“How? How did your father die?”
“Fell off a boardwalk into the street and was run over by a beer wagon. It was the way he would have wanted to go.”
Carrie could hear that there was no love in Josh’s voice for his father.
“My mother was past her prime as an actress or as anything else by then—she had a heavy hand with the whisky too. She tried to make it in the theater as an actress, but she couldn’t even get bit parts. So, when I was ten, she answered an ad in the newspaper and traveled to Eternity, Colorado, and married a lonely widower, Mr. Elliot Greene, who had a little house in town and a grown son.”
“Hiram?”
“The one and only.” Josh’s mouth tightened. “Hiram was always an overbearing, pompous ass, but he’d had all his father’s attention for years and he resented me greatly.”
Pausing, Josh smiled. “I came to love Mr. Greene. He was a kind and gentle man, and he continued to take care of me after my mother died two years after their marriage. But he died when I was sixteen and that self-important son of his inherited everything. Immediately after the funeral, Hiram told me that if I didn’t obey him, he’d throw me out on my ear. I saved him the trouble. I left the house about four hours later.”
“And what did you do?”
“The only thing I knew how to do: I went on the stage.”
He paused as though Carrie were supposed to figure out more of the story on her own. It was then that she remembered something that Nora had said. “The Great Templeton,” Carrie said.
Looking at Josh, she saw the little smile on his face. “Joshua Templeton,” she said. “I’ve heard of you.”
“Oh?” Josh said, one eyebrow raised. It was a smug look as though to say, Of course you’ve heard of me, the whole world has. She didn’t like that look.
“An actor?” she said as she looked down her nose at him.
“A Shakespearian actor. The best actor in the world. The greatest—”
At his bragging, Carrie started to get up, but he pulled her back down beside him.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” he said.
She took a deep breath. “All this time I thought you’d done something dreadful. I thought you’d been in jail for robbing people. I couldn’t believe you were a murderer. And all it was, was that you’re an actor.” She said the last word the way she’d say, bug.
“Not just any actor.” Josh sounded hurt and disbelieving. “I’m Joshua Templeton. THE Joshua Templeton.”
“I am Carrie Montgomery. THE Carrie Montgomery.”
Josh laughed.
“Would you mind telling me why you’ve felt the need to keep this from me? Why have you lied to me about your name and about what you’ve done in your past?”
“I thought it might make a difference.”
Carrie took a moment to figure that out. “You vain peacock. You thought that if I knew you were a famous man, I might want you for that reason. How insulting to me.”
When she started to get up again, Josh pulled her back down and began kissing her. “But then I didn’t know you. I’ve never met anyone like you. Most women are impressed by the outward trappings of a man.”
“You have met a sorry lot of women.”
He laughed. “That I have. A very sorry lot. But then, the sorry lot and I were happy. They got the famous man they wanted and I got—”
“Do not tell me what you got from them.”
Laughing again, he rolled off of her. “Here, I want to show you something.” Digging around under the straw and under some rotting horse harness, he pulled out a small black trunk with the initials JT on it. He unbuckled it, opened it, and withdrew a packet from which he pulled out papers and handed them to her. They were photographs of the world-famous Joshua Templeton in the guise of Hamlet and Othello and Petruchio. There were shots of him in evening dress, and in another he was holding a sword and looking at the camera with a rakish gleam in his eye.
After looking at the photos for a few minutes, Carrie handed them back to him.
“Well?” he said eagerly. For so long now he’d wanted to tell her about himself, tell her that he wasn’t a failure in his chosen profession. He wanted her to know that maybe he wasn’t any good at farming, but he was very, very good at something.
“I don’t like that man,” Carrie said softly.
For a moment Josh couldn’t speak. Women all over the world liked Joshua Templeton. Hadn’t he proven that? From coast to coast in America and throughout most of Europe, he’d proven himself to be irresistible to women of every size, age, color, and marital state.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” Carrie said politely, “but that man isn’t real. You know, I remember now that Euphonia had some pictures of that man—you, I guess—in her house. All the girls swooned over him, you, but I didn’t.”
“You liked the sad but smiling man in the photo with his children,” Josh said in wonder.
Carrie smiled at him. “That man has a soul. This man—” She pointed to the carefully posed studio pictures. “This man has no soul. There’s nothing in his eyes.”
At that Josh began to laugh as he hugged her to him. “I was afraid that if you found out about me, it would change your feelings for me. On the day you arrived, when I first saw you, all I thought of was your beautiful little body, but I told myself I couldn’t touch you. I was sure you’d return home the moment you saw the dump where I was living.” He smiled. “My experience with making women fall in love with you involves champagne and presents in black velvet boxes.”
“Oh? And how long did this ‘love’ last?”
“Until I got her clothes off.” He pulled her back into his arms when she tried to get away.
Carrie was trying to hold her body rigid, but he was kissing her neck. “It wasn’t really love, was it? Tell me about her.”
“Who?” Josh was moving down to her shoulder.
Carrie pushed him away. “Her! The big one in the house. The woman you stood up with in a church and swore to love and honor for the rest of your life. That one.”
“Mmmmmm. Nora. Well, you can see why I fell for her.” The moment he said it, he knew it was wrong, and he had to hold Carrie to him. “I had to marry her. She got pregnant.”
“Got pregnant? All by her oversized self? She should watch what she drinks or get out of the way when the stork flies by.”
“All right. I was eighteen when I met her. I’d had a bit of success on the stage and she was an established actress.”
“Swept little you off your feet, no doubt.”
Josh couldn’t keep from laughing. “I was infatuated with her. I married her and Tem was born, then—”
“Tem!” Carrie said. “What is his name?”
“Joshua Templeton the Second.”
“We thought you’d misspelled his name on the back of the photo. Go on, you were drooling down the front of Nora’s sagging chest.”
“After Tem was born, I went on the road and Nora stayed home with the baby.” He paused and all laughter left his voice. “Carrie, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. I was horribly unfaithful to my wife—as she was to me—but I have always loved my children. I didn’t love any of the women I, well, took to bed, not even Nora, but I loved Tem from the moment I saw him. When I was traveling, I wrote him every week, even when he was an infant. When he was old enough to walk, I wrote him every day. I sent him presents, I thought about him, I—”
He stopped, embarrassed by this display of real emotion. There was a great deal of difference between what he showed to an audience and what he was showing now. His voice lowered. “I never let anyone know about Tem. Oh, they knew I had a son, but they didn’t know what I felt about him.”
“What about Dallas?”
Josh sighed. “I knew Nora was unfaithful, but I didn’t care. She’s the type of woman that all you want from her is to get your hands on those—” He cleared his throat. “I had no desire to live with her. I sent her money and assumed sh
e was taking care of Tem. I assumed she loved him as much as I did. But then I was playing in Hamlet in Dallas, and I saw her in bed with another man. I didn’t think that was good for Tem and I told her I wanted a divorce.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
“I assume she talked you out of the divorce,” Carrie said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
“Yes, she did. Dallas was born nine months later and given that absurd name to remind me of when and where she was conceived. I put up with Nora for two years after Dallas was born, then I realized I had to get rid of her.” He smiled. “The oddest thing. When I lost my desire for Nora I realized what a really bad actress she was.”
“A condemnation if ever I heard one.”
“Up until then, I’d believed Nora when she said she was taking care of the children and was being a good mother to them.” Josh gave a snort. “I thought it would be so easy to get a divorce. She had cause and to be divorced for infidelity certainly didn’t hurt my reputation any, and I gave Nora all the money I had saved over the years—seeing the poverty my parents lived in has made me spend less than I make—and asked only for the custody of my children. Nora was more than willing to trade the kids for money. It should have been very simple. I’d already hired an excellent French governess to take care of the children while I was on the stage.”
“Why wasn’t it simple? Why are you living on your brother’s farm and killing corn?”
Josh gave an ironic laugh. “My own towering vanity. A vanity that surpassed everything that meant anything in life to me. A vanity that nearly cost me my children.”
Carrie took his hand in hers. “Tell me what happened.”
“A judge gave me what I asked for.” Josh gave a grim smile of remembrance. “You should have seen me that day in the courtroom when I was to plead with the judge to give me custody of my children. It was probably the most brilliant performance of my life. I planned it all very carefully. After all, I was the Great Templeton, and I was to argue my own case. How could I possibly lose? I wore a black cape lined with red satin and carried a silver-headed cane.”
Josh looked up at the rafters of the shed. “ ‘The best laid plans,’ etc. etc.” He sighed. “In return for the judge giving me my children I was planning to honor him and the rest of the courtroom with a private, one-time-only performance by the great Shakespearian actor. Fool that I was, I went into the courtroom thinking I was doing them a favor.”
Pausing, his voice grew soft. “I had to put on a show because I couldn’t allow anyone to see how I really felt, that I was scared to my very bones of losing my children.”
“What did you ask the judge for?” Carrie urged.
“I talked for over an hour. You should have seen my audience—for that’s how I saw the spectators in the courtroom. I had them in the palm of my hand. I made them laugh; I made them cry. I frightened them; I soothed them. They were mine. I told them how much I loved my children, how I’d do anything in the world for them. I said that I would give up all my worldly goods in order to have them. I said I’d even go so far as to give up the stage for them. By this time I’d made them realize that if the world lost me as an actor, the world would suffer a great deal. I went on to say that I’d go so far as to farm the land like a peasant of old if I could but have my children. I think it was at this point that I flipped my satin-lined cape so the audience could try to picture me as a farmer.
“When I’d finished, I received a standing ovation from the audience and I was sure I’d won my case. The judge said he’d never heard such an eloquent plea in his life and he had but one question for me: Did I even know anyone who owned a farm. I, with a slight bow, told him that my brother was a member of that worthy profession. The judge said such a speech as mine should be rewarded, so he was going to give me exactly what I’d asked for. All my worldly goods were to be put up for sale at auction, with the exception of one suit, and all the money was to be put into trust for my children. I was to refrain from going on the stage for a period of four years, during which time I was to live on and work my brother’s farm with my children. If I could make it through four years, then the children would be mine. The judge, after giving his sentence, gave me a little smile and said he thought I was going to miss my red cape, that I used it so well.
“Later my attorney informed me that the judge’s wife had run off with an actor two years before and that his uncles, aunts, and cousins were farmers. I’d managed to insult the man on every level.”
Josh sighed. “So that’s what I did. I moved back to Eternity, took my stepfather’s name in the hope that no one would recognize me, and tried to become a farmer.”
“So,” Carrie said, “you have to live on your brother’s farm and be a normal person for four years. No applause. No footlights. No adoring young ladies begging you for your autograph. Nothing but people who love you and see you as you are, warts and all.”
Josh smiled. “Lots of warts.”
“A few. But at least they’re not hidden under greasepaint.”
Josh began nuzzling her neck. “Right now I wish I didn’t have anything at all on, greasepaint, clothes, not anything.”
Responding to him, Carrie slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him with weeks’ worth of pent-up desire.
“Papa! Papa!” Dallas yelled as she came running into the shed. “There’s a man here, and he wants to see you.”
Josh’s brain was a little foggy as he pulled away from Carrie. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” Dallas whispered loudly, “but I think he’s God.”
Carrie and Josh looked at each other. “ ’Ring,” they said in unison.
Chapter Sixteen
Carrie and Josh were still brushing straw off of each other as they walked back to the house.
“He’s going to make me go back with him,” Carrie mumbled. “As soon as he meets that fat woman you married, he’s going to make me leave with him.”
Josh tightened his grip on her arm. “I do wish you would give me a little more credit and your brother less. I can handle this.”
“By fishing for the papers down Nora’s pond?” Carrie said nastily.
“One does what one must,” Josh said, then had to hold Carrie to him. “Good morning, brother,” Josh called to ’Ring, who was kneeling to speak to the children.
“I have three little boys of my own,” ’Ring was saying to Tem as he rubbed Choo-choo’s ears. “You’ll have to come and visit them and sail on a boat.”
“And I’ll teach them to ride a horse,” Tem said, but since all three of his new cousins by marriage were younger than he was, he didn’t think much of them.
Standing, ’Ring handed Carrie a large box that she knew contained her mother’s wedding dress.
In the next moment, Nora came out of the house, her big blond Eric following behind her like Choo-choo followed Carrie.
“Oh, no,” Josh said, hurrying forward, but Carrie pulled him back.
“If you think that my brother is stupid enough to fall for something like that painted, fat, overblown—” She broke off because ’Ring was kissing Nora’s bejeweled hand and looking at her as though she were the most delicious thing he’d ever seen.
“You were saying…” Josh said.
Her nose in the air, Carrie swept past him, and when she reached her brother, she put herself between him and Nora. “How kind of you to stop by, Mrs.—” She broke off, not knowing what to call the hideous woman.
“West,” Nora said, looking over Carrie’s head to ’Ring. “Nora West is my professional name.”
“I saw you as Juliet,” ’Ring said. “You were divine.”
“Must have had a mule skinner to play Romeo,” Carrie muttered before looking up at her brother and batting her eyelashes. “You must have been a child to have seen her when she was young enough to play Juliet.”
Grabbing Carrie’s arm, Josh pulled her toward the house. “Food,” he said. “Carrie has to make lunch for everyone.”
r /> Once Josh and Carrie were inside, he turned on her. “Can’t you contain yourself for even a few hours? At least until I get the paper from her?”
“You expect me to be nice to the woman who is married to my husband?”
“Just for a few hours.”
Carrie gave a nasty little laugh. “Maybe you are a professional liar, but I’m not.”
Josh rubbed his eyes in exasperation then laughed. “I cannot believe my own vanity in thinking that my being a renowned actor would change your feelings for me. Alas, the Great Templeton has been reduced to ‘a professional liar.’ ” He drew her into his arms. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to impress you? After my sentence is up and I go back on stage, are you going to come to see me? Will you swoon over my performances?”
She closed her eyes in ecstasy as he kissed her neck. “I think I might like for you to quote some of ’Ring’s poetry just to me.”
He touched her cheek. “ ‘See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!’ ”
She smiled at him. “I’m not sure I’ll like hearing you say such things to other women, even women as old and as fat as she is.”
“It won’t be real, Carrie,” he said softly. “I am a liar with them, but I won’t be a liar with you.”
She smiled at him and he kissed her.
“What a cozy little scene,” Nora said from the doorway. “Of course, Joshua, darling, it’s not as though I haven’t seen you kiss hundreds of other women, both on stage and off.”
Josh released Carrie. “I want the paper, Nora, and I want it now.”
“I’ve told you where it is,” she purred at him.
Josh kept his eyes off Nora’s magnificent bosom, for he knew that Carrie was watching him. “What do you want?”
“Why, I want you, of course. I’ve missed you.”
Catching Carrie’s hand in his, Josh squeezed it. “You want me and half a dozen other men. I don’t have any money, you know that, so what else could you want?”