Beckman: Lord of Sins (13 page)

“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.

“Beckman? Maudie neglected to…”

Sara’s voice trailed off when she didn’t see him in his sitting room, so she opened the door to his bedroom. Her eyebrows rose as she fell silent, taking in the tableau before her.

He was absolutely, utterly, without-a-stitch
naked
, and absolutely, utterly, without-a-doubt
breathtaking
.

“My goodness.” Sara stood there, feeling drunk, unable to move, holding a pitcher of water between her hands. As casual as you please, Beck strolled over, took the water from her, drew her into the room by her wrist and pushed the door closed.

“A pleasure to see you.” He leaned down and nuzzled her neck, barely touching her but bringing his heat and the clean scent of him near enough for Sara to sense both. And in just a few words and a few steps, he’d shifted his species, going from a hardworking man partway through his bedtime routine to a prowling beast bent on seduction.

“Beckman?”

“That would be me.” In no hurry whatsoever, he picked up a blue velvet dressing gown and loosely belted it around his waist. She watched him, even when he was decently covered.

Beck smiled, and not the smile of a hardworking man preparing to retire. “You look at me like that, and I am reminded that for a week I have been a perfect gentleman—a long, difficult, profoundly frustrating week.”

Sara knew he expected a reply, but she was entranced by the naked skin of his throat and chest. Her hand came up as if to brush along his sternum then fell self-consciously back to her side. The week had been very long indeed, and he was not the only one who’d been burdened by good behavior.

“Touch me, Sara.” Beck kept his hands at his sides. “It has to have been a long week for you too.”

“This isn’t wise.” But even as she spoke, she did stroke a single finger down his sternum. He closed his eyes, fisted his hands, and she did it again with two fingers, pushing the material of his dressing gown a little aside as she did. In the light of the candles gracing his room, the trail of hair down his midline gleamed like gilded fire.

Beckman opened eyes bluer than his velvet dressing gown. “Indulge yourself. Investigate me, Sara. Investigate me beyond a walk to the pond or a tour around the rose bushes. See if what I offer is worth your consideration, lest you make a decision on supposition rather than fact.”

“You want me to inspect you, like a horse?”

“I want you to take your time,” Beck said. “To assure yourself you know all you need to decide your course. Consider this a trial ride, and see how I suit you.”

He was smiling at her, a maddeningly coy and relaxed smile.

“I’m not ready for that,” Sara said, resenting his poise. He’d barely even touched her—barely—and her insides were already turning liquid, her thoughts slowing, her awareness filling up with sensations instead: his bergamot scent, the way his skin gleamed by firelight, the feel of smooth male muscle beneath her fingertips, the warmth he gave off, and the soft light of desire in his eyes, even as he waited for her to choose.

“I’ll inspect,” Sara heard herself decide, “but no more.” Had they not taken that walk to the pond, had Beckman not listened to her silly tale of woe, she would not have made that choice—maybe.

“Inspect to your heart’s content. I take it Allie is off to bed?”

“She’d already tucked herself in,” Sara said, “and Polly was right behind her. We’ve all had a busy week.”

Beck shrugged out of his dressing gown.

“What are you doing?” Sara tried to keep her voice level and did not move one inch from her post by the closed bedroom door.

“Getting ready for bed myself.” He yawned and scratched his chest, giving her a shadowed look at the front of him before propping one foot on the raised hearth. “I assume you’ll want me on the bed, but regardless, I’m fastidious by nature.”

She knew that and liked it about him. He bent to use his washrag on one sizable foot, and the play of firelight along the curve of his spine and buttocks nearly had Sara’s knees buckling.

He straightened. “Perhaps you’d like to do the honors?” He wrung out his rag and held it out to her.

“Me?” She took a step closer.

“Or I can finish myself.” He dipped the cloth and started on his other foot, bending forward again. “I truly enjoy washing my feet, which probably has some biblical connotation, but it keeps the sheets clean, and it’s really nobody’s business but my own. Shall I wash your feet, Sarabande?”

“What else do you like to wash?” She’d moved to the end of the bed, a few steps closer.

He shrugged. “I just like to be clean. I was teased for that by my brothers, but they’re as fussy as I am.”

“I don’t think of you as fussy,” Sara said, watching the muscles of his forearms and biceps flex as he wrung out the washcloth again.

“I certainly hope you don’t see me as fussy.” He swiped the rag along the back of his neck, though from the scent of him, Sara suspected he’d completed his ablutions before she’d arrived. “Shall you finish this job for me?”

“You look clean to me.” He looked naked to her, naked, desirable, and completely at ease with it. She’d never seen Reynard entirely naked, never wanted to, but she knew the view wouldn’t have been half so impressive as this.

“I’ve missed a spot.” Beck smiled at her. “An important spot.” He tossed the rag at her and held her gaze as she caught the cloth. “Go ahead, Sara. Indulge your curiosity.”

“I am indulging it.” She licked her lips but couldn’t help darting one glance to his genitals. Turned as he was, his groin was still shadowed, but she thought she could see a hint of tumescence to his… To him.

Had
she
inspired that?

“You are tolerating your curiosity. Lying again. Indulge it.”

She read a challenge in his expression, but something much more seductive than a simple taunt: behind his cool humor, his overweening male confidence, his patience even, there was
tenderness
, a willingness to abide by her wishes out of genuine regard for her.

A form of kindness.

She’d told him too much at the pond. Were she not aware that Beckman could on any day be summoned to leave the property and not come back, she might have found the strength to walk away from that tenderness.

“Touch me, Sara. I’ll not beg, and you’ll not regret it. Let me give you what you want.”

“Turn around.” She closed the distance between them and grasped Beck by one arm, turning him to face the hearth. He watched while she moved the basin and took a seat on the bricks beside it. “You’ll tell me if I misstep.”

He nodded, his expression becoming unreadable as Sara positioned herself, realizing only as she did that her face—her
mouth
—was nearly level with his groin.

She laved his thighs in slow, rhythmic strokes, but sweet, holy, perishing saints… “Turn.”

She spent a long minute admiring his buttocks, then used the washcloth to make measured trips over his flanks then the backs of his thighs. “Turn again.”

She heard him take an audible breath before he complied, keeping his hands at his sides but planting his feet half a step wider. His cock was showing unmistakable signs of interest in the proceedings, and he didn’t try to hide that from her.

Sara frowned at his genitals, but wrung out the flannel and this time used it on the insides of his thighs.

Rinsing the cloth again, Sara slid it in a careful, general pass over his groin.

“Not like that.” Beck closed his hand over hers and brought the washcloth directly over his cock. “Like this.” He swabbed himself with her grip, up and down several times, the angle of his erection increasing as he did. He bent and picked up her other hand. “And then you tend it like this.”

Holding his cock up against his belly, he showed her how to use the washcloth on his testes, then let his cock go so it bobbed against the back of her hand. She snatched her hand away, glaring up at him accusingly.

“And now I’m clean enough,” he said. She took a breath, set the washcloth and basin aside. When she would have risen—would have lost her nerve—he reached out and cradled a hand along her jaw then stroked it down over her head from her crown to her nape. “When we’re in that bed, you’ll touch me, Sara. However you please.”

She wanted to. Sara was ruthlessly honest with herself, and she admitted she wanted to. That wasn’t surprising, because he was right: she was curious. She could resist temptation if she had to, but there was something unusual about this encounter with Beckman Haddonfield.

Men had often attempted to seduce her—practiced, polished, worldly men, some of whom had been musically literate. Reynard would have crowed with glee had she taken lovers, because lovers would mean gifts, even extravagant gifts, and gifts would mean more good food, decent wine, and late nights at cards for him.

Those men had looked at her with desire, and a few of them had even been handsome, intelligent, attractive men.

But the lust in their eyes hadn’t been bounded by the
respect
she saw on Beck’s face. He would not pressure her, and if and when she capitulated to her desires, he would want it to be an independent decision on her part, not a lapse she could blame on him or attribute to a weak moment.

He wanted her to choose him, but for her sake as much as his own.

Beck hunkered on the rug, letting her hide her face against his shoulder. “Come to bed with me, Sara. You can indulge all of your creative impulses and allow me to explore a few of mine, too.”

She nodded against his naked, muscular shoulder, no longer recognizing herself. God help her, but she wanted to put her mouth on his shoulder, taste him there, open her teeth on him while her hands ran riot over the rest of him.

“Come.” Beck straightened and raised her to her feet. While she stood, docile and self-conscious, he undid her dress, took off her stockings, stays and slippers, and then untied the bows of her chemise. He paused and met her eyes to ask the question.

She considered, finding she wanted to be as naked as he was, and that too was something that hadn’t ever happened with Reynard.

Which, she realized, made her fiercely glad. Reynard had been flawed, troubled, and morally diseased, but it had been easy, particularly as a young woman and a new wife, to think the flaw had lain with her.

Well, it hadn’t. The look in Beck’s eyes, the reverent feel of his hands as he drew her chemise off her shoulders, they told her, if nothing else ever had, she was desirable, wonderfully, wildly, irrefutably
desirable
.

“Come to bed with me.” He held out his hand and let her see in his eyes his pleasure in her nakedness. When she put her hand in his, he drew her to him and enfolded her against him. “Just one more thing…” She stood patiently while he drew the pins from her hair, until her braid was swinging down her back, brushing against her naked backside.

“That is an odd sensation.” Wicked, peculiar, and ticklish.

“I want it all the way undone.” He drew her braid over her shoulder and brushed the tip of it over her breast.

“You want
me
all the way undone.” Sara retrieved her braid from his hand. “This will have to do for now. Oh, dear…”

Beck had pulled her close again, and his erection arrowed up along her belly between them.

“I want you,” he murmured as his slid his hands down to cup her derriere. “This should not be surprising. You are lovely, sexually appealing, intelligent, and thank all the gods, naked in my arms.”

“You mentioned something about the bed, Beckman.” She tried for a convincing version of prim, but when she saw him stifle a smile, she knew he heard the hesitance in her voice.

“The bed with both of us in it.” Beck dropped his arms, seized her hand, and towed her the last few steps toward the bed. “Naked.”

“One can hardly forget that part.” Sara eyed the bed with sudden misgiving.

“In you go.” Beck patted her behind gently. “I’ll lock the sitting room door.”

Happy to get under the covers, despite the obvious appreciation in Beck’s eyes, Sara obligingly lifted the bedclothes and scooted across the mattress. Beck closed the bedroom door behind him and climbed in beside her with a complete lack of ceremony.

“Now what?” Sara had the covers up to her chin, and she was on Her Side of the Bed, staring at the ceiling. Beck came bouncing and rocking across the mattress, causing Sara to scoot farther toward the edge of the bed.

“Stop that.” He wrapped long arms around her waist and hauled her back to the middle. “I won’t bite, Sara, unless you want me to. And then I’ll kiss it better.”

“It’s just…” She paused while Beck rolled her to her side and wrapped his body around hers. “I’m not used to situations like this.”

“So it’s been a while.” Beck’s arm threaded under her neck, and he gathered her close. “You’ll recall the particulars, with a little reminding. Scoot a bit, if you please?”

He need not have bothered asking. With his size and complete lack of self-consciousness, Beck had arranged her in his arms and himself around her.

Mostly.

“You’re blushing.” His tone indicated he was pleased with himself.

“You are… your
parts
are intimately situated.”

“So enjoy them,” Beck suggested, rolling his hips to rub his cock against her sex. The angle was wrong for penetration—Sara could figure that much out—but intriguing for other purposes.

Sara wasn’t blushing, she was
mortified
as the great, thick length of him was snuggled right up against the parts of her body Sara rarely touched except to wash. Having the bulk of him between her legs brought an odd comfort, but it was disquieting, too. Impossible to ignore, like a beautiful picture hanging crookedly directly across the room from where one sat.

And yet, she did not want to leave that bed. She wanted to learn him, to become as familiar with his body as he was. She ran her hand over his flank, liking the curve of it, the way muscle and bone became a lean, elegant leg.

Sara’s fingers found a scar crossing the crest of Beck’s left hip.

“Riding accident as a child. There’s another one on my wrist, and a scar here”—he brought her hand to his collarbone—“where I broke a bone in another fall.”