Sara was quiet for a moment, likely adding new fears to her already long list. “I don’t know him well enough. I was always too busy getting ready for the next performance or wondering what Reynard was about to fret much over Tremaine when he made his rare appearances. Polly thinks I’m overreacting, but she has her reasons for wanting to minimize the cause for alarm.”

And then it became time to ask a difficult, if obvious, question.

“Do you suspect Tremaine of instigating all the trouble we’ve had here lately?”

She did not hesitate, and that in itself was daunting. “It would serve his interests to unnerve us. It would put us in a frame of mind to believe his promises of providing for Allie, keep us off balance and uncertain.”

This was hardly a ringing endorsement of dear Uncle Tremaine. Beck considered what was at risk and considered how frightened Sara was.

Also, how far away the West Riding lay during its interminable winters.

“You could marry me, Sara.” He brushed her hair back as he spoke. “I’m a match for any damned half-French, agitating, wastrel uncle. Allie and I get on well.”

“Damn you.” Sara’s voice was soft, pained, and barely audible because she’d buried her nose in the crook of his neck. “The heir to an earldom does not marry a housekeeper, Beckman.”

“I’m only an heir in a technical sense. Nicholas will be anticipating a blessed event in no time, mark my words. Besides, this is England, and I can marry whomever the hell I please, assuming she’s willing.”

And not too stubborn for her own bloody good.

“Marriage to protect Allie is a noble offer, but we’ve both been badly burned by holy matrimony, Beckman. Allie will be grown and likely married herself in a few years, and then where will we be?”

“Married.” Beck dipped his head and kissed her. “Hopefully in a bed very like this one, attired as we are now and not wasting time chatting the night away when we could be making our own family.”

She kissed him back, likely to shut him up.

“You’ll at least consider it,” Beck pressed when he eased back from the kiss. “Promise me, Sarabande.”

“Considering guarantees you nothing.”

This was not true. The knowledge that Sara would consider his marriage proposal, even if only to protect her daughter, guaranteed Beck an endless supply of sleepless nights and difficult days.

He turned his head so his cheek rested on hers. “Considering gets me your honest attempt at thinking things over, and I’m after your promise, not your answer.”

“Then, yes.” Sara wiggled so she fit more closely under him. “I will consider your offer as a means of keeping Allie safe from her uncle’s machinations, I promise.

“Good enough,” Beck said, shifting them so he was spooned around her. “Go to sleep, love. We’ll sit down with the entire household in the morning, and things will look brighter.”

“Now you worry about rest.” Sara fitted her bottom to his groin as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “You weren’t so worried about sleep before, Mr. Haddonfield.”

“We needed the other too.” Beck kissed her ear. “And I can guarantee you we’re going to need it again before morning.”

* * *

“Is there anything more conducive to producing bodily misery than a solid bloody week of haying?” Beck stretched out his weary body in the lovely heat of the springs, the hotter end of the pool suiting him wonderfully.

“War, perhaps,” North suggested from his spot on the submerged ledge. “Childbirth, one supposes.”

“A hangover I had the first night I landed in Baltimore.” Though Paris made Baltimore look like a romp. “Did we bring soap?”

“You brought it,” North said, but he sloshed his way to the bank and fished it out of their pile of towels and clothes, then tossed it to Beck. “And you’ve grease on your back from trying to prop up the wagon when the axle broke, Hercules Haddonfield.”

“It didn’t break,” Beck said, scrubbing off with the soap. “Or did you see something I missed?”

“I was too busy watching all the help from Sutcliffe flirt with our cook,” North intoned darkly. “You are correct, though, the axle was cut most of the way through, which is a considerable sawing job.”

Beck made thorough use of the soap and lobbed it at North, who caught it one-handed.

“Have you considered sending to your brother the earl for assistance with things here?”

“I have not. Nick is newly arrived to a state of holy matrimony and not coping well with the shock.” He dunked to rinse off rather than admit he’d almost sent word to both Nick and Ethan.

“He’s your family, Beckman,” North said as Beck’s head broke the water. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay, and it isn’t as if you haven’t investigated all of Creation in the interests of the family businesses.”

North’s tone was ominously reasonable.

“Little business projects aren’t quite in the same league with apprehending criminals,” Beck said, though a trip to Budapest or Virginia or the Levant or Stockholm did qualify as more than a little business trip.

North made quick use of the soap then began sloshing toward the bank. “If I stay in here much longer, I’m going to look older than old Mrs. Hibbert at The Dead Boar.”

“An improvement Miss Polly would surely regard with favor,” Beck quipped, but he too was soon drying off with a bath sheet. He’d just gotten his breeches buttoned and pulled on his boots when a piercing scream rent the evening air.

“What in God’s name?” Beck saw confusion and concentration North’s face.

“That’s Allie,” Beck said. The screaming went on, unceasingly, as Beck took off at a dead run toward the manor. He could hear North pounding behind him, but having the advantage of size, he outpaced him by several lengths by the time they’d reached the barn.

Allie stood along the back wall, where Boo-boo’s dog pen had been constructed. The dog sat at her side, looking puzzled, his pink tongue lolling from his mouth. Polly was calmly trying to talk Allie into shutting up, while Sara wielded a long hay fork in the general vicinity of a black snake coiled between the child and the adults.

Beck crossed to the child, picked her up, eased back around the snake, then thrust the child into North’s arms. She quieted immediately, her screams mutating into sobs while she clung to North’s neck like a burr.

“North,” Beck said over Allie’s sobbing. “Hand the child to her mother, and let the ladies go outside, if you please.”

North complied, crooning to the child and patting her back as he handed her off. Sara whisked Allie from the barn, Polly and the dog at their heels.

“Big bugger,” North said when they had some quiet. “Never did fancy snakes.”

“It’s a black rat snake.” Beck eyed the creature, which was writhing slowly in the dirt. “They get even bigger than this, at least in Virginia.”

“What’s an American snake doing here, for pity’s sake? My ears will never recover.”

“It’s scaring the wits out of a little girl,” Beck said grimly. He grabbed the snake behind its head and lifted the thing carefully. “And probably looking for mice and rats to fill its five-foot-long belly. Come along, you,” Beck addressed the snake. “You’ve apologies to make.”

“Coming out.” Beck raised his voice to warn the ladies. “And bringing our new pet with me.”

Allie’s face was still buried against her mother’s neck, so she was unlikely to immediately understand Beck had brought the snake out of the barn.

“Beckman,” Sara spoke very sharply, “can’t you take it away?”

“I will, but I thought Allie might want to see him when he’s not so upset.”

“The snake?” Allie ceased crying long enough to peer at Beck. “Eeeeuuuw.”

“He’s actually quite a fine specimen,” Beck said, not going any closer. “Though I’m sure in India I saw snakes much longer and bigger around than this little fellow. He’s far from home though, and not likely to survive the winter.”

Allie regarded the snake with a blend of revulsion and curiosity. “Where is he from?”

“Virginia, the eastern United States. Sailors sometimes bring them on board ship. They’re keen to eat up all the mice and rats, and unlike cats, they don’t leave scent everywhere they go. This kind is usually shy, but they can bite. Would you like to pet him?”

“No.” Allie stretched out a single finger toward the snake as she spoke. “Is he slimy?”

“Touch him and find out. He’s without any family, if he had ears they’d be broken from your alarum, and he’s far from familiar surroundings. I’d say he’s due a little kindness.”

And damned if Beck didn’t feel a pang of pity for the rubbishing snake.

“I’d say he’s due to be put on a ship back to Virginia,” North muttered, but he must have understood what Beck was about and dutifully stroked his hand over the snake’s black scales. “Shall we name him?”

“He’s smooth,” Allie said, quickly withdrawing her finger then passing it over the snake again. “Mama?”

Sara met Beck’s gaze, a world of conflicted maternal feelings in her eyes, but she petted the snake as North had. “He is smooth, and he catches the light on his scales.”

That bestirred the artist in Allie, and she eyed the snake more critically.

“What shall we do with him?” Beck asked. “I can send him back to his Maker, Allie, or I can find somebody in the village going to Portsmouth and put him on an outbound ship.”

North sent him a look that clearly indicated the sharp end of a shovel would be a much simpler solution, but Beck waited for Allie to make up her mind.

“Send him home,” Allie decided. “If he has family, they’ll miss him.”