The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I only got lost three times on the way to Pammy’s party.

That I didn’t go farther astray was entirely due to the excellence of Pammy’s directions, which were of a see-Jane-run level of simplicity. I’m not exactly a brilliant navigator at the best of times; in my current daze, it was only a wonder I hadn’t accidentally wound up in Scotland. By the time I’d retraced my steps all the way back to Covent Garden from High Holborn (don’t ask how I wound up over there), I was all but ready to hop right back on the Tube and head home. Only a marked disinclination to be alone with my own thoughts drove me to dig out Pammy’s directions from the pocket of my raincoat and try again.

I needed a glass of champagne. Badly.

Spotting me at the door, Pammy waved a tiny pink purse over her head like a lasso and shouted, “Ellie!” Bowling models out of her way, she rushed over, pushing past the bouncer to join me on my little patch of cold sidewalk. We exchanged the sort of effusive greetings usually reserved for released captives rather than friends who just had dinner on Tuesday.

Even through my preoccupied fog, I couldn’t help gaping at Pammy’s latest outfit. She was wearing bright pink snakeskin pants. Species Christianus Lacroixus, that elusive denizen of the fashion jungle. She had paired the flaming fuchsia snakeskin with a bright Pucci top in swirling blue, pink, and orange that clashed dreadfully with the pants, and even more so with the faux red streaks in her short blond hair. It should have looked dreadful. Instead, she looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of Cosmo.

I’d settled on one of my favorite dresses, a little beige suede sheath from BCBG. From the front, it looked perfectly demure, but the back was bare from the waist up, with the exception of one asymmetrical scrap of cloth that tied across the middle of my back, and served more to emphasize the gap than cover it. It was my “I need an ego boost” dress. The creamy color made my hair look more russet than red, and the dramatic back made me feel glamorous, in an old Hollywood sort of way.

Pammy observed my ensemble with a critical eye.

“Oh well, at least you’re not wearing your pearls.”

Pressing a neon green glow stick into my hand (she had a pink one, presumably to go with the pants), she yanked me past the red ropes and into a room already so crowded that people were perching on the edge of the DJ’s booth just to get out of the way. At the far end of the room, a temporary catwalk had been set up. Two women with fashionably bored expressions were posing with shoulders back and hips out, ignoring the inebriated party guest who was trying to claw her way up onto the platform. Since there was clearly no coat check, or, if there ever had been it had long since been overrun by the partygoing hordes, I wriggled out of my raincoat and slung it over my arm.

“Oooh, bubbly!” Pammy exclaimed, as a waiter shimmied by several yards away. “Yoo-hoo!” she caroled. “Over here!”

A glass was shoved into my hand; Pammy introduced me to someone; we shouted pleasantries over the throbbing music and moved on.

I jostled along through the crowd in Pammy’s wake, nodding absently in response to her whispered asides (“That jerk Roderick! Can you believe he . . .”), but I only caught about a third of it. I couldn’t blame it on the music, or the crowds, or the strobe light that seemed personally out to blind me; my mind was elsewhere entirely, back in 1803.

My dashing hero, my paragon of manhood, my lover of moonlit daydreams, was a woman.

The Pink Carnation was a woman.

I’d read the passage in Amy’s diary where she described the inception of the Pink Carnation right before I left for Pammy’s party. I’d been dressed already, perched on the edge of my bed, bag and coat ready next to me, reading just one more page before I really had to go. I’d been longing to find out whether Lord Richard would break down and tell Amy his identity, crossing my fingers and hoping for Amy’s sake that he would.

Maybe that’s why the revelation caught me quite so off guard. I hadn’t been looking for it. It had never occurred to me that the Pink Carnation could be anyone other than a man—most likely Miles Dorrington, but maybe Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe, or even Augustus Whittlesby. I had given up expecting to hear anything about it in Amy’s diary, which was crammed full of her personal concerns. If—when—I came upon the Pink Carnation, I’d expected it to be in one of Miles’s letters to Richard: “Hullo, old chap. The War Office is sending me along to take your place. Aside from a silly flower name, should be jolly good fun,” or something along those lines. Never, in a million years, would I have imagined . . . this.

I had sat there numbly, manuscript pages fanning out in my beige suede lap, thinking back over all the clues I’d missed. Amy’s accounts of her childhood exploits, her determination to dethrone Napoleon, her anxiety to join a league. I should have known. I should have expected.

But who would ever have imagined that the Pink Carnation could be a woman?

I grasped at straws. It wasn’t entirely certain that the Pink Carnation was Amy. She’d only just come up with the idea, after all. Maybe she came up with the idea, and then mentioned it to . . . whom? Geoff? Not likely. Geoff was Richard’s friend, not Amy’s. Whittlesby? Amy thought he was a blithering idiot. And why would Amy ever, ever hand her league over to someone else?

There was no logical way around it. The Pink Carnation was a woman.

I had sat on the Tube in a trance. Another passenger, an elderly woman with a woolly hat and bad teeth, had asked me if I was ill. I’d shaken my head, and thanked her politely, the words scarcely registering over the turmoil in my head.

How could I have missed it? As a scholar, how could I have been so careless? That stung, that my preconceptions had so blinded me to the truth of what I was reading. What kind of a historian was I, blundering along blindfolded by my own imagination?

All right, that hurt, but it wasn’t what hurt the most. What hurt the most was the loss of the daydream. I wonder if that was how Amy felt, when she realized her Purple Gentian, her daydream prince, was Lord Richard Selwick, and suddenly everything she had thought to be true needed reevaluating.

My image—my imaginings, as I now, painfully, knew them to be—of the Pink Carnation had been so real, so solid. In my head, he’d been something of a cross between Zorro and Anthony Andrews as the Scarlet Pimpernel. A rakish grin, a cocky tilt of the head, a steady sword arm. I could close my eyes and conjure him up, even now. But none of that had ever existed. Poof! All gone! And in my wonderful Zorro/Anthony Andrews hybrid’s place there stood a bouncy little twenty-year-old English girl in a sprigged muslin dress.

And Colin Selwick had known. My face grew hot as I remembered my spirited defense of the Pink Carnation’s manhood. How he must have been laughing at me!

“At least we agree on that much,” he had said, about the Pink Carnation’s not being a transvestite. That dry note of mockery in his voice—at the time, I’d thought he’d been ironically amused by the idea of our agreeing on anything, but now I knew I’d been the butt of that joke. Of course, the Pink Carnation wasn’t a transvestite. Amy wore dresses and named herself after a pink flower because she was female. Not a cross-dressing male with a carnation fixation, or even a Regency dandy with a penchant for pink. And Colin Selwick had known all along.

Nodding and smiling at yet another of Pammy’s numerous acquaintances, I downed my glass of champagne, and reached for another.

“Pardon?”

One of Pammy’s friends was actually trying to make conversation with me. On my third glass of champagne—or was it my fourth?—it took me a moment to focus. I looked up to see a tallish man with dark, wavy hair like Colin Firth’s. Not at all bad looking in a dark, smoldering Rufus Sewell sort of way.

“Arrr rrrrr rrrr rrrr,” he repeated.

“Oh, absolutely!” I said airily. “Couldn’t agree more!”

Curly-haired Chap gave me an odd look and turned away.

“Um, Eloise?” Pammy hissed in my ear. “He asked what your name was.”

“Well, I thought it was a very valid question!” I hissed back.

That’s the lovely thing about champagne. After a few glasses, one loses all ability to feel like an idiot.

“Oh! Look who’s there!” Pammy was still looking in the direction of Curly-haired Chap, but her attention had shifted to someone just beyond him. Curly-haired Chap was pointedly ignoring both of us. Since Pammy had exclaimed the same thing several times in the past hour, I didn’t pay much attention. “I never thought she’d show. Serena! Yoo-hoo! Serena!”

Curly-haired Chap edged back a bit, and through the gap I saw Chic Girl. Also known as Serena. And behind her was Colin Selwick.

Something cold and wet dripped down onto my sandaled toes. Ooops. I hastily righted my champagne glass before I poured any more libations to my feet.

“Yoo-hoo!” Even over the din, Pammy managed to make herself heard. “Over here!”

With a tentative smile, Serena gave a little wave back, said something to Colin, and began to wend her way through the intervening bodies towards Pammy.

“You know her?” I hissed, as Serena navigated her away around Curly-haired Chap, Colin in tow.

“She’s one of the St. Paul’s crowd,” Pammy whispered back. “A little shy, but a sweetie. Darling!” She launched herself at Serena, kissing her on both cheeks. “And this is my very old friend Eloise. Eloise, I’d like you to meet Serena and her—”

“We’ve already met,” I cut in, with a wave of my champagne glass. “Hello, Serena.” I smiled sweetly at Serena, who did seem rather a sweetie, even if she was wearing another pair of to-die-for boots, this time soft black leather, paired with a very un-Chapin-mother little black dress.

“You.” I pointed the champagne glass at Colin.

I had a feeling I was going to hear about this from Pammy later, but champagne is the better part of valor, and I needed, desperately needed, to talk about the Pink Carnation. The female Pink Carnation.

“I need to speak to you.”

Colin raised an eyebrow. “What about?”

“Yes, what about?” echoed Pammy shamelessly.

I glowered at Pammy. “Not here. Come with me. Back in a moment,” I assured Serena, and towed her boyfriend off across the room. There was a pocket of relative privacy at one corner of the catwalk. The models had long since abandoned their platform, and two drunken guests were gyrating to the music, one of them wearing a green sequinned dress that made her look like a walking Christmas tree.

Colin submitted to being towed, but freed himself as soon as we’d reached the corner. “Bond, James Bond?” he quipped quizzically.

“She’s a woman!”

Colin regarded the Christmas-tree woman with a puzzled frown. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

I hit him with my glow stick, which had long since ceased to glow. “Not her! Oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t be dense! You know very well who I mean! The Pink Carnation. Is. A. Woman.”

That got his attention. “Shhhh.”

I made an exasperated face. “Do you really think anyone here would care? They’d probably think I was talking about a new rock group.”

His face relaxed into amusement. “True.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded.

“You didn’t ask.”

“That is the most puerile excuse for an answer I’ve ever heard.”

Colin plunked his empty champagne glass down on the edge of the catwalk. “Well, what was I supposed to say?”

“You let me go on about the Pink Carnation, all the while knowing . . .” I bit down on my lip, hard.

Colin stared at me, uncomprehending. “All the while knowing what?”

“That the Pink Carnation was female!”

“You’re quite upset about this, aren’t you?”

“Urgh!” Ten points to Let’s State the Bleeding Obvious Man.

Looking completely baffled, Colin snagged two more glasses of champagne from a passing tray, and pressed one into my hand, closing my fingers around the stem. “Here. Drink. You look like you need it.”

Despite the fact that it came from Colin Selwick, that was excellent advice. I drank.

“I know you didn’t want me there, but it still wasn’t nice to make fun of me,” I blurted out.

“When did I make fun of you?” he asked, with a good imitation of surprise.

I eyed him suspiciously. “Last night.”

Colin contemplated this. Understanding dawned in his hazel eyes. “You mean the nightdress? You must admit, you did look like Jane Eyre.”

I could only deal with one grievance at a time. “Forget about that.”

“How can I?” Colin’s lips were twitching. “It’s not often a Brontë heroine—”

“Stop it!” I gave a little bounce of irritation. “I wasn’t referring to that! I wasn’t talking about your making fun of me for looking like a demented gothic heroine—”

“Not necessarily a demented gothic heroine,” Colin broke in, grinning.

“Oh, be quiet!” I howled, undoubtedly changing his mind about the whole demented thing. “I’m talking about the Pink Carnation being manly, and it wasn’t nice of you!”

“Come again?” said Colin.

I gripped the stem of my champagne glass, took a steadying breath, and started over. “I am referring,” I said with deliberate gravity, “to your allowing me to go on about the Pink Carnation being manly, when you knew, all along, that the Pink Carnation was Amy.”

“You think the Pink Carnation is—” Colin stopped abruptly. “Never mind. Let’s go back to the beginning, shall we? First of all, I have no recollection of your saying anything about the Pink Carnation being manly.”

Hadn’t I? I racked my champagne-slogged brain. He’d said something about that researcher thinking the Pink Carnation was a transvestite, and I’d said . . . what had I said? I couldn’t remember. Damn.

“Oh,” I said in a small voice. Maybe champagne didn’t completely dull one’s ability to feel like an idiot.

“Second,” he began, “I never—” but I was spared the second blow to my ego. Someone tugged at Colin’s elbow, causing him to break off midsentence. We both looked over sharply. It was Serena.

“Colin?” she said in a piteous little croak, “I don’t feel very well.”

Colin’s expression immediately switched to affectionate concern. He put a protective arm around her shoulders. “Do you want me to take you home?”

I stood back, feeling like the proverbial third wheel. Colin’s attention was focused completely on Serena, his blond head bent attentively towards her dark one. I watched the way his brows drew together in concern, the way his bent body shielded her from the jostling crowds, and felt an emptiness in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with skipping dinner.

I knew exactly what it was, and I was too champagne soaked to lie to myself about it.

I was jealous.

It wasn’t that I wanted Colin Selwick, I assured myself. Good heavens, no! I wanted what he stood for. I wanted someone who would drop a conversation when I appeared, who would worry if I said I felt sick, who would automatically shield me from being jostled without even stopping to think about it. It had been a very long time since anyone had taken care of me like that.

You learn how to work around it. You make sure you never drink so much that you can’t get home on your own. You mark out friends you can rely on. You program emergency numbers into your cell phone, bring Band-Aids in your bag, and always carry extra money for late-night cabs. But it’s not the same. I envied Serena that.

At the moment, she wasn’t looking particularly enviable. She sagged against Colin, both arms wrapped around her stomach.

“Look, why don’t I go find a cab?” Colin suggested desperately. “I’ll just go—”

Serena shook her head. “I don’t—” she began, and then pressed her lips tightly together. Her face had gone from pale to an alarming greenish color. “I think I’m going to—” She clamped her knuckles over her mouth and swallowed hard.

“Oh, hell. Um . . .” Colin cast a look of complete panic around the room. “There must be a loo somewhere.”

“I’ll take her.” I stepped in, slipping an arm through Serena’s. “I think I saw one just over that way.”

“Thank you,” Colin said with palpable relief. “I’ll just be out here.”

Taking Serena by the arm, I steered her towards the ladies’ room, rudely pushing through chattering groups of people. I got Serena to the bathroom just in the nick of time. There was a line, of course, but we pushed past, Serena’s greenish complexion and hunched posture doing more to explain than I could.

There was a huffy “Well!” from one woman in the queue, but I noticed she moved her Manolo Blahniks quickly out of the potential line of fire.

As I had for drunken roommates back in college, I knelt behind Serena with one arm around her shoulders, the other holding her long, dark hair back from her face, while I murmured silly, soothing things, like, “That’s right, get it all out,” and “Don’t worry, it’s all okay, you’ll feel better in a minute, just get it all out.”

There was an awful lot to get out.

Between bouts, she looked up at me with tearstained eyes. “I’m so embarrassed,” she murmured. “I can’t imagine why . . . I only had one glass . . . I don’t usually . . .” And she lurched back over the porcelain goddess.

“There, there.” I recaptured some escaping strands of dark hair. “Don’t worry. Maybe it was something you ate. Trust me, no one will think the worse of you. At least you made it to the toilet,” I said encouragingly. “I once threw up all over an ex-boyfriend’s shoes.”

A giggle emerged from the depths of the toilet bowl.

I gathered up a handful of toilet paper as she settled back on her haunches, and handed it to her in lieu of tissues. “Unfortunately, he was a rather nice ex-boyfriend, so I can’t even claim it was done in revenge.” I kept my tone deliberately light as I funneled her tissues. “And they were new shoes, too.”

“Wha-what did he say?” Serena ventured, blowing her nose.

“He was very nice about my throwing up on him,” I recalled. “What he found harder to forgive was my pointing at his shoes and bursting into uncontrollable laughter. Ah, well. Feeling better?”

Serena nodded tentatively.

I hauled myself to my feet with the help of the toilet paper dispenser, and held out a hand to her. “Why don’t we go rinse your mouth out then, and I should have some mints in my bag. . . .” Fumbling in my little Coach bag, I pushed open the door of the stall with one shoulder, ignoring the glares of the women waiting outside. It’s an endless mystery to me the way lipsticks, hair-brushes, and mints can all find places to hide in a bag two inches tall by four inches long.

Feeling a light touch on my arm, I looked up inquiringly.

“Thank you,” Serena said softly. Her mascara had run, and her nose was red, but her eyes were clearer and some color had returned to her cheeks. “You really have been lovely.”

I shook my head, resuming my mint search. “It’s really not a big deal. We’ve all been here. Well, not here, in particular, but you know what I mean. Mint?” I shook two tiny little Certs into my hand and held them out to Serena.

“Thank you.” She leaned over the sink, splashing cold water on her face. I handed her a paper towel. “About yesterday,” she said hesitantly, taking the paper towel and dabbing at her damp face, “I’ve been wanting to apologize.”

“You had nothing to apologize for,” I said firmly. Except for owning nicer boots than mine, but I decided to keep that bit to myself.

“Colin was impossibly rude.”

That I could agree with. Emphatically. I wondered if he’d told her of our midnight chat in the kitchen. I smiled noncommittally and handed her my mini mascara.

“He really isn’t usually like that,” she continued anxiously, her large, hazel eyes following mine in the mirror. I’d seen eyes of that same color before recently, but couldn’t peg where. “He felt awful about it afterwards.”

I admired her loyalty, but had little interest in hearing an apologia for Colin Selwick.

“I think we’re being glared at,” I put in quickly. “If you’re feeling better, we should probably free up the mirror space.”

Gathering up my toiletries, I hustled Serena out of the bathroom. Colin and Pammy were waiting for us by the door. I handed Serena over to Colin, who helped her into her coat, and asked the bouncer to whistle for a cab. As Serena said her good-byes to Pammy, Colin turned slightly so that he and I were blocked off from the other two.

“It was very kind of you to take care of Serena,” he said quietly.

“Just polishing my halo,” I proclaimed with a cavalier wave that nearly sent me toppling over. Two hours of sleep plus four—or was it five?—glasses of champagne were taking their toll.

Colin grabbed my elbow. “Steady there. Are you sure you don’t need someone to take care of you?”

It had definitely been five glasses of champagne. Smiling, Colin looked just like he did in the photograph on Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s mantel—only without the horse. I pressed my eyes briefly shut to make the world stop spinning and shook my head.

“Nope. I’m absolutely all right. Not a bit”—I had to fling a hand out for balance as he let go—“unsteady.”

“Right,” Colin agreed with unconcealed amusement.

I made a concerted effort to stand up straighter.

The laugh lines at the corners of Colin’s mouth deepened.

Taking a step back, Colin slung an arm around Serena’s shoulder. “Ready, Serena?” She nodded, snuggling trustingly against his shoulder. “We could drop you off home if you like,” he suggested to me.

My champagne buzz was wearing off, leaving me feeling tired, and mildly ill.

“No, thanks,” I said brightly, snatching up a glass of champagne I had absolutely no intention of drinking and holding it aloft. “I’m sticking around with Pammy. The night is young! Right, Pams?”

Pammy gave me a you-are-a-great-big-weirdo look. “Sure, Ellie.”

“In that case”—Colin steered Serena towards the door—“good night.”

He was probably relieved to have to deal with only one wobbly female, and afraid I was going to change my mind.

“Good night, Eloise,” murmured Serena, peering around his arm. “Thank you, again.”

I watched them disappear behind the red ropes, the unwanted glass of champagne hanging heavily in my hand.

Pammy stared at Colin’s back as he helped Serena into the cab. “I don’t remember Serena’s brother being quite that hot.”

I pivoted to face her. “Who?” I demanded.

“Serena’s brother,” Pammy repeated. “You know, tall, blond guy, English-sounding name—Cedric, or Cecil, or . . .”

“Colin.”

“Yeah, that’s it. He’s gotten much better looking.”

“Her brother.”

“No, the Pope. Of course I meant her brother. Poor Serena,” Pammy rattled on, “she had a bad breakup last month, so her brother’s been keeping an eye on her. She told me about it while you were off whispering with him. What were you guys talking about over there, anyway, Ellie? Ellie? Yoo-hoo! Earth to Ellie! Are you okay? You look a little out of it.”

My eyes remained trained on the doorway, where Colin—and his sister—had exited a moment before.

“Out of it does not even begin to describe it,” I said grimly.