Alcott Hall: Second Sons Book Three

Warren slowly turned to face her; his scarred brow raised in question. “What about me?”

She glanced from Charles back to the gamekeeper, her pulse racing. “I…it’s you. You’re the one he loves. The reason he won’t give me an answer. It’s you.”

Charles stepped forward anxiously. “Madeline, please—”

She stood on her bare feet, inching away from him until she could put the chair between them. She clung to the top of the curved wood, her gaze darting between the men. Slowly, she shook her head, her mind spinning like a top. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s not what you think,” he reasoned.

“Well how can you know that, unless you actually know what she thinks,” said Warren, leaning against his doorframe.

Charles groaned. “For once, will you stop trying to be so damn clever?”

“Sure. Let me just sit here quietly and drum my fingers whilst the two of you have a conversation about me…without me,” Warren snarled.

“Don’t be a martyr either—”

“Oh, there’s the pot calling the kettle black, seeing as you’re the self-proclaimed Prince of Martyrdom—”

“Just talk to me,” she called over their bickering. “This doesn’t…I don’t…make it make sense,” she said with a helpless shrug.

Warren narrowed his dark eyes. “What doesn’t make sense to you?”

“Well…I don’t…how does that even work? Can a man love another man? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

He scoffed. “You’ve never heard of such a thing because you are the kind of well-bred lady who never even bothers with opening her own doors. Your family has kept you in the dark about the reality of a man loving another man. It’s hardly polite conversation for a viscount’s drawing room.”

“And now you’re teasing me again,” she replied. “Which is wholly unfair, as I’m only trying to understand.” She turned to Charles. “You told me you loved another but that you could never marry. You said you couldn’t marry me with this other person still in your heart. It’s Mr. Warren…isn’t it? He’s the reason you won’t marry me.”

Warren went still, his eyes locked on the vicar. Meanwhile, Charles groaned, dragging a hand through his tousled curls. They carefully avoided looking at her.

Did they both really think her so oblivious? Madeline had made a profession out of studying other people. She lived her life on the edges of drawing rooms, watching the other debutantes successfully court the men of the ton. Madeline saw it all playing before her like an intricately staged drama. She knew how to read looks and gestures. She knew what it meant when a man gazed at your throat overlong. She’d watched more than one acquaintance be lured into a dark garden by the promise of a twinkling eye.

But all those little plays at courting were between a man and a woman. She’d never once looked to spot the same between two men. Now that she adjusted her expectations, she felt a fool. The truth was right before her. In fact, they were rather terrible at hiding it.

“What makes you think I was referring to Warren in any way?” said Charles, daring to sound nonchalant.

“Aside from the way you are both looking at each other now?” she replied, gesturing between them. “He said he doesn’t like being called ‘John.’ Only when you do it, his face lights up. He catches us kissing under the gazebo and he’s furious. I thought his jealousy was aimed at you…that he wanted to be the one kissing me. Now I think it leaned the other way. I think he was jealous of me for kissing you. And your inability to marry makes sense if your lover is a man, for is that not…unnatural?”

“There is nothing unnatural about love,” Warren said, arms crossed over his chest. “His Church and your ton like to make up rules the rest of us are expected to follow, but the world is not so black and white.”

She nodded. “I know…or I can admit at the very least that I’ve long assumed there is much about the world that has been kept from me. I have no first-hand knowledge, as I’ve warned you both already. I may understand the world of courting in a theoretical sense, but I know nothing about the realities of marriage or love or-or intimacy,” she added, all but stumbling over the word.

“Then you’re not…” Charles cleared his throat, glancing from Warren back to her. “Are you not disgusted by the idea? Are you not appalled?”

She blinked, heart racing as she took in the fear in his eyes, the worry and anxiety. Did he truly care for her opinion? She glanced back to Warren, who was wearing his emotions behind much thicker armor. He looked almost bored, the golden light of the fire dancing across the sharp planes of his face. It made his scars glow almost red. She wanted to trace them with her fingers. She wanted to know how he got them. Would he ever tell her?

But like Charles he just stood there, waiting for her to speak.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Both sets of their shoulders deflated a little as they shared a quick glance.

“What could you do that would make me so disgusted?” she added, genuinely interested in hearing their answer. “As Mr. Warren says, love is natural. If the poets are to be believed, it comes in infinite varieties—familial love, romantic love, unrequited love, love of God, love of nature. I may only know love in the poetic sense, but are not all these forms valid?”

Charles huffed, pacing away towards the window. “It is one thing to speak of love like the poets do, Madeline. It is quite another to be faced with it, to know without doubt that it is real.” He spun at the wall, facing them both. “You cannot hide from the truth once you know it, once you’ve seen it with your own eyes. And if you saw…if you knew…surely you must hate us.”

She worried her bottom lip, glancing from the stoic gamekeeper back to the anxious vicar. “I…do you hate yourself? For loving him, I mean,” she added.

He stiffened, turning away again.

Warren uncrossed his arms, shoving his hands in the deep pockets of his trousers. “Answer her, Charles.”

He spun back around. “This isn’t as easy for me as it has been for you, John. We’re not all so fearless. And you know my position. You know what the Church teaches, what I’m supposed to teach. And it’s not just a sin, it’s a crime. Social stigma is one thing, religious persecution is quite another. But being locked in a jail cell is my limit! I cannot bring that shame down on us, on my uncle—”

“We’ve been discreet, Charles,” Warren tried to soothe. “We’re always discreet—”

“So discreet that Madeline knows,” he countered with a frustrated wave of his hand. “James caught us last night too, or had you forgotten? I have no doubt he told the duchess everything. And he tells Burke everything too. My uncle knows. He’s always known—”

“Wait—” Madeline stepped around the chair, her gaze still darting from one to the other. “James caught you? Where? How?”

Charles groaned, pacing away, both hands in his hair. It was Warren who turned to her and muttered, “In the hothouse. Just before dinner. And Burke knows,” he added.

Charles cursed under his breath. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I told him.”

Madeline and Charles shared a confused look before he was launching forward. “Christ’s sake, Warren. Why the hell would you do that?”

“As you say, the duke was already going to tell him. And he’s my friend, Charles. He gave good advice on the matter, in fact,” he added, that smirk playing at his lips again.

“Oh, I’m sure Horatio Burke was full of brilliant ideas,” be scoffed. “The man is an arrogant showman, John. And what works for him could easily see us pilloried in the village square! We don’t all have a duke in our back pocket to bail us out. Burke could commit murder or high treason and the right words from James would wash it all away!”

“He won’t say anything. None of them will.”

Charles solemnly shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

“They don’t want the heat of this scandal any more than we do. Which is why you should consider the duke’s offer—”

“Which is why I should leave!”

Madeline glanced between them. Rosalie told her about the offer James made. If Charles was willing to consider it, they could live here in the shadow of Alcott. They could make their home in Finchley. If his heart belonged to Warren, did it not make sense for him to live in the place where Warren could be nearest? Why was he so determined to go? Was he really so afraid of the love they shared?

Looking at him now, she saw the truth in his eyes. Yes. Charles Bray was afraid to let himself love Warren. Madeline’s heart broke for him, for them both.

Meanwhile Warren just grimaced. “Fine. Take the coward’s way if you wish. You have before.” He stomped past them both, dropping to one knee at the edge of the hearth. The soup pot had been steadily boiling over. He took it off the flames and removed the lid, the smell of the savory broth filling the cabin.

Charles watched him with narrowed eyes. He wore such a look of longing, a look of need.

Madeline’s own gaze continued to dart between them. Her every feeling revolted at the idea of these two men being vilified or otherwise harmed for daring to do something as vital to the human condition as love each other. What kind of world did they live in where they had to hide what there was between them?

It made her ill to think of the extravagant displays put forth by the ton every season. All the bacchanalian balls, the teas, the ostentatious garden parties—they were all themed around true love and finding the perfect match. She’d been pushed and prodded into openly pretending to feel love for a man as boring as Lord Everton, when she could dare summon up a feeling stronger than mild irritation.

And yet, all this was acceptable. Nay, it was encouraged. Ladies and gentlemen ought to show more than they feel. She’d heard the word ‘love’ bandied about so often, it had started to lose any real meaning.

Now she stood here in the quiet of a gamekeeper’s cabin with two tortured souls, feeling the frayed and tattered edges of a forbidden love that was tearing them both apart. And somehow, she’d stumbled her way into the very middle of it, throwing herself at Charles without a care for his past or his present hesitation.

Her heart thrummed as she felt a burning sense of guilt. Warren was right; she’d been selfish. She’d been cruel. She was adding needlessly to their suffering by putting Charles in a position of having to choose between them. The harsh reality was that he’d already chosen. Over and over again, his heart cried out for John Warren. He just couldn’t ever have what he truly wanted. None of them could.

She shook her head, refocusing her attention. “What happened?” she repeated. “With James, I mean.”

“We were not discrete,” Warren replied, balancing the soup before him.

Charles stepped back, letting Warren place it on the table.

“What did you do?” she asked again. “What did he see that has you both so very concerned?”

Warren raised that scarred brow, his lips turned into a smirk. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“We can’t just—it’s not something to be talked of in front of a lady,” added Charles.

She crossed her arms, chin lifted in the same way she’d seen Rosalie do so many times before. “You mean the lady you have both kissed…twice? The lady who proposed to you, Charles…twice!”

“Did you now,” Warren muttered, his gaze darkening. “You kissed her again too? My, you have been busy.”

Charles groaned, pacing away.

“You say you need more time to consider my proposal,” she called after him. “Well now I need this. I’m a visual person, Charles. I need to see things to understand them, I need to experience it. If I can hear a piece of music first, I can recreate it far easier than merely seeing the sheet music. Same with art. Don’t give me book on light, show me a Gainsborough. I believe this too is a puzzle I can help solve, but I must understand first.”

Slowly, Charles turned, amber eyes wide, lips parted slightly.

“What are you asking us?” Warren said for them both.

“Well, I cannot have an opinion on something unless I know what it is I’m to have an opinion about,” she replied. “You both seem to think that your shared expression of love will revolt and repel me. You believe you must hide away, even from me. But we can never know unless you show me. So…show me.”