The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

“Oh, dear,” Flock said suddenly, stepping forward, “you didn’t bring that poaching Nettle, did you, Lord Beecham? I don’t have my gun.”

“Now, Flock, can’t you see that his lordship is quite alone? That he suffers? From what, we will doubtless learn in good time. Were I to venture a guess at this very moment, I would say that he is hungry. Sit down, my lord. Flock, serve his lordship a bit of baked pheasant covered with jellied apricots.”

“Yes, sir, I am very hungry,” Lord Beecham said. But he didn’t want food, not really. He wanted to weep. It was all over for him. He had fought it, fought it with all his might, fought a good fight. He had thought of his father, and continued to fight it. But even the darkness of his memories had not diminished in the slightest what had happened to him, what he was helpless now to fight against.

He jumped up from his chair, nearly knocking it over. He began to pace. “Sir,” he said, striding up and down the dining room, the oak planking creaking beneath his boots. Thank God, he had not taken the time to pull his boots off. He just might have forgotten them altogether. He might have ridden Luther here in his bare feet. The humiliation would have been rather staggering.

No, thank God, his boots had been on his feet the whole while he had made frantic love to a woman. He had never made love to a woman before with his boots on, except Helen. Had he ever taken his bloody boots off? It wasn’t to be borne. He sucked in air and looked like a wild man.

“I just left your daughter at the inn.”

“Oh? My little Nell is accounted an excellent hostess. What displeased you?”

“Myself, this damnable situation. Sir, there is no hope for it. I am undone. I suppose I simply must marry your daughter. I had not planned to marry until I was almost dead because my own parents gave me a powerful distaste for marriage. Actually, my father’s example with each of his three wives made me determined to avoid taking a wife of my own. But now I see that it doesn’t have anything to do with me or with Helen. It is other people, not us. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

“I must have Helen. I cannot continue without her. Well, it is not exactly without her, but this other, it’s madness, and it has to stop or I will hurl myself over a cliff, and than where would I be?”

“I believe you would be dead, my boy.”

“Not at all a good finish. Please, sir. Have I your permission to court and wed your daughter?”

Lord Prith stared at him. “I have heard of your sire. His name was Gilbert Heatherington, was it not?”

“Yes.”

“My dearest Mathilda was a friend of his second wife. Poor Marianne died within five years of her mar

riage to him.”

“Yes, sir, I was there. My father was obsessed with building a dynasty. But I am the only child of his loins who survived. He had no caring at all for women, none really for the children except that they live, which they didn’t.” Lord Beecham stopped. There was no reason to continue this. His father was dead, all three of his wives, including his own mother, dead as well, and the innumerable offspring.

“I am not like my father.”

“But you speak of marriage as if it would be your downfall. Why would you consider marriage a bad thing just because your father mucked it up?”

“He humiliated my mother. He kept her pregnant every year until I could hear her begging him not to take her, not to force himself upon her, that she would die with the next pregnancy, but he just laughed and forced her, and that last time she did die, cursing him, but he didn’t care. I believe he was with a mistress at the time. But I was there, sir, and I heard what she said. I heard her death. I despised him. I swore never to impregnate a woman, but then I realized that I had to have an heir, so I decided to wait, wait until it was almost the end of my time, and then I would take a wife and beget an heir.”

“How old were you when your mother died?”

“Ten.” He stared at Lord Prith. He couldn’t believe at all that he had blurted that out of his mouth. It was said. It couldn’t now be unsaid. He waited.

Lord Prith sat back in his chair. “I am sorry for that, my boy.”

Lord Beecham continued to stare at the man he hoped was his future father-in-law. He had spilled every bit of blackness in his soul, laid it all out for Lord Prith to examine. Now Lord Prith would realize that he wasn’t the man for his beloved daughter. He had been stunted and embittered. He wasn’t worthy of someone pure and wholesome, the only woman to make him beg to give his all to his marital duties until he was called to the other side.

But he wasn’t worthy. It all came down to that. He waited to hear the ax drop on his neck.

Lord Prith said, “At least you are not short. That bodes well for you. Helen turns down short men.”

He blinked. Lord Prith was considering him? His confession had not set him irrevocably against him? He cleared his throat, and said, “No, I am two inches taller than Helen. She tries to pretend that I am not, but it is true. Two inches, perhaps even a quarter of an inch more than two inches.”

“You and Helen will have magnificent children. It is difficult, as you well know, my boy, not to impregnate a woman. You will not kill my daughter with too many birthings, will you?”

Even as Lord Beecham shook his head and said “No, I will not,” he remembered that Helen couldn’t have children. She was barren. He felt a very deep shaft of pain, but he felt it for just a moment. In the grand scheme of things, his second cousin, a ship captain who lived in the colonies, in a place called Baltimore, could have his title, or one of his cousin’s male children could have it. He was a good fellow, he wouldn’t blight the Heatherington escutcheon.

But truth be told, Lord Beecham didn’t care what sort of a man his cousin was. He wanted Helen and he wanted her forever. It was the oddest thing. He was standing in Lord Prith’s dining room, Flock likely behind him in the shadows, not moving a muscle for fear of anyone realizing he was still in the room, and it didn’t matter a single whit. He felt wonderful. He felt whole.

“I will protect Helen with my life. I am not a pauper. She will have everything she could possibly desire. I have a beautiful country estate in Devon. Paledowns. She will love it there, all rugged hills and valleys and the coastline, all jagged and old, sir, so very old.” He shut his mouth on his poetic outpourings. He was losing what few wits remained to him. He would make his summation pithy. Show the depths of his ardor with a few witty words. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth, and what came out was, “I have never met a lady like your daughter. She is radiant, sir. I cannot imagine how I could be so very lucky as to have her leap at me from her horse’s back in Hyde Park and hurl me to the ground.” He cleared his throat. What had that come from? “Ah, Paledowns, sir, she will be happy there. She will also be happy in London. I have three other houses as well dotted over the northern landscape. She will doubtless approve of those as well. If she doesn’t, she can discipline the caretakers and change things until she is pleased.