She was shocked to the soles of her goodly sized feet. Miss Helen Mayberry’s eyes were never vague and soft. She was the taskmistress of Court Hammering. This was her inn, where she and she alone ruled. She was in control, she was decisive, she was always the first one to know exactly what to do about anything at all.
She had just ravished a man without a by-your-leave, had done it quickly and very well. Well, perhaps he had been a good part of that ravishment as well. She straightened herself as best she could, pinned her hair back under her riding hat. She still looked like she had been kissed silly. And other things as well. Anyone looking at her would realize that. She slapped her cheeks, then turned to face him when he said, “Reverend Mathers and I did manage to decipher a bit more of the scroll. It was very slow going. Would you like to see what we have now?”
A glimmer of the old excitement came back into her brain, not all of it, but enough. Passion was a strange thing. It simply wrung you out and left you feeling like you were lying in the c
louds, your brain empty, your body glowing, your heart filled. “Yes,” she said, “but first, would you like to dine?”
It meant leaving this bedchamber. It meant being in a private dining room with servants and guests not many feet away. It meant it would be next to impossible to toss up her skirts and position her on the dining table between the roasted hare and the poached trout. He would be safe from her and she from him. If he was truly a good man, there would not be a lock on the parlor door for him to click tight and then haul her up on the table. There would be no temptation like that.
“One time,” he said as he followed her out of the bedchamber. “That is a vast improvement.”
“I suppose it is,” she said, “but I hated it when you left me. I wanted you again.” With those words slamming into his brain, burrowing into him to his very bones, he followed her down the inn stairs.
Her three lads were busy in the yard because there were guests arriving for the night. She spoke to Gwen, to Mrs. Toop and to Mr. Hyde, who was tasting his own ale. When Gwen carried covered platters into the small parlor, Lord Beecham moved to the fireplace, where a small fire burned, and stuck out his hands to warm them, for there was an evening chill to the air.
He looked at that table and he saw the food, but he also saw Helen lying on her back and he saw himself nipping at her mouth as he eased his hands beneath her hips to slowly pull her to the end of the table. He saw his hands lifting her legs, parting them and he was coming close and closer still, and coming into her right there. He was yelling and so was she and—and then the door was flying open and all her lads were standing there staring at him ravishing their mistress, their mistress who disciplined them, the mistress whom they half feared and doubtless adored and would kill for.
“Spenser, what is wrong? You look like you just got shot.”
“Close enough. Maybe food will help.”
When he took a bite of shepherd’s pie, Mrs. Toop’s premier family recipe, he realized vaguely that it was delicious as he chewed. Then he swallowed. He couldn’t continue this any longer. He drew a very deep breath and took the plunge, in his own fashion. “Put down your fork, Helen. Thank you. Now you will attend me.” He took another deep breath. “Here’s the truth of it. I just can’t be around you, I simply can’t. I thought that I could. I thought that here at your inn with all these people about—your people—I would be able to control myself.”
She stared at his mouth and said, “I thought I would be able to control myself as well, but you grabbed me, and I wanted you more than anything.”
He shook with her words. Then he was shaking his head vigorously. “I did not hear that. I couldn’t survive if I had really heard what you just said.
“Now, I don’t know what has happened to me, but whatever it is, it has happened very hard. I simply cannot deal with it.” Then he looked up, and despite his suffering, he managed to smile at her. “Perhaps you should punish me by putting me in the stocks.”
She choked on her asparagus. Her eyes went wide, seeing him at what she’d designated a Level Seven. She went perfectly still, once she caught her breath.
“Tell me, how do you punish your lads in the stocks?”
“If the miscreant merits a Level Five punishment, he is stripped to the waist, his head and hands locked in and the women torment him.”
“How?”
“It depends on the nature of the crime committed. For tardiness in assisting a guest, the women will whip him with small bunches of hollyhocks.”
“This doesn’t make the man want to be tardy all the time?”
“Oh, no. Hollyhocks are very irritating. They make you itch for a good week. It is really quite effective. Actually, to be fair about this, it was the former vicar’s wife who devised that particular form of punishment discipline.”
“Oh, God,” he said and jumped to his feet, toppling his chair. “I truly wanted to be your partner, just your partner.” He grabbed a good-sized piece of bread, and fled the small parlor, leaving Helen to sit there, staring after him, wondering how he would look in those stocks, naked—completely naked. She wouldn’t let anyone come near him, just her, and she wouldn’t have a silly bunch of hollyhocks in her hand. No, she would use her mouth and her tongue and—Helen sighed deeply and took herself to the inn’s kitchen to help Mrs. Toop peel apples for a pie.
Lord Beecham marched across the inn yard through the small gate to the stable. He didn’t bother with a saddle or bridle, just grabbed Luther’s mane and swung himself up on his back. He chewed his bread as he rode, without stopping, directly to Shugborough Hall. Flock opened the door to him. “My lord, what is amiss? Is that a piece of bread clutched in your hand?”
Lord Beecham ate the bread.
20
“MY LORD, YOU LOOK maddened now that you have swallowed the bread. Have you been attacked by highwaymen? What is amiss?”
“I am amiss. Where is Lord Prith?”
Flock walked to the dining room, Lord Beecham on his heels. He stepped back just in time to prevent Lord Beecham from walking over him.
“Help me, sir,” Lord Beecham said to Helen’s father, who was seated in isolated splendor at his own dining table, a glass of champagne in his hand. Flock came to stand behind his master, ready with the champagne, his eyes down, his ears wide open. “I am done for, sir, you must help me.”