Sara brought her book, and Beck read to her, her head on his stomach as he lay back on the blanket. He hadn’t packed wine for some reason, but felt as lazy and relaxed as if they were on their second bottle. He set the book aside, thinking perhaps he’d read his audience to sleep, and let his hand stroke over Sara’s hair. Her eyes drifted open, and she turned so her cheek was on his stomach.

Her hand came up to shape him through his breeches, and Beck had to close his eyes. A gentleman wouldn’t ask anything of her today—hell, a gentleman would not have swived her silly before she even broke her fast. A gentleman…

She was undoing his falls, and he didn’t protest, but he did have his limits.

“You need to recover,” he managed. “I mean it, Sara.”

She paused, frowning, then extricated him from his clothing, which was a delicate challenge when he was more than half aroused.

“You need something else entirely,” she said. She got her mouth on him, but to Beck’s relief, she desisted abruptly. He watched with silent curiosity as she took his hand and wrapped it around his shaft, then shifted around so she was lying on her back at right angles to his chest.

Slowly, slowly, she eased her skirt up over her bent knees, and God in heaven, the woman wasn’t wearing drawers. She let her knees fall open, and let go a sigh.

“You wanted to look this morning,” she said. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t, Beckman. No reason you shouldn’t touch.”

She tossed all modesty aside and began opening the buttons down the front of her bodice, while Beck watched, speechless and increasingly aroused, as she pushed her clothing aside until she was lying in a pagan tangle of flesh and fabric, exposed to the sun and his hungry eyes.

He did not resist what she offered, but feasted on the sight of her. He looked, he touched, he tasted. He put his hands on every inch of her, took down her hair and draped it over every inch of him. He brought himself to orgasm more than once just looking at her, brushing his fingers over her sex, her breasts, her derriere, her mouth. She refused him nothing, obliged his every request, seeming to understand that in this situation, trust and arousal were bound together for him.

“You’re going to burn,” Beck cautioned when he lay naked, spent for the third time, his hand caressing the firm curve of Sara’s bare buttocks.

Sara smiled over at him and wiggled under his hand. “Not in the biblical sense.”

“I’m not usually so…”

“Lusty?” Sara’s smile broadened. “Amorous? Passionate?”

“Horny.” Beck’s smile was embarrassed. “Selfish, hedonistic.”

“For God’s sake, Beck.” Sara’s smile faded. “It’s a beautiful spring day, you’re a healthy young man, and a little friskiness doesn’t make you your half-crazy brother.”

His eyebrows shot up as he considered the possibilities she was raising. Had he checked his lustier impulses to avoid sharing Nick’s tendencies?

“You’re not like him,” Sara said, seeming to read his mind. “He discards women as easily as old boots, to hear you tell it. He goes for the jades and widows, almost as if he doesn’t deserve a good woman’s affections. You know better.”

Put like that, Beck… pitied his older brother, a novel and not entirely unwelcome perspective. It was easier than judging Nick, and felt closer to the truth. His hand closed on the firm curve of Sara’s derriere, and she undulated again like a cat seeking attention.

“I have discovered”—she closed her eyes—“I like it when you pinch me.”

“Here?” He pinched her, not hard.

“Yes.” Sara arched. “There. And my… breasts and other parts.”

Those parts. While he’d pleasured himself several times with her assistance in this protracted bout of friskiness, she’d yet to demand anything of him. And how odd was it that a woman married for eight or nine years wouldn’t know her own pleasures?

Beck smoothed his hand over her again. “Your husband was a selfish cretin, Sara. You deserved better.”

“I won’t argue that.” She rolled over, which left his hand resting right over her pubic curls, and Beck lectured himself not to start in with her. So far, he’d petted, caressed, looked, and looked some more; he’d kissed, tasted, and teased, but he hadn’t done anything that might irritate her tender parts.

Hadn’t needed to, not for his own pleasure anyway. It was a revelation, at least to a man who’d taken lovers on four continents.

“I haven’t played like this before,” he said, wondering when the brakes had been disconnected from his mouth.

“I haven’t either,” Sara said, fondling his flaccid cock. “It gives me ideas about those hot springs, Beckman. I hope you are prepared to be a sparkling-clean fellow in the near future.”

He hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her to him, in charity with Creation at her words. A feeling expanded out from his chest, of beatitude and humor and overwhelming affection for the woman half-naked on the blanket with him. It crested, and subsided before his fool mouth opened and embarrassed him trying to express it, but it didn’t fade entirely.

Not when they dressed each other, teasing and laughing; not when they drove back down to town, sitting too closely on the buggy’s seat. Not when they made slow, quiet love that evening; not when they fell asleep tangled in each other’s arms that night.

Only when Sara laughingly declined his proposal of marriage over breakfast did Beckman’s newfound joy in life abruptly diminish.

Thirteen

“It came on Friday,” Polly said, handing the little letter over to Sara in the stable yard. Beckman was in the barn, dealing with the inventory and the horses, while Sara dealt with an ache inside that had no cure.

“I wanted to read it, to hide it, and to burn it,” Polly said, keeping her voice down.

Sara glanced at the address, knowing it was from Tremaine even before she opened it. “Thank you.” She put it in her skirt pocket then drew it out again when she saw Polly regarding her with steady compassion.

“You had a lovely weekend, didn’t you, Sara?”

Sara considered the manor house as she and Polly approached it, as well as the outbuildings, gardens, and every other feature of Three Springs that appeared exactly as she’d left it just days ago. “The weather was gorgeous, Beckman is a consummate quartermaster, and Portsmouth shows to good advantage when one has rusticated as long as we have. What about you?”

She put the question as casually as she could, but there was a difference about Polly, a peacefulness that hadn’t been there a few days before.

“We managed,” Polly said. “Allie is going like a house afire on her new painting.”

“What did she choose for her subject?” Sara’s gaze drifted upward, to where the third-floor windows gleamed silver in the last of the evening light.

“Soldier. North professed to be hurt, that she’d consider his horse a more worthy subject than he. She’s probably already dreaming of the next study. She’ll be relieved to know you’re home.”

“Let her sleep, but, Polly?”

Sara met her sister’s gaze, on solid ground now that the first few difficult questions had been answered—or dodged. “My thanks, my very sincere thanks for looking after Allie and Three Springs. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to get away.”

Polly turned toward the eastern horizon, to where two stars were visible against the darkening sky. “Did it go well? With you and Beckman? I can have North thrash him, you know, if he… misbehaved.”

“Or didn’t misbehave? He was everything I could have hoped for, Polly. A completely, thoroughly enjoyable companion.” At least until breakfast that morning, when he’d completely, thoroughly bewildered her with his proposal.

“For somebody who spent the weekend with a thoroughly enjoyable companion, you look tired and sad, Sara. Let’s get Tremaine’s letter over with, and then I’ll tuck you in with a posset.”

Sara had wanted to forget this letter, too, but Polly was right: ignoring the threat Tremaine posed was not prudent. She followed Polly into the kitchen and glanced around.

“Where’s North?”

“Soaking,” Polly said, putting on the kettle. “It helps his back, and he promised Beck he would.”

Sara tore open the letter, scanned it, and handed it to Polly.

Polly frowned. “It’s pretty much the same. Greetings, he’s been remiss, would we consider a visit, how fares Allie… I don’t detect a threat in this, Sara.”

“He has those portraits, Polly.” Sara sat at the table, feeling as if her little weekend in Portsmouth happened to someone else a century ago. Somebody whom God liked and spared a little joy every once in a while—a lot of joy, in fact, and a generous portion of pleasure, too.

“He’s had years to use those portraits,” Polly replied. “He doesn’t mention them, and he may not understand what he has in them. Drink your tea, and where’s Beckman?”

“I expect he’s anywhere I’m not.” Sara did not want tea. She did not want to dissemble before her sister, either. “I think I hurt his feelings, Polly. I know I did, in fact.”

Polly was silent for a moment, stirring a fat helping of sugar into her own cup of tea.

“I used to be a nice person.” Polly sat, pushed Sara’s teacup closer, and covered Sara’s hand with her own. “Now I’m old and mean, and so I say: Better his feelings hurt than yours, Sara.”

“You’re still a nice sister.” Sara smiled wanly and sipped her tea.

* * *

“The prodigal returns.” North’s voice came not from the pool itself but from the shadows to Beck’s left, where the boulders were gathered along the water’s edge. “All that wagon travel put you in need of a soak?”