Helen shook her head sadly. “Are you certain, Lord Beecham? You don’t care for champagne?”
“It isn’t that I don’t appreciate it, it’s that champagne, particularly very fine champagne like this obviously is, makes me very ill. When I first drank it at Oxford, I believed I would die, I became so very ill. I tried one other time since then. It was not a pretty sight. It is an even worse memory, still.”
“Here is brandy, my lord,” said Flock. “It is the finest French brandy, smuggled in to a very private cove on his lordship’s estate.”
“Lord Beecham may decide to inform on us, Flock,” Helen said as she sipped her champagne.
“No, he won’t,” said Lord Prith slowly. “He may be dangerous, but he’s tall and he’s straight. A pity about the champagne, though. There is nothing more splendid than a half dozen glasses—that quite sees you through the darkest times.”
“So I have heard, sir. However, I have found brandy an excellent substitute. I may have dark times, but I am not dangerous, sir—at least not in the normal course of events.”
“It is better for your reputation if you don’t disagree with that,” Helen said, and poked him lightly in the arm. She looked glorious tonight, her gown a soft ivory, the lovely pearls around her neck luminescent. Her hair was piled high atop her head, making her taller than he, which amused him.
“Very well,” he said, “I am so dangerous that highwaymen see my carriage and ride directly to the magistrate.” He wondered what she would taste like. Her gown wasn’t cut particularly low, just low enough so he could see the lovely roundness of her breasts.
“Stop that,” she said under her breath.
“If a woman did not want a man to admire her attributes, why then would she wear a gown that was halfway to her knees?”
“I selected that gown, sir.” Lord Prith paused then and looked at his only offspring. “I say, it is somewhat revealing, Nell. Perhaps I could give you one of my scarves to tie around your shoulders. Flock! Fetch one of my wool scarves to cover Miss Helen.”
“Hoisted on my own petard,” Lord Beecham said and drank down the rest of his brandy.
“Papa has excellent hearing
. One must always think before speaking if he is anywhere in the vicinity. Hearing even a whisper isn’t beyond him.”
“I will be more careful in the future.” Future? It was possible he would not see her again after tonight, but he wanted to. He wanted to bed her, nothing more to it than that. Sweet, simple lust, a fine thing, something a man could see to without much difficulty, and then it was over and done with and a man could go about his business again, unburdened for a goodly number of hours.
“Dinner is served, Miss Helen.”
When Flock opened the dining room door, frowning because it was closed in the first place, he stared in perfect horror.
The small dining room was fast filling with smoke.
“Oh, dear,” said Flock. “Oh, dear.”
Lord Beecham quickly moved Flock to one side.
“It’s the buttock of beef that’s burning,” Lord Beecham said. He picked up a bottle of wine and poured it over the roast. He then removed a silver dome from another platter and set it over the meat. There was a hissing sound. More smoke gushed out from beneath the dome, then it stopped.
“Open the windows,” Lord Prith said to Flock. “How did this happen?”
“It is the hotel, my lord,” Flock said as he pulled the draperies back and shoved up the three side-by-side windows. “The chef is extremely voluble and quite French. His name is Monsieur Jerome. He saw Miss Helen when we arrived, lost his head, and has begged me to allow him to cook for her. This is his latest attempt to impress her. He called this his feu du monde.”
“World fire?” Lord Beecham said and coughed. He picked up a napkin and began flapping it against the smoke. “I don’t suppose the chef is short?”
“Yes, my lord. Jerome doesn’t even come to Miss Helen’s chin. I do, however, pass her chin on most occasions.”
“Eh? What does that mean, Flock?”
Flock said as he rubbed the burned spots on the lovely white linen tablecloth, “It means, my lord, that Miss Helen is safe from me. I define a short man as not coming to Miss Helen’s nose. I am there, my lord. Nearly.”
Helen was batting at the smoke as well. “I thought you told him that I was married, Flock, and thus his ardor was sufficiently cooled.”
“He informed me that if you weren’t married to a Frenchman, you had no idea what l’amour could possibly be like.”
Lord Beecham laughed and lifted the dome from the blackened buttock of beef. More smoke wafted out. “Miss Mayberry, regard a Frenchman’s masterpiece. World fire—it is too much.”