The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

He laughed and laughed. It was beginning to feel familiar to him now, this laughter thing. He rather liked it. It made his innards feel warm and somehow more connected to something outside himself. It brought that something closer to him, and whatever it was, he liked it.

Helen prepared to leave him at the turnoff to Shugborough Hall. “I must find Walter Jones, the young man who will be marrying Teeny. Also, I must see that all my lads are doing their jobs correctly and that Mrs. Toop is controlling Cook and Gwen. I will be home soon.”

“What if the lads are slackers?”

“They will be sorry for it.” She paused a moment, then gave him a sloe-eyed smile that made him instantly ran dier than a goat looking at the first grass of spring. “They know all about punishments, Lord Beecham. It is rare that they would dare not pull their weight. It is only when there is a rumor about a new punishment that they do their jobs poorly just to see what it is.”

His eyes nearly crossed. She gave him a little wave and rode Eleanor, snorting and flinging her head about, toward the west to Court Hammering. Her laughter floated back to him.

“Wait,” he called after her. “I wish to visit this inn of yours.”

14

THE MARKET TOWN OF Court Hammering was just three miles east of Orford and two miles south of Shugborough Hall. Had there been any high promontories about, he fancied he would be able to see the sea. But the land was gentle rolling hills, thick stands of oak and maple trees, and stone fences older than the Druids.

Court Hammering wasn’t a particularly beautiful old town, but it had an air of satisfaction and stolid durability, a lovely old stone church built from the local pale-gray stone, and a small green with a pond in the middle and at least three dozen birds of all sorts hanging about in the willow trees that hung over the water. Not a bad town, he thought, to nurture the mistress of discipline.

Unfortunately, King Edward’s Lamp, the premier inn of Court Hammering, was currently overrun by a group of boisterous young men from Cambridge, here for a touted mill being held over near Braintree way. They were also here to drink themselves stupid in Helen’s taproom, something that would not have been allowed were Helen present.

Lord Beecham saw the blood in her eyes as she walked into the inn. He was grinning from ear to ear. He couldn’t wait to see what she would do.

The taproom was long and narrow, low-ceilinged, with heavy dark wooden beams, a highly polished oak floor, and a large fireplace with a wide stone hearth. There were four long tables with benches and three smaller tables with chairs and a row of windows across the back of the room. There was an open door on the far side of the taproom that gave onto the kitchen.

It felt cozy and warm as a mother’s womb, safe from the dangers of the world, a man’s haven. The air was thick with the rich, yeasty smells of ale and baking bread.

But what struck Lord Beecham when he stepped into that open doorway was the ear-shattering noise. When he had been at Oxford, had he made this kind of racket? Probably so.

One young man was standing on top of a long table, singing at the top of his lungs, his shirt free of his breeches. Another young man was cursing at the barmaid while his friend was trying to pull her onto his lap and put his hand up her skirt at the same time. One very pale young man was lying on his face close to the table, perhaps unconscious. Dice were being thrown at another table. There would shouts of triumph, moans when the dice came up snake eyes, and the general wild-eyed fever of youth.

In the short moment after Lord Beecham arrived in the doorway of the taproom, he would swear that it got nois ier.

Any other woman in the world, and he would have ordered her to remain in the corridor while he dealt with the drunk young men. But it was Helen, and there wasn’t any other woman like her in the whole world.

He smiled, folded his arms over his chest, and watched her stride into her taproom. By all that was good and right, he thought, she would look magnificent with a sword in her hand. But, truth be told, she didn’t need one.

She went directly to the young man who was pulling the barmaid down onto his lap.

Helen stopped directly in front of him.

The barmaid, Gwendolyn, saw her first and yelled over the din of young male voices, “Miss Helen, help!”

“I am here, Gwen.” She closed her hand over the young man’s shirt color and lifted him straight up. He dropped Gwen and gawked at the goddess who had him by the neck.

“What—?”

“You stupid young codfish,” Helen said calmly, jerked him off the bench and shoved him against the wall. She grabbed his neck in both hands and slammed his head back once, twice, against the wall. She quickly stepped back and watched him slide slowly to the floor, unconscious. She said to Gwen, who was straightening her apron and cap, “Go fetch the lads from the stable. We need to clean all these little giblets out of the taproom.”

“Hey, you big woman, what are you doing?”

It was the young man who had been cursing a blue streak. Helen turned on him, grabbed the oversized lapels on his bright-yellow jacket, and jerked him to his feet. “I think the buttons on your jacket are too big. You need a new tailor.”

“I paid my last quarter’s allowance for this jacket,” the young man yelled in Helen’s face. “I know it is prime style because my father hates it.”

“Hmmm,” Helen said. “I see your point. Very well, then just reduce the size of those silver buttons.”

The young man looked suddenly uncertain and a good ten years younger. “You really believe they are too large?”