Beckman: Lord of Sins (26 page)

“I won’t allow it,” Beck retorted. “You won’t allow it.”

“Allow?” North blew out a breath and settled back beside Beck. “Just who are we, Beckman, that we’re allowing and not allowing matters in the lives of the Hunt womenfolk?”

“Damned if I know.”

***

“I shouldn’t be here.” Sara stared up at the ceiling of Beck’s bedroom, having held her fire until his door was safely closed behind them.

“Nonsense.” Beck shucked his dressing gown and climbed in beside her. She wasn’t volunteering to take off her nightgown, so he pulled her to his side clothed as she was. “You asked me to leave you in your own bed only when Tremaine is underfoot. I will miss you badly in this bed starting tomorrow night, so I’m gathering rosebuds while I may. Or Sarabuds.” He kissed her nose, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I’m bleeding.”

He absorbed that, though it wasn’t the first time the topic had been mentioned between them.

“Cramps?”

“A little,” she said and turned away from him onto her side. He spooned himself around her, settling his hand over her womb.

“Sorry, love. I wish I could hurt for you. You’re worried about Tremaine?”

“Of course.” She sighed and rolled over to her other side, tucking her face against his chest. “I hate the waiting, and I’ll hate having him about, and I’ll hate not being able to spend my nights with you.”

“One is encouraged to hear that last,” Beck said, drawing her braid over her shoulder. “You leave a man to wonder, Sara Hunt.”

“Don’t wonder. Be assured, Beck, when Tremaine shows up, our dalliance is over.”

Beck gathered her closer, getting a whiff of flowers and worry for his trouble. “I want to marry you.”

“It doesn’t help, you know?” Sara’s index finger began to draw patterns on Beck’s bare chest. “You need to stop proposing to me and consider when you’ll move on about your life.”

“I’m about my life now,” Beck rejoined. “This very minute I’m about my life, Sara.”

“This very minute you are depriving yourself of sleep so I might scold you yet again for being unrealistic.”

“For caring about you?” Beck shifted, covering her with the warmth of his naked body though she lay on her side. “For loving you?”

Silence, and then tears. Quiet tears eased from her on long, careful breaths, while Beck held her and wondered why on earth a woman would cry to know she was loved. They fell into exhausted slumber without finding an answer.

***

Tremaine St. Michael had been at Three Springs for two days, and Beck was increasingly perplexed by him. He was a man of odd contrasts, physically, socially, intellectually.

He’d bowed very correctly over Sara’s and Polly’s hands, but swept Allie up in a tight, protracted hug. He was reserved with Beck and North, but possessed of a quick, dry wit as well. Physically, he was built like a dragoon—tall and well muscled—but he moved with peculiar quiet. His features were at odds as well, with eyes and hair of such a soft, lustrous dark brown as to appear black, but high cheekbones, a Viking nose, and a jawbone that looked descended from Vandal antecedents. His voice was a unique blend of growling Scots burr and graceful French elision.

Nothing about the man added up, though Ethan’s letters claimed Tremaine St. Michael knew the Midlands wool trade inside and out, and was profiting accordingly. Toward the ladies, Tremaine was unfailingly polite, but to Beck’s practiced eye, Sara and Polly were both avoiding the man.

Which left him often in Beck’s company, or Beck’s and North’s.

“That end is too hot,” Beck said, pointing off to the water on his left. “Here, however, it’s just right. Bring the soap, will you, North?”

“Soap I can carry,” North said. “You can haul your own damned spirits.” He fired a pocket flask at Beck and finished undressing.

“There’s a ledge here.” Beck sank into the water. “It’s just made for man’s weary fundament. I don’t know if the Romans put it here, or Mother Nature, but to me, it’s the best feature on the property.”

Tremaine took a seat beside his host. “So far, I have to agree with you.”

He sank down on a long sigh and leaned his head back against the stones.

“You could fetch a pretty penny for the property based on the springs alone,” Tremaine said when North had taken a place several feet away on Beck’s other side.

“Drink?” Beck uncapped the flask and passed it to his guest.

“Mighty fine,” Tremaine declared, his burr showing more clearly. “So, now that we’re great friends, Haddonfield, drinking by moonlight and larking about like pagans in your grandmother’s springs, tell me why my brother’s widow won’t give me the time of day.”

“Plain speaking,” North growled. “Have to give him points for that.”

“Drink.” Beck passed North the flask. “And hold your tongue, old man.”

North obliged and passed the flask back.

“It’s complicated,” Beck said carefully. “I think it has to do with items that came into your possession after Reynard’s death.”

“Items?” Tremaine took a swig from the proffered flask. “That doesn’t narrow it down. Reynard sent me scads of things over the years, particularly after he married. His fortunes improved, I gather, and he had nowhere else to hoard his treasures.”

“You still have these things he collected?” Beck asked. “Because by law, unless he willed them to you or conveyed them overtly, I believe they belong to his wife and daughter now.”

“One comprehends this.” Tremaine had to be reminded to pass the flask along by Beck taking it from his hand. “I have a load of plunder for Sara and Allie to go through and sort, at least. There are paintings, too, which I gather might be Polly’s work or purchased for her. I’m surprised she isn’t still painting—she’s very good. Reynard considered her every bit as great a find as Sara.”

“How did Sara feel about being found?” Beck asked. He sent the flask on to North without partaking.

“Gentlemen…” Tremaine’s voice took on a hint of steel. “We can agree my brother was a rotten excuse for a man. He lived off his womenfolk, exploited them shamelessly, and refused to let them rejoin their parents when his scheme became obvious to his young wife. I offered to see the ladies back to England at one point, but Sara refused to go.”

“She refused?” That made no sense, like everything else associated with Tremaine and his infernal brother. Beck passed the flask back to his guest, though trying to inebriate St. Michael into confidences was likely a lost cause.

“For two reasons.” Tremaine took a goodly pull before elaborating. “First, I gather Reynard had written to the senior Hunts, lamenting Sara’s difficult temperament, her lack of gratitude for his hard work on behalf of her art, her lack of dedication to her God-given gifts, and so forth. When Sara wrote to them asking if she could come home with her daughter and sister, her parents replied with a scathing lecture about a wife’s vows and familial sacrifice. I gather the damage has become permanent.”

“She’s written to her parents recently,” Beck said, though her epistle barely qualified as a note.

“She has,” Tremaine replied. “I paid my respects to them on my way down here, but neither Sara nor Polly has asked after them.”

“Did they ask after her?”

“I have a letter from them.” Tremaine closed his eyes and sank lower in the water. “I’m not to pass it to Sara unless she inquires.”

“So prompt her to ask,” Beck growled, getting up from his seat and leaving North and Tremaine to share the remainder of the brandy. Beck retrieved the soap and started scrubbing himself briskly.

“You think I should?” Tremaine sounded genuinely perplexed. “I was hoping the ladies would accept my aid rather than go running home to Mama and Papa.”

“Why?” Beck submerged and came up. “Three females are a substantial expense.”

“Because to me,” Tremaine said levelly, “they are due the support. It is not an expense. It is a privilege, and thanks to a lot of bleating, stinking sheep, I can easily spare the coin. You have family coming out your ears, Haddonfield, both brothers and sisters, an old granny of some sort. My family in France is gone—mostly murdered in the fruitless march toward a republic—and what few second cousins I have in Scotland regard me as a bloody Sassenach.” He dropped into a soft burr. “These women, Allie in particular, are all the family who will claim me.”

North swirled the water and shot Beck a thoughtful look. Beck dunked again, then passed him the soap and traded places with him on the bench.

“You are an orphaned
comte
?” Beck asked.

“I don’t use the title.”

“You need to talk to Sara,” Beck said. “You mentioned two reasons she wouldn’t accompany you to England. What was the second?”

“The child.” Tremaine tossed the empty flask onto the bank. “By the law of any civilized land, a man’s legitimate progeny are his to control, period. Sara would not risk antagonizing Reynard lest he separate her from her child. And he would have, much as it shames me to say it.”

“Happy for him, the man is dead,” Beck said, “else I should have to see to his demise myself.”

“For observing the law?” Tremaine caught the soap when North pitched it.

“For exploiting a seventeen-year-old girl who’d just lost her brother,” Beck began. “For parading her all around Europe like some musical whore, for using Polly and her art just as badly, for being an obscene perversion of what a husband should be, for coming between parents and their only surviving offspring—need I go on?”

Tremaine submerged and stayed under long enough for North to murmur, “I won’t let you drown him, Beck. He’s no more Reynard than you or I are.”

Excellent—if irksome—point.

“I can’t argue with you, Haddonfield,” Tremaine said when he’d whipped his hair out of his eyes and tossed the soap onto the bank. “I want to. I want to protest you’re being too harsh, my brother meant well, his wife was an ungrateful no-talent schemer, but I can’t. Reynard was raised under difficult circumstances, and he did not rise to the challenges in his life. For all that, Sara still probably blames herself for what befell her and her sister and rues the day she ever sent for Reynard.”

A beat of silence, and then Beck asked, “She
sent
for him?”

“She hasn’t told you this? Reynard used to gloat to me in his letters about it.” Tremaine disappeared under the water again, coming up closer to the hot end of the pool. “Sara had heard of Reynard. He’d some success managing a pair of brothers who played violin and viola, and she expected he could do the same for her and her brother. No doubt, she thought he’d find them some engagements around London, start them off on the private parties, that sort of thing. A young lady performing in a concert hall might not be the done thing, but a brother and sister making music in private homes before Polite Society is another matter.”

“A reasonable expectation from her viewpoint,” Beck said.

“True.” Tremaine climbed back up on the ledge. “But Reynard saw much greater potential for income by taking one violinist—a young, lovely female with dramatic red hair—and marching her all over the Continent, where women can and do perform professionally. If he’d taken Sara and Gavin, they would have supported each other against him and been much more difficult and expensive to handle. So he chose Sara and took the brother aside, explaining the boy owed it to his sister to step out of Sara’s path. He similarly closeted himself with Sara and said she needed to free her brother from worrying about her, focusing on duet literature, and so forth. Reynard promised her Gavin would be a better musician on his own two feet rather than pandering to his sister’s lesser talent.”

“Perishing, sodding, bloody, contemptible hell.” Beck shot off the ledge and slogged to the bank. “How can you recount this perfidy so calmly?”

“The picture emerged slowly.” Tremaine followed Beck and North out of the pool and accepted the bath sheet North tossed him. “I did not see much of my brother, but we’d cross paths occasionally on the Continent. He wrote often though, dropping a hint here, a detail there. He did regret Gavin’s death, though, of that I’m sure.”

“I thought it was an accident.” Beck stopped drying himself, unease wrapping around the anger in his gut. “Sara told me Gavin’s death was an accident.”

“She no doubt wants you to believe that.” Tremaine pulled his shirt over his head and stepped into his breeches. “Gavin was supposedly cleaning his gun the day after Sara accepted Reynard’s proposal, and the thing went off. The boy left a note encouraging his sister to take her chance for happiness with Reynard, and asking his parents to forgive him.”

Beck strode off and stood a few paces away, rage and sorrow ricocheting in his mind while curses in five languages clamored for an airing. North handed Tremaine his boots, gathered up the soap and the empty flask, then caught Tremaine’s eye and jerked his chin toward the manor house.

They left Beck alone and half-naked in the dark, the silence of the night screaming around him.

“He has a letter from your parents.”

Sara knew that voice and that scent, but did not know Beckman would accost her while she lay in her own bed. She opened her eyes when Beck climbed into that bed, spooned himself around her, and gathered her close.

“Get out of this bed.”

“Polly’s off somewhere,” Beck said, smoothing her braid over her shoulder. “Allie’s fast asleep. I checked.”

“You…” Sara tried to roll over to glare at him, but he held her gently in place.

“I expect your sister is trysting with North at the springs. I hope she is. We should try it sometime.”

“You should get out of this bed,” Sara insisted. “Allie has the occasional nightmare, and when she does she comes looking for me.”

“She’ll find you, but one wonders where this argument was all the nights you spent in my bed, Mrs. Hunt. Aren’t you interested in your parents’ letter?”

“No.” Sara flopped the covers for emphasis.

“Mendacity in domestics is a terrible problem.” The dratted man kissed her ear.

“Beckman…” The mere sound of his voice, the slightest hint of his scent, and some of the tension Sara had carried since Tremaine’s arrival left her body. “I’m not interested in another sermon from my father.”

“Your husband is dead. What can your father sermonize about?”

That stumped her, which was a relief, because their increasingly frequent nocturnal arguments bit at her composure far more than she’d ever allow Beck to see. He seized the advantage of her silence.

“We had an interesting chat at the springs, your brother-in-law and I.” Beck’s hand kneaded at the base of Sara’s spine, where her menses left her feeling achy. “He freely admits to having a store of items sent by Reynard for safekeeping, and admits those items are yours, Allie’s, and Polly’s.”

When Beck touched her like that, it was hard to form words, much less think.

“It costs him nothing to admit such. Next he’ll be insisting we accompany him back to Oxford to look over this treasure trove, and then we’ll be virtual prisoners.”

“He asked me if he could buy you Three Springs,” Beck went on, his hands working
magic
.

“Asking and producing the deed are two different things.”

“Sara, the man has no other family.”

Sara rolled over then, mostly to reclaim her powers of speech and thought. “Beckman, you acquit him of all the trouble we’ve had here and find him worthy of trust and confidences and God knows what else, all because you’ve splashed around in the springs together? Forgive me if I’m slower to trust. His brother was similarly charming and kind and interested only in my welfare, until he’d sprung his trap, leaving my life in ruins, my brother dead, and my parents believing every lie Reynard spun, while my sister…”

“Sara?” Polly stood at Sara’s door.

“God save me,” Sara muttered.

“My apologies,” Polly said. “Allie’s not in her bed.”

“She’s not?” Sara sat up in an instant, scooting to the side of the bed. “Could she be at the privy?”

“Not likely,” Polly said. “She’s been warned not to leave the house at night.”

“Dear God…” Sara was almost off the bed before Beck stopped her with fingers wrapped around her wrist.

“Wait.” He reached for his dressing gown with the other hand. “Think first, Sara. We’ll find her. Where’s North, Polly?”

“He thought he saw a light in the barn and was going to investigate, but Allie wouldn’t take a lantern out there without permission, not with all that hay to catch on a single spark.”

Beck kept his grip on Sara’s arm when she would have bolted for the door in her nightgown. He handed her the green dressing gown and then her slipper boots. “Your sister will need a shawl, Polly, and a lantern. I doubt she’ll let me leave this house without her.”

Sara nodded affirmation of that notion, and Polly disappeared.

“I’m going to see if Tremaine is in his bed,” Beck said, standing to yank on his breeches. “You will not panic, Sara, do you hear me? Allie was in her bed not fifteen minutes ago, and she can’t have gone far by moonlight.”

Unless, of course, she was bundled onto Tremaine’s horse and heading for the first ship out of Portsmouth. Sara kept that thought to herself as Beck escorted her to the kitchen and saw her into Polly’s keeping, while he went to see if Tremaine—alone in all of Creation—was yet abed.

“St. Michael is not in his bed,” Beck said, anxiety in his eyes, “so you ladies take the lantern, and I’ll find North. You will remain on the back porch, though, until you see my signal. If you fear I’ve come to harm, you lock yourself in the carriage house with Angus and send Jeff for help on foot.”

He turned to go, but Sara stopped him with a hand on his arm. All the years she’d been married, all the years she’d been a mother, she’d felt a lack. Men had desired her; men had paid money to hear her perform. They’d offered her pretty compliments, some of them even sincere.

But no man had put himself at risk of harm for her or for her daughter. For Beckman to walk into certain danger for her or for Allie was an awful blessing, much harder to accept than Sara would have guessed.

“Be careful, Beckman. Please, for the love of God, be careful.”

He kissed her soundly on the mouth and slipped out into the darkness.

***

Beck’s slipper boots made a noiseless approach easy in the thick summer grass, but as he neared the barn, he heard voices murmuring. First, Allie’s light tones drifted through the darkness, relaxed and curious, though her words were indistinct. Then came the peculiar rumble of Tremaine’s bass burr. Their conversation was clearly amiable, and Beck was calculating how best to get closer, when North stepped from the shadows, a finger to his lips. He gestured toward the barn, and Beck nodded.

By slow increments, they stole nearer, until they were in the dense shadows of the first empty stall, close enough to hear every word.

“Do you know what my papa looked like?”

“A lot like you,” Tremaine said. “His hair was not as reddish, but more brown, and his eyes were not as… they weren’t as pretty. But in here”—he paused—“there it is. I brought this in case you might want it.”

“That’s my papa?” Allie’s voice was wondering. “He looked just like that, too.”

“I think your aunt might have painted it. It’s good enough to be her work.”

“Aunt is very talented with portraiture,” Allie allowed absently. “He looks happy.”

“He generally was. He tried to paint too, you know, when he was young.”

“I didn’t know.” Allie’s tone was arrested. “Why did he stop?”

“Hard to say. The times were very difficult in France—they still are—and lessons and materials were not easy to come by. Then too, he was never satisfied and felt anybody else’s work was better than his.”

“It’s hard,” Allie said, “to be the student and feel like you always botch it up. Aunt says I have to be patient, and I’m getting better, but I’m not supposed to talk about my painting with you.”

“Whyever not?”

North would have risen then, but Beck stopped him with a shake of his head. Instead, he indicated they should shift a few feet closer, so the child and her uncle were in view.

“Because you might try to make me paint for money,” Allie said, “the way my papa made money from Aunt’s work and Mama’s music. It wasn’t well done of him.”

“They’ve told you about that, have they?”

“No.” Allie’s voice shifted as she rummaged in the trunk. “I sleep in a little alcove, and they often think I’m asleep when they’re up late, talking. When I ask, they always say nice things about my papa, but they won’t look at me when they do. At night, when it’s dark, they half-say things to each other about him, and he wasn’t very nice sometimes.”

“He wasn’t. Nobody’s nice all the time, though, Allemande. I tell myself he was doing the best he could.”

Allie fell silent, and Tremaine, hunkered before the trunk with her, was apparently going to leave her to her thoughts.

“What else do you have in this trunk, Uncle?”

“A few things I thought your mama or your aunt might want,” Tremaine said. “There are three little paintings your papa sent me right before he died, some perfume he bought in Venice, an inkwell with a bear on it—I think he bought that with you in mind—a little decorated teapot. Sundries, I suppose, but these things caught my eye when I was packing.”

“They’re for us?” Allie’s voice was muffled as she went diving again for treasure.

“I believe they are yours. Yours, your mama’s, and your aunt’s, but certainly not mine.”

“Don’t suppose you use lady’s perfume,” Allie muttered. “My goodness, I remember these…”

“Allie…” Tremaine’s tone held amusement. “I meant to bring this trunk out sometime when your mother could supervise dispersal of the contents, but the moment never presented itself. Why don’t we get you back to bed, and we’ll make a project of it in the morning?”

“Yes, Uncle, but you should know I get up quite early.” The lid of the trunk came down, and Tremaine hefted Allie to his hip.

“If you get your sheets dirty because you tromped around the yard tonight, you’ll get us both in trouble.”

“Tremaine.” Beck stepped into the light, having surprised Allie at least.

“Mr. Haddonfield.” Allie grinned from her perch on Tremaine’s hip. “Hullo.”

Beck smiled at her. “Hullo, princess. My lecture about not leaving the house alone after dark must have slipped your memory.”

“But I’m not alone.” Allie hugged her uncle, who was looking chagrined and protective of his niece.

“No harm done,” Tremaine said. “I’ll just take Allie back to her apartment and make apologies all around.”

“And explanations,” Beck suggested, reaching for Allie and transferring her to his own hip.

“Beckman?” Sara’s voice sounded from the barn door. “Is everything all right?”

“So much for my lectures about staying on the porch. In here, Sara, and you needn’t worry. Allie is merely having a midnight chat with her uncle.”

“Hullo, Mama.” Allie’s grin dimmed. “Hullo, Aunt. Is Mr. North coming too?”

“I’m here.” North emerged from the shadows. “Though I believe I’ll be seeking my bed.”

“Not so fast.”

Five adults and one child turned to survey the figures coming down the ladder from the hayloft. The going was difficult, because each man was clambering down while trying to keep a double-barreled pistol trained on the assemblage.

“Tobias?” Polly spoke for the group, her voice laden with incredulity. “Timothy?”

“Hold yer tongue, Miss High and Mighty,” Tobias spat. “We’ll just be taking the girl here. Set her down, mate, and back away from her.”

“Not on your miserable, craven, cowardly lives.” Beck turned so Allie was shielded by the sheer bulk of his body. “Murder me before these women and this child if you like, but I’m twice your size, and I take a lot of killing.”

“As do I,” North echoed, smiling evilly.

“And then there’s the girl’s uncle,” Tremaine chimed in, “who has years of neglecting her circumstances to atone for.”

“There’s three of ’em,” Timothy noted, apparently for the first time.

“We got four shots atween us, Tim,” Tobias said. “They’ll not do a thing.”

From the corner of Beck’s eye, he saw Boo-boo regarding the scene with sleepy puzzlement.

“A stray dog could kidnap the child more effectively than you two,” Beck scoffed, catching North’s eye. North nodded ever so slightly and shifted his position.

“Where are you going?” Tobias waved his pistol between North and Beck.

“I’ve seen enough of this farce,” North began in his most scathing tones. “You two are the most imbecilic, ridiculous…”

“Boo-boo!” Beck literally threw Allie into North’s arms. “Treat! Boo-boo, treat!”

The dog started baying and jumping around, Tremaine grabbed the women and hustled them from the barn on North’s heels, and Beck put himself between the twins and those they had held at gunpoint.

“Make the dog shut up, Toby!” Tim fired his gun at Boo-boo, who thought the noise was great fun indeed, barking louder than ever, until Tim discharged his second bullet in desperation, then pitched the gun at the dog.

Beck wrenched Tobias’s gun from his hand and cocked the hammer.

“Both of you hold still.” Hearing Beck’s voice, Boo-boo fell silent as well, tilting his head as if to ask why the game had been suspended.

“The dog is still hungry enough to snack on whatever’s to hand.” Beck picked up Tim’s spent weapon without taking his eyes off the twins. “As much as I’d like to let him have at you, for your own safety, get in the empty stall.”

Tim eyed the dog. “Do as he says, Tobe. That beast didn’t like us none when we brung him here.”

“Hush, you!” Tobias hissed. “We never seen that damned dog. Never.”

“You were seen with the dog in the village,” Beck improvised. “Your boots, doubtless, will match the prints found near our burned smokehouse. You will not be able to account for yourselves on the days when trouble befell us here, and I’m sure, if I ask around on the docks in Portsmouth long enough, I’ll find somebody who sold you a black rat snake, traded you for it, or lost it to you in a card game.”

“Tobe…” Tim was already in the stall. “He knows about that snake. I told you the snake was a bad…”

“Shut up!”

“In the stall, Tobias,” Beck said. “Now. My finger itches worse with each moment I consider the harm you did a helpless old woman’s property, much less the scare you put into the ladies who never did you any wrong.”

Tobias was inspired, perhaps by the absolutely genuine menace in Beck’s voice, to join his brother in the stall. “You never paid us our wages,” Tobias sneered. “Your hands ain’t clean.”

“Your wages were left at the posting inn,” Beck said, closing both the top and bottom halves of the stall door and bolting them. “If you owed a prior balance there, you might have taken it up with the innkeeper. What, no witty riposte, gentlemen? You disappoint me, as does my own unwillingness to murder you outright. Be warned, I will shoot you should you give me the slightest provocation. The very slightest.”

He left them with that to think about, detailed Jeff and Angus to watch the prisoners, and headed for the house. On the back porch he paused, gazing up at the starry night and wishing he could take more than a few minutes before joining the others inside.