Beckman: Lord of Sins

Nineteen

In the first painting, a naked woman straddled a low-backed dressing stool. She sat in a shaft of sunlight, bowed over to brush her hair, her back to the viewer. The hair itself was glorious, fiery red, molten white, burnished gold, and everything in between. It hung in a cascade to below her hips, catching every sunbeam in its highlights. By contrast, the rest of the scene was in deep shadow, giving the painting an ethereal, dreamy quality.

In the second image, the woman stood in the same brilliantly lit full-length window, her back again to the viewer. She had on a filmy peignoir, and the sunlight pierced it easily, so she might as well have been nude, so clearly were her curves and hollows delineated. Her violin was tucked under her chin, her body curved up as the other hand held the bow poised over the strings. The stillness conveyed in her body, juxtaposed with the sense of the bow about to strike music out of silence, made one want to not only savor the beauty of the painting, but to listen to it as well.

“This one has always been my favorite,” Polly said as she joined North where he stood before the third painting in the ladies’ parlor.

“It’s lovely,” North agreed, slipping an arm around Polly’s waist. They’d had a week since Tobias and Timothy were bound over for the assizes, a week to say good-bye.

Polly cocked her head. “I’ve always thought the cat is particularly good.”

North considered the image of the same woman, curled on her side amid a pile of pillows and blankets. Her face was obscured by the arm she’d flung over her head, but a cat lay nestled in a tidy counter-circle in the curve of her unclothed body. The marmalade cat was arguably the same color as the woman’s hair, but the artist had given the cat’s coat a subtle, muted glow, while the lady’s hair streamed over her body with brilliant glory. Even so, while the cat was clearly contented, the woman was just as clearly exhausted, and again, the contrast made a good painting fascinating.

“Have you seen the one of you and Soldier?” Polly went on, her head resting on North’s shoulder.

“I have.” North turned his face to inhale the scent of her. “I wanted to see these before I left, though. They are brilliant, but you will please not tell Sara I peeked.”

Polly shifted closer. “I’m leaving as well.”

“Where are you off to?”

“Tremaine has asked me to inventory the things he has from Reynard, and I’m going,” Polly said. “I might see our parents while I’m gone, and I might decide to find another post as cook.”

“You’ve had a falling out with Sara?”

Polly smiled slightly. “She asked me to go, probably hoping I wouldn’t be as upset when you left. She’s considering her options as well, but she doesn’t know I’m thinking of not coming back.”

“Polly…” North did not at all like the idea of the three Hunt ladies splitting up. But Polly put her fingers over his lips before he spoke.

“I have been happy here, Gabriel, but sometimes not so happy too.”

“Thus sayeth we all.”

“I will think of you,” Polly said, turning to slip her arms around his waist. “I’ll dream of you.”

“You will forget me,” North admonished. “The sooner the better. If what Tremaine says is true, you’ll soon have some money from selling Reynard’s plunder, and you can reestablish relations with your parents. And you’re lovely, Polonaise. You can have any man you please.”

“Hush.”

“I want you to be happy.” North kissed her forehead—only her forehead. “I need you to be happy.”

Polly shook her head and stepped back. “You need me to let you go.”

“I do.” He surveyed her features warily. “You’ll manage?”

“Of course.” Though her smile was a painful, forced thing. “I’ll not see you to your horse, though. You have other good-byes to say.”

And in the few beats of silence that followed, North wanted to say he’d write, to give her his direction, to tell her something of his plans, but he couldn’t. For all he knew, he was riding to his death, and he would not involve her, nor would he be so unkind as to give her hope.

“God be with you.” He half turned, as if to go, hesitated, then turned back, gathered her into his arms, and settled his mouth over hers. He didn’t plunder, but neither did he content himself with a mere gesture. With his kiss, he let her know he’d dream of her, worry for her, pray for her, and miss her every day and night he had left on earth.

Then he stepped back, gave her a grave bow, and left.

“So when are you leaving?” Allie’s tone was casual, but in her watchful expression, Beck saw the question was not.

“What makes you think I’m leaving?” Beck asked. They were lounging on the fence outside Hildegard’s wallow, watching her nurse her twelve new piglets.

“Mr. North left, Uncle Tremaine left, Aunt is leaving.”

“I have family elsewhere, Allie. Soon they’ll have use for me some place besides Three Springs.”

“We have use for you here,” Allie shot back. “All of us. We have use for Mr. North too, but his younger brother is in trouble.”

“He told you that?”

“He’s my friend,” Allie said, her gaze on the piglets. “He told me the truth.”

“Truth is sometimes uncomfortable,” Beck said carefully, but he’d surreptitiously studied the paintings in the days since North’s departure, and studied the three Hunt ladies with particular care. There were some truths that needed to be aired, regardless of how uncomfortable they might seem.

Allie peered at him. “More like the truth is always uncomfortable, at least at first.”

“I’ll miss you when I leave. That’s a truth.”

“I’ll miss you too. And it will not be comfortable.”

She fell silent, regarding the pig where she lay, piglets rooting at her greedily.

“Mama cries,” Allie said, her voice soft. “At night she thinks I’m asleep, and Aunt is asleep, but Mama cries. I’ve asked her what’s wrong, but she just smiles. I don’t know what to do.”

Beck felt the misery that had taken up residence in his gut spike, hot and painful, up toward his throat. He hadn’t resorted to the bottle yet, but the temptation loomed with enormous appeal as he considered the uncertainty on Allie’s face.

He slipped a hand to her shoulder. “Sometimes people just need to cry, Allemande.”

“She used to cry,” Allie said. “Before we got our house in Italy, she cried a lot. But she didn’t cry when Papa died. I did, though.”

“I cried when my papa died, princess. My brother did too, and he’s bigger than I am. We all cried.”

“Does it still hurt?” Allie asked, regarding him gravely.

“It does, though I don’t think of only the hurt when I think of him. I think of his laugh, and his silly jokes, and the way he’d stay up with a colicky horse, even though he was the earl. I think about the good things, not just the parts that hurt.” To his surprise, his words were the truth. Two months after his father’s death, it wasn’t hurting as much to think the earl had gone to his reward.

“I wanted my papa to be proud of me,” Allie said. “I painted as best as I could, and Papa liked what I did, but Mama yelled at him when she saw what I’d done.”

“Cried over that too, did she?”

“No.” Allie shuddered against Beck’s side. “And it was worse when she didn’t cry. Aunt helped me, though, and I think that made Mama mad too.”

“Seems the two are connected sometimes, loving someone and being frustrated with them.”

“Hildegard doesn’t look frustrated. She looks tired.”

“But at peace.” To the extent the mother of twelve could ever be at peace. “You’re very close to your aunt, aren’t you?” Beck offered the question, knowing he shouldn’t be tempting the child to reveal confidences.

“I love Aunt Polly, and she loves me and Mama. I’m glad I have family, but sometimes…” She scuffed her half boot on the bottom fence board. “I wish you and Mr. North and Uncle didn’t have to leave.”

Beck had nothing to say to that. He wished he didn’t have to leave too.

“You will be back,” Sara assured her sister as they stood outside The Dead Boar waiting for the post coach. “Go paw around Reynard’s treasures, sell whatever you think needs selling, then come back to us.”

“Sara…” Polly eyed her sister and saw a woman holding on by a thread. “I may not come back. We’ve discussed this.”

Sara’s smile was resolute and not at all convincing. “You might walk away from me, Polonaise. In fact, you should have walked away from me long ago, but you won’t leave Allie.”

“It hasn’t worked, Sara.” Polly held her sister’s gaze. “Being here with you and Allie, I put my life aside, thinking this was my life. Being with Gabriel, or rather, not being with him, makes me realize I’m just existing here. I haven’t really painted in years, haven’t flirted, haven’t slept past dawn because God knows, somebody has to get the bread in the ovens, will she, nil she. I haven’t heard a foreign language, unless you count the Yorkshiremen who came through last summer. I’m dying by inches here, no matter how much I love you and Allie.”

“You’re tired,” Sara said. “We’re all tired, and you need and deserve a break. Go to Oxfordshire and exorcise Gabriel’s ghost.”

“Will you manage?” The question North had asked Polly herself wasn’t nearly adequate to cover all it needed to.

“Manage the house, of course. Lolly and her mother will keep the kitchen functional, and once Beckman goes, there really won’t be much housework. It will be back to weekly dusting, weekly laundry, weekly marketing.”

“About Beckman.” Polly glanced around and saw they would not be overheard. “You are making a mistake with him, Sara. Just as I made a mistake thinking I could be happy cooking at Three Springs for the rest of my life.”

Around them, passengers secured their luggage at the back of the coach, then climbed inside.

“I’m older than you,” Sara temporized, “and I had my chance to wallow in my art, Polly. Beckman is an earl’s son, and my past leaves me ill-suited to be anything more than a diversion for such as he.”

“You are being ridiculous. You think you’re doing this for Allie, or for me, but, Sara, I promise you, she and I would both rather you gave Beckman the truth and trusted to the consequences. He’ll not disappoint you.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t, but then what, Polly? He should be on about his life if anyone should, but instead of walking away puzzled, he’ll feel honor bound not to walk away, and that’s worse.”

Polly resisted the urge to shake a woman who didn’t know when to think of herself. Above them, one of the porters cursed roundly as a bag came tumbling down, nearly striking a half-grown boy.

“For the love of God, Sara. You think you know, you think you can predict another’s heart, you think you’ve made the best choice, but it’s all so much arrogance and cowardice driving you. Talk to the man, I beg you. If not for my sake or yours, do it for Allie’s. She’s in danger of shifting all the affection she had for North onto Beckman, and he’s ready to bolt as North has.”

“Allie’s affection lies with you, Polly.”

Polly held up one gloved hand. “Don’t play that card, Sara. We agreed not to trade in that coin, and we’ve done well by each other so far. I love you, I want you to be happy, and I am begging you to talk to Beckman. Please.”

The head porter called “five minutes” as the fresh team was backed into the traces. Beck came striding out of the inn, Allie’s hand in his as she trotted to keep up with his longer paces.

“We bought you lots and lots of goodies, Aunt!”

Beck bent down and hefted Allie onto his hip to close the distance more quickly, the sack of food from the inn’s kitchen in his other hand.

“Your trunk is loaded?” Beck set Allie down when they reached the coach.

Polly nodded at the luggage rack on the boot. “Up there. Hug me, Allemande, and promise to be good. I will want to hear about your paintings.”

“Good-bye, Aunt.” Allie hugged her fiercely around the waist. “You’ll write and tell me of all the things Papa collected?”

“I promise, Allie. Sara.” She hugged her sister but said nothing more.

“And you, Beckman.” Polly turned to him. “Walk me to the leaders.” She gestured to the powerful pair in the front harness. Beck obligingly held out an arm and led Polly away. In the noise and bustle of the inn yard, the short distance was enough to make their words private.

Polly glanced back at Sara and Allie. “I can’t ask you to look after them, but I can ask you to be patient. There are things Sara needs to…”

Beck stilled her with a single finger to her lips. “I know, or I know much of it, and if Sara won’t confide in me, I can’t make her.”

“You can encourage her,” Polly said. “You can understand she’s been alone with her burdens so long she doesn’t know how to put them down. I was little more than a child, Reynard worse than a child, and then Allie came along…”

Polly let the words trail off, lest she say too much. From the look on Beckman’s face, perhaps she’d said too much already.

Beck had a retort ready for Polly’s little homily. He was mentally building his defenses day by day against the moment he’d leave Three Springs, but Polly’s words hit him low in the gut. He knew what it was to keep making foolish decisions out of sheer emotional exhaustion, bad habit, and lack of obvious alternatives. That kind of inertia and despair had damned near killed him.

“I can’t make her trust me, Polly. I’ve tried what I know to do, and she remains steadfastly opposed to confiding in me.”

“Try confiding in her yourself.” Polly leaned up and kissed Beck’s cheek. He hugged her to him briefly before he handed her up into the window seat he’d reserved for her.

“Safe journey, Polonaise.” Beck’s height put him more than level with the window. “And, Polly? I got a brief note from North in the morning post, and he’s reached his destination safely, though he didn’t elaborate. If I hear further, I’ll let you know.”

Polly’s face broke into a surprised smile as the coachy cracked his whip and the horses clattered off at a bone-shaking trot.

Allie slipped her hand into Beck’s. “You made Aunt smile. What did you say?”

“I wished her safe journey and told her if I heard more from North, I’d let her know.”

“Will you let me know?”

“He’d want me to.”

“I really miss him.”

“I know, princess. I miss him too.”

Late August would have been the last precious weeks of the summer lull, because the fruit and grain weren’t ready to be harvested yet, except Beck’s red winter wheat had to be planted before harvest. He was glad for the backbreaking work of plowing, glad to fall into bed exhausted every evening after his soak or swim, glad for a way to numb himself that did not involve liquor or worse.

He was not glad to toss much of each night away, despite his burning fatigue. He willed Sara to come to him, and more than once, sat up, grabbed for his dressing gown, and started down the dark corridor toward her room, only to stop himself.

He’d done nothing to deserve her mistrust and much to earn her trust. Polly’s last words rang in his memory though, urging him to confide in Sara. As he tried to rehearse what that might sound like, he gained an appreciation for the magnitude of the task he was requiring of Sara. He was still wrestling with himself mightily when the weather turned autumnally cool, then rainy, then downright chilly.

“Fall grass will come in good for this rain,” Angus observed.

“And the wheat will get a nice start,” Beck agreed as they stood in the barn, listening to the rain drumming on the roof.

“And then we’ll bring in the corn and be glad for winter. Those boys of Lolly’s must have grown four inches each this summer.”

“Polly’s cooking and lots of fresh air.”

And it could have gone on like that for hours, meaningless small talk, cleaning the harnesses again, inspecting the irrigation ditches again. Watching the rain, Beck admitted to himself he was dawdling around the barn, looking for another excuse to avoid the house. But soon the crops would be in, then the fruit harvested, and who knew if there would be any more rainy afternoons like this one?

“Keep an eye on the infants.” Beck shrugged into an oilskin. “Allie cheats terribly, and the boys are only so gallant.”

“Will do,” Angus said with a wink. “And we won’t come for supper until the bell rings.”

Beck sloshed across the stable yard, into the back gardens, wondering what, exactly, he hoped to accomplish. Since her sister’s departure, Sara had become increasingly reserved. Allie wasn’t painting, and there had been no further word from North.

“I could do with a nice hot cup of tea,” Beck said when he found Sara in the kitchen. “And I don’t suppose there are any more muffins?”

“In the bread box,” Sara answered, her glance sliding away from him. “Butter’s in the pantry.”

“Join me?” Beck disappeared into the pantry, then brought himself, butter dish in hand, to stand beside her. “You’ve lost weight,” he said, frowning down at her nape. “I can see it here.” He touched the top of her spine. “All the more reason you should have a muffin with me, Sarabande.”

“One muffin won’t hurt.” She arranged the tea tray and set the butter and basket of muffins on the table.

“In my sitting room.” Beck picked up the tray and was on his way up the stairs before Sara could protest. “I’ve laid a fire, and it’s a chilly day,” he said over his shoulder.

He built up the wood fire in his sitting room while Sara poured, then settled himself beside her on the sofa. She didn’t exactly move away, but neither did she relax against him.

“What did Polly have to say?” Beck asked when Sara passed him his teacup.

“She’s safely arrived,” Sara said, gaze on her drink. “She says there is a considerable cache of items, some of it rubbish, but most of it quite valuable. Reynard was collecting from places subsequently devastated by the Corsican’s passing or occupation.”

“Any violins?”

“She hasn’t said.”

“I’m leaving mine here.” Beck set his tea aside and reached for a knife and a muffin. “In case you get the urge.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s all?” He buttered both halves of the muffin and passed her one. “Just thank you, no protestations you’ll never play again? That your art is lost to you? No ordering me to keep the damned thing where it won’t tempt you?”

“It’s a nice instrument.” Sara took a cautious nibble. “I heard you playing it last week, and you’re good. You should keep it, but I can’t make you do anything.”

Beck wanted to smash his teacup against the far wall, because he couldn’t make her do anything either—not one damned thing.

Confide in her.

“I’m not as competent as you were,” Beck said. “I heard you play on two occasions, you know. I went the second time because I could not believe the evidence of my ears the first time.”

“You heard me?” Sara’s cup and saucer hit the table with a clatter.

“I was frequently on the Continent when you toured, Sara.” Beck risked a glance at her and found her face pale, her eyes full of dread. “Why wouldn’t I have treated myself to your performances?”

“They were ridiculous,” Sara said, her voice glacial. “Perversions of what music should be.”

“Any woman who can play the Kreutzer Sonata from memory is not ridiculous, though I agree, your costumes were not worthy of your talent. The private performance was particularly troubling in that regard.”

Sara’s chin dipped, as if she’d suffered a sudden pang in her vitals. “You attended a private performance?”

“When a woman’s playing is touted as able to restore a man’s lost virility, an ignorant young man isn’t likely to turn down his invitation. I assume they were Reynard’s idea?”

“He was always after me to take a lover,” Sara said miserably. “A wealthy, besotted lover who would shower me with trinkets and baubles. Better yet, he wanted me to have many lovers, who would compete with one another for my favors.”

Many lovers, as if the risk of disease, pregnancy, or mistreatment was of no moment. Beck set the knife he’d been holding on the table.

“Not enough for him to prostitute your art, but he must pimp your body as well. Thank heavens the man is dead, and thank heavens you withstood his selfish plans for you. Would you like another muffin?”

“Another muffin?” Sara’s tone was incredulous. “You bring up some of my worst memories and offer me a muffin?”

“You won’t accept anything else from me, Sarabande,” Beck said softly. “Would you like to know some of my worst memories? Probably not, but I will share them with you in any case, because I have lost my well-honed ability to thrive on silence.”

“Well-honed?” Sara’s tone was more bewildered than indignant, so Beck marched on, his anger for her warring with his frustration with her.

Beck poured himself more tea and gestured with the pot. “When I was a mere boy, I learned why my father was banishing Ethan, and got a stout boxing of my ears when I tried to tell him he was wrong. Not long after that, I learned my youngest sister was a by-blow, then learned the earl’s solicitors were blackmailing him over it. It seems my lot in life has been to collect secrets, Sara, and I find it a distasteful pastime.”

“My private performances weren’t a secret from you,” Sara said. “They just never came up.”

“This is true.” Beck stirred cream and sugar into his tea and sipped in an effort to calm himself. He was letting his emotions tear at his composure, and anger wasn’t what he wanted to convey to Sara. “I could not care less about those private performances, Sara, though I’m sorry you were subjected to them.”

She nodded, clearly not willing to argue with him in his present mood.

“For the love of God, Sara, when I say I do not care, I mean I do not hold it against you that you earned coin for playing half-naked before leering idiots. You should have been paid handsomely, at the least.” Beck set his teacup down very carefully, and went on in precise, dispassionate tones.

“When I first beheld you here, I had a sense of what the French call déjà vu, of having seen you before, and I had. I’d seen the Gypsy Princess perform, though it would have been almost six years ago, on my way back from Budapest by way of Vienna. My companion for that stretch of the journey insisted we take in your performance, and I, ever willing to dawdle on my homeward journeys, assented. The house was packed, all levels of society turning out to hear you.”

He stopped, pulling himself back from the memory. “Cost of admission to the private performances was exorbitant, obscene—much like your costumes.”

Sara wasn’t blushing. She looked like she wanted to clap her hands over her ears and flee the room.

“Sara, you were magnificent, your talent obvious even to my relatively undiscerning ears. Your hair had been arranged artfully, and had just as artfully come undone as you plied your instrument with wild, passionate, exotic melodies. Then, just when the entire room was roaring and clapping and pouring out its demand for more, you brought us to hushed stillness merely by holding your bow poised above the strings.”

He risked touching her, a brush of his fingers over the knuckles of her clenched hands. “The heartbreak that poured from your violin thereafter tore at me, made me nearly weep for my distant home and feel again every regret I’d ever known. I’ve since realized that for a man to overcome his regrets, he must first acknowledge them. Your performance was the first step on my journey home, Sarabande Adagio. I’ve yet to take my last.”

She gave him no reaction, but rather, sat staring at her hands like a monument to silence. Beck withdrew his hand.

“I care very much that you were alone, Sara, without the support of friends or family when you needed them. I care that you were exhausted and exploited and made to cast your pearls before swine. I care that you had responsibility for your sister thrust on you when you were least equipped to deal with it.” His voice dropped, becoming bleak. “I care that you bear the sorrow of all of this, the pain and anguish of it, and you won’t let me even hold you as you do.”

Beside him, Sara made a sound, a low, grieving sound, from deep inside, a sound Beck recognized. When she might have pitched to her feet and bolted for the door, Beck manacled her wrist and drew her back down beside him, looping an arm across her shoulders and drawing her close to his side.

Confide in her, Polly had said. Confide in her, put into her keeping all the silences and secrets and private burdens of one man’s lifetime. Beck kissed Sara’s temple for courage—or possibly in parting—and kept speaking.

“I was married, you’ll recall.” Beckman spoke quietly, as if his previous volley of verbal arrows hadn’t been launched directly at Sara’s heart. “But you do not know my wife was in love with another, a relation of some sort. She married me because her family would not approve the match with her beloved, and she’d already conceived his child. She was desperate but thought I’d tolerate a cuckoo in the nest, if it ever came to light.”

He fell silent, his lips skimming along Sara’s temple.

“She told me as she lay dying she thought she could bed me and pass the child off as mine, but when it came time for the actual intimacies, she couldn’t stop crying, and I… couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Nick happened upon her a few weeks later with her lover, having no idea my marriage was unconsummated, and confronted my wife with her responsibility toward the Bellefonte succession. In all her worry and upset, it hadn’t occurred to her that burden might fall to us, and her bastard might inherit the earldom. She tried to rid herself of the child, but ended up ridding herself and the child of life.”

“I’m sorry.” Sara voice was small, brittle with pain, but she would not leave him in the midst of this recitation—she could not.

“I was sorry too,” Beck said on a sigh. “I was sorry enough before the marriage, always trying to outdo my brothers, all unbeknownst to anybody save myself and possibly my father. After the marriage, I was even sorrier. I went from frequent heavy drinking to incessant inebriation. I bet on anything, gambled my personal fortune away and back each month, swived any willing female… I was a disgrace.”

“You’re not a disgrace now.”

“But I have a disgraceful past, Sara,” Beck reminded her gently. “Aren’t you going to hold it against me, judge me for it, cast me away for sins I’ve committed? It gets worse, you know. My father was at his wits’ end and devised one journey after another for me after Devona died. I became the Haddonfield remittance man, sent far from home and hearth lest my excesses be too great an embarrassment to my family. There was always a token task to see to, always a veneer of purpose to my travels, but I was mostly sent forth because decent families do not leave inconvenient children on hillsides anymore. Not in this civilized land of ours.”

And yet, Sara had the sense Beckman was on a hillside, a high, lonely hillside with sheer drops only a few feet away.

“But you learned so much,” Sara protested. “You couldn’t have been drunk the whole time.”

“I wasn’t. I always set sail with good intentions and usually gave a decent accounting of myself, until I was homeward bound. Then I’d fall apart, thinking of the churchyard where Devona was buried, thinking of the child she lost, thinking of how disappointed my father must have been in me.”

Another silence, this one more thoughtful.

“I was simply too weak to deal with my disappointment in myself,” Beck said. “And in my family. They owed me, you see, owed it to me to ensure I was happy at all times. Life owed me happy endings, and I owed nobody anything. One can see my expectations were bound for readjustment.”

How she hated the dry irony in his voice. “What happened?”

“I tried to kill myself.” Beck drew his hand down her arm and back up again, in a slow caress that made her shiver. “First with whiskey, then absinthe, then opium, then any and all of the above. Nick fetched me home as I was about to succeed at my goal, and left me at Clover Down to recover, then marched me down to Sussex to work in the stables of an old-fashioned estate fallen on hard times, much like this one.”

Sara felt a shudder pass through her; he likely felt it too. “You could have hung yourself from the nearest barn rafter.”

“Might have, but I’d been given responsibility for the livestock. All I had to do was get up each morning and look after the beasts, and it… soothed me. They did not know of my past, did not care. All they cared about was whether their oats appeared on schedule, and that much I could manage. I could manage to be civil to the other stable boys. I could look after a scrappy little runt pig until it no longer needed to be fed from a bottle. The pigs have ever been charitable toward prodigal sons.”

“You grew up.”

“Perhaps, or I realized I could serve some purpose if I’d sober up enough to be of use. Then too, I found in Sussex, working each day on a specific patch of land, using my own wit and will to make the place healthier was much better for me than sailing off to foreign ports to carouse with strangers. I had never been successful running from my regrets, but I found some measure of peace in rising from the same bed, day after day.”

“You needed something to care about.”

“Apparently so.” Beck nuzzled her temple. “And someone to care about, someone to love.”

She went still beside him and remained silent. In that silence, she felt her heart sinking like a stone bound for the bottom of the sea. If she had viewed a continued liaison with Beckman as difficult before, it had become impossible with his raw truths and unvarnished trust.

“I do love you, you know,” Beck went on as the ache in Sara’s chest threatened to choke her. “And I think you must love me a little, too, Sara, or you would not have given me your virginity.”

Another instant of silence as the import of his words cascaded through Sara bodily.

“God help me.” She scooted forward and again would have left the room, but Beck put his hand on her nape, not gripping, just a warm, careful weight.

“I beg you, Sara.” He took a breath, his lovely, precise voice dragging like a rasp over Sara’s soul. “I beg you, do not lie to me now. Do not lie to yourself.”

The fire hissed and crackled on the hearth, the rain pelted the windowpanes, and the wind soughed around the corner of the house. In the warmth and solitude of the cozy sitting room, Beckman fell silent, and Sara…

Gave up.

Gave up pretending it didn’t hurt so badly to be without him, didn’t devastate her to consider his leaving, didn’t leave her howling in endless inner darkness to sleep one floor and a load of regrets away from him each night.

She loved him. He’d carried her secrets for her, waited for her, and now, in the face of his relentless pursuit, she just… gave up. Gave up her loneliness, her fears, her insecurities, and her bondage to a past that had come to cost too much. She curled back against him, along his side but facing away, because she could not bear for him to look upon her eyes. She felt Beck shift to curl himself around her on the sofa, the warmth of him providing a comfort beyond words.

“A man can’t tell if a woman is chaste. I’ve been promised a man can’t know for sure,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“I couldn’t tell with my body,” Beck said, “though I suspected, but with some other sense, I knew. You were like a gift, just for me, not like a woman who’d had a child with a man she loathed.”

“Reynard assured me our affection for one another would grow after we wed, though when he whisked me off to the Continent, it soon became apparent his affection was for the coin I could bring him. Being married to him gave me a veneer of respectability, but I think he sensed that if he forced me, I would take Polly and go, regardless of the folly involved.” She hoped she would have, and hoped equally some vestige of honor had informed her late husband’s unwillingness to assert his intimate marital rights. “So you knew about Allie all along?”

“I still don’t know about Allie,” Beck countered, wrapping an arm around Sara’s waist. “I only suspect and worry and wish I could help.”

“Reynard got to Polly.” Sara heaved a sigh the dimensions of the universe. “His strategy was to divide us, divide our loyalties, so Polly would fall in with his schemes and set herself against me. She was so young, Beckman. A child, and it never occurred to me Reynard would seduce a fifteen-year-old under his protection.”

“He cannot be dead enough to suit me.”

How she loved Beckman Haddonfield. “Once Polly conceived, Reynard was of course off on his other liaisons,” Sara said. “He nearly destroyed her, nearly destroyed us both. She tried to talk herself into hating me, but when his perfidy became undeniable, she hated the child and herself and me—and him.”

“For the last, we can be thankful.”

“If that kept her alive, then yes, we can be thankful even for a hatred like that.” Sara found herself lifted bodily and settled on Beck’s lap. “She nursed her baby but couldn’t really open her heart to Allie, not as a new mother.”

“Hence the subterfuge was made easier,” Beck said. “The child was yours and legitimate, but alas, as a legitimate child, also under Reynard’s authority. He went along with the scheme to put you, Polly, and Allie more firmly under his control, and probably saw the advantages to him from the start.”

“Of course,” Sara said, burying her face against Beck’s shoulder. “I think so far as he was capable, he loved Allie, but then when we visited England, she began to draw, and her talent was obvious.”

“That must have hurt you, to see such tangible evidence of her relationship to Polly.”

“No.” Sara shifted slightly. “The art is what drew them back together. Polly matured a great deal and loves Allie every bit as much as I do. But as my child, Allie would be legitimate, as you say. As Polly’s, she’d be a scandalous indiscretion and reflect poorly on Polly and me both. I’m not sorry we did what we did—even Allie seems to understand the why of it—I am sorry Reynard exploited the situation for his own advantage.”

“It can’t have been easy.” Beck’s lips found Sara’s crown. “Raising another woman’s child while she looks on.”

“It wasn’t, particularly when that woman is your younger sister and blames you for the child’s existence, when she’s not blaming herself, then berating herself for feeling any resentment, and on and on. It was during one of our periodic feuds that Reynard suggested to Polly the various nude studies of me.”

“They are breathtaking.”

He would focus on that, and he wasn’t wrong. “What a tangled web.”

“We’ll untangle it.”

He might have been referring to enlarging Hildegard’s wallow, for the simple conviction in his tone.

“We?” Sara tried to wiggle off his lap and was gently restrained. “Beckman, I have lied to you, about myself, my daughter, my sister, my past, my marriage. You have no responsibility to me or mine. None at all.”

“You are entitled to your privacy, Sara, but I’m going to ask you a question, and would have truth from you or nothing at all.”

“Don’t do this.” Sara tried to leave him again but was again gently dissuaded. “Beckman, you aren’t thinking clearly. You aren’t considering your situation.”

Beck looked straight at her, and God help him, his every emotion was in his beautiful blue eyes. “Sarabande Adagio Hunt… I love you. I love you, and I want to marry you if you’ll have me. Do you love me?”

She reared back, surprised.

“I can live with not marrying you,” Beck went on. “I can ask you to marry me twice a day for the next fifty years, or fifty times a day for two hundred years. The only real question is do you love me? Because if you love me, there is no way on God’s green and beautiful earth that I will walk away from you. There is no foreign land I will visit, no vice I will descend into, no family project I will turn my hand to. You are my home, and I was put on this earth to love you.” He slipped his arms from around her, leaving Sara at sea and desperate to find the shore.

“Do you love me, Sarabande Adagio? Can you love me? A drunk, a fool, a man who drove one woman to take her life and that of her unborn child, a man who nearly killed himself rather than admit his family loves him and he them? Can you, do you, love that man? For he certainly loves you.”

She shook her head slowly from side to side, her face turned from him. In the patient silence, a tear fell from her jaw onto the back of her hand.

“I love your courage,” Beck said softly, lifting her hand to kiss the spot where the tear glistened in the firelight. “I love your determination, your fire, and your tremendous heart. I love your passion and the way you protect your own. I love your unbending integrity and your tender feelings, your—”

Sara pitched into him, wrenching sobs breaking from her. He encircled her in his arms while she cried for the exhausted, bewildered, mean, angry years of her marriage. She cried for herself and Allie and Polly. She cried for her brother and her parents and for the girl she’d been and never would be again.

And then she cried in relief, because she could, because Beckman Haddonfield must truly love her to hold her this way, to bear her secrets and Allie’s and Polly’s. To trust her and wait for her and trust her yet more. When she had cried herself out, she rested in his arms, absorbing the warmth and strength of him for long minutes.

Beck’s chin came to rest on her crown. “Shall I take that for a yes?”

“You may.” Sara unwadded the handkerchief she didn’t recall Beck passing to her. “But I want to say it.”

“I want to hear it. As often as you like, for the rest of my life.”

“I love you, Beckman Sylvanus Haddonfield,” Sara said, her voice hitching in the aftermath of her tears. “I love you, Beck.”

“Practice as often as you please. I love you, and I will love hearing you say it.”

“I love you.” Sara rose and extended a hand. “I love you. I will always love you. It’s a rainy afternoon, we have hours of privacy, and I love you.”

In the years to come, they often stole away for hours of privacy on rainy afternoons. Sometimes Sara would play her violin for Beck, and sometimes they’d pass hours in loving each other without words.

Other times, they’d talk, and Sara would drowse on Beck’s chest, enthralled with the music of his voice and the melodies of his hands on her naked body. Whether they loved silently or with noisy, unbridled passion, secrets never again had the power to separate them or to dim the love they shared for the rest of their lives.