“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.
Nine
“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.”
“Little boys are so reckless. Men are no better.” Sara rubbed her thumb over the scar on his hip.
Beck slipped his hand around hers. “This man would very much like you to wax a bit reckless too.” He slid their combined hands down and positioned her fingers over his cock. “A lot reckless wouldn’t go amiss either.”
* * *
Tremaine surveyed the tally before h
im, knowing that even the sizable total on the last page was not an accurate figure when it came to the booty Reynard had sent back to England “for safekeeping.”
“There’s a bloody fortune here.”
The cat in his arms, Harriette, named for the famed courtesan whose behavior she emulated whenever allowed to roam free, purred audibly.
“I’ve cast my first lure but gotten no response.” He paused before a small painting for which anybody with a discerning eye would have paid a fortune. “A marmalade cat was a much better choice than you would have been.”
The cat in the figure made perfect graceful counterpoint to the nearly naked woman with whom it slept. “Black is trite, overdone, and probably not very interesting to paint.”
The beast leapt from his embrace, her back claws pushing away from Tremaine’s ribs with enough emphasis to make Tremaine grateful for both waistcoat and shirt. “Be that way. See who lets you cuddle up on his bed when I’m off to deal with Reynard’s womenfolk. Some of us appreciate the treasures that come our way.”
The cat, tail held high, strutted from the room, paying him no mind whatsoever.
* * *
Sara Hunt was driving Beck past the controlled, careful wooing he wanted to give her. His plan was not motivated by generosity but by the conviction that a more precipitous approach would fail.
And Sara would allow no second chances.
“Other men aren’t built like you, are they?” She’d shifted to her back and sent her hands running riot over his person and his… parts. She began to shape and stroke one part of him in particular, while Beck struggled to keep his breathing even.
“We all have pretty much the same accoutrements,” Beck managed, though it was an odd question for a widow. But then, some husbands were painfully modest—he certainly had been.
“Like a pony has the same parts as a horse,” Sara said. “When you’re like this”—she closed her fingers around his shaft—“it means you’re impassioned.”
Was that a question or an observation? When he was with her, it was an understatement in any case.
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