The Courtship - Catherine Coulter [7]
She stared at him, her expression so horrified that he laughed. That made him choke on the clapper. She was on him in an instant, slapping his back so hard he wondered if his ribs would burst through his chest.
He managed to swallow the rest of the clapper, but since he was having a hard time breathing, he just sat there, gasping for breath as he looked up at her.
“Are you all right, Lord Beecham?”
“He still can’t breathe, Helen. Give him a minute. Did she cave in your ribs, Spenser?”
Two minutes passed before he had enough breath back in his body to speak. He looked up at the big girl. “You know me?”
“Of course. I imagine that most people know you, particularly the ladies.”
Why did she look flushed? He was the one nearly flattened. When he was finally breathing easily again, he cleared his throat, drank a bit of tea, and set the cup back on its saucer. “The reason most people know me is because I have lived in London since I was eighteen years old and quite know everyone.” He rose, came to within one foot of her, and stopped. She looked him straight in the eye.
“Douglas is wrong,” Alexandra said. “You are at least two inches taller than Helen, just like he is. Douglas was telling her that he was taller than you.”
Lord Beecham looked into those clear blue eyes. “I am one of the tallest men I know.”
“Douglas is taller,” Alexandra said. “By at least an inch. Yes, I can see that clearly now.”
“Well,” Helen said, “I am surely one of the tallest ladies in all of England.”
“You are a very big girl,” he said slowly, wanting to eye her up and down very thoroughly but realizing it wouldn’t be a good thing to do in Alexandra Sherbrooke’s drawing room. Instead, he picked up his teacup and toasted her.
She laughed, a splendid sound that was full and rich and curled through his innards like a snifter of good brandy. He thought about her lying in the middle of his bed with him over her. It would be early evening, not more than six or seven hours away. His schedule was open.
“Not really a girl anymore,” Helen said, giving him a beautiful smile, all white teeth and dimples deep in her cheeks. “I am twenty-eight, twenty-nine in seven months. I am quite long in the tooth, my father tells me. Just three months ago he was so enraged with me over something—neither of us would even remember what now—he let fly and yelled that I was on the shelf. Whenever I provoke him, he is capable of moaning to the heavens what an unnatural child I am. I am not unnatural, it is just that I am . . .
She stalled, and Lord Beecham smiled. “A big girl.”
Helen gave him that brilliant smile again. “That, too, I suppose.” She stuck out her hand. “I am Helen Mayberry. My father is the eccentric Viscount Prith, the very tallest gentleman in all of England.”
Lord Beecham straightened to his full height—a good two inches taller than Helen—took her hand, and turned it as he leaned down to kiss her wrist. He felt the quiver in her hand. Excellent. Perhaps, if he were suave and a bit lucky, he would have her naked on the sheets in the very early evening, perhaps even in the very late afternoon, exchanging discipline recipes with her while he kissed her silly.
“I am Spenser Nicholas St. John Heatherington,” he said. “You can call me Spenser or Heatherington or Beecham. I was named after Edmund Spenser, of Faerie Queen fame. My mother admired Queen Elizabeth and thus chose to name me after Edmund Spenser, a man the queen admired to perhaps an immoderate extent. Who knows? My father even told me it was just possible that I was a very distantly related descendant.”
“It all sounds like nonsense to me,” Helen said.
He grinned at her, toasting her again with his teacup. “I agree, but it makes for an amusing tale. You are telling me you have not yet found a man who suited you to your doubtless quite lovely toes, Miss Mayberry?”
“Perhaps for a relatively short period of time. You know the problem—there are so many boring very short men in England, and it seems that my dear father is acquainted with all of them. I really