The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

Pliny Blunder sighed deeply and, taking his master at his word, ran out of the estate room. For the first time, Lord Beecham noticed that his secretary was on the short side. So short that he would fall in love on the spot with Miss Helen Mayberry, as it seemed all short men who saw her did?

Lord Beecham threw up his hands, snagged his riding crop and jacket from his acting butler, Claude the footman, because Mr. Crittaker, the butler at Heatherington House since before Lord Beecham had come into this world, had finally died peacefully in his lovely room on the third floor with Mrs. Glass on his left side and Lord Beecham on his right side. All the other servants were ranged in a line according to rank, from right to left at the foot of his bed. Mr. Crittaker’s last words had been: “The upstairs maid should not be standing next to the tweeny, my lord. Claude, you must do better than this.”

“Er, have a nice ride, my lord.”

“Thank you, Claude. How are you doing with the polishing of the silverware?”

Claude’s narrow shoulders rounded themselves. “My fingers are rubbed raw, my lord. It is beyond me how Old Crit ever got those spoons so shiny you could see your own dear ma’s heavenly soul shining back up at you.”

“Keep trying, Claude. Speak to Mrs. Glass.”

“Old Crit always said that a housekeeper, being a female and all, had no notion of how to provide a good polish, my lord.”

“Old Crit was from the last century, Claude. Bring yourself up to modern times.”

“Mrs. Glass doesn’t like me, my lord. She will not tell me the proper silver procedure.”

“She simply misses Crittaker. She will adjust, if you are properly deferential.”

“But Old Crit said—”

I am surely in Bedlam, Lord Beecham thought, waving Claude away. He walked down the front steps of his town house and turned right tow

ard the small stables, set beneath newly leafing oak trees, some twenty feet from the house.

Lord Beecham would say one thing for Blunder—when he set his mind to something—he got it done quickly. Luther, his big, mean, graceful gelding, was saddled and waiting for him.

He was enjoying the cool spring air on his face as he cantered through the park. He waved to friends, paused to speak to ladies, who laughed and waved at him from their landaus, and then spotted Reverend Older. The two gentlemen reined in and rode side by side for a while. Reverend Older was a distinguished and popular churchman, a fine orator, an eccentric, and a horse-racing fanatic, who, Lord Beecham had heard from a St. Jude sexton whom the reverend had fleeced, spent some of the money from the collection plate to wager on the races. Reverend Older had called it a rotten lie and given the sexton a bloody nose.

“I am thinking about traveling down to the McCaulty racetrack next week,” Reverend Older said. “Not on Sunday, of course. That is the one day I am simply too busy.”

“True enough,” said Lord Beecham, trying not to laugh between Luther’s big bay ears. Was this the way it would be from now on? There would be a laugh behind every tree to ambush him? He supposed he could accustom himself. “I didn’t know you had any interest in the cat races, sir, just horse races.”

“Ah, the little nits can run faster than the wind, my boy. The trick is to keep them focused, many times difficult since they get distracted so easily. Have you ever attended a cat race?”

Lord Beecham shook his head. “Not yet. Perhaps one day. A friend of mine, Rohan Carrington, Baron Mount-vale, is one of the major patrons of the cat races.”

“Yes, indeed. His racing cats win regularly. Also two of the preeminent cat trainers, the Harker brothers, are gardeners at Mountvale’s country estate. That is certainly to his advantage.”

Everyone had heard of the cat races at the famous McCaulty racetrack. Actually, huge sums of money were won and lost at the cat races. Lord Beecham, however, couldn’t imagine such a thing.

Lord Beecham had been to one horse race in his life—at the racetrack in York—and had found it a dead bore. He had even won a hundred pounds betting on a horse he had never heard of, but the horse’s name had appealed to him. It was Muddy Boy, a huge, rawboned gelding who looked more vicious than his great-aunt Honoraria when she had caught him as a lad walking behind her and pulling stuffed birds out of the massive wig she wore.

“True enough. I once stayed with Rohan Carrington for the cat races. Nearly lost my clerical collar when a thin little white tube of a cat streaked past the favorite—and the racer I had laid fifty guineas on—in the home stretch.”

They rode alone together for some minutes before Reverend Older, sawing on his horse’s reins, shouted, “Oh my! I very nearly forgot. The dear ladies of Montpelier Place are giving me a tea this afternoon and I must attend. I can’t disappoint the sweet dears. I am even thinking of marrying one of them.”

Now this was a shock. Reverend Older also had something of a reputation, not for debauchery, naturally, but the fact was that over the years, the good reverend, in addition to all his other achievements, had become an accomplished flirt.

“Which good lady, sir?”

“Why Lilac Murcheson, Lady Chomley. You remember Chomley, don’t you, Spenser? He was a loose-mouthed codbrain who thankfully croaked it before he had gone through his fortune. As I recall, he fondled a man’s wife in the very nave of my church, and the husband was forced to call him out. Put a bullet neatly through his forehead. Lilac’s son gave her a neat little stud in Wessex. I fancy I will retire there when the holy words dry up in my brain, and breed my own horses one of these years.”

Lord Beecham just shook his head as he watched Reverend Older canter away, his bottom bouncing up and down on the saddle. It had to be painful. He couldn’t imagine the reverend no longer exhorting sinners from his pulpit, then laughing when the choirmaster tripped on his gown and fell into the organist, who brought forth a chord that had the entire congregation covering their ears.

He just could not understand how his own father and Reverend Older could have possibly been friends. The reverend Older was eccentric and enjoyed betting perhaps a bit too much, but he seemed to be awash in good humor and honor, unlike Gilbert Heatherington, Lord Beecham’s sire.

He breathed in deeply as he turned Luther off the well-trod path into an area of the park that would allow him to gallop for just a bit. “All right, Luther,” he said close to his stallion’s ear, “do what you will.”