The Courtship - Catherine Coulter [63]
“You don’t trust me, is that it?”
“I don’t know you all that well.”
“Damn you,” he said, “you have made love with me nine times in three days.” It felt excellent to just say it, yell it actually, right in her face. “You don’t know me? Jesus, Helen, you know me all the way to my toes. Yes, I did manage to get my boots off before I fell on you this afternoon. You think I would steal this wretched scroll and go haring off on my own? Steal from you?”
“I know that you are a passionate man. In that, you are true to your reputation. As a partner you have been superbly satisfactory to date.”
“But?”
She just shook her head. “It is so very important to me, Lord Beecham.”
More important than I am? he wanted to ask, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. He ground his teeth and left her then, without a backward glance, and went to her study. He spent the next hour carefully copying the leather scroll. He oiled it again, smoothing down the cracked humps in the leather, then gently laid the cheesecloth on it once more. When he came out of the study, Helen was on the third step of the staircase.
“Do you wish me to take this copy or not?”
Very slowly, she nodded.
Lord Beecham left Shugborough Hall at six o’clock the next morning, damp fog enclosing everything in filmy gray, his luggage and his valet Nettle with him.
16
“I HEARD YOU AND REVEREND Mathers had your heads together,” Reverend Older said to Lord Beecham two weeks later when he collared him on St. James Street just beneath the bow window of White’s. He leaned close, looked around furtively to ensure that no one could overhear them, then loosed his hot, excited breath in Lord Beecham’s face.
Lord Beecham raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t used to a furtive Reverend Older. He felt excitement rippling through the man. What was going on here?
“Don’t fret yourself, my boy. Old Clothhead Mathers told me all about this find of yours—an ancient leather scroll written in Pahlavi that speaks of a very old magic. This is a wondrous thing.”
Naturally, Lord Beecham thought, he and Reverend Mathers had agreed to keep all of this between them. He had believed the man would hold silent—indeed, Reverend Mathers had sworn himself to silence because, as he had told Lord Beecham, “this incredible scroll, my lord, it makes up for all the miserable years of mediocrity I have known. To be a part of this, ah, it will give all of us proud modern men amazing insights upon the ancient world. I thank you with all my heart. No, sir, no one will ever learn of this from me.”
Lord Beecham had known Reverend Mathers since his Oxford days. An honorable man, a scholar, a man more attuned to the mysterious ancient past than to a present he found unimaginative and trivial. Lord Beecham had been a fool, and he hated the bone-deep feeling of betrayal. Because he was not a man to spill his guts at the first attack, or even the second, for that matter, his expression remained impassive, his eyebrow elevated. He looked faintly annoyed. But his heart was pounding, slow, deep strokes.
Reverend Older leaned forward, patted Lord Beecham’s sleeve and dropped his voice to a near whisper, “Now, don’t you worry, my lord. None of this will go beyond me, Reverend Mathers, and his brother. You see, Reverend Mathers didn’t willingly tell Old Clothhead, no; it seems that my friend talks in his sleep whenever he is unduly excited or worried about something. Old Clothhead said his brother spoke of strange and magical things and this ancient old scroll written in Pahlavi that would tell all about it. Of course, Reverend Mathers would have brought you to me eventually. I am renowned for my knowledge of old myths that