by Beckman
“You may.” Allie tried to toss her orange, only to have Beck pluck it out of midair. He started over on hers, then set both oranges on the counter. “Mr. North hasn’t come down yet, so I’ll help with his chores.”
“Give him a little time,” Beck said. “I doubt you’d manage to get his chores done by Tuesday, so conscientious is our Mr. North. Put your sabots on, please, so we can see to this task before your aunt is done making breakfast.”
“What if Mr. North died last night?” Allie asked, clumping out the back door in her wooden shoes. “Or took off for Portsmouth like the twins?”
“What if the fairies took him and dropped him in the hot spring?” Beck suggested, “Which is just about as likely.” He held the barn door for her, provoking a shy grin from Allie. “Are you ready to help?”
“Yes. But with what?”
He led her over to Hermione’s stall and hefted her up to stand on a trunk.
“You have to help someone learn to make friends,” he said, nodding toward the occupants. “There’s a little girl in there ready to take the world by storm, but she needs a friend to scratch her neck and pet her and show her what brushes are for.”
Allie’s eyes went round, and her shoulders lifted with glee. “A baby for Hermione, and you say it’s a girl. She’s gorgeous, absolutely bee-yoo-tee-ful. I must sketch her this instant, and then, she must have a name.”
That sketching came before naming struck Beck as significant. He spent a few minutes acquainting Allie and the filly, until Allie was gently scratching the little beast on its fuzzy neck.
“I must get my sketch pad.”
Beck rose slowly from the straw so as not to spook the filly. “I suggest you eat a decent breakfast, feed Hildy, and do whatever other chores are expected of you before you start, or you’ll just have to stop midway.”
A jutting chin was his answer. “That is not fair. That is just not fair. She’s all soft and pretty and cute now, and I want to sketch her now.”
Beck tweaked a braid. “She’ll be here, Allie. When you get back to the house, be sure to wash your hands. Be thinking of a name while I take care of mucking and watering.”
“I will.” Allie turned abruptly to dash out the door, caught herself, and left the stall at a dignified pace. She even walked to the barn door before breaking into a dead run across the backyard.
Beck had mucked the stalls, refilled the water buckets, fed the chickens, and pitched fresh hay for the horses and the milk cows when Sara appeared, the egg basket over her arm.
“Good morning.” Beck smiled at her as he hung up his fork. “How fare you on this fine, frigid day?”
Sara kept her gaze on the foal, who was in fine fettle. “It is colder, isn’t it? Is she doing well?”
“She couldn’t be better. What of you, Sarabande Adagio?”
No cap. He would go to his grave pleased in some measure to have rid her of her caps.
Sara glanced at him, but only fleetingly. “I’m fine.”
Sara’s variety of fine did not invite a good-morning kiss. In Beck’s breeches, the sunrise lost some of its glory.
“Are you truly fine, or wishing the ground would swallow you up?” He leaned in and pitched his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Or are you a trifle sore and anticipating the next time you come upon me all alone late at night?”
“Of course not.” She put more surprise than dismay in her words.
Beck lingered close long enough to catch a hint of her scent before aiming a naughty grin at her.
She fought a shy smile and lost. “Oh, maybe a little, anticipating, that is, but maybe not.”
“Well, there’s a rousing endorsement of a fellow’s opening moves.”
“This isn’t a chess match,” Sara said, watching as the foal teetered around in her bed of straw. “But whatever it is, I don’t know how to go about it.”
She sounded genuinely perplexed and not exactly pleased.
This again, though not, Beck surmised, for the last time. “It’s a friendly dalliance, Sara, and it’s not complicated. Here’s how it works: you indicate to me my advances are welcome, and I offer you what pleasure you’re inclined to accept. There is no obligation and no particular significance to it beyond the moment. I would ask, however, that we observe a certain exclusivity in our dealings for whatever duration it suits you.”
To add that condition cost him some pride. Would that he’d clarified his stance on the matter of exclusivity with his poor wife.
“Just like that?” With the toe of her boot, Sara pushed bits of straw around in the dirt of the barn floor. “You wait for me to drop my handkerchief, and we go at it?”
“I wait for you to encourage me,” Beck corrected her, “and then I have your permission to persuade you to my bed.”
“You’re thinking of bedding me right now, aren’t you?” Sara’s tone was puzzled. “And you’ve thought of it before.”
“I have,” Beck replied, trying to fathom the direction of her thoughts. “I can only hope you’ve had reciprocal thoughts about me.”
“And I can rely on your discretion?” She peered at her egg basket, as if the contents might be getting up to mischief if left unsupervised.
“Sara…” Beck’s tone was patient. “I won’t maul you before your daughter, and I won’t discuss you with North, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I suppose it is.” She rearranged the eggs. “I don’t know how to go on, Beckman. In the cold light of day, I don’t know why I would want to—though… I do. Want to go on. I think.”
Were she being coy, he would have flirted and flattered and charmed, and they would soon be climbing the ladder to the hayloft. Sara was not being coy; she was being honest, and while the rutting male part of Beck resented it, the part of him far from home and a little sick with it valued her for her genuineness.
“I’ll remind you why.” Beck took her free hand, cradled it between his own, then brought it to his face and rubbed his cheek along the backs of her fingers. When his gallantry elicited a soft sigh from Sara, he pressed her fingers flat and planted a lingering kiss on her palm, then folded her fingers around it.
“I’m reminded,” Sara said, snatching her hand back a little breathlessly.
She disappeared in a swirl of skirts, leaving Beck to admire her retreating form.
“You’re reminded,” he murmured, “and so am I, Sarabande, so am I.”
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 t
he 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.”
