The Courtship (24 page)

Helen, distracted, merely shook her head, saying, “No, I am just here to see Lord Beecham.”

“I would like to hear more about your discovery of the scroll. May I call upon you?”

That got Helen's attention. “I don't know where I will be, my lord.”

“Helen, you will stay with us,” Alexandra said.

“Then later, Miss Mayberry,” Lord Hobbs said, gave her a long look, and finally took himself off.

“You will not see Lord Hobbs alone,” Lord Beecham said, frowning after the man who had ice in his veins, not passion. “For some reason he intends to try to attach you. I will not allow that.”

“What do you mean ‘for some reason'? What am I, a troll?”

“Trolls are really quite small. No, don't turn your cannon on me. I meant nothing. It merely came out of my mouth that way. You won't ever be alone with him. I insist upon that, Helen.”

“For heaven's sake, Spenser, who cares?” Helen jumped up and waved her fist in his face. “You are worried about Lord Hobbs when everything is falling apart around us?” She smote her forehead with her palm. “I can't believe I let you distract me with all this troll business. Reverend Mathers is dead, all because of that wretched scroll I found. He's dead! What are we going to do?”

“You are hysterical, Helen,” Alexandra said in the voice of a Mother Superior. “Get a grip on yourself.”

Helen blinked, drew a deep breath, and pulled back her shoulders. She removed her bonnet and worked the thick blond tress of hair back into its plait. “There,” she said. “I am all together again.”

“Well done,” Lord Beecham said. “Tell us what has happened.”

He watched her jump up and begin pacing the drawing room. Long strides, long, strong legs. He saw those legs of hers so clearly, felt them squeezing tightly against his flanks, that he nearly fell to the floor in a swoon.

“Oh, goodness,” Helen shouted, “this is perfectly dreadful. A man murdered here in London, and no matter what you say, it is all my fault.”

Alexandra shouted back at her, “Helen, you are slipping again. Get ahold of yourself. You did not stab Reverend Mathers. An evil person did. It is not your fault.”

Lord Beecham, who had managed at the last moment not to swoon, walked to her and took her gloved hands into his. He looked into her eyes, as blue and rich as a summer sky. He felt her fear now, her anxiety, her disbelief. It was he who got hold of himself. This was serious business. He said, “It will be all right. Now, what happened at home?”

“Someone tried to break into Shugborough Hall. The thief would have succeeded if it hadn't been for Flock. He has taken to roaming around all through the night, to prove to Teeny that he is heartbroken so that she will pity him and perhaps overlook the name issue.”

“Name issue?” Douglas said.

“Teeny Flock.”

“It sounds like a very small assembly of sheep,” Alexandra said.

“Would you prefer Teeny Nettle?” Lord Beecham said.

“A very small weed? No, both give one the shivers.”

“Exactly,” Helen said. “In any case, Flock was roaming about the house, trying to deepen the shadows beneath his eyes, no doubt, when he saw this figure trying to break in through the drawing room windows. He raised the alarm. The man got away, but it was a close thing. He would have stolen the scroll if Flock had not been there.”

Helen drew a very deep breath. “Our secret is out, Spenser.”

“It could have been a common thief, after the silver,” Douglas said.

“It is possible,” Helen said, “but I don't think so. Common thieves wouldn't come to Shugborough Hall. We have a reputation, you see.”

“I can only imagine,” Lord Beecham said. “I am sorry for this, Helen. Still, Flock saved the day. I hope Teeny is better disposed toward him?”

That made Helen grin. “She was mumbling beneath her breath about the utter embarrassment her future children would feel whenever they had to say their mother's name.”

Douglas said, “No one really knows all that much about anything at this point. But the lure of hidden wealth is enough for many men to break into a house and murder a man of the Church.”

“And that means,” Alexandra said, “that someone discovered that Helen was involved and has moved very quickly.”

“I don't like this at all,” Douglas said. “I am going to have my brawniest footman, Kelly, begin immediately to follow Lord Crowley.”

“I shall assign Crimshaw to Lord Crowley as well,” Lord Beecham said. “He was raised in the stews and is tougher than an old boot. This Bow Street Runner, Ezra Cave, we will tell him to hire two more men to follow Crowley.”

“I will see to this right away,” Douglas said and gave his hand to his wife. “You, my sweet, will come with me. I have this feeling that Heatherington and Helen here have a number of things to speak about.”

“Yes,” Alexandra said slowly, looking from one to the other, “I do believe you are correct.”

“You will keep us informed,” Douglas said and took his countess out to their carriage.

Lord Beecham turned to Helen, who was staring at him, her eyes so intense he wondered if she was seeing directly into his brain, “As for you, Miss Mayberry, I have just decided that you and I are going to return to Court Hammering. But first, we are going to visit Old Clothhead Mathers, Reverend Mathers's brother.”

 

Old Clothhead was drunk when they arrived at Reverend Mathers's small town house near Russell Square.

“ 'Tis near to puking on my clean carpet 'e is,” said Mrs. Mappe, Reverend Mathers's housekeeper whom Lord Beecham had met the week before. “Och, my poor master, all kilt by some evil bastid.”

“You already know of this, Mrs. Mappe?” Lord Beecham asked.

“Oh, aye, milord, I know. Jest look at ye!” she said, beaming at Helen. “Ain't ye a purty big girl.”

“Lord Hobbs came?”

“Aye, strange feller that, all dressed in gray like a man what knows 'e's got to dress special to 'ave folk pay attention to 'im.”

After ten minutes of weaving in and out of Mrs. Mappe's very fascinating but nearly unintelligible English, they were shown in to see Old Clothhead.

“I killed my only brother,” wailed Old Clothhead, who was curled into the fetal position on Mrs. Mappe's clean carpet. “I told anyone who paid for a mug of ale all about what he was doing. I killed my brother. He was always warning me about hell being at the end of my road. I have no chance at all now.”

Lord Beecham came down to his knees beside Old Clothhead, a skinny little man who looked as if he hadn't eaten a good meal in ten years. “Give me the names of the men you told, not just the common variety of alley criminal, but the important ones, the men with money.”

He had to repeat the question three more times before Old Clothhead understood. “Reverend Older, not that he ever has a groat in his pocket. Titus filled my gullet with brandy, not ale, he was so thrilled about this scroll, though, perhaps his last groat. Then there was Lord Crowley and James Arlington and—”

Old Clothhead didn't vomit on Mrs. Mappe's clean carpet, he just passed out in midsentence.

Lord Beecham rose and looked down at the unconscious little man.

“He's pathetic,” Helen said, “and he is right. He is responsible for his brother's death.” She drew back her foot to kick him in the ribs. Then she stopped and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, no, I am as guilty as he is. I found the damnable thing in the first place. Who are these people, Spenser?”

He put his hands on her, drawing her ever so slowly against him. He kissed her temple. “It will be all right, Helen. I'll tell you about all of them. Well, no. I didn't know that James Arlington knew anything about this.”

They discovered an hour later that Lord James Arlington, fourth son of the Duke of Hailsham, was dead, shot, it was rumored, in a duel with Lord Crowley because Arlington had been caught cheating. Dueling was outlawed in England, but since no one would speak openly about it, it remained buried. Evidently the duke, Lord James's father, had shrugged when told the news of his son's demise and said simply, “He always did cheat. His mother taught him. He obviously cheated the wrong man.” And it was over. Had Crowley killed him in a duel?

Lord Beecham said, “It's time for us to go home, Helen.”

They rode horseback for the hour and a half. It was a lovely afternoon, summer flowers coming into bloom, the trees spreading their green canopies over the narrow country roads. “I forgot to tell you,” Lord Beecham said, “we have two more partners.”

“Douglas and Alexandra?”

He nodded, then leaned over and patted his horse's neck. When he straightened, he kept his eyes firmly fastened on the road between his horse's ears. “Before you arrived, I had other plans for tonight,” he said at last.

She didn't even seem interested. “Hmmm.”

“I was going to bed an opera girl and take her three times in under fifteen minutes.”

“Hmmm.”

He eyed her now with growing frustration. “You were new to me, that is all.”

No more humming, just bored silence.

“If you had stayed the night with Douglas and Alexandra, I would probably have climbed up to your window and taken you three more times. What do you think of that, damn you?”

“I am sorry, Spenser. I was distracted by the lovely honeysuckle. Did you say something?”

“Helen, do you want me to thrash you?”

“I would do you in if you tried it. You know that. What is wrong with you? We are in the midst of a dreadful mess. We don't know anything more about King Edward's lamp than we did two weeks ago when you insisted upon leaving me and coming back to London. I might add that London is only an hour and a half's ride from Court Hammering, yet you never even once came for an afternoon or an evening, even one simple meal.”

Now was the time. He had to do it, else he would be lost. He ignored her complaint and said, “Listen to me, for I mean this. I have decided to be only your partner, nothing more. Ever.”

She didn't acknowledge that he had spoken. She didn't even acknowledge that she had heard him. She simply clapped her heels in Eleanor's sleek sides. Eleanor streaked off down the road. Helen said nothing more to him the rest of the ride.

It rained the final half hour.

NETTLE FOLLOWED IN A carriage behind his master. Lord Beecham turned around to see him leaning out the carriage window, his face a study in ecstasy even though a sullen rain was dripping over him. “His heart is soaring,” he said to Helen, who wasn't speaking to him and in fact was a good twenty yards ahead of him on the road. “Soon he will see his goddess, Teeny.”

To his valet's immense distress, Lord Beecham elected to stay at the King Edward's Lamp. He did not want to be in Helen's home, with her coming downstairs in a nightgown and him all weak in his resolution upon seeing her, with the more than likely result that he would lose his head. No, the inn was safer. She never took her clothes off at the inn. She would never look at him provocatively at the inn.

Then he thought of the gazebo and that rotted old cottage. Her wet, sodden clothes—no provocation there, and it hadn't mattered. Ah, but at the gazebo, he had known and she had known as well exactly what would happen. And of course it had, with no particular reflection at all.

He hoped staying at her inn would prove a good idea, one that would keep him on the path of celibacy.

He would be her partner. Not her lover. He would. He was determined. He would not hurl himself from the path of righteousness again.

Helen escorted him to the inn's largest bedchamber, an airy, high-ceilinged large corner room on the second floor, overlooking the marketplace. She had a trundle bed brought up for Nettle, who looked at it and nearly wept. “It will be all right,” Helen said, lightly patting his shoulder. “You will find another girl just as sweet as Teeny. Forget her, Nettle. She was not meant to be yours.”

Lord Beecham eventually sent Nettle down to the taproom to buy himself some ale, telling him that three mugs was all Miss Helen would allow to be poured down any one male gullet. “Drown all your feelings about Teeny,” he called after his valet. “Well, at least get them wet.”

Then Helen stood in the open doorway of his bedchamber, hands on hips, and said, “Now what?”

“You are my partner,” Lord Beecham said, and then he said it again: “You are my partner.” He walked to her, closed the door, and locked it. “Helen,” he said and locked his arms under her hips and carried her to the big bed in the middle of the room. A warm breeze fluttered the light curtains over the windows. There were few sounds now, for it was dinnertime, and most people were at home in front of their own hearths.