Beckman: Lord of Sins ll-4

by Grace Burrowes

  “You will sort this out with your brothers.” Sara kissed him again. “You like them too much not to, and they like you as well.”

  “And you know this how?” Even her breasts bore her luscious fragrance.

  “You said when Nick retrieved you from Paris he saved your life, Beckman. He will be the head of the family, and he will need your support. You’re the one who has actually seen the family holdings overseas. You’re the one who has met this factor and that competitor. You’re the one with the better sense of your younger sisters and the men who could make them suitable mates. While Nick has been off tending to whatever, and Ethan has been banished, you’ve been minding the family concerns.”

  She turned facts on their heads, sounding very brisk and practical while she did. “That’s one way to look at it.”

  “Ask Nick sometime how he looks at it,” Sara said. “For now, I need to move you. My arm has gone to sleep.”

  “My apologies.”

  Sara pushed at his shoulder. “Roll over. I’m going to rub your back.”

  “You are?” It occurred to Beck she might be sore, so he acquiesced. He could ask her, of course, but his mood was a little off for lovemaking, and the shops would be closed tomorrow. They’d have all day to indulge his selfish impulses—and hers.

  “Go to sleep, Beckman.” Sara’s hand began to knead his shoulder. “It will all be here in the morning, as will I.”

  Usually, the idea that his troubles would greet him upon rising was not cheering. The way Sara said it put things in a different light.

  * * *

  Beck woke up the next morning spooned around Sara, a pleasurable novelty made all the sweeter by the breeze coming through the balcony doors. His erection was seated along her sex, and before she was fully awake, Sara was subtly moving against him.

  Trusting she would tell him if he was asking too much, Beck shifted minutely behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist, and began to ease his way inside.

  “Good morning,” Sara murmured, bringing his hand up to settle over her breast.

  “Good morning,” Beck politely rejoined, pushing more firmly into her body. “It’s a lovely day.”

  “Beautiful,” Sara agreed sleepily. She contracted her sex around him and sighed—contentedly, he thought—as he gained a deeper penetration.

  “Is this…?” Beck paused while he focused on easing his cock that much deeper into her heat.

  “Beautiful,” Sara assured him, closing her fingers over his on her breast. “Just… lovely.”

  He hadn’t made love to her before in daylight. He wanted to, of course. He wanted to make love to her so he could see the sunlight on her face and not just on the erotic curve of her spine. He wanted to put her on her knees and fill her so deeply she groaned with the pleasure of it. Wanted her atop him, her hair drifting over them both, and he wanted her…

  He slipped his hand out from under hers and closed her fingers around her nipple, then let his palm glide down over her belly, to her sex. His fingers found the seat of her pleasure, and in slow, glancing caresses, he began to drive her toward completion.

  Beckman almost regretted it when he felt Sara surrender to her orgasm, so greatly had he been enjoying the lovemaking. He let himself join her, though his own orgasm became more intense for the control he tried to maintain over his body.

  “You all right?” He stroked a hand down her spine when he could speak again, knowing she was unused to this much sexual activity, regardless of how he tried to contain himself.

  “Blissful,” Sara said, sounding well pleasured and smug. “How do married people behave in company, Beck, when there’s all this between them in private?”

  It struck him as an odd question. Sara had been married far longer than he had. Odd—but flattering.

  “They start off with a honeymoon,” he said, “and have a little privacy in which to gain their balance. But I believe a certain kind of misbehavior is the signal attraction of the married state for most people. Stay put and let me tend you.”

  Lest he ravish her the livelong day.

  “I want to devour you,” he said as he tidied her up. “Visually at least, if not otherwise.”

  “You need your breakfast,” Sara informed him. And yet she parted her legs farther and didn’t push his hand away. “Why shouldn’t you look?” she asked, watching his face. “I like to look at you. Love to, in fact.”

  His gaze shifted to assess the truth of her statement, only to find the demented woman was smiling radiantly.

  “I love the look of you when you’re dressed for town,” she said while his gaze traveled from that smile back to the damp, pink glory of her sex. “You’re handsome when you’re all country-gentleman-about-his-business. I love the look of you at breakfast, teasing Allie, ready to storm off on your list of tasks. I love the affection and exasperation I see in your eyes when you argue with North, or harry him off to the hot springs for his medicinal dip…” She might have gone on with her list of “I loves,” except Beck closed her knees and wrapped his arms around her legs.

  “You are going to need a medicinal dip,” he declared, thinking he himself could do with a cold swim. God in heaven… The sight of her… so fearless and… generous. “I’m going to order you a bath, see about our breakfast, then scare us up a conveyance suitable for a drive along the water. Will that suit?”

  “It will suit wonderfully.”

  He rose from the bed and caught her—true to her words—admiring the view shamelessly. When they’d finished breakfast and Beck was leaving her to her bath, he paused at the door.

  “Sarabande Adagio?”

  “Beckman Sylvanus?”

  He wanted to give her something, something in return for holding him in the darkness and all of those “I loves” in the light.

  Something she would not reject as beyond the bounds of a frolic. “I’m already regretting we must leave this place tomorrow, and when the summons comes from Belle Maison, I will regret that too, and not just for my father’s sake.” And then he slipped out the door, giving her privacy and taking some for himself as well.

  * * *

  The day was idyllic and sleepy, like a Sunday in late spring should be, but warm enough to make the shore breeze comfortable. Beck hired a horse and buggy to take Sara up on the headlands for a picnic, finding a depression surrounded by stubby trees near a hilltop to spread a blanket. The view from the nearby cliff top was at once private and spectacular, with the sun bouncing off a sea of white caps and the town spread out below them.

  Sara brought her book, and Beck read to her, her head on his stomach as he lay back on the blanket. He hadn’t packed wine for some reason, but felt as lazy and relaxed as if they were on their second bottle. He set the book aside, thinking perhaps he’d read his audience to sleep, and let his hand stroke over Sara’s hair. Her eyes drifted open, and she turned so her cheek was on his stomach.

  Her hand came up to shape him through his breeches, and Beck had to close his eyes. A gentleman wouldn’t ask anything of her today—hell, a gentleman would not have swived her silly before she even broke her fast. A gentleman…

  She was undoing his falls, and he didn’t protest, but he did have his limits.

  “You need to recover,” he managed. “I mean it, Sara.”

  She paused, frowning, then extricated him from his clothing, which was a delicate challenge when he was more than half aroused.

  “You need something else entirely,” she said. She got her mouth on him, but to Beck’s relief, she desisted abruptly. He watched with silent curiosity as she took his hand and wrapped it around his shaft, then shifted around so she was lying on her back at right angles to his chest.

  Slowly, slowly, she eased her skirt up over her bent knees, and God in heaven, the woman wasn’t wearing drawers. She let her knees fall open, and let go a sigh.

  “You wanted to look this morning,” she said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, Beckman. No reason you shouldn’t touch.”
>
  She tossed all modesty aside and began opening the buttons down the front of her bodice, while Beck watched, speechless and increasingly aroused, as she pushed her clothing aside until she was lying in a pagan tangle of flesh and fabric, exposed to the sun and his hungry eyes.

  He did not resist what she offered, but feasted on the sight of her. He looked, he touched, he tasted. He put his hands on every inch of her, took down her hair and draped it over every inch of him. He brought himself to orgasm more than once just looking at her, brushing his fingers over her sex, her breasts, her derriere, her mouth. She refused him nothing, obliged his every request, seeming to understand that in this situation, trust and arousal were bound together for him.

  “You’re going to burn,” Beck cautioned when he lay naked, spent for the third time, his hand caressing the firm curve of Sara’s bare buttocks.

  Sara smiled over at him and wiggled under his hand. “Not in the biblical sense.”

  “I’m not usually so…”

  “Lusty?” Sara’s smile broadened. “Amorous? Passionate?”

  “Horny.” Beck’s smile was embarrassed. “Selfish, hedonistic.”

  “For God’s sake, Beck.” Sara’s smile faded. “It’s a beautiful spring day, you’re a healthy young man, and a little friskiness doesn’t make you your half-crazy brother.”

  His eyebrows shot up as he considered the possibilities she was raising. Had he checked his lustier impulses to avoid sharing Nick’s tendencies?

  “You’re not like him,” Sara said, seeming to read his mind. “He discards women as easily as old boots, to hear you tell it. He goes for the jades and widows, almost as if he doesn’t deserve a good woman’s affections. You know better.”

  Put like that, Beck… pitied his older brother, a novel and not entirely unwelcome perspective. It was easier than judging Nick, and felt closer to the truth. His hand closed on the firm curve of Sara’s derriere, and she undulated again like a cat seeking attention.

  “I have discovered”—she closed her eyes—“I like it when you pinch me.”

  “Here?” He pinched her, not hard.

  “Yes.” Sara arched. “There. And my… breasts and other parts.”

  Those parts. While he’d pleasured himself several times with her assistance in this protracted bout of friskiness, she’d yet to demand anything of him. And how odd was it that a woman married for eight or nine years wouldn’t know her own pleasures?

  Beck smoothed his hand over her again. “Your husband was a selfish cretin, Sara. You deserved better.”

  “I won’t argue that.” She rolled over, which left his hand resting right over her pubic curls, and Beck lectured himself not to start in with her. So far, he’d petted, caressed, looked, and looked some more; he’d kissed, tasted, and teased, but he hadn’t done anything that might irritate her tender parts.

  Hadn’t needed to, not for his own pleasure anyway. It was a revelation, at least to a man who’d taken lovers on four continents.

  “I haven’t played like this before,” he said, wondering when the brakes had been disconnected from his mouth.

  “I haven’t either,” Sara said, fondling his flaccid cock. “It gives me ideas about those hot springs, Beckman. I hope you are prepared to be a sparkling-clean fellow in the near future.”

  He hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her to him, in charity with Creation at her words. A feeling expanded out from his chest, of beatitude and humor and overwhelming affection for the woman half-naked on the blanket with him. It crested, and subsided before his fool mouth opened and embarrassed him trying to express it, but it didn’t fade entirely.

  Not when they dressed each other, teasing and laughing; not when they drove back down to town, sitting too closely on the buggy’s seat. Not when they made slow, quiet love that evening; not when they fell asleep tangled in each other’s arms that night.

  Only when Sara laughingly declined his proposal of marriage over breakfast did Beckman’s newfound joy in life abruptly diminish.

  Thirteen

  “It came on Friday,” Polly said, handing the little letter over to Sara in the stable yard. Beckman was in the barn, dealing with the inventory and the horses, while Sara dealt with an ache inside that had no cure.

  “I wanted to read it, to hide it, and to burn it,” Polly said, keeping her voice down.

  Sara glanced at the address, knowing it was from Tremaine even before she opened it. “Thank you.” She put it in her skirt pocket then drew it out again when she saw Polly regarding her with steady compassion.

  “You had a lovely weekend, didn’t you, Sara?”

  Sara considered the manor house as she and Polly approached it, as well as the outbuildings, gardens, and every other feature of Three Springs that appeared exactly as she’d left it just days ago. “The weather was gorgeous, Beckman is a consummate quartermaster, and Portsmouth shows to good advantage when one has rusticated as long as we have. What about you?”

  She put the question as casually as she could, but there was a difference about Polly, a peacefulness that hadn’t been there a few days before.

  “We managed,” Polly said. “Allie is going like a house afire on her new painting.”

  “What did she choose for her subject?” Sara’s gaze drifted upward, to where the third-floor windows gleamed silver in the last of the evening light.

  “Soldier. North professed to be hurt, that she’d consider his horse a more worthy subject than he. She’s probably already dreaming of the next study. She’ll be relieved to know you’re home.”

  “Let her sleep, but, Polly?”

  Sara met her sister’s gaze, on solid ground now that the first few difficult questions had been answered—or dodged. “My thanks, my very sincere thanks for looking after Allie and Three Springs. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to get away.”

  Polly turned toward the eastern horizon, to where two stars were visible against the darkening sky. “Did it go well? With you and Beckman? I can have North thrash him, you know, if he… misbehaved.”

  “Or didn’t misbehave? He was everything I could have hoped for, Polly. A completely, thoroughly enjoyable companion.” At least until breakfast that morning, when he’d completely, thoroughly bewildered her with his proposal.

  “For somebody who spent the weekend with a thoroughly enjoyable companion, you look tired and sad, Sara. Let’s get Tremaine’s letter over with, and then I’ll tuck you in with a posset.”

  Sara had wanted to forget this letter, too, but Polly was right: ignoring the threat Tremaine posed was not prudent. She followed Polly into the kitchen and glanced around.

  “Where’s North?”

  “Soaking,” Polly said, putting on the kettle. “It helps his back, and he promised Beck he would.”

  Sara tore open the letter, scanned it, and handed it to Polly.

  Polly frowned. “It’s pretty much the same. Greetings, he’s been remiss, would we consider a visit, how fares Allie… I don’t detect a threat in this, Sara.”

  “He has those portraits, Polly.” Sara sat at the table, feeling as if her little weekend in Portsmouth happened to someone else a century ago. Somebody whom God liked and spared a little joy every once in a while—a lot of joy, in fact, and a generous portion of pleasure, too.

  “He’s had years to use those portraits,” Polly replied. “He doesn’t mention them, and he may not understand what he has in them. Drink your tea, and where’s Beckman?”

  “I expect he’s anywhere I’m not.” Sara did not want tea. She did not want to dissemble before her sister, either. “I think I hurt his feelings, Polly. I know I did, in fact.”

  Polly was silent for a moment, stirring a fat helping of sugar into her own cup of tea.

  “I used to be a nice person.” Polly sat, pushed Sara’s teacup closer, and covered Sara’s hand with her own. “Now I’m old and mean, and so I say: Better his feelings hurt than yours, Sara.”

  “You’re still a nice sister.” Sara smi
led wanly and sipped her tea.

  * * *

  “The prodigal returns.” North’s voice came not from the pool itself but from the shadows to Beck’s left, where the boulders were gathered along the water’s edge. “All that wagon travel put you in need of a soak?”

  “Greetings, North.” Beck sat and tugged at his boots. “And yes, I am in need of a soak.”

  “Maybe you didn’t get much rest this weekend,” North mused, “what with all that procurement to tend to?”

  Beck threw his boot in the general direction of North’s voice.

  “Cranky,” North observed, “but you’ve good aim. I take it Mrs. Hunt did not haul your ashes, Haddonfield, which must have come as a blow to your considerable charm.”

  Beck fired the second boot at a higher velocity then nigh strangled himself getting his neckcloth undone. “She hauled everything I own or ever coveted, right out to the dung heap.”

  “She’s trifling with an upright young sprout like you?” North put a world of dismay into his voice, and Beck was glad no lethal weapons were at hand.

  “Stubble it, North.” Beck heard something rip as he yanked his shirt over his head. “I bloody proposed to the woman, and she bloody laughed and told me I mustn’t tease about such things on an empty stomach.”

  Even North was temporarily silenced by that admission.

  “You proposed?” Then, “You proposed marriage? The ‘do you, Beckman, take this woman…’ sort of marriage? To Sara?”

  “That general idea.” Beck stood naked, fists clenched at his side, wanting to break something—or someone. North would have served nicely, except his back was already fragile. Then too, Beck, as usual, had no one else to talk to.

  “Fast work, if you ask me.” North ambled out of the shadows, in a state of complete undress. “Maybe a little too fast. Shall we?”