“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.