The Courtship

by Catherine Coulter

  It rained the final half hour.

  19

  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.

  And he was here, with Helen, and she was on her back and he was over her, kissing her, pulling the pins out of her beautiful hair, kissing her more, her nose, her earlobe, her chin. “My God, I’ve missed you,” he managed to say between kisses. “Your breasts. I’ve never seen your breasts. I saw them in the cottage when I got you out of all your wet clothes, but I didn’t really look. I touched your breasts once, but not like I want to. I have imagined your breasts, imagined kissing them and caressing them, my hands, my mouth—oh, God, Helen.” He reared up, standing beside the bed over her. “Your riding skirt, Helen, your damned riding skirt. Then there’s the rest of all those bloody clothes you women insist upon wearing to slow men down to the point of near expiration.” He got her out of her riding skirt in just about thirty seconds, then realized that he was still dressed, all the way down to his Hessians.

  “I want to do it right!” he yelled to the bedchamber ceiling, but he simply couldn’t wait, just couldn’t. He fell on her, yanked up her chemise, and left her boots and stockings on. He opened his britches and yelled when he drove into her. Helen screamed.

  For the briefest instant, he believed he had hurt her. He managed to raise himself on his elbows, to see her eyes closed, her lips parted. She was breathing hard, her hands jerking at him, and she was twisting beneath him, so frantic that she nearly bucked him off her.

  He watched her pleasure flood through her, watched her eyes open. She stared up at him in astonishment, then he was with her, so beside himself that he knew the end had to be near. A man simply could not bear this sort of thing. He moaned into her mouth, then his mouth was trying to keep kissing hers, but his lips were numb. He was gone. He collapsed.

  “I continue not to believe this,” he said, his voice deep and rough, when breath and brain finally returned to his body. He rolled onto his side, bringing her with him. Their boots tangled together. He smiled at her, kissed the tip of her nose. He was still inside her, just barely, but still a part of her. He knew he had to leave her now, this instant, or it would begin again, and he didn’t want it to. He couldn’t allow it to, or his once-firm resolve, now hanging by a single stingy thread, would melt like candle wax touched to flame.

  He closed his eyes, and slowly, so slowly it was near to killing him, he pulled out of her. She fell over onto her back again. She opened her eyes when the bed gave. He was standing there by the bed, his britches open, his hair standing on end where she had pulled it and stroked it and streaked her fingers through it, mad with wanting him. His chest was still heaving as if he had just run a very long race.

  He looked immensely beautiful.

  She watched him fasten his britches. She watched him straighten his clothing. She watched him walk to the window and stare out of it, down at the now empty market square.

  She was lying there on her back, her legs spread, her chemise tangled up around her waist. Her stockings were still in place above her knees, held with lacy black garters. Her boots were still on her feet. Then she laughed, couldn’t help it. She was still wearing her riding hat.

  “It’s amazing,” she said, coming up on her elbows. “Do you realize that this time you actually managed to get me out of my skirt before you ravaged me?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning slowly to face her. “It is amazing. I remarked to myself about that when I had it done. What I really wanted was your breasts. I have yet to see your breasts, Helen, the way I want to see them.

  “Ah, but I did get your skirt off you. I can no longer remember just how I managed to do it. It took nearly thirty seconds, took that thirty seconds away from me being inside you.” His breathing hitched. His eyes went wild and dark, and he stared at her spread legs. “No,” he said. “No. I will control myself.”

  He turned back to look down into the market square again. “Where is the scroll?”

  Helen blinked. He was trying to keep himself away from her. On a very intellectual level, she supposed she appreciated his efforts, but as she looked at him, her body still pulsed with the heat and strength of him, and she wanted him, powerfully.

  “I have hidden it here at the inn. No one would ever find it.” She rose slowly and walked behind the screen to clean herself. When she came around the screen, her clothes were back in place. “I didn’t want to put my father in any more danger, our people either. It is quite safe here.” She pulled on her riding skirt. She walked over to the narrow mirror beside the armoire. She looked demented, her riding hat askew, her mouth red from kissing him at least a hundred times, her eyes vague and soft.

  She was shocked to the soles of her goodly sized feet. Miss Helen Mayberry’s eyes were never vague and soft. She was the taskmistress of Court Hammering. This was her inn, where she and she alone ruled. She was in control, she was decisive, she was always the first one to know exactly what to do about anything at all.

  She had just ravished a man without a by-your-leave, had done it quickly and very well. Well, perhaps he had been a good part of that ravishment as well. She straightened herself as best she could, pinned her hair back under her riding hat. She still looked like she had been kissed silly. And other things as well. Anyone looking at her would realize that. She slapped her cheeks, then turned to face him when he said, “Reverend Mathers and I did manage to decipher a bit more of the scroll. It was very slow going. Would you like to see what we have now?”

  A glimmer of the old excitement came back into her brain, not all of it, but enough. Passion was a strange thing. It simply wrung you out and left you feeling like you were lying in the c
louds, your brain empty, your body glowing, your heart filled. “Yes,” she said, “but first, would you like to dine?”

  It meant leaving this bedchamber. It meant being in a private dining room with servants and guests not many feet away. It meant it would be next to impossible to toss up her skirts and position her on the dining table between the roasted hare and the poached trout. He would be safe from her and she from him. If he was truly a good man, there would not be a lock on the parlor door for him to click tight and then haul her up on the table. There would be no temptation like that.

  “One time,” he said as he followed her out of the bedchamber. “That is a vast improvement.”

  “I suppose it is,” she said, “but I hated it when you left me. I wanted you again.” With those words slamming into his brain, burrowing into him to his very bones, he followed her down the inn stairs.

  Her three lads were busy in the yard because there were guests arriving for the night. She spoke to Gwen, to Mrs. Toop and to Mr. Hyde, who was tasting his own ale. When Gwen carried covered platters into the small parlor, Lord Beecham moved to the fireplace, where a small fire burned, and stuck out his hands to warm them, for there was an evening chill to the air.

  He looked at that table and he saw the food, but he also saw Helen lying on her back and he saw himself nipping at her mouth as he eased his hands beneath her hips to slowly pull her to the end of the table. He saw his hands lifting her legs, parting them and he was coming close and closer still, and coming into her right there. He was yelling and so was she and—and then the door was flying open and all her lads were standing there staring at him ravishing their mistress, their mistress who disciplined them, the mistress whom they half feared and doubtless adored and would kill for.

  “Spenser, what is wrong? You look like you just got shot.”

  “Close enough. Maybe food will help.”

  When he took a bite of shepherd’s pie, Mrs. Toop’s premier family recipe, he realized vaguely that it was delicious as he chewed. Then he swallowed. He couldn’t continue this any longer. He drew a very deep breath and took the plunge, in his own fashion. “Put down your fork, Helen. Thank you. Now you will attend me.” He took another deep breath. “Here’s the truth of it. I just can’t be around you, I simply can’t. I thought that I could. I thought that here at your inn with all these people about—your people—I would be able to control myself.”

  She stared at his mouth and said, “I thought I would be able to control myself as well, but you grabbed me, and I wanted you more than anything.”

  He shook with her words. Then he was shaking his head vigorously. “I did not hear that. I couldn’t survive if I had really heard what you just said.

  “Now, I don’t know what has happened to me, but whatever it is, it has happened very hard. I simply cannot deal with it.” Then he looked up, and despite his suffering, he managed to smile at her. “Perhaps you should punish me by putting me in the stocks.”

  She choked on her asparagus. Her eyes went wide, seeing him at what she’d designated a Level Seven. She went perfectly still, once she caught her breath.

  “Tell me, how do you punish your lads in the stocks?”

  “If the miscreant merits a Level Five punishment, he is stripped to the waist, his head and hands locked in and the women torment him.”

  “How?”

  “It depends on the nature of the crime committed. For tardiness in assisting a guest, the women will whip him with small bunches of hollyhocks.”

  “This doesn’t make the man want to be tardy all the time?”

  “Oh, no. Hollyhocks are very irritating. They make you itch for a good week. It is really quite effective. Actually, to be fair about this, it was the former vicar’s wife who devised that particular form of punishment discipline.”

  “Oh, God,” he said and jumped to his feet, toppling his chair. “I truly wanted to be your partner, just your partner.” He grabbed a good-sized piece of bread, and fled the small parlor, leaving Helen to sit there, staring after him, wondering how he would look in those stocks, naked—completely naked. She wouldn’t let anyone come near him, just her, and she wouldn’t have a silly bunch of hollyhocks in her hand. No, she would use her mouth and her tongue and—Helen sighed deeply and took herself to the inn’s kitchen to help Mrs. Toop peel apples for a pie.

  Lord Beecham marched across the inn yard through the small gate to the stable. He didn’t bother with a saddle or bridle, just grabbed Luther’s mane and swung himself up on his back. He chewed his bread as he rode, without stopping, directly to Shugborough Hall. Flock opened the door to him. “My lord, what is amiss? Is that a piece of bread clutched in your hand?”

  Lord Beecham ate the bread.

  20

  “MY LORD, YOU LOOK maddened now that you have swallowed the bread. Have you been attacked by highwaymen? What is amiss?”

  “I am amiss. Where is Lord Prith?”

  Flock walked to the dining room, Lord Beecham on his heels. He stepped back just in time to prevent Lord Beecham from walking over him.

  “Help me, sir,” Lord Beecham said to Helen’s father, who was seated in isolated splendor at his own dining table, a glass of champagne in his hand. Flock came to stand behind his master, ready with the champagne, his eyes down, his ears wide open. “I am done for, sir, you must help me.”

  “Oh, dear,” Flock said suddenly, stepping forward, “you didn’t bring that poaching Nettle, did you, Lord Beecham? I don’t have my gun.”

  “Now, Flock, can’t you see that his lordship is quite alone? That he suffers? From what, we will doubtless learn in good time. Were I to venture a guess at this very moment, I would say that he is hungry. Sit down, my lord. Flock, serve his lordship a bit of baked pheasant covered with jellied apricots.”

  “Yes, sir, I am very hungry,” Lord Beecham said. But he didn’t want food, not really. He wanted to weep. It was all over for him. He had fought it, fought it with all his might, fought a good fight. He had thought of his father, and continued to fight it. But even the darkness of his memories had not diminished in the slightest what had happened to him, what he was helpless now to fight against.

  He jumped up from his chair, nearly knocking it over. He began to pace. “Sir,” he said, striding up and down the dining room, the oak planking creaking beneath his boots. Thank God, he had not taken the time to pull his boots off. He just might have forgotten them altogether. He might have ridden Luther here in his bare feet. The humiliation would have been rather staggering.

  No, thank God, his boots had been on his feet the whole while he had made frantic love to a woman. He had never made love to a woman before with his boots on, except Helen. Had he ever taken his bloody boots off? It wasn’t to be borne. He sucked in air and looked like a wild man.

  “I just left your daughter at the inn.”

  “Oh? My little Nell is accounted an excellent hostess. What displeased you?”

  “Myself, this damnable situation. Sir, there is no hope for it. I am undone. I suppose I simply must marry your daughter. I had not planned to marry until I was almost dead because my own parents gave me a powerful distaste for marriage. Actually, my father’s example with each of his three wives made me determined to avoid taking a wife of my own. But now I see that it doesn’t have anything to do with me or with Helen. It is other people, not us. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

  “I must have Helen. I cannot continue without her. Well, it is not exactly without her, but this other, it’s madness, and it has to stop or I will hurl myself over a cliff, and than where would I be?”

  “I believe you would be dead, my boy.”

  “Not at all a good finish. Please, sir. Have I your permission to court and wed your daughter?”

  Lord Prith stared at him. “I have heard of your sire. His name was Gilbert Heatherington, was it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “My dearest Mathilda was a friend of his second wife. Poor Marianne died within five years of her mar
riage to him.”

  “Yes, sir, I was there. My father was obsessed with building a dynasty. But I am the only child of his loins who survived. He had no caring at all for women, none really for the children except that they live, which they didn’t.” Lord Beecham stopped. There was no reason to continue this. His father was dead, all three of his wives, including his own mother, dead as well, and the innumerable offspring.

  “I am not like my father.”

  “But you speak of marriage as if it would be your downfall. Why would you consider marriage a bad thing just because your father mucked it up?”

  “He humiliated my mother. He kept her pregnant every year until I could hear her begging him not to take her, not to force himself upon her, that she would die with the next pregnancy, but he just laughed and forced her, and that last time she did die, cursing him, but he didn’t care. I believe he was with a mistress at the time. But I was there, sir, and I heard what she said. I heard her death. I despised him. I swore never to impregnate a woman, but then I realized that I had to have an heir, so I decided to wait, wait until it was almost the end of my time, and then I would take a wife and beget an heir.”

  “How old were you when your mother died?”

  “Ten.” He stared at Lord Prith. He couldn’t believe at all that he had blurted that out of his mouth. It was said. It couldn’t now be unsaid. He waited.

  Lord Prith sat back in his chair. “I am sorry for that, my boy.”

  Lord Beecham continued to stare at the man he hoped was his future father-in-law. He had spilled every bit of blackness in his soul, laid it all out for Lord Prith to examine. Now Lord Prith would realize that he wasn’t the man for his beloved daughter. He had been stunted and embittered. He wasn’t worthy of someone pure and wholesome, the only woman to make him beg to give his all to his marital duties until he was called to the other side.