Beckman: Lord of Sins (5 page)

“I don’t think you give your animal charm and sophisticated manners enough credit. She watches you eat the way I watch some women walk away.”

North glanced at him, his expression unreadable.

“It’s spring,” he said shortly. “You’re away from the pleasures of Town and seeing the sap rise wherever you look. But if I catch you watching Polly walk away with one hint of disrespect on your ugly face, Haddonfield, I will rearrange
your
features.”

“I’m all atremble.” Beck resisted the urge to probe, though Miss Polly’s sentiments toward Mr. North were apparently returned on some level. “I can only hope the twins are trembling as well.”

“My feelings regarding those two are mixed.” North opened the door to the back hallway. “On the one hand, I hope they stay and become useful. Finding good domestics here in the provinces is nigh impossible. On the other hand, I will never trust them, because they’ve shown they lack honor but can be motivated by fear.”

Beck followed him into the house. “You have a way of boiling things down to essentials that puts me in mind of Lady Warne herself, and perhaps my father.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” North tossed over his shoulder. “Shall we make a pot of tea to cheer us on?”

“And snitch a few of the biscuits Miss Polly baked this morning,” Beck said, lifting the lid of a large crockery jar.

“That’s only the decoy cache, you know.” North rinsed out the teapot and refilled it from the kettle on the hob.

“Of course I know.” Beck extracted a large handful of biscuits. “I also know Miss Polly would be insulted did we not raid it. Bring the honey. I refuse to face book work without something sweet in my tea, and do not think of reusing the damned leaves.”

“Oh, the Quality…” North muttered loudly enough for Beck to hear. He loaded their tea tray with cream, honey, and mugs nonetheless.

Beck took the tray from the counter. “What did your expert agrarian assessment of the sky foretell in terms of the weather?”

“The same thing it’s foretold for several weeks now.” North grabbed a tea towel, draped it over Beck’s shoulder, and followed him up the back stairs. “Spring is coming.”

“My grandmother employs genius at every turn,” Beck muttered loudly enough for North to hear.

“I might trip, you know?” North informed nobody in particular, “and bump into somebody else, who might drop our only good teapot.”

“My second-favorite teapot sits ready to serve in the pantry,” Beck tossed over his shoulder as they reached the library. “Please God, tell me you lit a damned fire in here.”

“Wood, we have,” North said, holding the door for him. “At least for another year or two, but when we catch up with the deadfall, we’ll be buying coal like everybody else.”

The room was high ceilinged, so the roaring fire in the hearth cast out only so much warmth, but the sofa facing it helped keep what there was from dissipating entirely. Beck set the tea service on the desk and poured them each a cup.

“You keep the books?” he asked, handing North his own cup to doctor.

“I do,” North said, adding both honey and cream, much to Beck’s satisfaction. “I incorporate the household expenses in the general ledger, but Sara has her own set of books, though why she bothers I do not know.”

Beck sipped and decided that with cream and honey, strong black tea was almost a substitute for a stout tot of brandy.

Almost.

“Why shouldn’t she track expenses and income?” Beck asked, moving to the sofa. North stayed by the desk, stirring his tea.

“I’ve met Lady Warne a handful of times,” he said, “so don’t come after me with fists flying when I say I’ve doubted her grasp of reality.”

“My fist is wrapped around a strong, hot cup of tea. Perfectly happy there, too. Why do you question Lady Warne’s sanity?”

“She must think a household runs on good cheer.” North sank onto the sofa near Beck. “She sends along notes updating the ladies on the latest fashion gaffes made by the strutting dandies and preening peacocks in Mayfair—as if Polly or Sara care a damn for any of that. But she neglects as often as she recalls to send the sums they need to sustain life here. I suspect they both use their salaries to augment what is intended to be the household budget.”

“As you use yours?”

“Drink your tea or it will get cold, and we’ll be forced to dust off that decanter, which goes against my grain, as the help mustn’t tipple.”

“You’re the help now? How movingly humble you’ve become, North. So show me these books and then to the brandy.”

He regretted those words. Drinking before dinner was ill-advised in the extreme. But he’d been good lately—appallingly good—and he still wanted to hit something and somebody as the enormity of the neglect all around him only became more obvious.

North had all but cheated the devil to keep any crop going on the place, and at a time when what a crop could fetch was precious little, and what it cost to farm was great.

“And it’s not going to get better for some time,” Beck said several hours later. “The general state of things, I mean. The weather for the past few years hasn’t helped, but you can’t cashier out thousands of able-bodied men who fought for damned near two decades and not see an impact. Then too, there are markets for what England produces, but it hardly pays to try to export with the taxes so high.”

“We still have the free trade on this coast,” North said. “Conditions on the Continent are far worse than what we suffer here, and there’s a market for almost anything you can sneak onto a boat.”

“I will ignore your casual observation.” Beck sat back and let North pour them each a tot of brandy. The drink was good quality, which helped a man sip it, regardless of all temptation to the contrary. “What a bloody mess.”

North enjoyed his brandy in silence, while Beck cogitated and drank.

With North’s dark gaze taking in every movement, Beck set his glass down on a corner of the table not covered with ledgers. “My father’s dying request was that I set the place to rights, because he felt the neglect here was a blot on his honor. I intend to see his wishes carried out.”

“Your father is dying?” North put the question casually, no more weight to it than, “Your horse is a bay?”

Well, hell. In for a penny…

“Bellefonte is at his last prayers.” Beck got the words out by staring at his half-empty glass. “Sent me off so I wouldn’t have to see the final indignities. Sent us all off, except for my sister Nita.”

“And this is why your brother is hunting a bride? You’re the spare, why aren’t you on the prowl with him?”

“Took my turn in that barrel, North.” Had North offered condolences, Beck would have left the room and taken the decanter with him. “Even Papa won’t ask that of me again. Started me on rather an unfortunate road, but Nick’s the better fellow, and he’ll manage. What do you recommend for Three Springs?”

North frowned—North was always frowning, so Beck tried not to ascribe significance to it.

“You ask my prescription for Three Springs,” North said. “It will take more than money, Haddonfield. In the last century, this was a gracious, respected manor, and people were happy to work here. I’ve heard enough in the village to know they take the twins as the measure of the place. The locals won’t throw in with Three Springs if they think you’re just a nine days’ wonder, down from Town to count the lambs then disappear. Somebody has to convey an abiding interest in this place. I nominate you.”

North’s grasp of the situation and logic he applied to it were unassailable.

“Nomination declined. I’ve two younger brothers who could use a property, and four sisters in need of a dowry. Let’s nominate one of them, shall we? Then too, when Nick becomes earl, he can use this as one more excuse to get away from his countess.”

“My condolences to his countess,” North said in equally level tones. “In any case, you can’t just buy Three Springs’s way back to profitability. You have to earn its way back to respectability.”

Beck leaned against the sofa’s lumpy upholstery and silently railed against these simple truths, truths he’d thought applied mostly to people and not pieces of the English countryside. “You are a cruel man, Gabriel North. I like you.”

North blinked then smiled, an expression both sardonic and sweet. “I like you too, Haddonfield. You preserve me from recruiting the fair Hildegard as my drinking companion, and smell marginally better than she.”

They returned their attention to the ledgers, which were tidy, complete, and a study in economies. Beck thought of those economies when he finished off another generous meal in pleasant company. Sara offered to light Beck up to his rooms, and because the indignity of falling asleep where he sat had no appeal, he passed her the candle.

“Your servant, Mrs. Hunt.” He bowed slightly and smiled at her, and they were soon treading the cold corridors.

“You’re quiet all of a sudden, Mr. Haddonfield, as if a candle has gone out. You were charming at dinner. Now you fall silent.”

“Considering Polly and her swain,” Beck replied as they approached his door. “You don’t have to escort me up, you know, but I considered you might have wanted to leave them some privacy.” He opened the door for her and admired her backside as she preceded him into his sitting room.

She was quick and graceful, and she smelled of all the lovely scents of a well-kept home. He hadn’t spent dinner being charming. He’d spent dinner making infernal small talk, wishing she’d look at him and resenting the hell out of her stupid caps.

Too much wine with dinner perhaps, or not enough.

***

Mr. Haddonfield was in some sort of male mood. As he prowled along beside her through the dark, frigid corridor, Sara had to question her own motives. He knew where his room was now, and he was moving past the role of guest to temporary household member.

He did not need a housekeeper to tuck him in.

But Sara needed something from him. A few minutes of adult conversation that weren’t about Hildy’s slop bucket or Heifer’s amours.

A hand on her shoulder, a smile unlike the ones he tossed out so liberally in company during a dinner that had felt interminable.

“I’ll make sure Maudie turned down your covers.” She brushed by him into his bedroom, hearing his footsteps behind her.

“Sara.” Large male hands settled on her hips as Sara flipped down his covers. She straightened slowly then froze.

Had her thoughts inspired him to this? He’d touched her before, and God help her, she’d liked it. He was comfortingly large, clean, and full of a kind of bodily masculine competence that reassured. She wasn’t reassured—exactly—by
this
touch, and it wasn’t in the least proper. Still, she merely stood and tried to draw air into her lungs.

“You should slap me,” he murmured near her ear. “You really, really should.” He remained like that, his hands on her hips, holding her lightly but firmly from behind; then Sara felt one hand shift, and her cap was gone.

“I’m asking you to wallop me, Sara.” His voice was a low, soft rumble at her nape, and she felt his hand withdrawing pins from her hair. He kept his other hand around her middle, his fingers splayed just below her waist.

Over her womb. The heat from his hand alone threatened to buckle her knees.

“I just want…” He paused, and more pins went silently sailing to the quilt on his bed. Her braid came down and down, and then he unraveled it, slowly drawing his fingers through each skein until it fell to her waist in wild, curling locks.

“You hide your light,” he accused softly, and Sara felt him nuzzling her nape.

This was wrong; she knew it was wrong, but in his world she was a widow and fair game. Nominally, she was out of reach because she was under his extended family’s protection, but he was in truth just a visitor—and even according to the rules of his kind, she could stop him.

She
would
stop him, she vowed, just as he gently brushed aside the hair at her nape and settled his lips against her skin.

“Merciful God…” As heat ricocheted from his kiss through her body, Sara hung her head, knowing his arm was now supporting her, knowing the bed was right before them.

The bed…

She marshaled her considerable resolve and lifted a hand to cover the one spread over her belly.

“Mr. Haddonfield.” She couldn’t manage much more than a whisper, not when he was working his way to the side of her neck, the brush of his mouth so devastatingly tender she wanted… “Beckman, you have to stop.”

He went still, and she felt his sigh against her collarbone. He turned her in his arms and folded her against him, resting his chin on her crown. She slipped her arms around his lean waist and silently thanked him—both for ceasing and for not expecting her to stand unaided.

“You should still slap me,” he rumbled, his tone sad. “I would apologize, but that would imply remorse, and after this day, after listening to North’s litany of economies and inconveniences, after tramping through mud for hours and missing… all I feel is frustration.”

No, that was not all he felt. Plastered against his body, Sara could feel the contour of a nascent erection pressing against her belly. God above, he’d be… splendid. She wanted to push that thought away and push the man away as well, but he sounded so bleak, almost as bleak as she felt.

“No more damned caps, Sara.” He rubbed his chin over her unbound hair. “They’re a damned lie, and you’re fooling no one.”

He wasn’t being charming and gracious now. Perhaps she was the one who’d been fooled earlier.

“I do not countenance untruths.”

“Yes, you do.” His tone was amused, but Sara didn’t dare steal a glance at him. “We all do, myself included, if only to lie to ourselves. But you are not to wear those ridiculous caps.”

“And you are not to go kissing me in your bedroom.” She tried to pull away, but forgot the bed was immediately behind her and found herself unceremoniously sitting on it. She gazed up at his great height, trying to read his expression by the firelight.

“I haven’t kissed you.” He sank to his knees, utterly befuddling her. “Yet.”

He remedied the oversight, brushing his lips over hers while he knelt between her legs. He wasn’t an arrogant or clumsy kisser, thank God, because as long as it had been since her last kiss, Sara needed to be coaxed. He’d been clever by going to his knees, putting her a few inches above him, a position that suggested she had more control than he. His hand cupped the back of her head, gently burying itself in her hair as if he were hungry for even that simple touch.