The Courtship

by Catherine Coulter

  “Hey, you big woman, what are you doing?”

  It was the young man who had been cursing a blue streak. Helen turned on him, grabbed the oversized lapels on his bright-yellow jacket, and jerked him to his feet. “I think the buttons on your jacket are too big. You need a new tailor.”

  “I paid my last quarter’s allowance for this jacket,” the young man yelled in Helen’s face. “I know it is prime style because my father hates it.”

  “Hmmm,” Helen said. “I see your point. Very well, then just reduce the size of those silver buttons.”

  The young man looked suddenly uncertain and a good ten years younger. “You really believe they are too large?”

  “They are wearing you, not the other way around,” she said, saw that his wits were probably too addled from her fine ale to understand, and said, “You are the tail and your clothes the dog.” She turned away then, saying over her shoulder, “Cursing makes you look dull-witted.” She then turned to the rest of the young men, most of whom were just staring at her, bleary-eyed. She was so big and beautiful, not to mention commanding. He could imagine they wondered if they weren’t dreaming they had died and gone to the Vikings’ heaven.

  Lord Beecham saw another young man, this one so drunk he was frankly surprised the fellow could even coordinate enough to walk, but he managed it. He also looked furious, his sharp features flushed scarlet. Lord Beecham didn’t like that. He took a step forward, stopped, and said quietly, “Helen, behind you.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, smiling at him as she turned slowly. “You mean this little turnip with a face so red I’ll wager he looks just like his father in a rage?”

  “My father’s dead,” the young man said. “It’s my mother. She turns redder than I do just before she flies at me.” Then the young man raised his fists and ran toward her. Helen sighed and said aloud to the room at large, “Why do children have to repeat the horrible behavior of their parents? This fellow is probably too drunk to reason with.” She sighed again. She knew that all the other young men were staring, waiting to see what would happen. When he got close enough, she turned slightly to the side. When he went past her, she smacked her hand on his back. His momentum together with her hit sent him flying, and he slammed into the wall not six inches away from Lord Beecham. Lord Beecham watched as the young man stared up at him, sighed then fell, all boneless, to the floor.

  “He’s not red anymore,” he called out to Helen.

  She had all the young men’s attention now. They were staring at her, uncertain what to do, since their wits were numbed with too much drink, but they knew enough not to attack her. The young man who had been singing stopped. He began tucking his shirt back into his breeches and making a hash of it.

  Helen, hands on her hips, stood in the middle of the taproom. “Listen, all of you. You are a flock of dead-brains. Your innards are awash with my very good ale, and it is a pity because my ale deserves better innards than you young rogues have.”

  Lord Beecham wanted to tell her that she had used the wrong word. Every young man wanted to be called a rogue.

  “You will all walk out of this taproom and go to the courtyard. Oh, yes, and take these two who are lounging on my very nice oak floor with you.”

  Still they simply sat there, staring at her, disbelieving, Lord Beecham thought, what had happened to two of their number.

  He stepped forward. “Out,” he said quite pleasantly. Unfortunately he remembered all too well that on a number of occasions he had been just as drunk, just as rowdy. Dear God, but they looked young.

  “Now listen here, sir, we—”

  “She’s got no right to order us out of here.”

  “I still have some of my ale left.”

  “She has every right to do anything she pleases with you,” Lord Beecham said to another red-faced young man whose eyes were more vague than a man lost in a fog. “She is Miss Helen Mayberry. She is the owner of this inn, just as she said. Go along with all of you now. Ah, here are some lads coming to assist you out of here.”

  “But we don’t want to leave,” one young man yelled, and he turned to Helen. “I can smell that bread baking and I want to eat it.”

  Another young man said, “You’re bigger than I am but I know I can make you sing with happiness,” and he lurched toward her, his arms held wide to embrace her. “I could be more of a rogue if you would just give me more of your ale.”

  Helen simply stuck out her foot and tripped him. He sprawled onto his face, lay there a moment, then flopped onto his back, and blinked up at her. “Does this mean that you do not want me?”

  “Not at this precise moment, no.” She grabbed his collar and dragged him to the taproom door. Her three lads were standing there. “Pick this spirited young scoundrel up and bring him into the yard. Treat him tenderly, boys.”

  The young man was yelling now, “No, I want her. I want all that blond hair covering me.” He was trying to grab Helen, struggling mightily, but he was too drunk to do other than flop about.

  The lads dropped him on the grass-covered courtyard. Helen picked up a horse bucket full of water. The moment they let the young man drop to the ground, Helen dumped the bucket of water over him.

  He yowled.

  “Help them all outside, one at a time,” she told her three lads.

  “I can’t remember the last time I was so diverted,” Lord Beecham said to Gwen, the barmaid who was watching the young man who’d manhandled her being dragged out now by two of Helen’s lads.

  “Little bounders they be,” Gwen said. He watched her march to Miss Helen, take another filled bucket from her, and say, “I weren’t thinking aright, Miss Helen. I was silly enough to be afraid. Now I can see that they’re all jest pathetic young’uns. It won’t happen again.” She looked down at the young man. “Next time you will ask the lady first to allow you to stick your hand up her skirts,” and she threw the water on him.

  He lay there choking and coughing, and moaning because his head still hurt from being slammed against the wall.

  Within five minutes, eleven young men were all in the yard, sprawled on the large expanse of grass or on the circular gravel drive, all of them soaking wet. Helen stood off to one side and said, in a very proper, disciplining voice that had Lord Beecham ready to collapse in laughter, and, at the same time, nearly go on point: “You are very lucky that none of you got ill in my taproom. If any of you had, then your punishment would be severe and not at all pleasurable.

  “As I said, you were fortunate. Now I will tell you that I enjoyed this young man’s singing. He sang with his heart. The rest of you, however, have not endeared yourselves to me. You all need disciplining. However, there are too many of you and not enough time to do it properly.

  “You will all remain out here in the yard until you have sobered up and are dry enough so that you won’t drip on my lovely floors. You may remain at my inn if you wish to. But there will be a limit of three glasses of ale. No more. When you accept any future ales from Gwendolyn, you will thank her politely. If you ever feel ill, you will immediately excuse yourself and come out here into the yard. The taproom will close exactly at midnight. Does everyone understand?”

  There were grunts, nods, and groans. The one young man whom Helen had complimented, opened his mouth and started singing again. One of his friends threw the empty water bucket at him.

  Helen dusted her hands, gave Spenser a brilliant smile, and went back into the inn. She left her three lads standing guard in the yard, watching the young men as they tried to get their wits together again.

  “Helen,” Lord Beecham said, awe in his voice, “that was really well done. It was inspiring. You left all their collective manhoods intact, yet gave them a goodly amount of food for thought. I doubt they will forget this day anytime soon.”

  “My father told me how to go along with young men when I first bought King Edward’s Lamp six years ago. They’re not bad, just wild and young and have too much money. That mill in Braintree—I had forgo
tten all about it. If I’d remembered I would have been here to deal with them.” She straightened her gown, twisting around just a bit, and his eyes fastened onto her breasts.

  She said, “Thirteen years ago would you have perhaps been one of their number, Lord Beecham?”

  He gave her a slow smile. “I would have been the one singing. You would have tried to seduce me.”

  And she wondered if perhaps he weren’t right about that.

  Lord Beecham strolled about the inn while Helen spoke to Mrs. Toop, Gwendolyn, and her taproom man, Mr. Hyde, who, Helen told him later, was an expert ale maker, but, unfortunately, also a coward, whimpered whenever anyone spoke a harsh word to him, and hid behind the ale barrels when there was too much commotion and too many raised voices. He was still behind the ale barrels when Lord Beecham came back into the taproom, leaned over, and ordered an ale.

  He was impressed. Everything was clean, in good repair. The inn boasted two private parlors, each with a small fireplace and windows that gave onto the courtyard. The inn wasn’t overly large, though—two stories high, a stable to the left, cobblestones covering the outside yard in a great sweep. There was thick green grass where there were no cobblestones, a huge elm tree between the inn and the stable, and flowers everywhere. Her father had said that Helen’s victuals were the best to be had at any posting house in the entire area. The smells of baking bread from the kitchen made his belly growl.

  An hour later, with Mrs. Toop ready with a skillet should the young men not obey Miss Helen’s instructions, Lord Beecham and Miss Mayberry left King Edward’s Lamp and went to the butcher’s shop. Helen remained in close conversation with both the butcher and his very handsome young son, Walter. When she came out, she was smiling and rubbing her hands.

  “I’ve got him,” she said as Lord Beecham tossed her onto Eleanor’s back. “Walter is a very reasonable young man. He will treat Teeny very well. His father is fulsome in his appreciation that his family will be linked with mine through his son’s marriage to Teeny. ‘Teeny and Walter Jones’—it sounds pleasing to the ear. Now, we can get back to business.”

  He pored over the Pahlavi leather scroll until his eyes were nearly crossing with strain. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, teatime. He rose, stretched, and took himself to the drawing room.

  While he and Helen drank tea, Lord Prith downed a glass of champagne and a luscious raspberry tart.

  “I don’t know about Walter Jones,” Lord Prith said after Helen told him of her machinations. “He is said to have relieved at least six young girls of their virginity in the past year.”

  “Oh, dear,” Helen said, and choked on a scone. Lord Beecham leaned over and lightly thumped her back. His hand stopped and he looked at his fingers, saw them twitching to caress her. He resolutely put his hand back on his thigh and drank more tea.

  “He is too pretty,” Lord Prith said. “I don’t know about marrying our Teeny off to him, Nell.”

  “I will give this more thought, Father. Thank you for your information. Oh, dear, I suppose I will have to accompany Teeny when she meets him, as her chaperone.”

  “Oh, no,” said Lord Prith. “Send Flock with her.”

  “He would certainly protect her virtue,” Helen said, grinning. “Of course he would also probably stick a knife between Mr. Walter Jones’s ribs.” She turned to Lord Beecham. “You are looking too tired, sir. Would you like to stroll around the gardens with me?”

  “The gazebo,” he said. “I want to see the gazebo.”

  It was a lovely warm afternoon. Lord Beecham smiled fatuously when he saw that lovely little gazebo sitting atop a small rise to the east of the hall. Helen was still thinking about Teeny with that lecherous young man, of whom she had absolutely no doubt she could make the most ardent and faithful of husbands, or she would have seen that smile of his.

  “My dear grandfather built that gazebo,” Lord Prith had told Lord Beecham earlier while he consumed two glasses of champagne. “He used to say that my grandmama liked to sit there and watch the geese wheeze and paddle to the pond just beyond while she did her tatting. But I don’t know if that was true. You see, there was always this strange sort of smile on his face when he talked about that gazebo.”

  Yes, Lord Beecham thought, taking Helen’s hand to pull her more quickly to that gazebo. Tatting of a sort was just what Miss Mayberry needed.

  15

  ALL HELEN COULD TALK about was the Pahlavi scroll and the Old French they had copied from the ledge in the cave. That is, it was all she could talk about until he jerked her against him and kissed her, his hands on her bottom, kneading her, pressing her against him, hard. He didn’t have to lift her, she fit against him perfectly. He nearly swallowed his tongue.

  It didn’t even occur to him that he wasn’t behaving with her as he normally did with a woman. With any other woman, he would have gone slowly, easily, his charm overflowing, his wit smooth and fluent, his kisses deep and drugging. His master’s hands would be touching her everywhere, testing, assessing what pleased her most until she was wild and ready and so eager she reached her pleasure and was asleep from exhaustion before he’d managed to hie himself over the edge.

  But not with Helen. He was moaning into her mouth, kissing her jaw, her nose, back to her mouth, deeply, then teasing her with his tongue, and his hands were everywhere, rough and fast, and then he pushed her back onto the chaise that was in the gazebo, jerked up her gown, and nearly lost his seed at the sight of those long white legs of hers. “I simply cannot deal with this, Helen,” he said, wondering how he even managed to place those words together in a logical string. “I am just a man. I can’t deal with it.”

  “No,” she said, “no, I can’t either. Hurry, Spenser, oh, please, hurry.” She was trying to unfasten his breeches, and he slapped her hands away. This time he wanted at least to pull his boots off. He managed it, but just barely.

  He was on top of her, pushing her legs open, lying between them, breathing so hard he knew his heart would burst out of his chest. “It’s been too long,” he said into her mouth, “much too long.” His palm slid over her belly and pressed down over her and she cried out, a thin wailing cry that nearly broke him. “Just a moment, love, just a moment,” he said over and over into her mouth even as his fingers were on her soft flesh and he felt the building heat of her, the easing of her, the utter giving of herself to him, and he began a rhythm that was natural to him, thank God, because he was in such a bad way, he doubted he could have realized what to do next if it hadn’t been second nature to him. She was tensing, arching beneath him, and he knew, as a man knew always, somewhere deep inside him, that she would reach her pleasure at any moment. He wanted to be with her, not watching her, not controlling her, and so he kissed her hard, reared back, and came into her fully and deeply, groaning because it was nearly painful now, this urgent need of his, the wild pounding of his own blood, faster, harder, burning him with its heat. His whole body tightened as he pushed deeper, deeper until he pressed against her womb. She nearly bucked him off her, arching and twisting, nearly taking them to the floor. He managed to pull them back. He was desperate, throbbing, moaning into her mouth. When her muscles tightened around him, making him bellow with the exquisite agony of it, he knew he couldn’t hold back any longer. To his delirium, he felt her pleasure cresting, knew she was bursting with it and he was giving it to her, and he smiled as he threw back his head and yelled to the crossbeams in the gazebo ceiling.

  Helen was gasping, still twisting beneath him, still straining against him, and he knew, simply knew in that moment, that it was all over for him. When, finally, she stilled, he kissed her, and sent his fingers into her beautiful hair, pulling it free, burying his face in it, then pushing it back and nibbling her earlobe. He lay fully on top of her, his weight pressing her into the soft chaise cushion. He finally managed to raise himself on his elbows and look down at her. That was all it took, just looking down at her flushed face, her parted lips, the banked wildness in h
er eyes. And then she had the gall to raise her hand and lightly touch her fingers to his chin. “You have just a bit of a dimple. I’ve always liked chin dimples.”

  That was all it took. He sucked in his breath, began kissing her again, and in a remarkably short time, he was moving inside her again, and it no longer surprised him at all. He wanted to make it last longer this time, and it did, at least a full minute longer before he was jerking above her like a palsied man and she was heaving, so frantic that it seemed to him in one single sane moment that she wanted him all at once, just as he did her. When his hot fingers found her, she cried out into his mouth, her breath hot and fierce, and he poured himself into her.

  “I want you on top of me,” he said into her ear when he could draw a breath. She said nothing, not that he expected her to. She was utterly relaxed beneath him, probably asleep, he thought. Then he simply collapsed, his head beside hers. It was as if someone had slammed a door down on his head, only it didn’t hurt at all, and his sleep was very deep and profound. He just winked out, holding her tightly, still deep inside her, her arms holding him hard against her. He felt her hands on his back, warm even through his clothes and he realized in some part of his brain, that he’d just pulled his breeches down and that he still had on his shirt and his jacket.

  He was a pig, but he would think about it later.

  He awoke at the touch of a wet tongue on his left ear. “Spenser,” she said, then licked him again. He reared up over her, balancing himself on his elbows and looked down at her face.

  She looked dreamy, vague, and excited, a combination that ignited him instantly, no delay whatsoever.

  “Spenser,” she said again, and when he leaned down to kiss her mouth, to taste her, to revel in her, she said, “I’ve seen pictures of the woman on top of the man. I would like to try it. You don’t believe I am too big, do you?”