Beckman: Lord of Sins

Seven

“You have mail again.” Beck’s voice startled Sara where she bent over the makings of Allie’s dress. When she straightened, her back protested the shift in position.

“Here now.” Beck stepped in behind her and settled his hands on the small of her back. “Can’t have you competing with North for least able to hobble about.” He kneaded the muscles running along her spine, and Sara gave up even pretending to ignore him.

“You shouldn’t be doing that, but you can stop five minutes from now, while I lecture you about people walking in the parlor door unannounced.”

“Who’s to walk?” Beck did not desist—she had hoped he wouldn’t. “North is flat on his back, Polly is putting together the midday meal, and Allie is sketching the filly. Not a one of them could be dissuaded from their present course by anything short of a French invasion.”

“Don’t say that, not even in jest. If you’d seen what the Corsican’s ambitions did to most of Europe, you’d know nothing associated with him is humorous.”

“I have.” Beck’s arms slipped around her waist. “I spent most of a year in Paris not long ago, and I’ve seen many other once-lovely towns and villages devastated. In the end, the man’s penchant for supporting his armies by foraging helped do him in, particularly on the Peninsula, and at what cost to the countryside?”

“Foraging?” Sara’s tone became bitter. “More like pillaging, and from the innocent people who had no notion of the glory of France or the glory of anything, save a decent meal and a roof that wouldn’t leak.”

“Those things are glorious,” Beck said, and he sounded sincere. “As is your hair.”

He sounded sincere about that too, blast and bless him.

“My hair is a disgrace,” Sara said, angling her chin to accommodate him. “Your manners are a disgrace.”

“Shall I ask?” Beck kissed her below her ear. “Sara, may I please hold you for a few moments in the middle of the day? May I remind myself how delectable you taste? May I offer you a little teasing and affection before you sit down to lunch?”

He turned her and wrapped his arms around her, but when she didn’t banter back, he let her go. “Who’s the letter from?”

“I don’t know.” Sara glanced at the missive he’d passed to her. “I don’t recognize the address. I take it you nipped into the village?”

“I did. I made it a point to tell Polly I was leaving the property. I should have told you as well, and in future, if I’m rambling beyond the estate, I will.”

This from a man who’d be leaving any day to assume a place as an earl’s heir?

“Have the twins been back to collect their pay?”

Beck’s mouth—his beautiful, tender mouth—creased with disapproval. “The twins are nowhere to be seen. I ran into a relation of mine in The Dead Boar.”

“In our village?” He was related to an earl, for pity’s sake. “Are we to have company?”

“Not at present,” he said, finding a seat on the arm of a sofa. “My brother Ethan was on his way to Portsmouth to look in on some peach seedlings he’d had shipped from Georgia. It was probably a chance encounter, as most of ours are.”

Sara studied him, catching the scent of some unresolved family difficulty. “You seem to like your family. Is this Ethan not agreeable to you, that you meet him only by happenstance?”

Beck reached for her, and she let him take her hand. “In truth, I hardly know the man. He was booted off to boarding school under a cloud of drama when I was nine, and never did come back to Belle Maison. My father’s situation may be inspiring some sort of rapprochement between Ethan and the earl, but at the very least it was good to have a cordial exchange with my brother.”

Beck referred to the earl’s illness as a situation, and even that passing mention dimmed the light in his blue eyes.

“Only cordial?” Sara brushed her free hand over Beck’s hair. “I would hate to be only cordial with Polly. Loathe it, in fact.”

“Cordial is better than civil.” Beck turned his face so his cheek rested against her palm. “But then, Ethan has his reasons for keeping his distance, and they’re reasons I can understand. Sometimes I want to shake my father, so stubborn is he in his convictions.”

“Fathers can be like that.” Sara moved a step closer of her own accord, and without leaving his perch on the arm of the sofa, Beck again tucked her against him.

Beckman Haddonfield was an affectionate man. This posed a greater threat to Sara’s self-possession than the fact that he was also a lusty, handsome man. “Your papa is a despot?”

“A loving despot.” Beck’s hand stroked over Sara’s hair, a sweet, tender gesture with nothing carnal about it.

“Mine is too, or he was. I haven’t seen him for years, and we don’t correspond.”

“You should,” Beck said, rising and wrapping his arms around her. “For Allie’s sake, if nothing else, you should make the overtures, Sara.”

“And if the overtures are rejected?” And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? With Beck’s arms around her, she could admit that much to herself.

“You can make them again another day, or at least know you tried. I’ve been astounded at what can be forgiven between human beings, and how completely. My parents would argue vociferously at midday only to be billing and cooing over supper.”

“Your parents loved each other, I suppose?”

“They did. Even when you love somebody, you can lose track of them, as we’ve lost track of Ethan, and he of us—and all over a misunderstanding.”

“All families have misunderstandings and secrets.” Sara moved away, and again, Beck let her go. He’d always let her go, and that was also something she valued in him even as it occasioned some sadness.

When his father died, she was going to have to let him go too, wasn’t she?

“Is Allie a secret?” He posed the question softly, the understanding in his gaze more than Sara’s limited store of composure could look upon.

“My parents haven’t met her,” she conceded. “They know I have a daughter.”

“What happened, Sara? I trust they approved of your marriage. You were underage, and you haven’t mentioned eloping. Polly had to be even younger, and yet your parents entrusted her to Reynard’s care as well, even to the point of letting her travel with you on the Continent.”

“They approved my marriage, and they did send Polly with us when Reynard and I departed on tour. Polly was to receive instruction from the Continental masters, according to Reynard. Things did not go as my parents planned, though, and by law and custom, my husband’s dictates prevented their welcoming me back home.”

Dictates. Beck wouldn’t like her word choice, but it was legally accurate.

“Your husband no longer has dictates,” Beck pointed out gently. “Do as you will, Sara. Your parents love you, and they’ve had time to reconsider their positions.”

“How do you know they loved us?” Sara posed the question idly, but it had gnarled roots wrapping around both present and past.

“Because of how you and Polly are with Allie. She knows she’s loved, and you can’t give away a love you’ve never experienced yourself. If you allow this, this silence to remain between you and your family, it can grow. Like a pernicious weed, it will grow without sunlight or water, without marling, until it chokes out the love you still bear each other.”

He used an agricultural image to make an effective point, and the stillness in his gaze suggested he knew of what he spoke.

Sara looked away rather than ask him what besides the loss of a wife illuminated the sadness in his eyes. “Our parents loved us, but not as they loved Gavin. Still, it’s in the past, and if you and I tarry here much longer, Polly will be reduced to ringing the kitchen bell. It will go hard for us if she does, though Allie might be forgiven her artistic absorption.”

He looked at her for one more instant, long enough for Sara to understand that he was allowing her to close the topic, just as she allowed him to hold her.

He looped an arm over her shoulders when she would have marched for the door. “If you’re ever ready to talk, Sara, I’m always ready to listen. My own family isn’t a study in uniform happiness, or good choices and tender sentiments. We don’t always trust each other or take the kindest option among ourselves. It can’t be that different from your family.”

“I suppose not.” Sara pressed her face to his shoulder, a moment of weakness—yet another moment of weakness. She had the surprising thought that when Beckman reached for her, those might be his moments of weakness. As she went on speaking, she addressed the solid musculature of his shoulder.

“When there’s a title, one expects a larger-than-life existence—an earl might have an illegitimate son, his countess a little affair, his firstborn be estranged. My father was a lowly squire who enjoyed scribbling the occasional composition for the choir at St. Albans, my mother a vicar’s daughter who made a solid, comfortable match. Our story should have been prosaic.”

She slid out from under Beck’s arm, having given up enough of the difficult tale that was her old life. Her existence at Three Springs was prosaic in the extreme, tiresomely so, and yet, she could not say it was exactly comfortable.

“Polly and North haven’t come in yet?”

“You are not to fret, Sarabande Adagio,” Beck said, flipping the last muffin out of its pan. “I can assure you, North is in no condition to threaten anybody’s virtue. He’s still moving like an eighty-year-old veteran of the Colonial wars. If he asked Polly to introduce him to the new foal, then that’s exactly what’s afoot.”

More or less. A man did not need a supple back to kiss the woman he loved.

Sara stood, arms crossed, watching him arrange muffins on a rack to cool. “It will take him a few days to come right. A trip or three to the springs wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I’ll suggest it to him tomorrow, as it’s the Sabbath, and he’s not up to any work anyway.” Beck fetched a pat of butter from the window box. “Join me?”

“For a few minutes.” Sara preceded him to the table. “And yes, I will have a muffin as well, just so your feelings won’t be hurt.”

“Such a considerate lady.” Beck put the butter on a tea tray with three muffins and brought it to the table. “And while we enjoy my baking, there are things I want to discuss with you.”

“This sounds ominous.” Sara sugared her tea, half a teaspoon then a second half teaspoon.

“Not serious, but needful. First, you should know I rounded up some help today from Sutcliffe Manor for the harrowing and planting, so Polly might have some extra cooking to do at midday come the first of the week.”

“Is this why you added some stores from the Saturday market?” She dabbed a little butter on her muffin, then a little more.

“In part. You should also know I made the acquaintance of Mrs. Grantham, the Sutcliffe housekeeper, who might well be calling on you and Polly.”

Sara closed her eyes and inhaled a whiff of her muffin, looking like some decadent kitchen angel. “Susan Grantham? Tallish, blonde, and goes about with a not-to-be-trifled-with look?”

Beck did not snort at that observation. “I would have said it’s a housekeeperish look, but yes. She’s isolated at Sutcliffe. The roads between there and here are miserable, and I gather she doesn’t have a riding mount. I will notify the property owner of the oversight, but if it holds fair tomorrow, she might be over with the farm help.”

“I’ll let Polly know.” Sara took a sip of her tea. “Allie will be excited.”

“Planting is an exciting time, or it should be. But when the planting is done, Sara, we’ll need to make a trip into Portsmouth, and I will want your company for that excursion.”

She paused in dabbing yet more butter on her muffin. “My company? Why not Mr. North’s?”

“For one thing, I don’t think hours on a wagon will appeal to his abused back,” Beck said, for which Beck really ought not to be so grateful. “For another, I would rather he and I are not both gone from the property overnight.”

“Beckman, we manage here by ourselves often enough.”

“You shouldn’t have to. Besides, North has no idea which tea towels will go with what’s on hand, how many lamp chimneys need to be replaced, or whether we’re lower on lamp black or boot polish. I can speak for the needs of the land and the buildings, but you are the one who must address the needs of the house.”

“We’d have to spend the night.”

The very point of the outing, since goods could be ordered by mail and hauled overland if a man preferred to spend his coin that way.

Which Beck did not. He appropriated the butter knife from her and doctored his own muffin with a generous dollop of butter. “I know of several very reputable and discreet inns in Portsmouth, Sara.” Beck held his muffin up to her lips. “And honestly, the prospect of having you to myself, away from the rest of the household, appeals greatly.”

She nibbled a bite off, peering at him curiously while she chewed. “Are you offering to go shopping with me?”

Lest she attribute to him saintliness beyond his aspirations, Beck replied honestly. “I suppose I am, among other things.” He topped up their teacups and bit into his muffin from the same spot she’d nibbled. “But I’m warning you, Sara, when we’re in Portsmouth, I expect to spend a great deal of money, and some of that on you and yours.”

“Don’t say that. You need not spend a ha’penny on us, Beckman, particularly not on me.”

“I mean you no insult.”

“I did not mean to imply…” She covered his hand with hers for the duration of one quick, warm squeeze, which was something—a small bite of a tasty muffin. “Don’t be offended, I’m just… not used to generosity. My parents were frugal, and with Reynard, we rarely left town but that the creditors were nipping at our heels. It was no way to live.”

She was coming to Portsmouth with him. He could afford to be not just generous but gracious. “How exactly did he support his family?”

“He purported to be a gentleman, one of the many exponents of the dispossessed French aristocracy—a comte who did not use his title, of course.”

“I’m sorry. I know what it is to be disappointed in a spouse, but my wife wasn’t particularly evil, she was just a victim of circumstances.”

“As are we all.” She worried a thumbnail then stopped herself.

“Will you come to Portsmouth with me?”

She knew what he was asking and what he was offering. She’d all but accepted, but he wanted to hear the words from her.

“After planting, we really must tend to the shopping, Beckman, and if I go with you, I don’t want to tarry. I’ve not been away from Allie for a night before, and I don’t want her to fret.”

Maternal fretting he could understand—up to a point.

“Polly and North will look after her, and you have a couple of weeks to accustom her to the idea.”

Sara nodded but took to staring at her tea as Beck passed her another half of a muffin slathered with butter, holding it out to her and waiting for her to take it from his hand.

“Sara?”

Her chin came up, as if prepared for confrontation.

“I will not force my attentions on you,” Beck said. “Not ever. Going to Portsmouth, sharing a muffin, even sharing a kiss, does not obligate you to anything more.”

She took the muffin.

He did not smile, but the moment was sweet. “I’ll arrange for our trip in a couple of weeks, and you and Polly should finish up your shopping lists. I already have Allie’s.”

As a change of topic, as a distraction, that apparently served well enough. “Allie made a list?”

“I asked her to, and, Sara, there is not one damned thing on that list for the girl herself. She wants me to get you some dress fabric and two new bonnets, the same for Polly. She says North needs a new set of farrier’s tools and two new shirts, as well as winter stockings. For Hermione, she wants harness bells, and for Hildegard, she wants one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. She claims the pig ate such a book last year then had thirteen piglets.”

“Even North laughed when Polly pointed that out.” Sara smiled in remembrance.

“As did Mr. Hildegard, no doubt.” Beck smiled as well, glad for the lighter mood. “You have to believe you’re doing very well with Allie, Sara, and I would like to buy her some paints and books on art when we’re in Portsmouth.”

Sara’s smiled faded into a staring contest with her last bite of muffin. “Is it important to you?”

“I think it’s important to her,” Beck countered. “If something important to her is denied by her elders, it will eventually foster rebellion in the child. I don’t gather any of the Hunt womenfolk are possessed of malleable spirits, and talent like Allie’s isn’t simply going to fade.”

“We’re not weak spirited,” Sara agreed, reluctantly. “We haven’t had that luxury, in any case. Just don’t…”

“Don’t what?”

“I don’t want Allie’s art to consume her, to sweep away her common sense and put her in the path of licentious, profligate dilettantes who think a little art excuses a lot of immorality.”

He didn’t ask—Is this what befell you and Polly?—but he would ask, eventually.

“Forgive me.” Sara rose and picked up the tea tray. “Again, I blunder onto difficult subjects, and it’s growing late. My thanks for the muffin, and I will look forward to seeing Mrs. Grantham on Monday.”

“I’ll walk you to your door, unless you want me to casually tuck Hildy in and shoo your sister back to your worried arms first?”

“That won’t be necessary. I’d like to send Hildy to go shoo my sister inside, because Hildy is a very conscientious and forceful parent. Polly is an adult, though, and Gabriel is a gentleman, but he’s going to leave, isn’t he?”

“Why do you say that?” When she set the tray down, he slipped his arm around her and began walking her toward her apartment.

“Because for two years Gabriel has hidden his regard for Polly from all, including himself sometimes. He arranged to spend time with her tonight, privately, and at some length. I can’t imagine him permitting himself such a liberty except in parting.”

“If he is leaving,” Beck said as they reached her door, “I am sure he has been absolutely honest with Polly about his plans, Sara. Maybe she can permit herself to acknowledge their feelings only for the same reason.” He knew far too well the emotional dynamics of leave-taking. Beck wrapped his arms around Sara, held her for a moment before kissing her on the mouth and stepping back. “Sweet dreams, Sarabande. I’ll see you in mine.”

“Good night, Beckman.” She rose on her toes and brushed her lips across his. “I’ll dream of shopping with you in Portsmouth.”

In the kitchen, Beck poured himself another cup of tea and wondered if he would wait up for Polly—or North—had Sara not expressed concern. He appropriated pen, ink, and paper from the library and started on a list of his own. A good hour later, he heard Polly’s voice in the back hall, followed by the less distinct rumble of North’s baritone.

About damned time.

North ambled into the kitchen, clearly having sent Polly to her bed. “You’re still awake?”

“Making my list.” Beck pushed the teapot toward North. “How’s your back?”

“Aching.” North lowered himself to a chair—slowly, slowly. “Thank God it’s merely aching, not cursing and making me wish I were dead.”

Beck put his pen down and considered his companion. North’s saturnine features held the usual complement of banked suffering. “Does it really hurt so much?”

“The physical pain is only part of it.” North stirred a little sugar into his tea, sipped, then added cream. “I know that’s likely temporary, and can cope with it. The indignity, however, remains intolerable even as it becomes mere memory rather than fact. But I suppose your golden life has not taught you this, yet anyway.”

Beck took off his glasses and waited until North was done stirring his damned tea.

“My brother had to carry me, bodily, covered in my own filth, from an opium den in Paris, and I fought him to my last breath to be left where I was. I cannot recall a great deal about months of self-indulgence in the same spot, but I can recall clearly the look on Nick’s face when he realized which bag of noisome bones was what was left of his little brother.”

North picked up Beck’s glasses and started polishing them on his handkerchief. “One would find that a tenacious memory.”

“He cried,” Beck said. “They weren’t tears of disgust or rage, though they should have been. They were tears of relief, because I was still alive.”

“Beckman…” Some of North’s characteristic gruffness slid away. “It isn’t that I’m ungrateful… I had last rites in Spain, you know, twice. It’s just I’ve made a muddle of things, and one grows… weary of one’s situation.”

“So you hare off,” Beck finished for him, knowing exactly the terrain North called home turf. “You leave, and you hope the change of scenery or people or horses or whatever helps, and it doesn’t.”

“We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?” North poured more tea for them both.

Beck waited while North appropriated the cream and sugar. “Sara worries about Polly and Allie, but I worry about you.”

“You needn’t.” North rose very slowly with his teacup. “I’m fully breeched, and I’ve made my bed, Haddonfield. One copes.”

Beck slid his chair back to look up at North. “Tomorrow one is going to cope by making a visit to the springs, and in the light of day, before the temperature drops back down to nippy, North.”

“Not a bad idea.” North sipped his tea and aimed a look at Beck. “Did you mean to kill yourself in that opium den?”

“I thought I did. I’d tried running and drinking and stupid risks and all manner of idiot means to deal with the low cards I’d found in the hand life dealt me, but I also made halfway sure Nick knew where to find me, and eventually, he did. Part of me just wanted to know somebody would try.”

North set his mug on the counter. “When I leave, you needn’t engage in such heroics, Haddonfield. I have a trade, and some means, and will land on my feet. But as for you…” He turned to go. “I’m glad this brother of yours found you in time.”

He left before Beck could reply, while Beck hoped wholeheartedly that there was a brother out there looking for North.