Beckman: Lord of Sins ll-4

by Grace Burrowes

  “Try confiding in her yourself.” Polly leaned up and kissed Beck’s cheek. He hugged her to him briefly before he handed her up into the window seat he’d reserved for her.

  “Safe journey, Polonaise.” Beck’s height put him more than level with the window. “And, Polly? I got a brief note from North in the morning post, and he’s reached his destination safely, though he didn’t elaborate. If I hear further, I’ll let you know.”

  Polly’s face broke into a surprised smile as the coachy cracked his whip and the horses clattered off at a bone-shaking trot.

  Allie slipped her hand into Beck’s. “You made Aunt smile. What did you say?”

  “I wished her safe journey and told her if I heard more from North, I’d let her know.”

  “Will you let me know?”

  “He’d want me to.”

  “I really miss him.”

  “I know, princess. I miss him too.”

  * * *

  Late August would have been the last precious weeks of the summer lull, because the fruit and grain weren’t ready to be harvested yet, except Beck’s red winter wheat had to be planted before harvest. He was glad for the backbreaking work of plowing, glad to fall into bed exhausted every evening after his soak or swim, glad for a way to numb himself that did not involve liquor or worse.

  He was not glad to toss much of each night away, despite his burning fatigue. He willed Sara to come to him, and more than once, sat up, grabbed for his dressing gown, and started down the dark corridor toward her room, only to stop himself.

  He’d done nothing to deserve her mistrust and much to earn her trust. Polly’s last words rang in his memory though, urging him to confide in Sara. As he tried to rehearse what that might sound like, he gained an appreciation for the magnitude of the task he was requiring of Sara. He was still wrestling with himself mightily when the weather turned autumnally cool, then rainy, then downright chilly.

  “Fall grass will come in good for this rain,” Angus observed.

  “And the wheat will get a nice start,” Beck agreed as they stood in the barn, listening to the rain drumming on the roof.

  “And then we’ll bring in the corn and be glad for winter. Those boys of Lolly’s must have grown four inches each this summer.”

  “Polly’s cooking and lots of fresh air.”

  And it could have gone on like that for hours, meaningless small talk, cleaning the harnesses again, inspecting the irrigation ditches again. Watching the rain, Beck admitted to himself he was dawdling around the barn, looking for another excuse to avoid the house. But soon the crops would be in, then the fruit harvested, and who knew if there would be any more rainy afternoons like this one?

  “Keep an eye on the infants.” Beck shrugged into an oilskin. “Allie cheats terribly, and the boys are only so gallant.”

  “Will do,” Angus said with a wink. “And we won’t come for supper until the bell rings.”

  Beck sloshed across the stable yard, into the back gardens, wondering what, exactly, he hoped to accomplish. Since her sister’s departure, Sara had become increasingly reserved. Allie wasn’t painting, and there had been no further word from North.

  “I could do with a nice hot cup of tea,” Beck said when he found Sara in the kitchen. “And I don’t suppose there are any more muffins?”

  “In the bread box,” Sara answered, her glance sliding away from him. “Butter’s in the pantry.”

  “Join me?” Beck disappeared into the pantry, then brought himself, butter dish in hand, to stand beside her. “You’ve lost weight,” he said, frowning down at her nape. “I can see it here.” He touched the top of her spine. “All the more reason you should have a muffin with me, Sarabande.”

  “One muffin won’t hurt.” She arranged the tea tray and set the butter and basket of muffins on the table.

  “In my sitting room.” Beck picked up the tray and was on his way up the stairs before Sara could protest. “I’ve laid a fire, and it’s a chilly day,” he said over his shoulder.

  He built up the wood fire in his sitting room while Sara poured, then settled himself beside her on the sofa. She didn’t exactly move away, but neither did she relax against him.

  “What did Polly have to say?” Beck asked when Sara passed him his teacup.

  “She’s safely arrived,” Sara said, gaze on her drink. “She says there is a considerable cache of items, some of it rubbish, but most of it quite valuable. Reynard was collecting from places subsequently devastated by the Corsican’s passing or occupation.”

  “Any violins?”

  “She hasn’t said.”

  “I’m leaving mine here.” Beck set his tea aside and reached for a knife and a muffin. “In case you get the urge.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That’s all?” He buttered both halves of the muffin and passed her one. “Just thank you, no protestations you’ll never play again? That your art is lost to you? No ordering me to keep the damned thing where it won’t tempt you?”

  “It’s a nice instrument.” Sara took a cautious nibble. “I heard you playing it last week, and you’re good. You should keep it, but I can’t make you do anything.”

  Beck wanted to smash his teacup against the far wall, because he couldn’t make her do anything either—not one damned thing.

  Confide in her.

  “I’m not as competent as you were,” Beck said. “I heard you play on two occasions, you know. I went the second time because I could not believe the evidence of my ears the first time.”

  “You heard me?” Sara’s cup and saucer hit the table with a clatter.

  “I was frequently on the Continent when you toured, Sara.” Beck risked a glance at her and found her face pale, her eyes full of dread. “Why wouldn’t I have treated myself to your performances?”

  “They were ridiculous,” Sara said, her voice glacial. “Perversions of what music should be.”

  “Any woman who can play the Kreutzer Sonata from memory is not ridiculous, though I agree, your costumes were not worthy of your talent. The private performance was particularly troubling in that regard.”

  Sara’s chin dipped, as if she’d suffered a sudden pang in her vitals. “You attended a private performance?”

  “When a woman’s playing is touted as able to restore a man’s lost virility, an ignorant young man isn’t likely to turn down his invitation. I assume they were Reynard’s idea?”

  “He was always after me to take a lover,” Sara said miserably. “A wealthy, besotted lover who would shower me with trinkets and baubles. Better yet, he wanted me to have many lovers, who would compete with one another for my favors.”

  Many lovers, as if the risk of disease, pregnancy, or mistreatment was of no moment. Beck set the knife he’d been holding on the table.

  “Not enough for him to prostitute your art, but he must pimp your body as well. Thank heavens the man is dead, and thank heavens you withstood his selfish plans for you. Would you like another muffin?”

  “Another muffin?” Sara’s tone was incredulous. “You bring up some of my worst memories and offer me a muffin?”

  “You won’t accept anything else from me, Sarabande,” Beck said softly. “Would you like to know some of my worst memories? Probably not, but I will share them with you in any case, because I have lost my well-honed ability to thrive on silence.”

  “Well-honed?” Sara’s tone was more bewildered than indignant, so Beck marched on, his anger for her warring with his frustration with her.

  Beck poured himself more tea and gestured with the pot. “When I was a mere boy, I learned why my father was banishing Ethan, and got a stout boxing of my ears when I tried to tell him he was wrong. Not long after that, I learned my youngest sister was a by-blow, then learned the earl’s solicitors were blackmailing him over it. It seems my lot in life has been to collect secrets, Sara, and I find it a distasteful pastime.”

  “My private performances weren’t a secret from you,” Sara said. “They just neve
r came up.”

  “This is true.” Beck stirred cream and sugar into his tea and sipped in an effort to calm himself. He was letting his emotions tear at his composure, and anger wasn’t what he wanted to convey to Sara. “I could not care less about those private performances, Sara, though I’m sorry you were subjected to them.”

  She nodded, clearly not willing to argue with him in his present mood.

  “For the love of God, Sara, when I say I do not care, I mean I do not hold it against you that you earned coin for playing half-naked before leering idiots. You should have been paid handsomely, at the least.” Beck set his teacup down very carefully, and went on in precise, dispassionate tones.

  “When I first beheld you here, I had a sense of what the French call déjà vu, of having seen you before, and I had. I’d seen the Gypsy Princess perform, though it would have been almost six years ago, on my way back from Budapest by way of Vienna. My companion for that stretch of the journey insisted we take in your performance, and I, ever willing to dawdle on my homeward journeys, assented. The house was packed, all levels of society turning out to hear you.”

  He stopped, pulling himself back from the memory. “Cost of admission to the private performances was exorbitant, obscene—much like your costumes.”

  Sara wasn’t blushing. She looked like she wanted to clap her hands over her ears and flee the room.

  “Sara, you were magnificent, your talent obvious even to my relatively undiscerning ears. Your hair had been arranged artfully, and had just as artfully come undone as you plied your instrument with wild, passionate, exotic melodies. Then, just when the entire room was roaring and clapping and pouring out its demand for more, you brought us to hushed stillness merely by holding your bow poised above the strings.”

  He risked touching her, a brush of his fingers over the knuckles of her clenched hands. “The heartbreak that poured from your violin thereafter tore at me, made me nearly weep for my distant home and feel again every regret I’d ever known. I’ve since realized that for a man to overcome his regrets, he must first acknowledge them. Your performance was the first step on my journey home, Sarabande Adagio. I’ve yet to take my last.”

  She gave him no reaction, but rather, sat staring at her hands like a monument to silence. Beck withdrew his hand.

  “I care very much that you were alone, Sara, without the support of friends or family when you needed them. I care that you were exhausted and exploited and made to cast your pearls before swine. I care that you had responsibility for your sister thrust on you when you were least equipped to deal with it.” His voice dropped, becoming bleak. “I care that you bear the sorrow of all of this, the pain and anguish of it, and you won’t let me even hold you as you do.”

  Beside him, Sara made a sound, a low, grieving sound, from deep inside, a sound Beck recognized. When she might have pitched to her feet and bolted for the door, Beck manacled her wrist and drew her back down beside him, looping an arm across her shoulders and drawing her close to his side.

  Confide in her, Polly had said. Confide in her, put into her keeping all the silences and secrets and private burdens of one man’s lifetime. Beck kissed Sara’s temple for courage—or possibly in parting—and kept speaking.

  * * *

  “I was married, you’ll recall.” Beckman spoke quietly, as if his previous volley of verbal arrows hadn’t been launched directly at Sara’s heart. “But you do not know my wife was in love with another, a relation of some sort. She married me because her family would not approve the match with her beloved, and she’d already conceived his child. She was desperate but thought I’d tolerate a cuckoo in the nest, if it ever came to light.”

  He fell silent, his lips skimming along Sara’s temple.

  “She told me as she lay dying she thought she could bed me and pass the child off as mine, but when it came time for the actual intimacies, she couldn’t stop crying, and I… couldn’t. I just couldn’t. Nick happened upon her a few weeks later with her lover, having no idea my marriage was unconsummated, and confronted my wife with her responsibility toward the Bellefonte succession. In all her worry and upset, it hadn’t occurred to her that burden might fall to us, and her bastard might inherit the earldom. She tried to rid herself of the child, but ended up ridding herself and the child of life.”

  “I’m sorry.” Sara voice was small, brittle with pain, but she would not leave him in the midst of this recitation—she could not.

  “I was sorry too,” Beck said on a sigh. “I was sorry enough before the marriage, always trying to outdo my brothers, all unbeknownst to anybody save myself and possibly my father. After the marriage, I was even sorrier. I went from frequent heavy drinking to incessant inebriation. I bet on anything, gambled my personal fortune away and back each month, swived any willing female… I was a disgrace.”

  “You’re not a disgrace now.”

  “But I have a disgraceful past, Sara,” Beck reminded her gently. “Aren’t you going to hold it against me, judge me for it, cast me away for sins I’ve committed? It gets worse, you know. My father was at his wits’ end and devised one journey after another for me after Devona died. I became the Haddonfield remittance man, sent far from home and hearth lest my excesses be too great an embarrassment to my family. There was always a token task to see to, always a veneer of purpose to my travels, but I was mostly sent forth because decent families do not leave inconvenient children on hillsides anymore. Not in this civilized land of ours.”

  And yet, Sara had the sense Beckman was on a hillside, a high, lonely hillside with sheer drops only a few feet away.

  “But you learned so much,” Sara protested. “You couldn’t have been drunk the whole time.”

  “I wasn’t. I always set sail with good intentions and usually gave a decent accounting of myself, until I was homeward bound. Then I’d fall apart, thinking of the churchyard where Devona was buried, thinking of the child she lost, thinking of how disappointed my father must have been in me.”

  Another silence, this one more thoughtful.

  “I was simply too weak to deal with my disappointment in myself,” Beck said. “And in my family. They owed me, you see, owed it to me to ensure I was happy at all times. Life owed me happy endings, and I owed nobody anything. One can see my expectations were bound for readjustment.”

  How she hated the dry irony in his voice. “What happened?”

  “I tried to kill myself.” Beck drew his hand down her arm and back up again, in a slow caress that made her shiver. “First with whiskey, then absinthe, then opium, then any and all of the above. Nick fetched me home as I was about to succeed at my goal, and left me at Clover Down to recover, then marched me down to Sussex to work in the stables of an old-fashioned estate fallen on hard times, much like this one.”

  Sara felt a shudder pass through her; he likely felt it too. “You could have hung yourself from the nearest barn rafter.”

  “Might have, but I’d been given responsibility for the livestock. All I had to do was get up each morning and look after the beasts, and it… soothed me. They did not know of my past, did not care. All they cared about was whether their oats appeared on schedule, and that much I could manage. I could manage to be civil to the other stable boys. I could look after a scrappy little runt pig until it no longer needed to be fed from a bottle. The pigs have ever been charitable toward prodigal sons.”

  “You grew up.”

  “Perhaps, or I realized I could serve some purpose if I’d sober up enough to be of use. Then too, I found in Sussex, working each day on a specific patch of land, using my own wit and will to make the place healthier was much better for me than sailing off to foreign ports to carouse with strangers. I had never been successful running from my regrets, but I found some measure of peace in rising from the same bed, day after day.”

  “You needed something to care about.”

  “Apparently so.” Beck nuzzled her temple. “And someone to care about, someone to love.”

&nbs
p; She went still beside him and remained silent. In that silence, she felt her heart sinking like a stone bound for the bottom of the sea. If she had viewed a continued liaison with Beckman as difficult before, it had become impossible with his raw truths and unvarnished trust.

  “I do love you, you know,” Beck went on as the ache in Sara’s chest threatened to choke her. “And I think you must love me a little, too, Sara, or you would not have given me your virginity.”

  Another instant of silence as the import of his words cascaded through Sara bodily.

  “God help me.” She scooted forward and again would have left the room, but Beck put his hand on her nape, not gripping, just a warm, careful weight.

  “I beg you, Sara.” He took a breath, his lovely, precise voice dragging like a rasp over Sara’s soul. “I beg you, do not lie to me now. Do not lie to yourself.”

  The fire hissed and crackled on the hearth, the rain pelted the windowpanes, and the wind soughed around the corner of the house. In the warmth and solitude of the cozy sitting room, Beckman fell silent, and Sara…

  Gave up.

  Gave up pretending it didn’t hurt so badly to be without him, didn’t devastate her to consider his leaving, didn’t leave her howling in endless inner darkness to sleep one floor and a load of regrets away from him each night.

  She loved him. He’d carried her secrets for her, waited for her, and now, in the face of his relentless pursuit, she just… gave up. Gave up her loneliness, her fears, her insecurities, and her bondage to a past that had come to cost too much. She curled back against him, along his side but facing away, because she could not bear for him to look upon her eyes. She felt Beck shift to curl himself around her on the sofa, the warmth of him providing a comfort beyond words.

  “A man can’t tell if a woman is chaste. I’ve been promised a man can’t know for sure,” she said, barely above a whisper.

  “I couldn’t tell with my body,” Beck said, “though I suspected, but with some other sense, I knew. You were like a gift, just for me, not like a woman who’d had a child with a man she loathed.”