“No, ma’am. It was my ma’s name before she married my pa and became a Nettle.”
Helen’s voice was faint. “That would make Teeny and Bloodworth Nettle. It curdles the belly.”
Lord Beecham rocked with laughter. The covers fell even lower. Helen looked resolutely away. She needed to solve this problem. “I try to use a bit of blood whenever I call for him,” said Lord Beecham.
“That’s right, ma’am. His lordship calls me bloody Nettle or bloody scoundrel or bloody baboon. Something along that line, you understand.”
“Yes, I quite understand.”
“It would be simply Teeny Nettle, ma’am.”
“No, Teeny is very sensitive. There is too much blood in the names. It will never do.”
Lord Beecham remarked to the room at large, “There is also the matter of Teeny becoming a small weed.”
She ignored that. “How old are you, Nettle?”
“I am only thirty-five, Miss Helen.”
“Flock is thirty-eight,” she said, and sighed.
“Not much difference there,” Lord Beecham said. “What’s a poor big girl to do?”
Helen said as she walked to the bedchamber door, “I am going to introduce Teeny to Walter Jones, the young man who works in his father’s mercantile shop in Court Hammering. He is only twenty-two, and there is no blood in any of his names.”
“Oh, no, Miss Helen!”
“Don’t do that, Miss Helen!”
Nettle leapt to his feet. Flock flung open the bedchamber door, nearly knocking Helen sideways against the wall.
Lord Beecham leaped out of bed, stark naked.
Helen whirled about to look at him, blinked, then resolutely turned away. “Lord Beecham,” she called out over her shoulder, “return to your bed. I have things well in hand.” She got herself together, straightened her skirt, and poked a finger at Lord Beecham’s valet and her father’s butler. “I have had quite enough of this. Neither one of you will ever win Teeny. Flock, your name simply will not do. Teeny Flock—it is impossible. She cannot be a small herd.
“As for you, Nettle, in addition to Teeny being a small weed, your first name will not do at all. As a couple, she would be Teeny Bloodbane, and you would be Bloodworth Nettle. It will not work.
“As I told his lordship here, there is just too much blood flowing about. Now, both of you might as well set your sights elsewhere. Teeny Jones sounds marvelous and that is the way it will be. Teeny and Walter Jones. I have also decided that both of you are too old for Teeny. Walter is just right. Now, both of you get out of here.”
“Er, Miss Mayberry, may my valet remain and assist me?”
“You are a grown man, Lord Beecham. I have never understood why a grown man can’t assist himself.”
“And your Teeny?”
“You, sir, have no notion what it is like to have buttons marching up your back. Now, out of here, Flock. You may remain for the moment, Nettle, but no more scurrying under his lordship’s bed. You will maintain a modicum of dignity.”
With that, Helen whisked out of his bedchamber, her pale-blue muslin skirts dancing around her ankles.
Lord Beecham crossed his arms behind his head. He eyed his valet, who looked to be on the verge of tears. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been quite so entertained at seven o’clock in the morning. Fetch me some bathwater, Nettle. Don’t cry, man, you’ll get over it soon enough. Didn’t you see the downstairs maid?”
“No, my lord. I doubt I could see her even if I looked directly at her, what with all the tears from my broken heart filling my eyes.”
Lord Beecham rolled his own eyes.
At the breakfast table with Lord Prith, Lord Beecham even managed to avoid sipping a noxious mixture of apple juice and champagne, but he watched Lord Prith vigorously down a glass. Lord Prith ruminated a moment, then admitted, “I must say, this concoction would send a warning to a man’s liver. What would you think of a mixture of elderberry wine and champagne?”
Lord Beecham nearly gagged.