Beckman: Lord of Sins (17 page)

“Your brother fetched you home so you could remarry?” Sara could not keep her distaste for his brother’s motives from her voice. “Why couldn’t your idiot brother do his duty by the title? He’s the heir.”

“Since I went up to school, Nick has been hinting and warning and outright lecturing me he will not be having children. It’s most of the reason why I married. The spare’s purpose in life is to provide that service if the heir can’t. I gave it my best try, or so I tell him and Papa, and I failed. That’s where I leave the discussion, and now Nicholas is marrying, apparently, but the lectures haven’t stopped.”

“I would like to meet this somewhat crazy brother of yours,” Sara said. “I would tell him what I think of his selfishness.”

“Nick isn’t selfish, but his situation makes him seem so sometimes.” Beck sounded as if he were trying to convince himself of this. “When you finish your bath, don’t dress. We’ll serve ourselves, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course.” Sara rose, relieved and a little surprised when Beck took her in his arms and just held her.

“My thanks.”

“For?” She wanted to glance up, assess his mood, but his chin was resting on her temple, contentment in his sigh.

“Letting me take down your hair, coming here with me, letting me hold you.”

Letting him?

“It might come as a surprise to you, Beckman Sylvanus Haddonfield, but you are a comely man, full of charm and clean about your person. Spending time with you like this is no hardship. No hardship at all.” Though it was a challenge. Moment by moment, whether he was sharing his past, taking down her hair, or merely holding her, it was a challenge.

“You’re so fierce.” Beck’s smile curved against her brow. “But your bath will be here soon, and I’d best be about my errands.” He patted her backside, a curiously endearing gesture, and stepped back. As he took his leave, a troop of maids and footmen brought in Sara’s bath and washing water, leaving her to soak in peace and to wonder what errands the Haddonfield spare was about.

By the time Beckman had returned to their rooms, the tub was gone, a tea cart laden with dinner had been set up near the window, and Sara was beginning to fret a little at his absence.

“Miss me?” He set down some packages and crossed directly to wrap his arms around her. “Your fragrances are enough to drive me to distraction, Sarabande.”

“You’ve bathed as well.” Sara got a nice whiff of bergamot, citrus, and Beck. She buried her nose against his sternum and wondered when his embrace had come to feel like home and a private adventure rolled into one.

She tilted back to peer up at him. “Just how tall are you?”

“A bit shy of six and a half feet.” Beck peered right back at her. “I’m not the runt in my family—that honor belongs to George, who’s all of three or four inches shorter. Nick is taller.”

“God in heaven. The poor man, no wonder he’s somewhat crazy.”

“Why do you say that?” Beck slipped his arms from her and moved to shrug out of his jacket. Sara’s hands went to his shoulders, helping him out of his coat then turning him to unknot his cravat.

“A man that size will have little privacy,” Sara said. “He’s always visible, and people likely see only his size, like people see only my red hair. You are tall enough to know what that feels like, to be seen only as an oversized physical specimen. Even North is regarded by most as more brute than gentleman, at least until they hear him speak.”

Beck lifted his chin, suggesting to Sara that other women had assisted him out of his clothes. His cuff links came next, and then his waistcoat.

“Tell me, love,” Beck said as she started on the buttons of his shirt. “Are we to allow me any clothing during our meal?”

Sara dropped her hands and stepped back. “I beg your pardon. I wasn’t… Oh, dear…”

“Dear heart,” Beck said, pulling her into his embrace, “you may undress me any time. My dressing gown hangs on the back of the bedroom door, and then I’ll be at least as unclothed as you.”

She nodded, face flaming, and Beck sat to tug off his boots.

“Were you your husband’s valet?” Beck asked as Sara brought him his blue velvet dressing gown.

“I was not.” She took a surreptitious sniff of his fragrance from his dressing gown. “I liked sleeping in your dressing gown. It’s very warm and soft.” She sniffed again, crushing it to her nose. “And it bears your fragrance.”

Beck grinned, rose, and tugged his shirt off over his head. “Naughty, but flattering. And here I resent your dressing gown no end and can think of nothing other than getting you out of it.” His breeches, stockings, and smalls were gone, just like that, leaving him naked in the middle of the sitting room.

“Beckman…” Sara turned her face away, another blush gracing her cheeks. “You are shameless.” Also beautiful and desirable.

“So you be shameless too.” Beck padded to her side and took his dressing gown from her hands. “Enjoy a little peek, Sara. Get some ideas for how you want to spend the rest of the evening, hmm?” He shook out his dressing gown and shrugged into it, while Sara did, indeed, risk a glance at him before he belted it at his waist.

Dinner was simple but satisfying. They talked as they ate, about the book Sara had read, about their shopping itinerary for the next day, about the city of Portsmouth, which Beck seemed to know thoroughly. They also talked of sights on the Continent they’d both seen, finding on at least two occasions they’d stayed in the same inns, though not at the same time.

“Why didn’t you use London as your port of call?” Sara asked. “Portsmouth had to be a little remote, given your family lives in Kent.”

“When one wants anonymity about one’s comings and goings, London is not one’s first choice. Then too, I got in the habit of putting in at the smaller ports.”

He crossed his knife and fork on the edge of his plate. “Shall we take in a little evening air?” He rose, not waiting for her answer but holding her chair for her and wrapping her hand in his. “It’s dark enough we’ll have privacy on the balcony.”

He was right on two counts. While they had talked and eaten and talked some more, night had fallen. Then too, their inn was on the edge of town and their room at the back. From their balcony, they could see the moon rising over the fields and pastures used by the inn’s dozens of coaching horses.

“Pretty night.” Beck settled his arms around Sara, holding her back to his chest. “And lucky me, I’m in the company of a pretty lady.” His lips grazed the side of Sara’s neck, and just like that, the pleasant meal with the congenial gentleman was over.

“Beckman, we need to talk.” She pulled away from his embrace, relieved he let her go without resistance.

“I’m listening.” He came to her side, where she stood against the railing, facing out toward the moonlit countryside. He didn’t try to touch her, but Sara was abundantly aware of him nonetheless.

“You asked earlier did I valet my husband,” Sara began. “And you let it drop when I answered in the negative.”

“I am bent on seduction, Sara.” Beck’s voice held a hint of humor. “What was I doing, bringing up the man you chose for your mate, and your intimate ease with the business of helping him undress? Not well done of me, but I was curious.”

“I never…” Sara glanced at him in the moonlight and saw his expression was cool, for all the humor in his tone. “That’s what we need to talk about. You need to understand the way I was married.”

“Unhappily,” Beck said. “I wish for you it could have been different, just as I’m sure you wish the same for me.” He didn’t want to belabor the subject, which sparked Sara’s curiosity regarding Beck’s brief and ill-fated marriage.

Sara crossed her arms over her chest and prepared to be more honest than she had thus far. “My marriage was not unhappy, Beckman, it was miserable, filled with bewilderment at first, and loathing, and then—thank God—a towering indifference to anything save the ways and degrees in which Reynard’s decisions impacted my survival, Polly’s, and Allie’s. He was my intimate enemy, by most lights.”

“You did not want to be performing on stage,” Beck concluded, and in the assurance of his tone, Sara understood that he was not merely being sympathetic. Beckman had been forced to perform somehow, perhaps solving the family problems, perhaps in his marriage.

Was he still being forced?

“I did not want to be performing on his terms, certainly,” Sara agreed. “And then Allie showed up, and it became perform or starve. I did not want to learn what desperate measures starvation might inspire in my husband.”

Beck tucked her braid over her shoulder. “That sounds ominous.”

Sara merely nodded, because the private performances were her most personal shame. Those and the things Polly had suffered because her sister could not protect her.

“I don’t like to think of it, though you need to know I do not come to this situation of ours with a great deal of experience.”

“Not with a great deal of good experience,” Beck said. “It can be my privilege to address that lack, if you’ll allow it.”

“I’m going to allow it.” The words were true, but they sounded far more confident than Sara felt. Far more calculating. “You have to understand, Beck, it’s… I’m selfish about this attraction between us. I’m indulging a curiosity, nothing more.”

He gazed out over the cool, silvery landscape. “You’re taking your pleasure from me, striking a blow at the weasel you were forced to support with your music. I understand.”

“You don’t.” Sara shook her head, amused at his words, sad though they were. Reynard’s teeth
had
been a trifle prominent. “But you aren’t wrong, either. You are a confection, Beckman. The male version of a woman’s dreams. Handsome, charming, kind, generous… It would be better for me did you scratch more in public, swear, have a fondness for cock fights, or put your muddy boots up on my tables.”

He turned so his backside rested against the balcony railing. “My sisters would skin me where I stood if I behaved like that. You deserve a man who is well mannered, clean, and considerate, Sara. Every woman does.”

“You aren’t simply well mannered, clean, and considerate. I think I’ve made my point as well as I’m able, particularly with you standing there in the moonlight in just your dressing gown.”

“Having trouble with rational discourse, are you?” Beck slipped an arm around her waist. “That’s a start.”

“Naughty man.” Sara rested her head on his arm. “We are agreed, then, our expectations of each other are low and transitory?”

“Are you trying to wave me on my way before I’ve even shown you pleasure, Sara?”

“In a sense, yes.” Sara thought of the letter she’d received a week ago, the letter she was going to have to deal with. “Your stay at Three Springs is temporary, and I might have reason to find a different post at any time. You’ve pointed out that Allie is isolated, and her art would prosper were we a little nearer civilization. This is a… frolic, Beckman. A frolic in which you’ve already pleasured me witless.”

He shifted, putting himself between Sara and the balcony railing. “Love, I haven’t begun to pleasure you witless.”

He eased his arms around her waist, the character of his touch becoming seductive. He didn’t merely hug her; he let her feel the slow glide of his hand on the thin material of her dressing gown, starting at her midriff and working his way around her ribs, down to her waist, over her hips, then around to rest on the upper swell of her derriere. “Let yourself come closer.” Beck tugged on her. “Much closer.”

She gave him her weight, her trust, and a bit of her heart, keeping her cheek against his chest. She could hear his heart beating a slow, reassuring tattoo and feel the tempo of her own heartbeat rising. One of Beck’s hands slid up her spine and rested on her nape, where his thumb made slow, languorous circles.

“You don’t have to be certain, you know.” His voice was suited to darkness, low, sensuous, and soothing. “If you’re uncomfortable, Sara, you tell me to stop, and I’ll damned well sleep in the stables.”

“I won’t tell you to stop,” Sara assured him, though it was almost as if he were daring her to reject him, so insistent was he on reminding her of this. She offered him assurances in false coin, though, because in the past week, between fits of worry over Tremaine’s missive, Sara had tried to puzzle out her reasons for consorting with Beckman Haddonfield. The best she could do, as she’d told him, was that she was using him in some manner to recover from her marriage. Reynard had left her dreams in tatters, her body exhausted, and her spirit hurting.

She would treat herself to the attentions Beckman offered, learn something of dalliance, and see what it was like to be held in affection by a man she respected—nothing less, and nothing more.

When his fingers stilled on her nape, she put aside her musings, waiting for his next word, his next breath, his next anything.

“A lady can change her mind, Sara,” Beck whispered, cruising his lips over her closed eyes. “At any time, she can change her mind.”

Provided she
had
a mind left to change. Beck’s hands framed her face, his thumbs feathering over her cheeks and jaw. The care in his touch, the unhurried, savoring quality of his explorations turned Sara’s knees unreliable and her spine into a lyrical, lilting melody. When Beck settled his lips over hers, she had a sense of sinking, of going under and drowning in pleasurable sensations.

He commanded all of her attention by virtue of showering all of his on her. He was touching her, breathing her, tasting her, wrapping his body around hers in such a way Sara felt him surrounding her every sense—sight, scent, hearing, taste, touch. She became filled with Beckman Haddonfield.

How long they stood there kissing, Sara could not have said. Long enough to leave her clinging to him, desperately needing more and clueless how to find it.

Beck broke the kiss and tucked her under his arm. “I’ve been waiting lifetimes for this, Sarabande Adagio, and for what follows now, we need and deserve a bed.”

***

Beck had not exaggerated. For him, his extravagant statement was simple truth. Sara wasn’t his usual fare—a discreet widow or a titled lady out for an evening’s romp. She wasn’t one of Nick’s hopefuls; she wasn’t anything Beck had allowed himself before.

She was decent. Good. She was choosing him for herself, and he wanted to be worthy of the honor.

He also—God help him—hoped she was choosing
him
, Beck Haddonfield, not simply a randy and convenient male whose discretion could be trusted in the morning, but a person. This was greedy and foolish of him—he invariably stumbled when dealing in sentiment—but he was honest with himself out of habit, and it wasn’t such a sorry thing to want.

To be a person to one’s lover.

And for that reason, he’d changed his mind when he’d gone out on his errands. He’d retrieved Sara’s packages and bathed, as intended, but he had not stopped by the common room and procured for himself enough brandy to ensure the evening would start with a pleasurable glow.

He’d taken his courage in one hand, his self-discipline in the other, and for the second time in his life, he’d resisted the temptation to get drunk his first night in Portsmouth. The decision was paying off, in the acuity of his senses, in the clarity of his will and the sure knowledge he would recall every sigh and caress Sara graced him with the whole night through.

He searched her face in the moonlight, seeing desire, but also uncertainty in her eyes. If he’d made that stop in the taproom, would he have missed the uncertainty?

“I want to see you. All of you, Sara.”

She nodded but made no move to take off her dressing gown. Ah, well, he’d ever been one to enjoy unwrapping pretty gifts.

Slowly, his fingers went to the sash belting her dressing gown. He tugged it free then pushed the robe off her shoulders and tossed it onto the foot of the bed. Her nightgown was old, plain, and, in keeping with the warmer weather, came only to her knees. He knelt before her and slid off her slippers, one at a time. Rather than rise immediately, he nudged the hem of her nightgown up and ran his cheek over the smooth skin above her knee.

Heaven help him, even her knees smelled good—tasted good.