The Courtship - Catherine Coulter [65]
“Hello, Alexandra.”
“Why must you continue to call this damned dog by his first name?”
Alexandra patted her husband’s arm as she continued speaking to Lord Beecham. “It is good to see you. I don’t suppose you know anything about Helen Mayberry?”
“You know very well that I am now Helen’s partner and that I returned with her and her father to Essex, to Court Hammering.”
“Yes, but you are here and she doesn’t seem to be. Where is she?”
“She is at home. I am back here to use better minds than mine at the British Museum.”
“Oh, goodness, Spenser, does this mean that you have found anything about King Edward’s lamp?”
“It is all bloody nonsense,” Douglas said, his dark eyebrow raised higher than any of Spenser’s eyebrows.
“Well, Douglas, actually it isn’t,” and with those few words, Douglas Sherbrooke was all ears. He stared at Spenser Heatherington. “It is surely a myth,” he said slowly, “a silly tale that just won’t die. Don’t say there is something to it.”
“Just perhaps there is.”
Douglas began a tapping rhythm with his cane on the walkway, a sure sign that he was getting excited. “Yesterday I heard that lecherous old reprobate, Lord Crowley, telling some fellows who were nearly ready to fall down dead drunk that he was on the trail of something fantastic, something that would make him very, very rich. I never considered that it could have anything to do with the lamp. Was that what he was talking about?”
“Well, damn.” Lord Beecham sighed. “I hope it wasn’t, but with my blasted luck, I’ll wager it was.” He sighed again and this time streaked his long fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. Alexandra raised her hand and smoothed down his hair.
“Please don’t, Alexandra,” Lord Beecham said, taking a step back. “Else your fierce husband will pound me into the walkway. I’m too young to be pounded, only thirty-three. Now, I just managed to escape Reverend Older and he had already heard about it from Reverend Mathers’s brother, whom he refers to as Old Clothhead. Other than you and Alex, Reverend Mathers and me, no one else in London should know about this. But it turns out that Reverend Mathers talks in his sleep and his brother told Reverend Older and God knows who else. Damnation, is there nothing at all sacred? Nothing that a man can depend upon to remain only his?”
“Yes,” Douglas said absently, stroking his jaw, “his wife. You mean all this started with Reverend Mathers talking in his sleep about it?”
“I fear so. And now Lord Crowley—damnation, that man makes me want to scrub my soul after I am forced to be near him. On a good day, he might even be worse than my father, who was bad enough, let me tell you. Hell’s bells, I don’t like this. I’ll wager he knows a bit now. At least it is not specific, but he will burrow about, you know his reputation. Perhaps half of London knows what he knows now, at least the scurrilous half. I would not be surprised now if some of these buffoons ended up in Court Hammering trying to threaten Helen. Damnation, now I must think of some way to protect her.”
“Protect Helen?” Alexandra said, her left eyebrow going up. Her cloak then fell open. Her husband’s eyes glittered before he pulled the cloak shut again and said to her, “You will go to your modiste, tomorrow at the very latest, and you will instruct her to hoist up this blasted gown a good three inches. Just look at Heatherington. The fellow has nice teeth. I would hate to have to knock them down his dog’s throat were he to ogle you, and he would find the temptation well nigh impossible to deny. He will be moaning on the walkway soon, his jaw broken, if you continue to flaunt yourself.”
“I see,” Alexandra said, ignoring Lord Beecham and eyeing her husband. “Let me see if I have this exactly right. You feel sorry for the gentlemen because I am forcing myself upon them.”
“Yes,” Douglas said. “Perhaps you can go to the modiste this afternoon.”
“Look, Douglas. All you can see now is my fist closing over my cloak. May we return to more interesting matters