Beckman: Lord of Sins

Fifteen

“They’re all dead.” North regarded the scattering of feathers and chicken parts at his feet. Old Angus scowled alongside of him and bent to wrap a length of twine around the culprit’s neck.

“I’ve seen this one in town,” Angus said. “He begs at every door, poor blighter. Somebody set him in the henhouse, knowing he’d be so hungry he’d get them all.”

The dog’s hide was filthy and matted, crisscrossed with scars and sporting clumps of burrs. The damned beast was as stupid as he was huge, sitting docilely at Angus’s feet, as if he’d no clue what had befallen his dear, late friends, the chickens.

“You want I should shoot him, Mr. North?”

The dog seemed to like that suggestion, lapping eagerly at the back of North’s hand and giving a pathetic little woof of enthusiasm.

“Miss Polly will want him dead. She serves up a chicken regularly,” North fumed. The dog cocked his head, regarding North curiously.

“Have the boys toss him in the warm end of the pond,” North said. “Scrub the daylights out of him, and brush out those burrs. If we feed him some regular meals, he might turn out to be a decent watch dog.”

“Save us digging a sizable hole if he can manage that,” Angus said. “I’ll see to the chickens.”

“And I’ll fetch us more in town this afternoon, but the first time he digs into the coop, he gets taken into the woods, Angus.”

The dog woofed again and capered around happily, nearly tugging Angus over in the process.

North aimed his scowl at the chicken coop, which showed no sign of forcible entry, no sign the dog had dug under the fencing, no sign of a loose board or post. Angus had the right of it: somebody had kindly unlatched the door to the coop and set the starving dog among the chickens. And the beast had been in the pen for some time. The water in the chickens’ bowl was gone, most of the eggs in the nests had been broken, and the dog had been resting contentedly among his trophies when North came upon him.

Sleeping off a chicken drunk, North thought with a reluctant smile.

His smile faded as he reflected that Beckman Haddonfield had better get himself back to Three Springs, lest the ladies be left defenseless when North departed.

The old earl had been wise to send Beck on far-flung errands, because travel gave a man time to think as nothing else could.

After spending long, hard hours in the saddle—the Downs were becoming very familiar to him—Beckman concluded he was not simply returning to Three Springs to finish an errand for Lady Warne.

He also was not resuming the simple dalliance he’d enjoyed with Sara previously. He wanted more, and she likely did not. This put him again in the position of the odd man out, the extra brother, the intemperate son who had to be kept busy elsewhere, the little boy listening at keyholes, hoping for notice from those he loved.

Beck considered his options and decided those secondary, shabby, minor roles were no longer good enough. He’d offer Sara marriage—again, but without leaving her the option of turning it into a joke—and she would have two choices. She could be his bride, the mother of his children, and most important woman in his future, or she could become a bittersweet memory, one of the happier parts of his past.

He was virtually certain she’d turn him down again, but he deserved more than the occasional furtive coupling, and—quite relevantly—so did she.

The question was, could he convince her of that?

“Haddonfield.” Gabriel North approached from the barn, his expression more forbidding than usual. “Glad you’re back.”

There was an entire lecture in North’s green eyes, but likely because Allie had pelted straight for Beck’s arms and was at that moment barnacled to his back, North mustered his version of discretion. “Polly will want to feed you. I’ll take your horse.”

But Beck didn’t let him off so easily.

“I’m glad to be back.”

This provoked North to a twitch of the lips. “Allie, introduce Mr. Haddonfield to your latest portrait subject. Those of delicate sensibilities shouldn’t come upon such a beast all unawares.”

Beck lingered with Allie, admiring the enormous brindle-coated canine named Boo-boo, then admiring the filly, who had indeed grown even in Beck’s short absence. He admired the new chickens as well, and paid his respects to Hildegard.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Allie asked, swinging his hand. “We haven’t had a single batch of muffins since you left.”

Suggestion hung heavily in the air. The sun was dipping closer to the horizon, and there was nothing in the house to dread. A man was entitled to get his bearings though—before facing the woman who held his heart in her hands.

“I could use some sustenance,” Beck allowed. Allie dropped his hand and headed for the back of the house at a dead run, the dog woofing and bounding along beside her.

“So you came back.” Polly’s greeting was not what Beck expected. She eyed him up and down, the dispassion in her gaze a trifle unnerving. “I expect you’re hungry, so you’d best wash your hands.”

She disappeared into the pantry with a swish of her skirts. North came in from the hallway, smelling slightly of horse.

“She’s gotten more fierce,” Beck said. “One can hardly conceive of it.”

“She and Sara are feuding over some family issue.” North went to the sink and washed his hands. “And Allie’s birthday approaches, so the household is in a state of high anticipation. Allie has, after all, acquired a puppy, so what other wishes might come true on her birthday?”

And where was Allie’s mother, so that Beck might endure her less-than-enthusiastic greeting as well?

Polly emerged from the pantry, bearing a plate stacked with sandwiches. She set it down on the counter then untied her apron. “I’m off to help Allie sketch Boo-boo. Wash up when you’re done, because it’s Maudie’s half day.”

North watched her depart with the sort of wistfulness that the dog—another simple beast—reserved for its supper.

“And just how did Allie acquire her adoring friend?” Beck asked, taking the sandwiches to the table.

North followed, and judging from the way the man took his seat, his back was at least no worse than when Beck had left for Belle Maison.

“I found him in the chicken coop, nigh insensate from his excesses.” North picked up a sandwich and regarded it for a philosophical moment. “That beast is a force of nature akin to a Channel storm in the form of a dog. He ate all the chickens.”

Beck paused midreach for his own sandwich. “He ate all the chickens? And you didn’t put a bullet in his canine excuse for a brain?”

“Considered it.” North chewed thoughtfully. “A dog on the property is not a bad idea.”

“A chicken-eating dog?”

“Any dog will eat chickens if he’s starving and enclosed with a sufficient quantity of them.” North offered no further explanation but shot Beck a questioning glance.

“We’re alone,” Beck said, and wasn’t that just a fine state of affairs when a man traveled two days over hill and dale in the broiling sun on the strength of seven words that had yet to be explained? “Your note—a monument to literary subtlety, by the way—mentioned trouble.”

North, being North, had to finish chewing then take his bloody damned time selecting the exact perfect next sandwich.

Beck waited. Even knowing he had yet to face Sara, something in his gut was glad to be… home. To be here, rather, where his lordly arse might be of some use to people he cared about.

“My note got you back here,” North observed. “The dog wasn’t the first incident. Someone put him in the chicken coop, knowing he was so underfed he’d wreak havoc. Before that, the smokehouse went up in flames, which might have spread, except Angus and Jeff had just drained the cistern to scrub it out, and the entire back side of the barnyard was sopping wet as a result. You know about the harrow that mysteriously loosened its own bolts, and we found a length of tin relieved of its nails on the barn roof.”

The sandwich was good. A tangy portion of cheddar with mustard and a sweet, smoky slab of ham between two slices of fresh, yeasty buttered bread. Beck set it aside unfinished. “Is there more?”

“Unfortunately, yes. We’re working on repairing the roof of the springhouse, among others, and had replaced the supports, as the damp got to them, which isn’t unusual in a springhouse. Somebody sawed through the new lumber, such that when Cane climbed up yesterday to start tacking down the shingles, he damned near came a cropper.”

“And a heavier person would have,” Beck said. “Say, you or I?”

“Precisely.” And Beck knew what he was thinking. A fall from the roof for a man with a bad back could be tragic, not merely inconvenient.

“Motive?” Beck asked, frowning in thought.

“Damned if I know.” North started on his third sandwich. “It can’t be ignored that this difficulty started when you arrived to put the place to rights, Haddonfield. I’ve been here for almost three years, the Hunts for longer, and they can’t recall any of this nonsense happening, much less a plague of it all at once. We get on well enough with the neighbors, and the ladies are well regarded in the parish.”

“After does not mean because of.”

North nodded at Beck’s aphorism and kept chewing.

“I understand we’re haying tomorrow, North?”

“The fields east of the ponds,” North clarified. “We’ve spent most of your absence cutting and raking, and now it’s time to put up what’s on the ground and cut down what hasn’t been scythed yet. The weather can’t hold fair much longer, and it’s actually a decent crop.”

“We’re due for some good luck,” Beck said. “And since there are more fields to scythe and rake, I’d say some help from Sutcliffe would be timely on several counts. We should bring over Mrs. Granville too. She’s a favorite with Polly and Sara. But tell me, North, before we’re interrupted, what you make of these happenings.”

Having demolished three sandwiches, North rose and stretched. “I’ve poked around but can come to no conclusions. Whoever did this is sneaky as hell, but like you, I’m stumped regarding a motive.” North crossed his arms and studied the ceiling beams where Polly’s pots gleamed in precise order of size. “Your family is managing?”

Now, Beck gathered, when they had no audience, North would bring up the late earl’s passing.

“We are,” Beck said, rising. “His lordship’s death wasn’t unexpected, but neither was it… entirely anticipated.”

“And how is the new earl?” North asked as they crossed the backyard to the barn.

“He’s an idiot.” Beck said, though—curiously—not without affection. He felt a stab of affection for this barn too, where he’d kissed Sara Hunt’s tears and held her as a man holds a woman he desires. That thought damned near had him returning to the house and bellowing his arrival to the lady herself.

But, no. He would not assume she’d be glad to see him.

“My brother has decided his marriage must be in name only, though I doubt he’ll succeed at this scheme. His countess will sort him out in short order.”

“Leave it to a female,” North said, scratching the filly’s silky neck gently. “Our females are feuding.”

Our females. “You mentioned this. Any idea over what?”

“You should winkle it out of Sara.” North’s mouth flattened into a saturnine grimness. “I gather it has to do with her late husband’s brother, but that’s not the whole of it. Sara is considering taking another post.”

“North…” Beck pushed away from the stall door. “Can we walk a bit?”

North looked uneasy at this request, no doubt because he knew Beck was done with privacy and discretion. It was time for some answers, before North’s reticence got somebody hurt.

The barn door opened, letting in a shaft of late-afternoon sunshine.

“Beckman?”

Sara stood there in a simple sky-blue dress, her hair catching every ray of sun, her smile tentative but genuine. Peeking from beneath her dusty hem were the toes of the boots Beck had made for her.

“Mrs. Hunt.” Beck offered her a bow, knowing that despite all good intentions to the contrary, interrogating North would have to wait for another day.

Sara fell into bed exhausted and relieved. Beck had been friendly over dinner, clearly glad to see her—who wouldn’t be glad to put a parent’s funeral behind him?—and willing to take his cue from her.

Though she’d had no cue to give him. She’d missed him to the marrow of her bones while he’d been gone, and yet now that he was here, he became so much blond, handsome temptation.

She was tempted, of course, to steal into his bed, and that temptation was hard to resist. She was more tempted, though, to tell him Tremaine St. Michael was asking to come skulking around, threatening to unmask secrets the Hunt womenfolk had long ago agreed never to divulge.

And yet, Sara was not about to become further entangled with a good man, and Beck was a good man, without revealing her past—all of her past—thus costing her Beck’s regard.

Her mind whirled with the burden of her tangled loyalties and longings, but weariness dragged her under in short order.

The next thing she knew, she was being lifted from her bed.

“Who…?” Her mind tried to grasp what her senses already knew: the clean scent of bergamot, the feel of a big, muscular body, the care in the way she was touched, all told her who it was cradling her against his chest.

“Hush.” One word in a rumbled whisper, then the fleeting sensation of lips pressed to her forehead. She subsided as Beckman padded with her from her apartment, then out into the kitchen and on to the front stairs. Sara soon found herself deposited on Beck’s bed, her nightgown summarily drawn up over her head.

Beck tossed off his dressing gown. “Now you may berate me, just as soon as you welcome me home in truth.” He crouched naked over her and commenced kissing her before Sara could formulate a response.

Ah, God… Missing him was too tame an expression for the need clawing at her. They needed to talk, they needed to gain perspective on their situation, to reach an understanding as to its temporary and inconsequential—

His tongue teased at her lips, delicately, gently, and Sara couldn’t hold her miserable, prudent, painful thoughts in her head. She kissed him back, letting every scintilla of her passion for him show in her response.

“Better,” Beck growled, smiling against her lips. He abandoned the pretense of gentility and ravished her mouth, then shifted to his side and set his hand to plundering across her breasts and torso even as he continued to kiss, nuzzle, and bite.

“Beckman…” Sara tugged at his hair and got no response, so she tugged harder, until he did pause, frowning at her in the moonlight.

“You’re fertile now,” he said. “I know. But I’ve missed you.” He regarded her more closely. “I wasn’t going to do this, you know. I was going to let you decide whether to come to me, but I fear your stubbornness is the equal of my own. I haven’t seen you, haven’t kissed you, haven’t held you for almost two weeks.”

He’d kept track of her cycle, better track than Sara had herself. “I’ve missed you too,” Sara said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “How was the funeral?”

“Must we?” He rolled to his back but brought her with him by virtue of the arm he’d slipped around her shoulders.

Yes, they must. They must also talk, for his sake at least. “That bad?”

“No, not really that bad. In some ways it was good, because we were all nine of us, even Ethan, together. Nick has married a very sweet woman who will, I think, end up being his salvation.”

“You’re happy for your half-crazy brother?”

“Cautiously.” Beck trailed his fingers over Sara’s face, making her recall that she’d missed the exact feel of a callused hand on her cheek and jaw. “He’s damned stubborn, but there’s been much ground recovered between him and Ethan, and between me and Ethan, for that matter.”

“You sympathize with your brothers,” Sara said. “They’ve both been prodigal in some way, and so have you.”

“Touché.” He traced her lips with a single finger. “May I please swive you silly now?”

Please, God, yes. “You may not.” Sara rustled around under the covers to straddle him and cuddle down onto his chest. “Nor will I ravish you just yet.”

“My disappointment defies description,” Beck murmured, stroking a hand over her back. “No one else has asked about the funeral, though North inquired generally after my family.”

“North has been preoccupied of late.”

“How much of his past do you know, Sara?”

The question was reluctant, an intrusion of practical concerns and a possible test of Sara’s loyalty.

“He carries an impressive title,” Sara said, “but has for some reason stepped away from it. I don’t know why, but I trust him, Beck. He was the first man about whom I could say that in many years. Polly and Allie trust him too.”

“As do I, though I have to wonder if he’s cut off from all family.”

As Beckman had often been? “Such a fate strikes me as unbearably bleak.”

“Bleak.” Beck angled his chin, so she could get his earlobe in her mouth. “So he stays busy and tries not to think about family. When did you acquire this little trick?”

She was alternately biting and suckling on his earlobe, inflicting on him attentions he’d inflicted on her.

“I’ve been storing up things I’d like to try with you if you came back.” Sara eased off and curled up on him.

“If I came back?” Beck’s frown was audible.

“I don’t have plans for you beyond this night, Beckman.”

A long silence ensued, during which Sara tried to make herself leave his bed. She’d notified two hiring agencies of her availability for a post in the West Riding. Not even Tremaine would think to look for her there.

“What are your plans for me, then, for this night?” Beck leaned up and kissed her temple, as if he’d kiss her thoughts.

“To have my wicked way with you, except, given I might conceive, I’m not quite sure how to go about it.”

“I have a few suggestions,” Beck murmured, his hand moving around to the front of her and finding her naked breast. Within minutes, Sara was gliding her wet sex over the hard, hot length of him, while Beck plied her breasts with mouth and hands.

“This is…” She was panting, aroused, frustrated, and determined all at once.

“Hmmm?” He took a nipple in his mouth, as if he could play with her for hours.

“Beck…” She slid a hand behind his head. “I want… I want you inside me.”

“No, you don’t.” Beck shifted his hips against the mattress when she would have tried to slip herself over him. “You want to come, and you’re having to do more of the work yourself this way. Allow me to remedy the situation.” He pulled her down to kiss him, kept one hand on her breast, and slipped the other between their bodies.

“Yes…” Sara felt his thumb on the seat of her pleasure and slowed the undulation of her hips to find a rhythm with him. In moments, she was rocketing up, climbing toward satisfaction.

“You too,” she whispered, teasing her fingers over his nipple, feeling him arch into her hand. She cast off first, hanging over him, keening as she moved on his cock and his fingers, her hair falling forward as passion washed through her. When she lay spent and panting on his chest, he gathered her hair and brushed it to one side.

“Again,” he whispered, “but easy.” He moved slightly under her, and Sara knew she should be doing something—kissing him, petting him, synchronizing her hips to his—but she was too undone. His hands shifted to her hips, and his grasp there provided her the encouragement she needed to join the languorous slide and pull he’d set up.

“No more than that,” he said. “Let me do the work.”

She sighed, content to feel him moving easily against her sensitized sex. Without her making any effort, she felt arousal gathering again, fueling her to more enthusiastic movement.

“No.” Beck slowed his tempo more. “You let me.”

She relaxed, and like a long, slow wave coming to shore, he built their arousal until it broke over them, gently and at length, bringing a deep sense of pleasure, satisfaction, and joining, though he hadn’t even been inside her.

A sense of coming home, Sara reflected when he’d tidied her up—the prodigal returning.

“Go to sleep,” Beck rumbled, his voice resonating against the ear Sara had pressed to his chest. “I’ll get you back to your own bed before the household wakes up.”

Sara forced her eyes open despite the appeal of that offer. “Beckman, there are things we must discuss.”

He spent a moment considering then reached around to tuck the covers over her bare back. “This is probably the only place we have privacy, and you have my undivided attention.”

“They’re difficult things.”

“So let’s tackle them now, when we have some time and we’re in charity with each other. I am in charity with you, in case you couldn’t tell.” He hitched his arms more snugly around her, and the sense of being treasured and protected almost cost Sara her resolve.

But he was right; his bed was the best place they had for this discussion.

“I am ready to end this aspect of our dealings, Beckman.” A beat of silence followed, then Sara felt his fingers circling gently on her nape. “Beckman, say something.”

“Do you have my successor picked out?” Beck asked, his tone almost amused. “Somebody less inclined to interrupt your sleep, perhaps?”

“There is no successor. It’s just… I have a daughter, and cavorting with you sets a bad example for Allie. I simply haven’t had the discipline to resist.”

“I pride myself on my irresistibility.” Beck drew the covers over her again. “But you aren’t making sense, love. I intend to be underfoot here for the rest of the growing season at least, and having enjoyed my attentions, I doubt your self-discipline will keep you out of this bed—and don’t think I’ll make it easy for you. And, Sara? I’m going to propose again, too, so man your defenses as best you can. Or woman them.”

“Don’t tease me,” Sara wailed quietly. “I’m serious, Beck. You have to leave me alone.”

“Reasoning with you hasn’t gotten me very far, and you are a very reasonable, rational, self-disciplined sort of lady. I’m not teasing you, Sara. Who is Tremaine?”