Free A Scandalous Proposal by Kasey Michaels

down.”
    â€œI agree, but happily, that’s not our problem.”
    â€œWhat’s not your problem, darlings?” The questioning voice was loud, almost booming, thanks to the fact that the woman who owned it was slightly deaf and hiked her own volume as if everyone else would have trouble hearing her. On top of that often embarrassing trait—most discomfiting when she believed she was whispering—was the fact that she rarely stopped talking. “And for pity’s sake, Cooper, don’t slouch there against the desk like some lazy oaf. I raised you better than that. Stand up, stand up. There, that’s better. Straighten your shoulders. Good posture is the sign of a gentleman, and a boon to regulation of the bowels. Look at Darby. See how straight he stands? He listened to his mother.”
    â€œSadly, Mrs. Townsend, my mother flew off to her heavenly reward when I was not more than a mere infant in my cot. But I will say my nurse had a wicked hand with the birch rod if I ever slumped like a lazy oaf.”
    Cooper turned to look at his mother, tall of stature, strong of bosom and with a fierce, hawk-nosed face that would suit well as the figurehead nailed to a man-of-war. Add her natural curiosity and rather singular way of looking at most anything to the mix, and it was more than time they moved from the Pulteney, with its generous parlor but very little privacy.
    â€œPerhaps I spared the rod to your detriment, Cooper. Curse my soft heart, but you were always so cute,” she said as she grabbed Cooper’s cheeks between her fingers and squeezed. “Look at that face, Darby. Just look, take it all in! How could anyone ever take umbrage with that face? So wonderfully kind. So infinitely understanding.”
    â€œMinerva, please,” Cooper said, pulling away before she permanently dented his cheeks. He hadn’t been allowed to call her Mother since his sixteenth birthday, which was the first time the woman realized she now had a son who apparently needed to shave. She didn’t particularly want to be a mother, and felt they’d rub along much better as friends.
    He looked past her now, to where her maid was standing just inside the entry hall, struggling to maintain her hold on a half dozen bandboxes. “And not infinitely, Minerva. May I be so ungentlemanly as to inquire as to how much your latest assault on Bond Street has set me back?”
    Rose coughed. She and Cooper had established a series of signals to warn him that whatever his mother said next, he was certainly not going to be doing handsprings of joy once he heard it.
    â€œI am aware of your miserly hold on the purse strings. But I have your reputation to uphold, even as you ignore the responsibilities incumbent on the proud matriarch of the new Townsend dynasty. You wouldn’t dare send me out into Society in rags, now would you? Rags , Cooper.”
    Coop looked toward Rose, the maid-cum-companion, and a distant relation who had known him from his cradle. This time she rolled her eyes as she adjusted the bandbox straps on her forearms. Worse than a cough? My, this was turning into his lucky day, wasn’t it? “Forgive me my unnatural tendency to avoid bankruptcy. I’m convinced you will do me proud each time you set sail into Society.”
    â€œMy point entirely. Foresails flapping, flags waving, creating quite the wake as I pass by. It’s only fitting, and Lord knows I’m built for it. I’m horribly shy, by nature, but I see this as a time when I must bite back on my natural reticence and hold up my end, as it were.”
    Rose’s choked cough was ignored by the lady, other than for her to raise one strong brow and dare Cooper to add any comment to what she’d just said.
    â€œAll I do, I do for you. One cannot put anything so crass as a price on a son’s love and a mother’s obligations, dear. Even in my short time here in London, I’ve heard so many