The Courtship (5 page)

He fed her two more bowls of ice cream. On her third spoonful of the third bowl, she said, “Who is that couple just over there? She is wearing that rather alarming blue dress and the gentleman is obviously displeased with her?”

Lord Beecham looked, then studied his nails. Finally, he said, a bit of tolerant contempt in his voice, “Mr. and Mrs. Crowne. Only a year they've been wedded, and yet they flay each other regularly, even in public. That is why, Miss Mayberry, a smart man never jumps into that black pit. Marriage is the end of the road, the end of reason, the end of any contentment a man may lay claim to.”

He looked as if he were suffering from excess bile when he said the word. Helen just smiled at him, understood him down to his socks, and was not only pleased but vastly relieved. She took another bite, savoring the lovely burst of cold filling her mouth and the cold, soft, slick cream sliding down her throat. “I quite agree with you, Lord Beecham. Marriage is only for weak-minded fools.”

He didn't like that. A man, by his very nature, was supposed to evade marriage, but not a woman. He managed to keep his displeasure with her from showing. “Tell me, now. What is your use for me?”

“We do keep getting off the subject, don't we?”

“Yes, but no more. Talk to me. Tell me what I may do for you.”

Helen wasn't a fool. She saw clearly in his brilliant, dark eyes that he wanted nothing more than to pull her gown away and make love to her.

“You obviously find marriage distasteful.”

“Yes, as would any reasonable man. Unfortunately women must bear a man an heir, so at some date before his death, he must produce the requisite male child. I do not plan to pass to the hereafter until after my fiftieth year. When I am forty-nine, I will wed and beget an heir. Then I will die with a smile on my face. Perhaps my pregnant wife, who will be puttering around my country estates, will also have a smile on her face. The country estate in Devon. It is charming.”

“I have found that every nobleman has a country house and every one of them has a name. What is the name of this one in Devon?”

“Paledowns.”

“Unusual.” She leaned toward him. “It is a bit more difficult for a woman, don't you think, Lord Beecham? A woman doesn't have a man's freedom unless she simply does what she wishes to do and ignores what society says about her.”

“Women rule the world, Miss Mayberry. If they are smart, they can control a man with but a look.”

“What if the woman doesn't happen to be passably pretty, Lord Beecham?”

“Then she will obviously not rule many men.”

“And if she doesn't have money?”

“Then she will sell her services and rule the fellow who has paid for her.”

“I do not think I have ever met a more cynical man,” Helen said, her ice forgotten.

“I am only a realist, Miss Mayberry. I trust you don't complain about women's dreadful lot on this earth. You would look like an idiot and a hypocrite were you to whine even the least bit.

“Your father is a peer, you have doubtless led a raft of short young men around by the nose, you are young and quite independent to boot, and you are more beautiful than you probably deserve. No, I don't want to hear a single plaint out of you about the unfairness of a woman's life on this damned earth. To sum it all up, Miss Mayberry, you look far too happy and robust to be anything other than deliriously pleased with your lot in life.”

“That certainly puts me in my place.”

“And a very good place it is.”

“What about this poor wife you will procure when you are forty-nine years old? She will have no say in anything. You just want her for breeding purposes, like you would breed animals. She will have needs and desires and hopes, and you will treat her like a sheep in a pen.”

He laughed at that. “What a picture you paint, Miss Mayberry. Please don't ignore the facts. This lady will want to marry me. She will gain my title, my money, and she will have anything she desires, except a lover, at least until I am passed to the hereafter. She will be the mistress of Paledowns and three other properties as well. After she buries me, she will be rich, her son will be Viscount Beecham, and she can bed every gentleman from Pall Mall to Russell Square.

“No, don't feel sorry for the future Viscountess Beecham. Now, I will agree, Miss Mayberry, that most women, just like most men, aren't rich, aren't particularly toothsome, and aren't particularly intelligent. And since they aren't men, they must endure more than men.

“However, since I am not a woman and I cannot do much about their plight in our society, I see to my own people. I am responsible for their welfare and I take my responsibilities seriously. I do my best not to cause any particular pain or difficulty for another human being, man or woman, just as I imagine you do.”

“Give me just one example of your goodness, Lord Beecham.”

“More sarcasm wafting toward me? Very well. Last month one of my maids was raped by a footman in a neighboring house. I met with the mistress of the house and was told in no uncertain terms that my maid was a trollop of no moral fiber at all and that it was she who had seduced their poor footman, a brawny Irishman who was a bully.

“I beat him to a pulp. My maid got to kick him herself once in his ribs. She spit on him. She is fine now, didn't become pregnant, thank God.”

She just stared at him. He watched her long fingers stroke the silver spoon handle.

He frowned, not looking up from her fingers. “I don't know why I told you that. You will contrive to forget it. It is no one's affair. Are you quite through? Your ice is melted and looks revolting.”

Helen watched him pay for their ices. When they reached the carriage, she said, “May we drive in the park, Lord Beecham?”

“Why? Haven't you yet decided if you want to use me?”

“You are very smart. That's it exactly.”

L
ORD BEECHAM SHOUTED up to his driver, “Babcock, to the park. Drive slowly.”

“Aye, my lord.”

They had taken a full turn when Helen leaned forward on the opposite seat. “I would very much like to walk a bit.”

Lord Beecham shouted out the window to his driver, “Babcock, pull over.”

“Aye, my lord.”

It was the middle of the afternoon, still on the early side for all the ladies and gentlemen to venture out for their social hour in the park. The sun was spilling out bits of light and warmth, Helen thought, looking up, but it was still chilly, the feel of dampness lingering.

“You just shivered. Are you too cold?” He was drawing on his gloves as he spoke.

“No, I was just thinking. You know, Lord Beecham, I have wanted to meet you for the past week.”

“But you still don't wish to tell me why?”

“A bit more conversation, perhaps? We were speaking about women and perhaps about your uses for them.”

“My favorite species.”

The black shadow of bitterness coming through, she thought. But she said nothing, just smiled at him.

He shrugged. “Truth be told, Miss Mayberry, God set us upon this stage to play our roles and so we play them, pathetically for the most part, but we try.”

“Our roles are infinite, Lord Beecham. We may stumble and bumble about, but you are right, we do try.”

“What role are you playing now, Miss Mayberry?”

“I am Diana the Huntress.”

“And you are after my fair self. I am not certain that I wish to be caught. You are not married. I much prefer women to be married. It simplifies things.”

“Good heavens, why? Oh, I am being obtuse. You believe that an unmarried woman wants to use you only in order to marry you.”

“If a man is rich, yes, that is the way of it.”

“You are very jaded, sir. If I were to tell you, for example, that all I wished from you was your company involving only a certain activity, you would automatically disbelieve me?”

“If you are speaking of taking me as a lover, then, yes, Miss Mayberry.”

“You would be wrong, Lord Beecham.”

She saw the contempt again, the incredulity, but all he said was, “Time will tell.”

There was a bench on the side of the path. Helen sat down.

Lord Beecham leaned toward her. His eyes were brilliant, knowing. “What is your use for me, Miss Mayberry?”

She knew exactly what he wanted. Knew exactly what he imagined she was thinking. She ran her tongue over her bottom lip. He stared at her tongue, leaning a bit closer to her.

“Don't do that,” he said, still staring at her mouth. “If you don't want me to very gently place you on the ground right next to this bench, you will not do that again.”

“Very well. I apologize. You are renowned as a de baucher. You have made love to more women than I have meted out discipline to men. Do you have any bastards, Lord Beecham?”

“No. Not a single one. I would never do that to a woman, to a child, if it happened to survive.”

“I understand it is not always possible to prevent conception no matter how careful the man and woman may be.”

“I am so careful, Miss Mayberry, I would sooner wager that the sun wouldn't rise than that I would impregnate a woman. You're doing it again with your tongue.”

He pulled her very gently against him and kissed her. She had been assaulted by a man's mouth only once since Gerard. No, she wouldn't think about Gerard. She recalled she had taken a good bite of that gentleman's tongue, before she hit him in the jaw and knocked him unconscious. But this was gentle, an exploration, a tantalizing invitation. Well, it should be. He was a master at this.

It was he who pulled back from her.

She didn't want him to stop, but she didn't try to hold him when he ended it.

“Tell me, Miss Mayberry,” he said in the most delicious dark honey voice she had ever heard in her life, as he lightly rubbed his thumb over her eyebrow, “what is your use for me?”

Helen never lost control. She wasn't about to now, even though she wanted very much at this moment to hurl him to the ground and kiss him until he was begging.

“Perhaps,” she said, swallowing, “just perhaps I still don't know you well enough to tell you yet. I am just not certain. There was something else Douglas said about you.”

“And what insult would that be?”

“Not an insult. He said there were shadows in you. He said you had a dark soul.”

He looked away from her as he rose. “Not so dark anymore. Time shifts and blurs and changes things, Miss Mayberry. No, not so very dark anymore. Now, where are you staying? I shall be delighted to see you home.”

“You are angry because I'm not falling all over you immediately.” Helen stood beside him, staring him right in the eye. “It isn't becoming for a man to get in a snit simply because he does not get his way. It's childish.”

He laughed, the third time in under two days. Or was it the fourth? He stopped abruptly, touching his fingers to his mouth. He cleared his throat.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, frowning right into her beautiful blue eyes. “Nothing at all. I am not in a snit. You misunderstood. You are a woman. Women frequently misinterpret a man's silent deliberations.”

She snorted.

“You may look like a goddess, Miss Mayberry, but I assure you I can exist quite well without you.”

“A goddess?”

“Also women hear only what they wish to hear.”

“You have a point there. Oh yes, my father and I are staying at Grillon's Hotel.”

He turned around and yelled, “Babcock!”

 

Leonine Octavius Mayberry, Sixth Viscount Prith, looked down his straight, narrow nose at his only child.

“I have known you all your life. I actually felt you while you were in your mother's belly. I know all your games—at least I have until now. Tell me why you have invited Lord Beecham—a man of many parts, most of them dangerous—to dinner.”

Helen raised her hand and lightly touched her father's cheek. “I ordered champagne.”

“At least we will see if the fellow's a real man. If he desires some of that filthy brandy instead, I will boot him out of here myself.”

“I will assist you and apply my own slipper.”

“You mock me, girl. Why is he coming?”

Helen slowly walked away from her father, who stood a good head taller than she. He was, in fact, quite the tallest man she had ever seen. She couldn't wait to see what Lord Beecham had to say when he craned his neck to look up at him. She walked to the lovely little bow windows in the parlor of their suite. She pulled back the curtain. The month of May was glorious even in London, she thought. At least today was. So many people, all in such a hurry. She hoped they knew where they were going. Sometimes it was very difficult to know.