The Courtship (38 page)

“It is my turn when you are finished, Douglas,” Spenser said. “Don't kill him just yet.”

“No, I won't. I want him to stand in front of all the men in the House of Lords. I want everyone to see the sort of malignancy that exists in the highest levels of our government.” Douglas shoved Sir John back against the wall.

Sir John threw back his head and yelled, “No—you cannot tell anyone. I have spent my life fighting for the honor of England. No!”

Ezra Cave came through the front door at that moment, a knife in one hand and a gun in the other, and in front of him he was shoving Gerard. The father looked at the son, disheveled, pale, blood streaming down his arm. He yelled again in fury and threw himself against Douglas. Douglas tried to grab him, but the old man, quicker than a snake, jerked away from him, grabbed the gun and knife from Ezra Cave and turned it on his son. “I should have killed you when you were born. Your mother was a sniveling fool and that was just what she birthed.” And he stabbed his son through the heart.

He jerked the knife out of his son's chest and used him as a shield.

Ezra Cave grabbed his partner's gun and fired. He missed—not that it mattered, since Gerard was already dead. The bullet hit the wall beside Sir John's head, shredding the wood, sending splinters flying. Sir John let his son's body crumple to the floor at his feet and waved the gun wildly about in front of him. “No, none of you come at me. Just stay right there.” Then he threw his head back and yelled to the heavens, his voice thick with failure and rage, “I have done my duty to my country. I have executed a traitor. It makes no difference that he carried my blood. I have devoted my life to England. History will judge me an honorable man, a man who never shirked his duty, a man who gave his life for his country.”

Then Sir John turned the gun to his mouth and pulled the trigger. Blood gushed out of his mouth and the back of his head exploded. Both his face and his head were crimson with blood. He didn't make another sound, collapsing where he stood, over his son's body.

No one moved for a very long time, just looked at the old man sprawled over his son, as if covering him to protect him.

Helen said then, “This is too much, Spenser. It is just too much.” He saw the blankness of shock on her face and a dreadful sorrow in her eyes. He drew her against him and held her close.

But what Spenser was thinking was that Gerard Yorke was dead, finally and truly and irrevocably dead. He wondered in that moment, if he ever managed to get himself admitted into heaven, what Saint Peter would have to say to him about the thoughts in his mind as he held his future wife tightly against him and looked at her husband's dead body at his feet.

S
PENSER HEATHERINGTON, Seventh Baron Valesdale and fifth Viscount Beecham, and Miss Helen Mayberry were married in St. Paul's Cathedral. There were five hundred guests present, many of them there to trade gossip about the fantastic lamp that of course didn't really exist, that was only a titillating jest played on society by Lord Beecham. Ah, but what a fascinating tale it was—a magic lamp that had been in the possession of King Edward I, who had hidden it from the world, for whatever reason. Everyone had spoken of it, guessed at its whereabouts, granted it various powers. Ah, it had passed the time so pleasurably.

There were at least fifty guests there because they liked Lord Beecham and believed the lovely Helen Mayberry would make him an excellent wife.

As for the bride's father, Lord Prith was in his element. Sophie Sherbrooke had told Helen that Lord Prith was giving samples of a new champagne concoction to guests on the sly as they came into St. Paul's. Sophie said it had a blue tint. Helen just laughed and shook her head. She wondered if perhaps this time he had mixed blueberries with the champagne. What was he calling it? Bluepagne? Or perhaps Chamblue?

Bishop Bascombe performed the ceremony, his deep, melodious voice booming out into that huge cavernous space, touching everyone there, making even the most cynical of those attending forget about what their friends were wearing, and warming them to their toes.

It was a lovely service, all said. The huge reception held at Lord Beecham's town house was magnificent, no expense spared. And some asked behind their hands, not in seriousness, of course, if the magic lamp had provided all this bounty. After all, both the lovely ceremony, all those guests, then the food served at the reception, were surely more than could be planned in a year, much less a mere month by a mere mortal.

Yes, surely one would have to have the services of a magic lamp to have such a splendid wedding on such short notice.

Ryder Sherbrooke was saying to Gray St. Cyre and his new bride, Jack, “Did your husband tell you my only marital advice?”

“Yes,” Jack said, stood on her tiptoes and kissed Ryder's cheek. “He did. You are a brilliant man, Ryder. I can see why Sophie adores you even when she is planning to discipline you.”

“What's this about discipline?” asked Gray St. Cyre, an eyebrow raised.

Lord Beecham came up in time to hear them. “And what is Ryder's brilliant marital advice, Jack?”

“Laughter,” she said, giving her husband a wink. “A man can always seduce his wife with laughter.”

And that, Lord Beecham thought, was true enough. He looked over at Helen, standing next to Alexandra Sherbrooke. He didn't even see Alexandra or the sublime dé colletage that displayed her beautiful bosom. No, he saw only his new wife. His wife. At the advanced age of thirty-three, he was at last a married man.

Helen Heatherington. The alliteration pleased him, tasted delicious on his tongue. She was more beautiful than a simple man deserved. She was dressed all in pale-yellow silk, yellow silk ribbons threaded through her hair. She wore a diamond necklace around her neck that he had given to her the day before and small diamond drops in her lovely ears. He simply couldn't stop staring at her, and knowing, knowing all the way to his soul, that she was his and would be his forever. His wife, so tall and willowy and graceful, and strong as a bloody ox. He wondered, as he watched the two ladies talk, if they were exchanging more discipline recipes. He hoped that Alexandra was giving his new wife exciting new ideas. Probably so. He imagined that Douglas was hoping it was Helen giving Alexandra the new ideas. The ladies appeared to have very fertile imaginations, at least that was what Ryder had told him the previous week, a fatuous grin on his face. He'd said that Sophie was absolutely brimming with wicked notions, eager to test each one on him. The ladies had even brought Jack St. Cyre into the discipline fold. Gray would shortly be cross-eyed with pleasure. Sophie had announced that Ryder was always one to try something new, particularly if the something new promised to be administered with wicked abandon.

As for Gerard Yorke, all had gone smoothly in that quarter, thank all the heavenly forces involved. He had been found in a back alley down near the docks, stabbed, his possessions stolen. They had all discussed burying him and just forgetting him, but Lord Beecham knew that there would always be questions, sly looks, particularly since they had let the gossip rip through society that Gerard Yorke just might very well be alive and need to be found.

Lord Beecham had wanted no whispers that a man should not marry a widow if there was even the slightest chance that the husband were still hanging about somewhere. No, he had to be dead and there had to be a body. He wanted no questions, no doubts.

Well, Gerard Yorke had been found, and quickly. He was dead. Many had seen his body. Lord Beecham's dearest Helen was indeed a widow. So all, thank God, was well.

Had Lord Beecham been responsible for his murder? Not many people even considered it a possibility, for which he was profoundly grateful. Douglas and Ryder and Gray St. Cyre had done a good deal of talking after Yorke had been found. Their reasoning had been this: After all, Lord Beecham could have simply killed him and buried him beneath an oak tree and no one would have been the wiser. He would not have left him in an alley where he would be found. That made no sense at all. And everyone in society agreed. Thieves and murderers abounded at the docks. It was one of these dreadful blackguards who had murdered poor Gerard Yorke.

But the death of his father, Sir John York, First Secretary of the Admiralty, shocked everyone. It was said that he was so saddened by his son's murder, never even knowing that he had still been alive all these years and surviving in secret for reasons no one knew, that he killed himself. He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Father and son were buried side by side, on the same day, by the bereaved and shocked Yorke family.

People spoke of nothing else but Sir John Yorke's suicide for a full week. The parties involved said nothing at all.

Then people spoke of nothing else except the magic lamp for a full week.

People didn't really speak all that much about the murder of Reverend Mathers, surely a good man, and it was a shame that someone stuck a stiletto in his back, but after all, who was he anyway?

He remained very important to Lord Hobbs and to Lord Beecham. Lord Hobbs could not prove to his own satisfaction, however, that Lord Crowley had murdered Reverend Mathers. Nor could he wring a confession from Old Clothhead, Reverend Mathers's brother. Helen firmly believed that Gerard had killed Reverend Mathers, but still, they could not be certain. It was damnable to Lord Beecham, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“I have a toast!”

Five hundred pair of eyes looked toward the bride's father. Lord Prith, a giant of a man who was of vast good humor, proud of his daughter, and seemed genuinely fond of his new son-in-law, stood on the dais in front of the orchestra hired for the reception.

He lifted an elegant crystal flute of champagne. “My beautiful Helen has married a fine man who will give her his all. He will continue to give her his all even as the future eventually becomes the present.

“I wish all of us to drink to their happiness and their immense and endless regard for each other, a regard that surprises even a fond father.”

Helen burst out laughing—there was simply nothing else to do. There was no one like her father. She wished she was close enough to kiss him and hug him for a brief moment, to tell him again how much she adored him, but she was standing beside her new husband, and so she just laughed and waved at her father, who much enjoyed being the center of attention.

The crowd loved this unconventional toast given by the unique and quite eccentric Lord Prith, whose manservant had tears in his eyes as he passed around glasses of champagne to the guests. No one would know that Flock, the manservant, was weeping not with the joy of the day, but because his Teeny had married a certain Walter Jones just two days previous in Court Hammering.

The toast and the manservant's tears for his beloved Miss Helen and her happiness, were spoken of for a good three days after the wedding.

At exactly 3:57 in the morning, long after all the guests had departed, Lord Beecham lay upon his bride, wondering seriously if he would survive his wedding night, which was only half over. His beleaguered heart was going to pump itself right out of his chest, but before that, he would probably suffocate because he, very simply, could not breathe. He pressed his forehead to his bride's. “It's all over for me, Helen.”

It was the fourth time he had loved her.

“It should be.” She managed to purse her numbed lips together, finally, and lightly kiss his neck.

“I did it. I succeeded.” He hauled himself up and managed to balance himself over her, so exhausted, so replete with pleasure and love for the nearly unconscious woman beneath him, with her beautiful blond hair all tangled around her face, that he could have wept with the power of all those wondrous feelings settled deep in his heart.

“Helen, this was quite an accomplishment. We did it.”

“Hmmm?”

“Four times, Helen, not just three. I have managed to break that miserable sameness, that triad cycle that seemed to have us by the throat.”

“We could have stopped at two times, Spenser. That would have broken the cycle too. We could have stopped after one time.”

“No, that would have made me less of a man. A man must always strive to achieve even greater strides. I have strided tonight, Helen. But I fear that I cannot strive more.”

He dropped down beside her and pulled her against him. He managed to kiss her hair. He was unconscious in the next drawing of a breath. As for Helen Heatherington, Lady Beecham, she simply lay there, pressed against her husband, lightly stroking her fingers down his chest. She didn't have the energy to do more.

She rested her palm on his belly. “There is something I must tell you, Spenser.”