The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“My lord.”

“Yes, Claude?”

“Goodness, Claude, just stand aside. This is very important. Move!”

And there was Helen, dressed in a sky-blue pelisse, a matching bonnet atop her blond hair. She was flushed, impatient, waving her white hand at Spenser’s acting butler.

He couldn’t believe it when she came dashing through the door, his beautiful big girl, his Valkyrie, his own angel who was surely an Amazon. She was actually here. He had not realized how very much he had missed her.

He stood there and nearly bowed in on himself with bone-deep pleasure.

Something had happened to bring her here, but he didn’t want her to spill it in front of Lord Hobbs.

“Welcome, Miss Mayberry,” he said.

18

HELEN IMMEDIATELY SAW him, and no other, and went right to him, her hands outstretched. “Spenser, oh, dear, I had to come myself. Oh, you will not believe this, I—” She broke off at the sight of the tall, austere gentleman dressed all in gray. She looked him up and down, blinked, and said, “That is a charming affectation.”

Lord Hobbs, known among the Bow Street Runners as a man with ice in his veins, froze, sputtered, then laughed. “Why, thank you, ma’am.”

“Miss Mayberry,” Lord Beecham said easily, “I would like you to meet Lord Hobbs, a magistrate from Bow Street. He is here because something very bad has happened.”

“A pleasure, Miss Mayberry,” Lord Hobbs said, and smiled at the incredible creature staring him right in the eye. He bowed, kissed her hand.

Lord Hobbs was not the least bit on the short side, Lord Beecham thought, and wasn’t certain whether he should be worried or not.

“Yes, my lord. Why are you here? You are a magistrate from Bow Street? What has happened to bring you here, of all places? Spenser, are you all right?”

“Yes, Helen, I am fine.”

“Yes, Miss Mayberry, I am indeed from Bow Street.”

“Douglas? Alexandra? What are you doing here? What is happening?”

Douglas rose, patted Helen’s arm even as Alexandra said from behind him, “We are all here to assist you, Helen. The four of us together can overcome anything. Stop fretting.”

Douglas said in that low, soothing voice of his that always settled down the twins, “Helen, calm yourself.”

“All right, I am now calm. Spit out everything.”

Lord Beecham managed to sort everyone out, get them seated, and order tea from Claude, who was still standing stiff as a statue in the drawing room doorway, the way old Crit had taught him.

“Now,” he said pleasantly, drawing everyone’s attention, “I will go through what happened. Sir, feel free to interrupt if you have questions. You as well, Miss Mayberry. Now the earl and countess and I were to meet Reverend Mathers at the British Museum. When we came into the room we saw him slumped over the worktable, a stiletto sticking out of his back, right between his shoulder blades. He was still warm, though that might not mean that he had just been murdered. It was very warm in the room and the door was closed, keeping all the heat within.”

Helen sat in a pale-blue brocade chair, her hands folded in her lap, speechless. She was staring at him, at no one else in the room. Her face was flushed. A single long tress of blond hair had come loose from the pile of plaited braids on her head and was trailing down her back. She looked shocked, terribly shocked. Not frightened, just disbelieving. He knew exactly how she felt. He just shook his head at her.

Lord Hobbs said, “I know you remained with the body until one of my runners arrived, Lord Beecham. Since you were the one working with Reverend Mathers, did you search to see if anything was missing? Something taken by the murderer?”

“Yes,” Lord Beecham said, realizing there was no reason to withhold basic information from Lord Hobbs. “Reverend Mathers and I were working on the translation of a very old scroll that Miss Mayberry here had discovered close to her home in Essex. Reverend Mathers had made a copy so that he could work on it by himself. It was gone.”

Helen turned paper-white. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, no.”

“This copy of the scroll—did it contain information that was valuable?”

“It is possible,” Lord Beecham said. “Its importance lay in its remarkable age. It is an immense archaeological find, sir, one of tremendous value for that reason alone.”

“Perhaps,” Lord Hobbs said thoughtfully, unable to look away from Miss Helen Mayberry, “it was a colleague of Reverend Mathers who became jealous of this find? They perhaps argued and he stabbed him?”