The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“I will compete with you,” she said slowly, “but just not yet.”

“Very well. I agree, not yet. Now, let us see where this ancient leather scroll leads us, Miss Mayberry. As to the rest of it, I will let you know what I wish to do with you, and when.”

“Men love to be mastered more than women do.”

A dark eyebrow shot up a good inch. “Where did you hear such nonsense as that?”

“It’s true.”

“We will doubt

less see. Someday. If I wish it.”

He had routed her. Helen had never before in her life been routed. She had never before met his like, either. He had reduced her to an idiot. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would improve matters, so she pulled Eleanor back until she was riding beside her father’s carriage.

Lord Beecham heard Lord Prith’s booming voice asking Helen what the devil she wanted with an old man like him when she could torment a handsome young devil like Lord Beecham. He didn’t hear Miss Mayberry’s reply, but he could not imagine that it was very complimentary to him.

He began whistling. It took him a good mile before he could get his brain back in harness and focus it away from Miss Helen Mayberry’s sublime self.

King Edward’s Lamp.

What was it? He had little doubt that some lamp somewhere once existed. Hanging about for six hundred years, however, was a vastly different matter.

King Edward’s Lamp was a specific lamp that a Knight Templar gave the king, telling him it would make him the most powerful man in the world. But the only thing that had happened was that Queen Eleanor had gotten well, and the lamp could possibly have had something to do with it.

The only other lamp Lord Beecham knew about was Aladdin’s Lamp, a magic lamp from a tale in the Arabian Nights, a collection of stories to come out of the Middle Ages. It was one of the thousand and one tales that Queen Scheherazade had told her husband to avoid being put to death after her wedding night. Lord Beecham believed that the royal husband was eventually so overwhelmed by the woman’s creative stamina that he canceled the death order.

When Helen rode beside Lord Beecham again, her equilibrium doubtless restored to its usual level of confidence, he spoke aloud what he was thinking. “If we are talking about Aladdin’s Lamp, historically it all fits. Back in the Middle Ages, stories like this one were immensely popular all over Europe. It is old, I know. I just don’t remember how old.”

“It’s Persian,” Helen said. “From the Persian Hezar Ef san or ‘Thousand Romances’. I think the magic lamp was based on a real story that had floated about for a good long time before it was ever recorded. And I suspect that the relic we know as King Edward’s lamp is the item that inspired the tale.”

He felt something deep inside him, something he had believed long buried, begin to unfurl. It was excitement, the excitement of discovery, of seeking something that wasn’t immediately available.

He leaned forward and scratched just beneath Luther’s left ear. The horse whinnied and shook his great head. “He likes that. I keep forgetting to do it. The real lamp, without the genie, the shiftless lad, or the evil magician, ended up in the Knight Templar’s storehouse of riches in the Holy Land, only to find its way into the hands of King Edward of England. It made a very long journey.”

“Lord Beecham, you are living proof that debauchery doesn’t necessarily rot the brain, at least until after you are thirty-three.”

“Miss Mayberry, are you mocking me?”

“No, not really.” And she was thinking that the slant of his right eyebrow, currently arched at her, was quite fascinating.

“For God’s sake, we are having an intellectual discussion here and I am showing off some of my remembered erudition. Did I tell you that I read A Thousand and One Nights many times because I set myself the task of learning Arabic?”

“Vicar Gilliam did not know that about you. Arabic? I am very impressed.”

“You are mocking me again. I had hoped that after your return from your father’s company, you would have dismissed your delightful thoughts of pulling off my boot while you’re smiling at me over your shoulder.”

“I’m trying.”

“Is my other foot set against your bottom?”

“Not yet. I will consider that.”

“Good. Now, Miss Mayberry, just perhaps there might be other things to life than simple lust.” He laughed aloud and rubbed his gloved hands together. “Bedamned, Miss Mayberry, I do believe I am enjoying having my brain stretched.”

She was giving him an odd look. “You really sound quite different. Splendid, in a way. I know all this, naturally, since I’ve slept with most of these facts under my pillow for a goodly number of years.”

Lord Beecham said, “I even find that I can consider that this lamp, whose origins we don’t know, has some sort of magic property. Why not? As Hamlet said, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ” He continued after a moment. “I believe in the Holy Grail, after all, in its powers, even though it has been out of our experience since Joseph of Arimathea so carefully hid it.