The Courtship (Sherbrooke Brides 5)

IT WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE their formal engagement ball. The name of Gerard Yorke was on everyone’s lips. Old gossip was resurrected, new gossip added to the mix.

Lord Beecham’s drawing room was filled from morning until night. Everyone wanted to talk about Gerard Yorke and this fabulous lamp, and the murder of Reverend Mathers, but mainly everyone wanted to know everything about the magic lamp. Both Spenser and Helen told the same story, over and over. The lamp was a myth, a charming, titillating legend unfortunately with no basis in fact. No, the scroll had been no help at all.

There were scores of people arriving at the house who wanted the fifty-pound reward for information about Gerard Yorke. There were more scores of people arriving at the house who wanted the fifty-pound reward for information about the murder of Reverend Mathers. Helen held her breath whenever one of these individuals arrived—they were a scruffy lot, hats pulled low over their eyes, knives stuck in the bands of their none-too-clean trousers. Pliny Blunder, Lord Beecham’s secretary, was kept busy from early morning until late at night reviewing each claim to the groats.

As of midnight tonight, three days after all the announcements and the inquiries had been in the newspapers, there were still no pertinent leads; apparently, none of the shifty characters who swore they’d just seen Gerard Yorke at the White Horse Inn just outside of Greenwich were telling the truth. And there was nothing pertinent either about the murder of poor Reverend Mathers. If there was one thing Pliny Blunder excelled at, it was ferreting out pretenders, liars, and just plain dregs.

There was also endless talk all over London of the magic lamp that no one really believed in at all, but it made for fascinating conversation, particularly since Lord Beecham, that naughty and very clever man, was involved in the business. London was having a fine time with the entertainment Lord Beecham was providing them.

As for his fiancée, Miss Helen Mayberry was glorious—all agreed to it, even those ladies, obviously jealous, who would say behind their hands that she was just a tad too tall.

Tomorrow night, Helen thought, as she sank deeper into the soft bed in her bedchamber that wasn’t more than thirty feet from Spenser’s bedchamber, curse him. Tomorrow night, and they would announce their betrothal. Where the devil was Gerard Yorke? If he was alive, surely he wouldn’t wait until the last minute. Surely he had to strike soon. It was odd, but she didn’t remember if he had ever shown much courage. Perhaps there hadn’t been the opportunity.

It happened so quickly that Helen had no time to strike out or to yell. One moment she was sleeping soundly, dreamlessly, and the next a handkerchief was stuffed in her mouth just as a fist hit her jaw, knocking her senseless.

She thought she heard a man’s voice say, “Good, we’ve got her now.” Then she just drifted away.

She felt a pounding, a very deep pounding that seemed to fill her and make her want to scream at the pain it brought. She didn’t want to recognize it, to accept it, but finally she had to. Her head was going to explode and there was nothing she could do about it. She gasped.

“Ah, you are going to wake up now, Helen?”

That voice—she knew that voice, but it had been so very long since she’d heard it, so long ago, a lifetime ago. And it was different now somehow, perhaps deeper and harsher, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Open your eyes, Helen.”

She did then, gasping again with the pain. She looked up at Gerard Yorke, an older Gerard Yorke, one who had lived hard. She knew dissipation when she saw it, and Gerard had not spent the past eight years in search of sainthood.

“How are you, my dear?”

“I knew you were alive, I just knew it. What rock were you hiding under?”

“Do you want me to strike you again? I suggest you keep your insults behind your teeth. Now, you wanted me dead, didn’t you, Helen? Then you could marry that womanizing rakehell Beecham. Actually I hadn’t planned to come get you so very quickly, but I did not want to wait until after your damned ball.

“You wanted to flush me out. Well, you succeeded. I waited as long as I could, hoping that society would forget about me and the lamp, but it is just growing and growing. I have kept myself so well hidden that I even wondered if I could find myself. But it is over now. It simply hasn’t turned out the way you planned.”

“You came as a thief in the night, not as an honorable man, the hero, back from possible captivity in France.”

“You are even lovelier than you were ten years ago, Helen.”

“Why are you alive, Gerard?”

He sat back. He was more in focus now. She realized she couldn’t move. She was tied down, her wrists tied in front of her, her ankles bound together. She was still wearing her nightgown. A blanket was pulled to her waist. Her feet were bare. It was cold in the room, wherever the room was.

He touched his fingertips to her mouth. She didn’t move, didn’t make a single sound. She wanted to bite his fingers to the bone, but she couldn’t take the chance that he would knock her silly again.

“Yes,” he said, his face too close to hers, far too close. “I didn’t believe it, but it’s true. You have become more beautiful.”

She was afraid, but she would never let him see it.

> “I have been sitting here, looking at you, wondering what it would be like to take you again. Ah, there was always so much of you to touch and caress. Now you are twenty-eight, a veritable chewed-up old spinster. No, I have that wrong. You are a widow, poor thing. Did you love me so much, dearest Helen, that no man after me could compete with what you had for such a very short time?”

“I was sad when I heard of your death, Gerard, but I will be honest with you. I had no more love for you than you did for me about a month after we were married. Actually, if I recall aright, I was quite disillusioned after about two weeks. You weren’t the man I had believed you to be. You really weren’t much of a man at all. All you wanted from me was an heir.”

“That’s right, and you never gave me one. Why else do you think I married you? My life was quite fine just the way it was, but I had no choice. I had to wed you. But then you were barren. Does your Lord Beecham know that you are barren, that he’ll never breed an heir off you?”

“He knows.”

He was silent a moment, studying her face. “You didn’t tell him, did you, Helen? You lied to him. Just as you lied to me. He has no idea that you are not going to produce children for him.”