The Courtship Page 4

  “That certainly puts me in my place.”

  “And a very good place it is.”

  “What about this poor wife you will procure when you are forty-nine years old? She will have no say in anything. You just want her for breeding purposes, like you would breed animals. She will have needs and desires and hopes, and you will treat her like a sheep in a pen.”

  He laughed at that. “What a picture you paint, Miss Mayberry. Please don’t ignore the facts. This lady will want to marry me. She will gain my title, my money, and she will have anything she desires, except a lover, at least until I am passed to the hereafter. She will be the mistress of Paledowns and three other properties as well. After she buries me, she will be rich, her son will be Viscount Beecham, and she can bed every gentleman from Pall Mall to Russell Square.

  “No, don’t feel sorry for the future Viscountess Beecham. Now, I will agree, Miss Mayberry, that most women, just like most men, aren’t rich, aren’t particularly toothsome, and aren’t particularly intelligent. And since they aren’t men, they must endure more than men.

  “However, since I am not a woman and I cannot do much about their plight in our society, I see to my own people. I am responsible for their welfare and I take my responsibilities seriously. I do my best not to cause any particular pain or difficulty for another human being, man or woman, just as I imagine you do.”

  “Give me just one example of your goodness, Lord Beecham.”

  “More sarcasm wafting toward me? Very well. Last month one of my maids was raped by a footman in a neighboring house. I met with the mistress of the house and was told in no uncertain terms that my maid was a trollop of no moral fiber at all and that it was she who had seduced their poor footman, a brawny Irishman who was a bully.

  “I beat him to a pulp. My maid got to kick him herself once in his ribs. She spit on him. She is fine now, didn’t become pregnant, thank God.”

  She just stared at him. He watched her long fingers stroke the silver spoon handle.

  He frowned, not looking up from her fingers. “I don’t know why I told you that. You will contrive to forget it. It is no one’s affair. Are you quite through? Your ice is melted and looks revolting.”

  Helen watched him pay for their ices. When they reached the carriage, she said, “May we drive in the park, Lord Beecham?”

  “Why? Haven’t you yet decided if you want to use me?”

  “You are very smart. That’s it exactly.”

  4

  LORD BEECHAM SHOUTED up to his driver, “Babcock, to the park. Drive slowly.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  They had taken a full turn when Helen leaned forward on the opposite seat. “I would very much like to walk a bit.”

  Lord Beecham shouted out the window to his driver, “Babcock, pull over.”

  “Aye, my lord.”

  It was the middle of the afternoon, still on the early side for all the ladies and gentlemen to venture out for their social hour in the park. The sun was spilling out bits of light and warmth, Helen thought, looking up, but it was still chilly, the feel of dampness lingering.

  “You just shivered. Are you too cold?” He was drawing on his gloves as he spoke.

  “No, I was just thinking. You know, Lord Beecham, I have wanted to meet you for the past week.”

  “But you still don’t wish to tell me why?”

  “A bit more conversation, perhaps? We were speaking about women and perhaps about your uses for them.”

  “My favorite species.”

  The black shadow of bitterness coming through, she thought. But she said nothing, just smiled at him.

  He shrugged. “Truth be told, Miss Mayberry, God set us upon this stage to play our roles and so we play them, pathetically for the most part, but we try.”

  “Our roles are infinite, Lord Beecham. We may stumble and bumble about, but you are right, we do try.”

  “What role are you playing now, Miss Mayberry?”

  “I am Diana the Huntress.”

  “And you are after my fair self. I am not certain that I wish to be caught. You are not married. I much prefer women to be married. It simplifies things.”

  “Good heavens, why? Oh, I am being obtuse. You believe that an unmarried woman wants to use you only in order to marry you.”

  “If a man is rich, yes, that is the way of it.”

  “You are very jaded, sir. If I were to tell you, for example, that all I wished from you was your company involving only a certain activity, you would automatically disbelieve me?”

  “If you are speaking of taking me as a lover, then, yes, Miss Mayberry.”

  “You would be wrong, Lord Beecham.”

  She saw the contempt again, the incredulity, but all he said was, “Time will tell.”

  There was a bench on the side of the path. Helen sat down.

  Lord Beecham leaned toward her. His eyes were brilliant, knowing. “What is your use for me, Miss Mayberry?”

  She knew exactly what he wanted. Knew exactly what he imagined she was thinking. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. He stared at her tongue, leaning a bit closer to her.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, still staring at her mouth. “If you don’t want me to very gently place you on the ground right next to this bench, you will not do that again.”

  “Very well. I apologize. You are renowned as a de baucher. You have made love to more women than I have meted out discipline to men. Do you have any bastards, Lord Beecham?”

  “No. Not a single one. I would never do that to a woman, to a child, if it happened to survive.”

  “I understand it is not always possible to prevent conception no matter how careful the man and woman may be.”

  “I am so careful, Miss Mayberry, I would sooner wager that the sun wouldn’t rise than that I would impregnate a woman. You’re doing it again with your tongue.”

  He pulled her very gently against him and kissed her. She had been assaulted by a man’s mouth only once since Gerard. No, she wouldn’t think about Gerard. She recalled she had taken a good bite of that gentleman’s tongue, before she hit him in the jaw and knocked him unconscious. But this was gentle, an exploration, a tantalizing invitation. Well, it should be. He was a master at this.

  It was he who pulled back from her.

  She didn’t want him to stop, but she didn’t try to hold him when he ended it.

  “Tell me, Miss Mayberry,” he said in the most delicious dark honey voice she had ever heard in her life, as he lightly rubbed his thumb over her eyebrow, “what is your use for me?”

  Helen never lost control. She wasn’t about to now, even though she wanted very much at this moment to hurl him to the ground and kiss him until he was begging.

  “Perhaps,” she said, swallowing, “just perhaps I still don’t know you well enough to tell you yet. I am just not certain. There was something else Douglas said about you.”

  “And what insult would that be?”

  “Not an insult. He said there were shadows in you. He said you had a dark soul.”

  He looked away from her as he rose. “Not so dark anymore. Time shifts and blurs and changes things, Miss Mayberry. No, not so very dark anymore. Now, where are you staying? I shall be delighted to see you home.”

  “You are angry because I’m not falling all over you immediately.” Helen stood beside him, staring him right in the eye. “It isn’t becoming for a man to get in a snit simply because he does not get his way. It’s childish.”

  He laughed, the third time in under two days. Or was it the fourth? He stopped abruptly, touching his fingers to his mouth. He cleared his throat.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said, frowning right into her beautiful blue eyes. “Nothing at all. I am not in a snit. You misunderstood. You are a woman. Women frequently misinterpret a man’s silent deliberations.”

  She snorted.

  “You may look like a goddess, Miss Mayberry, but I assure you I can exist quite well w
ithout you.”

  “A goddess?”

  “Also women hear only what they wish to hear.”

  “You have a point there. Oh yes, my father and I are staying at Grillon’s Hotel.”

  He turned around and yelled, “Babcock!”

  Leonine Octavius Mayberry, Sixth Viscount Prith, looked down his straight, narrow nose at his only child.

  “I have known you all your life. I actually felt you while you were in your mother’s belly. I know all your games—at least I have until now. Tell me why you have invited Lord Beecham—a man of many parts, most of them dangerous—to dinner.”

  Helen raised her hand and lightly touched her father’s cheek. “I ordered champagne.”

  “At least we will see if the fellow’s a real man. If he desires some of that filthy brandy instead, I will boot him out of here myself.”

  “I will assist you and apply my own slipper.”

  “You mock me, girl. Why is he coming?”

  Helen slowly walked away from her father, who stood a good head taller than she. He was, in fact, quite the tallest man she had ever seen. She couldn’t wait to see what Lord Beecham had to say when he craned his neck to look up at him. She walked to the lovely little bow windows in the parlor of their suite. She pulled back the curtain. The month of May was glorious even in London, she thought. At least today was. So many people, all in such a hurry. She hoped they knew where they were going. Sometimes it was very difficult to know.

  “I have a use for him, Father. But I just don’t know him well enough. The fact is, I want to see what you think of him. If you do not wish me ever to see him again, you will tell me, and I will show him to the door.”

  He beetled his thick arched brows, sleek and white. “I have heard all about Lord Beecham. I have heard no scurrilous tales about him. He appears honorable, though he is a renowned satyr. At least he is tall, I’ll give you that. He’s rich, but you don’t care about that. Are you thinking you’ll marry the fellow, Nell?”

  “You know I don’t wish to wed, Papa.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully for a long time, then turned and said over his shoulder, “I’ll order two bottles of champagne.”

  Of course he had not thought to order the dinner with the champagne. She smiled as she rang the bell for their butler, Flock. Flock, so small he fit quite nicely under her arm, could deal well with the Prince Regent himself were the need to arise. He said to his mistress, “Miss Helen, I understand that Lord Beecham is a very intelligent man.”

  “Yes, I have heard that too, Flock.”

  “You will not worry. I will speak to him when he arrives. If he impresses me with his wit, I will give you a single wink. If he does not impress me, I will open the windows so Lord Prith may toss him out.”

  “I could do it just as well, Flock,” she said mildly.

  “Yes, I know, but I fancy you will be wearing a lovely gown and I wouldn’t want you to wrinkle it.”

  “Very well, Flock.” She couldn’t wait to see whether she got a wink or an open window.

  Helen spent more time than usual on her appearance that evening. When her maid Teeny fastened pearls around her neck, Helen said to her image in the mirror, “Have you decided to marry Flock?”

  There was a big sigh behind her. “Oh, Miss Helen, I can’t do it, I just can’t.”

  “Why ever not? He is an excellent man. He is kind, he is competent. He is ever so forceful, and I have seen you shudder in delight when he tells you he will discipline you if you don’t do as he wishes. He would take good care of you.”

  “I know all that, Miss Helen. But don’t you see—my name would be Teeny Flock. It makes my teeth ache just to say it.”

  “Good God,” Helen said as she rose and smoothed her skirts. She leaned down to give Teeny a hug. “I hadn’t realized. Let me think about that. It is an obstacle, you’re right about that, but it is not insurmountable.”

  When Flock announced Lord Beecham, Helen was already on her feet. Why the devil was she nervous? It was absurd.

  Flock gave her a wink.

  Lord Beecham, wearing evening clothes that perfectly complemented the arrogance of the man, strode into the room, spotted her, and was before her quickly. He bowed over her hand but didn’t kiss either her hand or her fingers or her wrist. He just smiled at her and stepped away to shake hands with Lord Prith.

  “I had the great pleasure to see you once, sir, in White’s. May I inquire the height of your wife?”

  “Ah, my sweet Mathilda, named after the conqueror’s wife, you know. She was just a slip of a girl when I met her. No taller than my elbow when I married her. I swear, though, that she grew through the years just to keep up with her daughter. Helen, how tall was your mother?”

  “My mother, Lord Beecham, was perhaps an inch taller than I. She swept through East Anglia, gentlemen in her wake, begging for her attention, but then she saw my father, and she stopped sweeping.”

  “It is just the same with you, Nell,” Lord Prith said. He added to Lord Beecham, “So many fellows wanting to marry my little Nell. Sad thing is, though, most of ’em are short, more’s the pity. Short men take one look at Helen and swoon. Of course, neither Helen nor I see them when they collapse.”

  “Because they’re so short.”

  “Exactly,” said Lord Prith. “Flock, bring on the champagne.”

  Now, Helen thought, with a smile toward her father, they would soon see what Lord Beecham was made of. She didn’t know what Flock used to measure a man’s wit, but to her father, it was, and always had been, champagne.

  Lord Beecham eyed the beautiful goblet filled to its very brim with perfectly chilled champagne. He smiled at Flock as he shook his head. “Forgive me, but I would very much prefer a brandy.”

  Lord Prith choked and spewed champagne bubbles.

  Helen shook her head sadly. “Are you certain, Lord Beecham? You don’t care for champagne?”

  “It isn’t that I don’t appreciate it, it’s that champagne, particularly very fine champagne like this obviously is, makes me very ill. When I first drank it at Oxford, I believed I would die, I became so very ill. I tried one other time since then. It was not a pretty sight. It is an even worse memory, still.”

  “Here is brandy, my lord,” said Flock. “It is the finest French brandy, smuggled in to a very private cove on his lordship’s estate.”

  “Lord Beecham may decide to inform on us, Flock,” Helen said as she sipped her champagne.

  “No, he won’t,” said Lord Prith slowly. “He may be dangerous, but he’s tall and he’s straight. A pity about the champagne, though. There is nothing more splendid than a half dozen glasses—that quite sees you through the darkest times.”

  “So I have heard, sir. However, I have found brandy an excellent substitute. I may have dark times, but I am not dangerous, sir—at least not in the normal course of events.”

  “It is better for your reputation if you don’t disagree with that,” Helen said, and poked him lightly in the arm. She looked glorious tonight, her gown a soft ivory, the lovely pearls around her neck luminescent. Her hair was piled high atop her head, making her taller than he, which amused him.

  “Very well,” he said, “I am so dangerous that highwaymen see my carriage and ride directly to the magistrate.” He wondered what she would taste like. Her gown wasn’t cut particularly low, just low enough so he could see the lovely roundness of her breasts.

  “Stop that,” she said under her breath.

  “If a woman did not want a man to admire her attributes, why then would she wear a gown that was halfway to her knees?”

  “I selected that gown, sir.” Lord Prith paused then and looked at his only offspring. “I say, it is somewhat revealing, Nell. Perhaps I could give you one of my scarves to tie around your shoulders. Flock! Fetch one of my wool scarves to cover Miss Helen.”

  “Hoisted on my own petard,” Lord Beecham said and drank down the rest of his brandy.

  “Papa has excellent hearing
. One must always think before speaking if he is anywhere in the vicinity. Hearing even a whisper isn’t beyond him.”

  “I will be more careful in the future.” Future? It was possible he would not see her again after tonight, but he wanted to. He wanted to bed her, nothing more to it than that. Sweet, simple lust, a fine thing, something a man could see to without much difficulty, and then it was over and done with and a man could go about his business again, unburdened for a goodly number of hours.

  “Dinner is served, Miss Helen.”

  When Flock opened the dining room door, frowning because it was closed in the first place, he stared in perfect horror.

  The small dining room was fast filling with smoke.

  “Oh, dear,” said Flock. “Oh, dear.”

  Lord Beecham quickly moved Flock to one side.

  “It’s the buttock of beef that’s burning,” Lord Beecham said. He picked up a bottle of wine and poured it over the roast. He then removed a silver dome from another platter and set it over the meat. There was a hissing sound. More smoke gushed out from beneath the dome, then it stopped.

  “Open the windows,” Lord Prith said to Flock. “How did this happen?”

  “It is the hotel, my lord,” Flock said as he pulled the draperies back and shoved up the three side-by-side windows. “The chef is extremely voluble and quite French. His name is Monsieur Jerome. He saw Miss Helen when we arrived, lost his head, and has begged me to allow him to cook for her. This is his latest attempt to impress her. He called this his feu du monde.”

  “World fire?” Lord Beecham said and coughed. He picked up a napkin and began flapping it against the smoke. “I don’t suppose the chef is short?”

  “Yes, my lord. Jerome doesn’t even come to Miss Helen’s chin. I do, however, pass her chin on most occasions.”

  “Eh? What does that mean, Flock?”

  Flock said as he rubbed the burned spots on the lovely white linen tablecloth, “It means, my lord, that Miss Helen is safe from me. I define a short man as not coming to Miss Helen’s nose. I am there, my lord. Nearly.”

  Helen was batting at the smoke as well. “I thought you told him that I was married, Flock, and thus his ardor was sufficiently cooled.”