Beckman: Lord of Sins

Eight

“North is leaving.”

The studied calm in Polly’s voice didn’t fool Sara for an instant. She put aside the pinafore she was mending, and put aside the urge to give Gabriel North a stern talking to as well.

“Why now?”

Polly sank into her rocking chair and sat still. “He says he must, that it’s a family matter, and that Three Springs will come around in Beckman’s care. I’m not to worry.”

So much had been taken from Polly, it seemed wrong that North should try to deprive her of her justifiable concern too. “He didn’t ask you to go with him?”

Polly shook her head once, a gesture of defeat and heartache.

“What will you miss the most?” If Sara didn’t ask, then Polly would bottle all the misery up inside, making extravagant desserts out of it, and subtly spiced dishes fit for the Regent’s pavilion in Brighton.

The kitchen would be spotless—more spotless—and there wouldn’t be a weed within ten yards of the spice garden.

“I’ll miss his voice. I love Gabriel’s voice. I love the way he cleans his plate at every single meal. I’ll miss the way he talks to Hildegard as if she really were some society dowager. I’ll miss the way he and Heifer commiserate without a word.”

Polly turned her face away, as if the darkness beyond the window held some consolation.

“When Beckman goes,” Sara said, “I’ll miss his scent.”

Polly glanced at her. “Bergamot and some other notes. It’s… soothing.”

“I’ll miss the way he puts his hands on me, like I’m precious but not fragile—even if he’s walking with me in the garden, he handles me confidently. I adore that.”

Polly’s lips quirked up in a sad smile, and both sisters spoke in unison.

“Men.”

Monday arrived, bright, mild, and more May than April, much to Beck’s relief. He’d marched North to the springs the previous day, and the soak had done them both good, but North was still in no shape to man a team of draft horses.

A half-dozen men showed up from Sutcliffe Manor, five of them in a farm wagon and one driving a dray, a willowy blonde on the bench beside him.

“Mrs. Grantham.” Beck assisted her to the ground. “I’m pleased you could call. The Hunt womenfolk are much in need of company. I’ll show you to the house while North gets the men sorted out.”

Beck had escorted his guest to the front door, an entrance he hadn’t used since arriving at Three Springs weeks ago. The front approach, he realized, was neglected. Weeds cropped up through the crushed shells in the driveway, bushes sprouted willy-nilly much in need of pruning, and flower boxes sported nothing so much as robust… weeds.

When he introduced Mrs. Grantham to Sara and Polly, it took about two minutes to realize he was de trop. The ladies launched into an intense discussion of the best layout for a spice garden, so he returned to the barnyard. North had a harrow hitched up behind one of the Sutcliffe teams and the second team standing in the traces waiting for its harrow to be secured.

Beck sidled up to North. “It’s killing you, isn’t it? To send others out to do the heavy work?”

“Not killing me, exactly. I’m just used to doing it, is all.”

“Mrs. Grantham says you were born to give the orders, not take them.” Beck patted the leader of the second team.

“Susan Grantham is one to talk. This team is ready to go.”

Beck stepped back, and the second harrow scraped and dragged its way out of the yard. The next task was loading some barley and spring-wheat seed into bushel baskets, so it could be sown broadcast in portions of the field not congenial to the seed drill Beck had borrowed from Sutcliffe.

The third and final harrow, owned by Three Springs, was hitched up behind a team Beck had brought down from Belle Maison, and one of the rangy, muscular Sutcliffe plowmen took up the reins.

“Mind the ladies bring us some nuncheon,” the fellow cautioned. He signaled the horses to move out, and soon another piece of heavy equipment was bumping and dragging its way toward the field.

Only to come to an abrupt halt before even gaining the farm lane.

“What’s amiss?” Beck hustled over amid the plowman’s cursing; North followed more slowly.

The plowman hopped around, shaking one heavily booted foot. “The bedamned, blighted harrow is come undone.” He wrapped the reins, fanned himself with his battered hat, and pointed at the harrow. “If we’d been in the field, this would have taken m’foot clean off.”

“The bolts are loose,” North growled, squatting carefully beside the heavy iron frame. “Those two sheared just now, and the rest are likely to at the next bump or rock. God above, I should have checked this over. I should have seen this.”

“Good thing yon beasts is well trained,” the plowman said. “If they weren’t so quick to mind, they would have pulled me along, regardless.”

Beck knelt to examine the problem. “Can it be repaired?”

“It will be a damned pain in the ass.” North rose stiffly. “We’ll have to get the parts in to the blacksmith and hope he has the means to weld and bolt on hand, then get the whole business back here somehow.”

“It can wait,” Beck said. “We’ve two in the field, which is twice what we had on hand, and Sutcliffe can spare the help.”

North gave a terse nod but gestured with his chin to indicate they needed some privacy.

“Is your foot all right?” Beck asked the plowman.

“Right enough. It got a good stubbing, but no real harm, thank the good Lord.”

“Unhitch the team, and you can assist with the seeding,” Beck said. “We’ll switch teams at midday to rest the horses.”

“Right, guv.” The man moved to the horse’s bridles, pitching his voice to the horses as he did. Beck accompanied North to the side of the barn and waited, because clearly, North had something to say.

“I did check that equipment,” North began in a low, angry rumble. “I work largely alone here, and I don’t relish the thought of bleeding to death trapped beneath a faulty piece of equipment. I checked that thing over before I put it up last spring, and I checked every piece of equipment on the property as part of the winter inventory. I checked it again when we finished plowing.”

“What are you saying, North?”

“Somebody broke our damned harrow. It’s the only one on the property still functional, and the repair will take at least two weeks. Even if you went to Portsmouth for a replacement, by the time you got one here, you would have lost several weeks of spring growing.”

“I believe you, North, but who would have had access to the harrow?”

“Any damned body in the neighborhood. The hinges on the sheds and barns are so rusty a determined old woman could get into any building on the premises.”

“Or she could just peel off the rotten shingles and drop down from the leaky roof. Who would be motivated to do such a thing?”

“Anybody who wants to buy the place,” North said. “Anybody with a grudge against me, Lady Warne, or the Hunts.”

Beck eyed the steward thoughtfully, because this was the first time he’d seen Gabriel North truly upset. “Are those lists long?”

North glared back at him. “How the hell should I know? I have no enemies here that I know of, but perhaps you have an enemy. Three Springs has been rotting on the vine for years, but malicious mischief passed us by until you showed up.”

“True enough.”

“Hell and the devil, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, it’s just… who would think it amusing to take off a man’s foot?”

“I don’t know. We’re going to have to have a frank talk with the women, and with Allie in particular, North. If there are vandals on the property, that child cannot be scampering around unsupervised.”

“Holy Infant Jesus.” North closed his eyes and marshaled his temper with visible effort. “Polly and Sara don’t need this, but it makes the prospect of hiring help more urgent.”

“I thought we’d start with your friend Lolly. Maudie is a maid of all work, but there’s enough for her to do just in the scullery. Three Springs could use another maid, and those boys of hers could be put to use all over the property.”

“They eat a lot,” North said. “Polly will like that.”

“We need some men, though, and good labor is in short supply.”

“Will Sutcliffe let you keep some of his for a time?”

“I suppose. We have walls to mend, roofs to repair, hay to take off soon, more sheep to shear and dip, and God knows what else.”

“My back is protesting the mere recitation. You’re right. There’s plenty enough work, if you’ve the coin to hire the labor.”

“Three Springs has the coin,” Beck clarified. “If Sutcliffe turns us down, we have other options.”

“Such as?”

“Portsmouth, if not in the village. I meant to tell you last night I’ve secured Sara’s agreement to accompany me there on a shopping expedition when the planting is done.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to leave the property with this going on?” North gestured toward the broken harrow.

“If everything stays quiet for the next week or so, then yes. We need more than the village can supply, North. Shingles, hinges, locks, lumber, nails, paint, you name it, if it goes into the building or maintenance of a structure, we need it.”

“Suppose we do. The ladies are looking forward to putting the house to rights, too.”

Beck sent a wary glance toward the house. “One shudders to think of disappointing them. Which reminds me, we need a gardener as well.”

“Can’t you buy one of those in Portsmouth?”

“I intend to try, preferably a very fit, muscular specimen who has a way with a rose bush and a blunderbuss.”

“My thoughts exactly, and I hate to say it, but a footman or two wouldn’t go amiss.”

“I’ll write to my sister at Belle Maison and send word to Nick. They’ll likely have a few stout fellows to spare, at least for the summer.”

“I’d write to Lady Warne,” North said. “This is her damned property, and lady or not, it’s her interests that will be affected if we can’t get a crop in.”

Interesting that Beck turned to his siblings for help, while North pointed out the more appropriate choice. “We’ll get a crop planted. One piece of broken equipment won’t stop a Haddonfield from his assigned task.”

As the week progressed, the weather held, and they did get the crops in. Through correspondence with Baron Sutcliffe, Beck gained permission to offer employment to two of his farm hands, both stout, reliable fellows. Lolly and her two adolescent omnivores were recruited from the village, and letters went out to Belle Maison, Nick’s London townhouse, and Lady Warne’s residence.

While Polly reveled in the need to keep more mouths fed, Beck set Sara to taking the gardens, lane, and porches in hand. Lolly’s sons were put to use as undergardeners, pulling weeds, rebuilding flower boxes, and putting in a huge kitchen garden in the field closest to the barns. With her mother’s help, Allie proved surprisingly willing to tear into the challenge of setting the front beds and main approach to the house to rights. She divided irises and daffodils, pruned roses, moved daylilies and daisies and heaven only knew what according to some design she carried in her busy head.

Sara had been mindful of the need to keep Allie close to the house, leaving Beck a little concerned when he didn’t see the child puttering away in the front gardens on Friday afternoon. It wasn’t sums day or wash day, and for most of the morning, Allie had been planting her posies in the flower boxes on the side terraces.

She wasn’t in the lower reaches of the house, so Beck made his way to the third floor, finding Allie in her studio of choice, much to his relief.

Beck ambled into the room, knowing Allie when sketching was an absorbed young lady indeed. “I had wondered where you’d gotten off to.”

“I’m hiding from those odious boys.” Allie’s tongue peeked out the side of her mouth.

Beck lowered himself to sit on the day bed beside her. “They might be odious, but they plant an impressive kitchen garden.”

And they made for good sketching subjects, Beck saw. Just as she’d done anatomical studies of the filly—Miss Amicus, by name—Allie was visually taking apart Lolly’s sons, piece by piece. The odd quality of the adolescent male wrist was drawn from many angles and positions. Unruly boyish hair stood up in a dozen different inelegant coiffures; strangely graceful, young male hands grasped this or that tool, or flattened Heifer’s disgruntled ears in a thumping pat to the cat’s head.

“I could plant the kitchen garden,” Allie said, putting the finishing touches on an image of a long, dirty boy-foot toe-scratching at a skinny boy-calf.

“But then you’d still be outside, hands muddy, covering up potato sprouts or pulling weeds,” Beck pointed out. “Not honing your craft.”

“Mama says it’s a hobby,” Allie countered, considering her final effort. “But is it a hobby if it’s something you simply must do?”

“I don’t know.” Beck chose his words carefully. “My brother must build a birdhouse every so often, but he would say it’s a hobby.”

Allie considered the boy-foot. “He’d say it’s a hobby because he’s a man and all grown up, and a gentleman cannot work with his hands in any case. I am not a gentleman.”

Beck flicked her nose with the end of one of her braids. “For which we are all very grateful.”

Allie didn’t dimple and giggle as Beck had intended. “If I were a boy, I’d be getting art lessons again, and there would be talk of apprenticing me.”

“You really love to paint and draw, don’t you?” Beck asked, eyeing her work.

“More than anything. Mama says I get lost when I do, but I feel like it’s when I get found. It isn’t that I forget time or where I am, it’s that I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

Beck slid a large hand down Allie’s back, feeling the sharp little bones of her shoulder blades. “Sometimes, princess, you have to allow for people not understanding you, even though they love you and you love them.”

Sometimes, you have to let them send you away, because they love you and you love them. Beck thought of his father, his brothers, his sisters…

“You mean like Mama?” Allie tucked herself a little closer to him. “That’s the thing, though. She does understand, not about painting, but about art. She used to play for people, for important people, and they would pay her money, make her do three encores and everything. Now she doesn’t play, and she forgets. I think it’s my fault.”

“Why would you say that?” Such little bones to carry so much responsibility.

“Because when you’re a mama, you can’t forget the time or the day,” Allie explained patiently. “When you’re a mama, you have to always be… where a mama should be. That sort of thing. Making beds instead of making music.”

“Have you ever asked your mother to play for you?” Beck wondered, as the question left his mouth, if he were fomenting treason.

“I don’t.” Allie set her sketch aside. “I think it would hurt her feelings to remember, and she’s afraid she’ll forget about the beds, and then where would we be?”

“Here’s where you are.” Beck searched for a way to convey his thoughts safely. “You and your mother love each other, and you want each other to be happy. The beds have to be made, but it might be possible you have to paint too, Allie. Your mother is a very smart lady, and if she needs to get her violin out of its case, trust her to know that.”

Allie kicked at the bed idly. “She can’t play her violin. She sold it, but she buys me paints.”

“Maybe she sold it because she was done with it.”

Allie didn’t say anything but leaned in against Beck silently, reminding him of many such gestures and conversations with his younger sisters. Whoever thought little girls were full of simple impulses and silly dreams had never spent time listening to one.

“I enjoy your art, Allie,” Beck said. “I think your mother does too, but what will count in the end is if you enjoy it.”

“Maybe.” Allie shifted away, and Beck let her go. “She likes what I do, but it bothers her too—like I do.”

Beck drew her back for a growling hug. “It is the job of mothers to be bothered by their offspring. Now go see if your mama needs help. She’s unpacking the crates my sister sent down from Belle Maison, and I suspect Nita might have tucked in some maple candy, for we raise both bees and sugar maples.”

“Maple candy?”

“Go.” Beck closed her sketch book and handed it to her. “And don’t stop sketching, Allie, not as long as it makes you happy.”

She grinned and nodded, casting off her pensive mood in the fashion of young children. And then she was gone, leaving Beck to ponder what had changed in Sarabande Hunt’s life that she’d traded in her violin for wrinkled sheets and dirty andirons?

Appraisers apparently considered it their purpose in life to state the obvious, repeatedly and emphatically, as Henri Bernard was doing now.

“They’re unconventional, very unconventional, but the brush work is…”

Extraordinary, Tremaine thought, wanting to kick something—or someone.

“Mr. St. Michael, I tell you the brush work is nothing short of extraordinary. Absolutely, utterly extraordinary. And the use of light—the mastery of it—beyond extraordinary. Words fail, they simply fail. Have you more works by the same artist?”

He had a good dozen more, larger and just as well executed, the subjects conventional enough for a dowager duchess’s drawing room—provided her grace had exquisite taste in paintings.

“Let’s start with these three. I need a value on them.” Which was the same point Tremaine had made nearly forty-five absolutely, utterly, extraordinary minutes ago.

Bernard stuffed a quizzing glass in his pocket and straightened. “Are they to be sold at private auction? An auction for gentlemen, perhaps? Christie’s will do an excellent job, and there are smaller houses, too, that I can highly recommend.”

Because each of those auction houses would pay the dapper, so-French Monsieur Bernard a healthy commission for bringing these works to the block.

“I’m considering my options,” Tremaine said. “The first step is to determine a value for them.”

“That will take some time, sir. I must correspond with colleagues on the Continent, research sales of paintings of a similar nature.”

Damn the French and their confounded, mule-stubborn delicacy.

“How long will you need,” Tremaine asked, “and how much will it cost me?”

Beckman set an idle pace across the yard. “My money’s on young Cane.”

“Your money?” Sara liked that he’d escort her like this on a simple trip to the pond, and liked even better the way his hand rested over hers on his arm.

“In the great sweepstakes to win Maudie’s heart,” Beck went on. “She spends more time goggling at the scenery than she does helping Polly. We’ll have to get two scullery maids, one to serve and one to stand as lookout. They can take turns.”

“Cane is a handsome boy, but he’s only fifteen. My guess is Maudie is more impressed with the older fellows. Angus is too old, but Jeffrey has a nice smile.”

“Jeffrey’s too old for Maudie too. If I find him walking out with her, I’ll have to say something.” Beckman sounded very stern over this business of calf love among the infantry.

“Maudie will be sixteen this summer. She’s plenty old enough to marry, and if her parents don’t object, you haven’t anything to say to anyone.”

“God’s hoary eyebrows.” Beck’s idle pace slowed further. “Maudie doesn’t seem that much older than Allie.”

“Because she isn’t.” Which was an alarming notion every time Sara came upon it. “Allie will have some height on her soon.”

“Allie will always be your little girl.” Beck brought Sara’s knuckles to his lips for a kiss, then replaced her hand on his arm. “She worries about you.”

“Me?” Sara stopped and peered at him. “Why would Allie worry about her own mother?”

“She thinks you’ve forgotten your music,” Beck said, his tone so very casual. “She’s worried raising her has cost you your art.”

“My art.” Sara snorted derisively. Of all the causes for worry, this one did not signify. “I might, once upon a time, have aspired to the title of musician, but by the time I put away my instrument, I was a fiddling strumpet.”

“I have a certain fondness for strumpets.” Beck’s tone was mild. “I gather you mean the term as a pejorative.”

“I most assuredly do, and my so-called husband was my procurer,” Sara replied flatly. “When I met him, I had a little talent, a lot of dedication, and a confirmed love for music. Within two years, my technique had slipped badly, I wasn’t fit for solo repertoire anymore, and I was so tired of performing the programs he chose that I was tempted to smash my hand just to put a stop to it.”

And that was describing the situation in euphemisms.

“But you didn’t.”

“Within two years,” Sara’s tone softened, “there was Allie. I didn’t dare stop playing. We had bills, and the child deserved to eat.”

“Why had your technique slipped?”

Brave man to ask such a thing. “It might seem to a nonmusician that frittering the day away spinning melodies is the next thing to idleness, but it isn’t,” Sara explained. “Not physically, as one stands to play the violin properly, and that requires strength of the entire body, but especially the arms, back, and torso. And mentally, if you are going to improve, you must attend what you create, and attend it closely. With Reynard controlling my schedule, I simply became too tired to practice and to perform day in and day out.”

Because she had her hand on his arm, Sara could feel the tension her recitation provoked in the man beside her.

“How old would you have been?”

She needed to change the subject, but Beckman would only come back around from a different angle of inquiry. “I was seventeen when we left England. I was a girl, with stars in my eyes, ready to love the world, my husband, and my music. I was determined to do my brother’s memory proud, because I was going to play better than I ever had, and everybody would love me for it.”

“But instead…?”

The memories rose up, mean, heavy, and miserable. “One ratty inn after another, one leaking tenement after another. I’d try to stay up practicing after performances while Reynard went out ‘seeking patrons,’ as he put it. We were supposedly on our way to his family’s chateau, there to put Polly in the tutelage of an old master. One city led to another, and another, as I was transformed from a relatively decent, if young violinist, into the Gypsy Princess, a hack sawing away in vulgar costumes, barefoot, and made up to look like a cross between a ghost and a streetwalker.”

The memory was so worn and tattered, to speak of it should barely hurt. To discuss it with Beckman made Sara sad, though, made her wistful and tired.

If she’d had her violin, she’d be playing Beethoven slow movements. As it was, she had Beckman’s escort and a spring evening with more promise than many other nights had held—though it was temporary promise.

Let that be enough. Let some other younger, more innocent woman have the Beethoven. Sara no longer deserved it.

Beck strolled along beside Lady Warne’s housekeeper, shock silently coursing through him.

“So how did you stop playing?” He was surprised to hear his voice sounding so steady.

“I just… stopped,” Sara said. “When I was young, Reynard was my business manager—also my husband—and deserving of my loyalty on that basis alone. Then, as we toured, I was too scared, too innocent, too blasted ignorant to be able to get along without him. He began to take for granted I would do his bidding and eased his grip on me. He drank more, he gambled more, he was less and less discerning regarding his liaisons, and I grew less and less intimidated by him. I took over the finances, dealt with the various house managers, began to schedule my own performances, and so forth. When I had enough put by to afford it, I told him we were purchasing a modest property in Italy and finding a teacher for Polly.”

“But he became ill.”

“He was always ill, ill in his spirit, but yes, he became ill in body as well, but not before he’d gambled us right back into enormous debts.”

“Did you consider touring again?”

“I did, only briefly. A woman at seventeen is a very different resource from a woman at twenty-five, and I’d already robbed Polly of her most marriageable years, exposed her to all manner of wickedness and unsettled living. I wanted better for my daughter, and anything seemed better than facing another drunken, roaring, leering mob who excused their rudeness in the name of appreciation for art.”

She wasn’t wrong in her assessment, and that made Beck hurt for her all the more.

“So you’ve been retired now for, what—several years?” They’d come to the pond but not to the end of their discussion.

Sara smiled sadly. “I’ve been a housekeeper for several years.”

“Don’t you miss it?” Beck seated her on the bench near the edge of the water. “Don’t you miss the excitement, the adulation?”

“The stinking, yelling… No. As a musician under those circumstances, one has to learn to hold back, to not feel, or one… perishes, and not feeling takes great effort.”

He settled beside her, knowing there was more and worse to the tale but unwilling to dig for it. Not feeling did indeed take great effort, or dedication to some form of poison, to achieve.

“You’re happy, then, as housekeeper at Three Springs?”

“Happy is a luxury few can afford,” she said as Beck settled his coat around her. “I am content.”

“Your husband.” Beck took Sara’s hand in his. “He was… unkind, then?”

She was quiet for so long he wasn’t sure she’d answer, but he couldn’t very well ask outright if the man had beaten her, denied her food, or intimately abused her.

“In the eyes of Continental society, Reynard was merely unconventional, managing his wife’s talent, but he wasn’t unkind. He could convince you, even you, Beckman, he was simply ensuring the God-given gift of my abilities was shared with a deserving and appreciative audience. What’s more, he’d convince you he did this not because it was his personal choice, but for me, and for the sake of art itself.”

“What about in your eyes, Sarabande?”

“One has to have a conscience to be susceptible to labels such as kind or unkind.” Sara looked out over the pond, where the fading light had turned the water’s surface to a gleaming mirror. “Reynard was not burdened with a conscience, except where it suited his convenience.”

“And your parents.” Beck began to rub his thumb over the back of her hand. “They were taken in by his charade?”

She was again silent—Sara Hunt, former musician and housekeeper, knew silence in a way Beck was fathoming all too well—but then she leaned over, resting her weight against Beck’s larger frame as Allie had done earlier in the day. “They were grieving my brother’s passing,” she said at length. “I tell myself that explains their initial willingness to be taken in by Reynard. It’s hard, you see, because I’m a mother now, and I cannot imagine letting any of the Reynards of the world within two counties of Allie. Not ever, not while I draw breath.”

“You were grieving your brother’s passing too,” Beck pointed out, tucking her more closely still.

She cocked her head. “I was, as was Polly, but she was so young…”

For long moments, Beck waited, hoping she’d say more but knowing she’d already disclosed a great deal, for her. The sky went from pink to orange, to gray then purple, and still he waited, his arm around her shoulders.

“He died in spring,” Sara said, almost to herself. “Gavin did, and I was married in spring, and Reynard died in the spring too.” She turned her face into Beck’s chest and slipped her arms around his waist. He didn’t realize she was crying until a spot of damp warmth bloomed near his collarbone.