrecy, of false identities, of action!”
Jake walked from one side of the audience to the other in front of Carson holding a sign Carson knew read The Mysteries of Count Goodman.
Allison’s scoff rang across the room. She’d come out of her shocked haze, then. Good.
“Goodman sounds very British,” one young lady observed.
“But Count does not,” another added.
Carson wouldn’t be distracted. He had once to get this right. Still standing atop the box, he continued. “When Count Goodman was but a babe …”
Mary Sillas entered the stage, cuddling a swaddled baby doll. “’E’s a good little count, ain’t ’e?”
Allison held a hand over her mouth to cover a giggle.
Carson found the courage to continue with more bravado than before. “When Count Goodman was but a babe, his darling mother—a good, kind, virtuous soul—knew the world ran rampant with bad men, evil men.”
Hellwater entered, a cape swirling around his feet, a top hat set at a rakish angle on his head, a fake mustache curling on his upper lip. Carson almost fell off the box in a fit of hysterics matching the one Allison fought down herself. She sat on top of her hands and made no sound, but her body shook with laughter.
He pushed the laughter down. “A strong heroine, Goodman’s mother dedicated her life to making sure her son grew up to be the ideal model of a perfectly virtuous man, as unlike a villain as possible.”
Mary Sillas patted the baby doll on the head. “You must not have fun or grow hair on your face or sweat.” Mary Sillas blinked and looked at Carson. “Sweat? But everyone sweats.” She frowned. “You mean to tell me toffs don’t sweat?”
“No, we do, Mary Sillas. That’s not the point. Can we continue?”
“Right, right.” She went back to crooning over the baby doll.
Allison now held her arms over her stomach. Tears of mirth rolled down her cheeks. Carson risked a glance at his mother, who sat straight as a poker in her chair, her face bleached of color. She recognized the truth inside the narrative. Would she ever forgive him?
He stuttered as he continued, losing some of his courage. “Count Goodman grew up trying to be everything his mother wanted him to be, but he grew restless, too. He wasn’t made to sit quietly all day. He didn’t like politics or polite conversation. He preferred ghost stories and boxing.”
“Boxing!” his mother cried from the audience.
“Yes. And fencing and swimming and, a time or two, horse racing at dawn in Hyde Park.”
“Oh!” Lady Hemsworth dropped into another swoon.
“Oh!” Allison sat up straighter in her seat. “Really? Would you do it again?” The gleam in her eye suggested she’d not fully articulated her question. She wanted to race horses at dawn, too. Fine. It would be an adventure.
“I would,” Carson replied. “But only if I had the right company. I’ve grown very particular in my choice of companions.”
“Not particular at all,” his mother snapped. Not a real swoon, after all. He hadn’t thought so.
A voice from further back in the audience piped up. “What happens next?”
Another voice added, “Yes, get on with it, then.”
Two ladies he’d seen before at the luncheons but had never spoken to, glared at him. The same ladies who’d objected to a count named Goodman.
“As you wish,” Carson complied, steadying himself before continuing. It would be tricky. If Allison didn’t play along, the play, and their relationship, would end before it had begun. “One day, Count Goodman fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful woman.”
Hellwater, sans cape and hat but with mustache still firmly affixed to his upper lip, brought in the golden crown Allison had worn one week ago today. He held it out to Allison. This was it. Either she took it and claimed her spot in the drama alongside him, or she denied him, and their story ended. His heart stopped beating as she eyed the tarnished gold circlet with paste jewels. It began to beat frantically against his ribs when she reached out. Why did she reach for it so slowly? She teased him! They did not have the time for teasing. But finally, finally, her fingers tightened around the crown, and she set it firmly upon her head.
“Shall I join Mary Sillas on stage?”
He nodded, words—only garbled sounds, really—lodged in his throat.
“What next?” a young lady from the audience shouted.
Carson cleared his throat. “Together, the count and the beautiful woman visited a notorious earl and his talented troupe of actors.”
Mary Sillas elbowed Jake in the ribs. “’E called us talented!”
Jake grunted.
“The count hoped to make the young lady fall in love with him by showing her his true self. And while he was brave enough to save a man from certain death—”
Allison grunted. “Certain death? He would have been no worse off than you were, which isn’t perfect, but it’s not—”
“Yes, saved him from certain death, and with much injury to his own person.” He eyed the sling pitifully.
Allison grunted again.
“He thought it was enough to win the lady, but it wasn’t. She couldn’t lead a secret life as he did, so rightly, she left him. They weren’t to meet again until—”
An elbow to his ribs silenced him, and he allowed Allison to pull him down by his cravat enough to whisper in his ear. “You aren’t going to tell the next part, are you?”
“Do you want me to? Would it help?” he whispered back.
“Help what, you buffoon?”
“My proposal?”
“Do you mean this is a—”
“Marriage proposal, yes. What did you think?”
She let go of his cravat and looked all around the room, her jaw slack. “No, it would not help. But … But you don’t have to do this. I already told you.”
“I want to,” he whispered, taking her hand in his. He turned to the audience. “The next time they met, the young count knew she loved him as he did her, knew she suffered as much agony as he at their separation. Her bravery convinced him—he must live truthfully.
“However, the count knew if he lived life as himself, he risked losing the love of his very worthy mother. He had to take that risk to earn the love of the lady of his heart. If his mother loved him as she said she did, she’d realize passion and adventure did not have to mean vice and dissolution. But …” Carson sought out his mother. Her eyes were steely gray, her lips a thin line. “With or without his mother’s blessing, he would marry the woman he loved.”
Allison’s hands tightened like a manacle around his bicep.
Pain lanced his shoulder. “Careful, love. The sling’s not just for looks this afternoon. The shoulder is irritated from our—”
“Carson!” She lowered her voice, loosening her grip on his arm. “Carson. You shouldn’t do this. You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s it!” Lady Hemsworth burst from her seat, flinging Lady Grantly and Lady Ann away from her. “Everyone out right now! I will not stand for this mockery one second longer! Get out, Hellwater, and take your actors with you! Lady Ann, Lady Penelope, Miss March, Miss Alexander. I’m sure your mothers will understand if you return home early.”
For minutes, the room echoed with the swish of rustling skirts and Mary Sillas’s curses as she and Jake gathered the doll and other props. Carson only dimly registered the sounds. Allison’s hand rested in his own, and she stared anxiously up at him.
“What if they refuse
to let us marry?” she asked.
He stepped off the box. “We’ll elope.”
“What if my mother locks me up?”
He grinned, rakishly he hoped, and patted the dull prop blade tied to his hip. “I’ll kidnap you.”
“What if your parents disown you?”
“My father’s the only one who can do that, and he doesn’t care.”
Allison frowned. “I’d hate to make such a horrid man happy.”
“Me too, love.”
“Will I ever have to meet him?”
“I hope not.”
“I might have to try to like your mother. If she’ll let me.”
“That would be very convenient for me, love.”
Allison burrowed her face into his chest, and he wrapped his good arm around her, feeling more himself than ever before. “I love you, Allison Shropshire. Will you be my wife?”
“Finally, a proper proposal.”
“And better than yours, too.”
“Mine? I never proposed.”
“Did so!” He pointed across the room. “Over there, not even half an hour ago.”
“That wasn’t a proposal.”
“No?” He pulled her closer. “Mine is. How will you answer?”
She laughed. “I love you, Carson.”
The joy that had spread through Carson since Allison joined him on stage blossomed into a fever. “A proper proposal requires a proper response,” he growled.
She pulled away only enough to whisper close to his ear. “Yes, I’ll marry you. Proper enough for you? Now, how about a kiss?”
“No, that was not proper at all!” Lady Hemsworth stood alone in the middle of the room, chairs toppled around her, looking like a vengeful goddess of war, her fiery stare settled squarely on Allison and Carson.
Chapter 10
Allison curled into herself and curled her fingernails into her palms. The last time she’d had all of Lady Hemsworth’s attention, she’d gone without food for days. Her stomach turned at the memory. But Carson stood near, his warmth rocking through her, filling her with courage. He’d faced his mother. For her. So, too, would Allison.