The Courtship (10 page)

“We will take the greatest care.”

She rose and shook out her skirts. She gave him a brilliant smile. “Let's go home to Court Hammering.”

 

Lord Beecham and Miss Mayberry elected to ride, since it was a beautiful, warm day. Lord Prith and Flock followed in the carriage behind them. Engulfed in their carriage dust in the second carriage was Lord Beecham's valet, Nettle, and Teeny, Helen's maid. He had given Pliny Blunder a short congé, telling him to exercise his wit on the seashore in Folkstone, where his parents lived. Lord Beecham had noted before they left that Nettle was casting interested looks at Teeny, much to Flock's annoyance. At least Flock was riding with his master. That should keep poor Nettle safe.

As for Helen, she just couldn't seem to stop singing. Everything was working out so very well. Her enthusiasm was catching, and even her father, Lord Prith, said to Flock, “There is a song in the air, Flock. It makes my thoughts turn to champagne and the trappings. I fancy to attend another wedding. The last one was charming, surely it was, and the champagne was excellent. I just wish I'd known the participants.”

“Ah, it was Lord and Lady St. Cyre.”

“That's right, Gray and Jack. Flock, you must find me a wedding where the principals are known to me so that I can trade jests with the bride and groom while we are drinking champagne. Then I will be dancing about and singing at the top of my lungs, just like my lovely little daughter is right this moment. It was always so. Put Helen atop a horse, provide a sunny day, and she's singing.”

“Consider it done, my lord,” Flock said, looking out the carriage window to see Miss Helen laughing now, her hand on Lord Beecham's arm. He didn't think the sunny day was the main reason for Miss Helen's high spirits. Lord Beecham was a man of vast experience, a man who knew what was what, particularly when the what had to do with women. On the other hand, it didn't make much sense to worry about Miss Helen. She had three fellows working for her at her inn. All of them held her in awe. All of them, he suspected, were also deliciously afraid of her. If there was going to be any goose or gander sauce, he would lay his groats on Miss Helen.

He turned back to his lordship, whose head was only half an inch from the ceiling of the carriage. Whenever the carriage hit a rut, there was a pained grunt.

“I hope that damned Frog chef, Jerome, isn't sniffing after our trail, eh, Flock?”

“I left the Frog in his kitchen, my lord. I doubt he will intrude on us again.”

“Delicious oyster dishes he prepared, though,” Lord Prith said, and sighed as he folded his arms over his chest.

“His aim with the oysters wasn't your culinary pleasure, my lord—rather it was his attempt to seduce Miss Helen.”

“I know that, Flock. The poor fellow. My father used to say that you should always be careful what you wished for. Just imagine Miss Helen setting her eye on the Frog because he got her attention with his oysters.”

“It fair makes my scalp itch, my lord.”

Lord Prith actually shuddered.

About twenty feet ahead, Lord Beecham was saying to Helen, “What have you told your father about my entry into your lives?”

“I told him the truth, naturally. The only secret I have ever kept from my father was when I struck young Colton Mason across his shoulders with my riding crop because he had tried to take liberties with my eighteen-year-old person. It was the oddest thing—he really liked it, begged me to hit him again.”

“I have heard that some people, men mostly, like that sort of thing, particularly if a woman metes out the blows. If there is a desire for anything at all, you'll find it in the fleshpots of London.”

“I believe that is where poor Colton ended up.”

“I hope you are not confusing that sort of strange sexual fervor with the application of good clean discipline?”

“Oh, no,” she said, her eyes twinkling wickedly at him. “I'm not a fool. At eighteen I realized I was on to something. Certainly whipping is part of it, but there is so much more, don't you agree?”

He would have her explain that to him in great detail, later. “You told your father that I was a medieval manuscript scholar here to translate your leather from the iron cask to help you find King Edward's Lamp?”

“Oh, yes. He just looked at me and finally said, ‘Lord Beecham has the look of a man with too much knowledge crammed into his head. I do not know just how ancient that knowledge may be. He is dangerous as well as valuable to you, my girl, make no mistake about that. He is bound to want something other than some dented, hoary lamp.' ”

Lord Beecham laughed. “Not so much crammed in my head anymore.”

“I believe he was commenting on your current state of knowledge, my lord.”

“Fleshpots again.”

“Very probably. Do you think you will require something of me other than the lamp?”

He looked thoughtfully between Luther's ears. The road ahead was straight and flat. On either side of the road, the fields were laid out like rich green and yellow squares on a nicely sewn quilt. Yew bushes lined the stone fences that marked the boundaries. It was a warm, breezy day. Every once in a while the strong scent of sheep wafted through the air, just to remind you that this wasn't a beautiful painting or an idealized setting.

“Actually, truth be told, when I first saw you, I wanted you in my bed by early afternoon. It was sunny that day, and I had a very clear picture of you lying naked on your back, your arms out to me. However, when it did not happen, I was not cast down. I decided it would be all right to have you in my bed by nightfall. When that did not happen, I was forced to forgo poor Jerome's remarkable smoked oysters, else I would have become quite mad with unfulfilled lust.”

She was laughing so hard that Eleanor whinnied in response and took several side steps.

“You find that amusing, Miss Mayberry? My physical discomfort doesn't make you regret not complying with my very understandable man's lust?”

“I am on the shelf, Lord Beecham. I beg you not to make such jests at my expense.”

“I really don't believe you had the gall to say that. You, my girl, know very well that you are quite the most magnificent woman to grace three counties. Your pretense at old age makes me remeasure your level of guile.”

“I have no guile to speak of. I am straightforward. I will not give you coy speeches about bedding you at noon or at twilight or at the rise of the moon. No, I will tell you very honestly exactly what I thought when I first saw you, Lord Beecham. I saw you standing in front of me. I stripped off every article of clothing covering your doubtless magnificent self, beginning with that very artfully arranged cravat of yours. I was all the way to your boots before I was pulled from my very pleasant fantasies.”

His eyes were nearly crossed.

“Where is your father's carriage?”

“Not more than twenty feet behind us.”

“There are quite a few maple trees off just to my left. We could find privacy.” Then he sighed deeply; he shook himself. “No, this is ridiculous. I am a man with a man's control. I will not be drawn into your damned woman's fantasies. I will enjoy my own. I can control them more readily.”

“Very well,” she said, her voice as demure as a school-girl's. “Goodness, if I just close my eyes a moment, I see myself now bent over in front of you, and you are sitting down. Your left boot is in my hands and I'm nearly ready to pull it off. I'm looking over my left shoulder, smiling at you, and—”

“You will hold your tongue or I will send Flock out to ride with you and immure myself with your father.”

“Victory over a man is nothing at all,” she said, and began whistling. “You are such a simple species. Paint you one small picture and you are slavering and shaking, ready to swoon.”

He laughed, there was simply nothing else to do. Then he turned in the saddle and gave her a very slow smile. “Trust me, Miss Mayberry. When I have you away from your fond parent, I plan to introduce you to a very intriguing course of discipline.”

It was his turn to see her eyes go vague and watch her swallow. He picked a small bit of lint off his riding jacket. “I have always thought that ladies were such easy creatures. They think of me mastering them and I invariably find myself with a very excited female in my arms, begging me to do my worst.” He smiled at her. “You may be the discipline mistress of Court Hammering, Miss Mayberry, but I am the master of London. Don't try to compete with me. You will lose.”

“I will compete with you,” she said slowly, “but just not yet.”

“Very well. I agree, not yet. Now, let us see where this ancient leather scroll leads us, Miss Mayberry. As to the rest of it, I will let you know what I wish to do with you, and when.”

“Men love to be mastered more than women do.”

A dark eyebrow shot up a good inch. “Where did you hear such nonsense as that?”

“It's true.”

“We will doubtless see. Someday. If I wish it.”

He had routed her. Helen had never before in her life been routed. She had never before met his like, either. He had reduced her to an idiot. She couldn't think of a single thing to say that would improve matters, so she pulled Eleanor back until she was riding beside her father's carriage.

Lord Beecham heard Lord Prith's booming voice asking Helen what the devil she wanted with an old man like him when she could torment a handsome young devil like Lord Beecham. He didn't hear Miss Mayberry's reply, but he could not imagine that it was very complimentary to him.

He began whistling. It took him a good mile before he could get his brain back in harness and focus it away from Miss Helen Mayberry's sublime self.

King Edward's Lamp.

What was it? He had little doubt that some lamp somewhere once existed. Hanging about for six hundred years, however, was a vastly different matter.

King Edward's Lamp was a specific lamp that a Knight Templar gave the king, telling him it would make him the most powerful man in the world. But the only thing that had happened was that Queen Eleanor had gotten well, and the lamp could possibly have had something to do with it.

The only other lamp Lord Beecham knew about was Aladdin's Lamp, a magic lamp from a tale in the
Arabian Nights,
a collection of stories to come out of the Middle Ages. It was one of the thousand and one tales that Queen Scheherazade had told her husband to avoid being put to death after her wedding night. Lord Beecham believed that the royal husband was eventually so overwhelmed by the woman's creative stamina that he canceled the death order.

When Helen rode beside Lord Beecham again, her equilibrium doubtless restored to its usual level of confidence, he spoke aloud what he was thinking. “If we are talking about Aladdin's Lamp, historically it all fits. Back in the Middle Ages, stories like this one were immensely popular all over Europe. It is old, I know. I just don't remember how old.”

“It's Persian,” Helen said. “From the Persian
Hezar Ef san
or ‘Thousand Romances'. I think the magic lamp was based on a real story that had floated about for a good long time before it was ever recorded. And I suspect that the relic we know as King Edward's lamp is the item that inspired the tale.”

He felt something deep inside him, something he had believed long buried, begin to unfurl. It was excitement, the excitement of discovery, of seeking something that wasn't immediately available.

He leaned forward and scratched just beneath Luther's left ear. The horse whinnied and shook his great head. “He likes that. I keep forgetting to do it. The real lamp, without the genie, the shiftless lad, or the evil magician, ended up in the Knight Templar's storehouse of riches in the Holy Land, only to find its way into the hands of King Edward of England. It made a very long journey.”

“Lord Beecham, you are living proof that debauchery doesn't necessarily rot the brain, at least until after you are thirty-three.”

“Miss Mayberry, are you mocking me?”

“No, not really.” And she was thinking that the slant of his right eyebrow, currently arched at her, was quite fascinating.

“For God's sake, we are having an intellectual discussion here and I am showing off some of my remembered erudition. Did I tell you that I read
A Thousand and One Nights
many times because I set myself the task of learning Arabic?”

“Vicar Gilliam did not know that about you. Arabic? I am very impressed.”

“You are mocking me again. I had hoped that after your return from your father's company, you would have dismissed your delightful thoughts of pulling off my boot while you're smiling at me over your shoulder.”

“I'm trying.”

“Is my other foot set against your bottom?”

“Not yet. I will consider that.”

“Good. Now, Miss Mayberry, just perhaps there might be other things to life than simple lust.” He laughed aloud and rubbed his gloved hands together. “Bedamned, Miss Mayberry, I do believe I am enjoying having my brain stretched.”

She was giving him an odd look. “You really sound quite different. Splendid, in a way. I know all this, naturally, since I've slept with most of these facts under my pillow for a goodly number of years.”

Lord Beecham said, “I even find that I can consider that this lamp, whose origins we don't know, has some sort of magic property. Why not? As Hamlet said, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' ” He continued after a moment. “I believe in the Holy Grail, after all, in its powers, even though it has been out of our experience since Joseph of Arimathea so carefully hid it.