Were she being coy, he would have flirted and flattered and charmed, and they would soon be climbing the ladder to the hayloft. Sara was not being coy; she was being honest, and while the rutting male part of Beck resented it, the part of him far from home and a little sick with it valued her for her genuineness.

“I’ll remind you why.” Beck took her free hand, cradled it between his own, then brought it to his face and rubbed his cheek along the backs of her fingers. When his gallantry elicited a soft sigh from Sara, he pressed her fingers flat and planted a lingering kiss on her palm, then folded her fingers around it.

“I’m reminded,” Sara said, snatching her hand back a little breathlessly.

She disappeared in a swirl of skirts, leaving Beck to admire her retreating form.

“You’re reminded,” he murmured, “and so am I, Sarabande, so am I.”

Seven

“You have mail again.” Beck’s voice startled Sara where she bent over the makings of Allie’s dress. When she straightened, her back protested the shift in position.

“Here now.” Beck stepped in behind her and settled his hands on the small of her back. “Can’t have you competing with North for least able to hobble about.” He kneaded the muscles running along her spine, and Sara gave up even pretending to ignore him.

“You shouldn’t be doing that, but you can stop five minutes from now, while I lecture you about people walking in the parlor door unannounced.”

“Who’s to walk?” Beck did not desist—she had hoped he wouldn’t. “North is flat on his back, Polly is putting together the midday meal, and Allie is sketching the filly. Not a one of them could be dissuaded from their present course by anything short of a French invasion.”

“Don’t say that, not even in jest. If you’d seen what the Corsican’s ambitions did to most of Europe, you’d know nothing associated with him is humorous.”

“I have.” Beck’s arms slipped around her waist. “I spent most of a year in Paris not long ago, and I’ve seen many other once-lovely towns and villages devastated. In the end, the man’s penchant for supporting his armies by foraging helped do him in, particularly on the Peninsula, and at what cost to the countryside?”

“Foraging?” Sara’s tone became bitter. “More like pillaging, and from the innocent people who had no notion of the glory of France or the glory of anything, save a decent meal and a roof that wouldn’t leak.”

“Those things are glorious,” Beck said, and he sounded sincere. “As is your hair.”

He sounded sincere about that too, blast and bless him.

“My hair is a disgrace,” Sara said, angling her chin to accommodate him. “Your manners are a disgrace.”

“Shall I ask?” Beck kissed her below her ear. “Sara, may I please hold you for a few moments in the middle of the day? May I remind myself how delectable you taste? May I offer you a little teasing and affection before you sit down to lunch?”

He turned her and wrapped his arms around her, but when she didn’t banter back, he let her go. “Who’s the letter from?”

“I don’t know.” Sara glanced at the missive he’d passed to her. “I don’t recognize the address. I take it you nipped into the village?”

“I did. I made it a point to tell Polly I was leaving the property. I should have told you as well, and in future, if I’m rambling beyond the estate, I will.”

This from a man who’d be leaving any day to assume a place as an earl’s heir?

“Have the twins been back to collect their pay?”

Beck’s mouth—his beautiful, tender mouth—creased with disapproval. “The twins are nowhere to be seen. I ran into a relation of mine in The Dead Boar.”

“In our village?” He was related to an earl, for pity’s sake. “Are we to have company?”

“Not at present,” he said, finding a seat on the arm of a sofa. “My brother Ethan was on his way to Portsmouth to look in on some peach seedlings he’d had shipped from Georgia. It was probably a chance encounter, as most of ours are.”

Sara studied him, catching the scent of some unresolved family difficulty. “You seem to like your family. Is this Ethan not agreeable to you, that you meet him only by happenstance?”

Beck reached for her, and she let him take her hand. “In truth, I hardly know the man. He was booted off to boarding school under a cloud of drama when I was nine, and never did come back to Belle Maison. My father’s situation may be inspiring some sort of rapprochement between Ethan and the earl, but at the very least it was good to have a cordial exchange with my brother.”

Beck referred to the earl’s illness as a situation, and even that passing mention dimmed the light in his blue eyes.

“Only cordial?” Sara brushed her free hand over Beck’s hair. “I would hate to be only cordial with Polly. Loathe it, in fact.”

“Cordial is better than civil.” Beck turned his face so his cheek rested against her palm. “But then, Ethan has his reasons for keeping his distance, and they’re reasons I can understand. Sometimes I want to shake my father, so stubborn is he in his convictions.”

“Fathers can be like that.” Sara moved a step closer of her own accord, and without leaving his perch on the arm of the sofa, Beck again tucked her against him.

Beckman Haddonfield was an affectionate man. This posed a greater threat to Sara’s self-possession than the fact that he was also a lusty, handsome man. “Your papa is a despot?”

“A loving despot.” Beck’s hand stroked over Sara’s hair, a sweet, tender gesture with nothing carnal about it.

“Mine is too, or he was. I haven’t seen him for years, and we don’t correspond.”

“You should,” Beck said, rising and wrapping his arms around her. “For Allie’s sake, if nothing else, you should make the overtures, Sara.”

“And if the overtures are rejected?” And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? With Beck’s arms around her, she could admit that much to herself.

“You can make them again another day, or at least know you tried. I’ve been astounded at what can be forgiven between human beings, and how completely. My parents would argue vociferously at midday only to be billing and cooing over supper.”

“Your parents loved each other, I suppose?”

“They did. Even when you love somebody, you can lose track of them, as we’ve lost track of Ethan, and he of us—and all over a misunderstanding.”

“All families have misunderstandings and secrets.” Sara moved away, and again, Beck let her go. He’d always let her go, and that was also something she valued in him even as it occasioned some sadness.

When his father died, she was going to have to let him go too, wasn’t she?

“Is Allie a secret?” He posed the question softly, the understanding in his gaze more than Sara’s limited store of composure could look upon.

“My parents haven’t met her,” she conceded. “They know I have a daughter.”

“What happened, Sara? I trust they approved of your marriage. You were underage, and you haven’t mentioned eloping. Polly had to be even younger, and yet your parents entrusted her to Reynard’s care as well, even to the point of letting her travel with you on the Continent.”

“They approved my marriage, and they did send Polly with us when Reynard and I departed on tour. Polly was to receive instruction from the Continental masters, according to Reynard. Things did not go as my parents planned, though, and by law and custom, my husband’s dictates prevented their welcoming me back home.”

Dictates. Beck wouldn’t like her word choice, but it was legally accurate.

“Your husband no longer has dictates,” Beck pointed out gently. “Do as you will, Sara. Your parents love you, and they’ve had time to reconsider their positions.”

“How do you know they loved us?” Sara posed the question idly, but it had gnarled roots wrapping around both present and past.

“Because of how you and Polly are with Allie. She knows she’s loved, and you can’t give away a love you’ve never experienced yourself. If you allow this, this silence to remain between you and your family, it can grow. Like a pernicious weed, it will grow without sunlight or water, without marling, until it chokes out the love you still bear each other.”

He used an agricultural image to make an effective point, and the stillness in his gaze suggested he knew of what he spoke.

Sara looked away rather than ask him what besides the loss of a wife illuminated the sadness in his eyes. “Our parents loved us, but not as they loved Gavin. Still, it’s in the past, and if you and I tarry here much longer, Polly will be reduced to ringing the kitchen bell. It will go hard for us if she does, though Allie might be forgiven her artistic absorption.”

He looked at her for one more instant, long enough for Sara to understand that he was allowing her to close the topic, just as she allowed him to hold her.

He looped an arm over her shoulders when she would have marched for the door. “If you’re ever ready to talk, Sara, I’m always ready to listen. My own family isn’t a study in uniform happiness, or good choices and tender sentiments. We don’t always trust each other or take the kindest option among ourselves. It can’t be that different from your family.”

“I suppose not.” Sara pressed her face to his shoulder, a moment of weakness—yet another moment of weakness. She had the surprising thought that when Beckman reached for her, those might be his moments of weakness. As she went on speaking, she addressed the solid musculature of his shoulder.

“When there’s a title, one expects a larger-than-life existence—an earl might have an illegitimate son, his countess a little affair, his firstborn be estranged. My father was a lowly squire who enjoyed scribbling the occasional composition for the choir at St. Albans, my mother a vicar’s daughter who made a solid, comfortable match. Our story should have been prosaic.”