The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“Of course. I imagine that most people know you, particularly the ladies.”

Why did she look flushed? He was the one nearly flattened. When he was finally breathing easily again, he cleared his throat, drank a bit of tea, and set the cup back on its saucer. “The reason most people know me is because I have lived in London since I was eighteen years old and quite know everyone.” He rose, came to within one foot of her, and stopped. She looked him straight in the eye.

“Douglas is wrong,” Alexandra said. “You are at least two inches taller than Helen, just like he is. Douglas was telling her that he was taller than you.”

Lord Beecham looked into those clear blue eyes. “I am one of the tallest men I know.”

“Douglas is taller,” Alexandra said. “By at least an inch. Yes, I can see that clearly now.”

“Well,” Helen said, “I am surely one of the tallest ladies in all of England.”

“You are a very big girl,” he said slowly, wanting to eye her up and down very thoroughly but realizing it wouldn’t be a good thing to do in Alexandra Sherbrooke’s drawing room. Instead, he picked up his teacup and toasted her.

She laughed, a splendid sound that was full and rich and curled through his innards like a snifter of good brandy. He thought about her lying in the middle of his bed with him over her. It would be early evening, not more than six or seven hours away. His schedule was open.

“Not really a girl anymore,” Helen said, giving him a beautiful smile, all white teeth and dimples deep in her cheeks. “I am twenty-eight, twenty-nine in seven months. I am quite long in the tooth, my father tells me. Just three months ago he was so enraged with me over something—neither of us would even remember what now—he let fly and yelled that I was on the shelf. Whenever I provoke him, he is capable of moaning to the heavens what an unnatural child I am. I am not unnatural, it is just that I am . . .

She stalled, and Lord Beecham smiled. “A big girl.”

Helen gave him that brilliant smile again. “That, too, I suppose.” She stuck out her hand. “I am Helen Mayberry. My father is the eccentric Viscount Prith, the very tallest gentleman in all of England.”

Lord Beecham straightened to his full height—a good two inches taller than Helen—took her hand, and turned it as he leaned down to kiss her wrist. He felt the quiver in her hand. Excellent. Perhaps, if he were suave and a bit lucky, he would have her naked on the sheets in the very early evening, perhaps even in the very late afternoon, exchanging discipline recipes with her while he kissed her silly.

“I am Spenser Nicholas St. John Heatherington,” he said. “You can call me Spenser or Heatherington or Beecham. I was named after Edmund Spenser, of Faerie Queen fame. My mother admired Queen Elizabeth and thus chose to name me after Edmund Spenser, a man the queen admired to perhaps an immoderate extent. Who knows? My father even told me it was just possible that I was a very distantly related descendant.”

“It all sounds like nonsense to me,” Helen said.

He grinned at her, toasting her again with his teacup. “I agree, but it makes for an amusing tale. You are telling me you have not yet found a man who suited you to your doubtless quite lovely toes, Miss Mayberry?”

“Perhaps for a relatively short period of time. You know the problem—there are so many boring very short men in England, and it seems that my dear father is acquainted with all of them. I really do not mind short, but boring I cannot accept.”

“I don’t mind short, eithe

r,” he said.

“And boring? You don’t mind boring ladies?”

“Ladies are never boring, Miss Mayberry. Not if they are treated properly.”

“I wonder if I should approve of what you just said.”

“When you have decided, you will tell me. I believe you wished to meet me, Miss Mayberry?”

It was a shot in the dark. Still, when she had come flying into the drawing room talking about meeting someone, looked at him like she could not believe he was actually sitting right there, choking, he had known in his gut she was talking about him.

Instead of acting embarrassed or chagrined and thus tongue-tied, Miss Mayberry nodded. “I don’t know how you managed to figure that out, but it’s true. It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord. What is even better is that I don’t have to bother with any machinations now, although the one I had in mind was really quite efficient.”

He looked at her, fascinated. Say six and a half hours until the early evening, perhaps just five and a half hours until late afternoon. He had enough time. “What were you going to do?”

“I was going to ride you down in the park.”

“You mean trod me under your horse’s hooves?”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to hurt you.” She paused for a delicate moment, her voice so demurely wicked he nearly swallowed his tongue, particularly when she added, “At least not in that way.”

Had she really said that, right here in the open, right in front of him and Alexandra? He thought about having her naked on the sheets with the mid-afternoon sun streaming through his bedchamber window. Would she insist on disciplining him? He devoutly hoped so.

“I was going to pretend to lose control and my balance and just happen to fall on you.”