“The good ones do. The worthy ones.” Just as Beck had blamed himself for his young wife’s decisions.

The realization went through him like a dose of strong medicine. He felt the relief of it, the absolution of it settle into his soul while North stood braced against his horse.

“I sometimes wish I’d gotten on that ship with the damned snake.”

“But you would have left my flank exposed,” Beck said. “So blame your situation on me, but please consider the terms of your parting. What affects Polly affects Sara and Allie, and me as well.”

“You should have been a vicar.” North loosened Soldier’s girth. “Inducing guilt is one of their most highly cultivated skills.”

“You should have been a marquess,” Beck said, letting instinct have free rein.

North shook his head as he took Ulysses’s reins from Beck. “If I’d been a marquess, I would never have met Polly Hunt, never have built my first snake palace, never have soaked away my aches and worries with you and your nancy damned soap. Being a steward has had rewards being the marquess would never have. I’ve brought in crops I saw planted and tended, cared personally for beasts and buildings, and developed an appreciation for the people closest to the land. It hasn’t been all bad, Beck. In fact, in some ways, I’ve been happier here at Three Springs than I ever would have been as Hesketh.”

Hesketh. Hesketh was indeed a venerable, much-respected marquessate. “And you’ll miss it,” Beck warned. “Worse than you miss Hesketh’s holdings.”

“That I will.” North’s eyes strayed to the house again before he led the horses into the barn. In that single glance, Beck had seen a peacefulness in North’s eyes, an acceptance that boded ill for the man’s future. North was going to leave, and there would be no talking him out of it.

Beck’s situation with Sara wasn’t leaving him peaceful in the least. When he kidnapped her to his bed, she was a sweet and passionate lover. She never sought him out at night on her own, though, and in her embrace, Beck felt an increasing desperation. He reminded her of his proposal regularly, and she renewed her promise to consider his offer if ever she believed Allie in danger.

But that was before Beck had an acceptance of his invitation from Tremaine St. Michael. He broached the topic as lunch was finishing up, when he had Sara and Polly to himself in the kitchen.

“Ladies, we’re to have a guest.”

Sara looked up sharply from where she was sorting the silver back into a drawer. “Your brother?”

“Tremaine St. Michael has accepted our invitation to visit, and he’ll be here on the first of the week.” He was looking right at Sara, so he saw her stiffen and close her eyes. Polly set down the plate she’d been scraping into the scrap bucket and muttered an “excuse me” before leaving the kitchen at a fast clip.

“Let her go,” Beck said softly. “She’ll find North, and I’ve already warned him.”

“I was hoping…” Sara bit her lip and took up the plate-scraping Polly had abandoned.

“You were hoping St. Michael had fallen from the face of the earth,” Beck finished for her. “Apparently, so was Polly.”

“Polly is in a difficult position,” Sara said, keeping her gaze on her task.

“Because North is leaving?”

Sara straightened and moved on to the next plate. “That, but also because Tremaine is coming. Polly cares about… all of us.”

“And we care about her, but what aren’t you telling me, Sara?” Because as sure as Gabriel North was a man with problems, Sara was still keeping secrets.

She finished with that plate and reached for the next, then stopped and turned her back to him. His arms were around her before she got her apron untied.

“Talk to me, Sara.” He drew her against him. “For the love of God, no more silences. Please talk to me.”

* * *

Sara felt Beckman behind her, solid, strong, and secure. Were the issue anything less than Allie’s safety, and were it anybody else demanding Sara’s confidences, she would have gone right on scraping Hildy’s supper into a bucket.

“Please talk to me.”

Sara nodded. He gave her a moment, probably knowing she needed to gather her courage, her wits, her breath.

“There are paintings,” she said, glad he couldn’t see her face. “Tremaine has them. Reynard gave them to him for safekeeping when he fell ill, or Tremaine stole them, I know not which.”

“What sort of paintings?” Beck said, misgiving in his tone beneath the calm.

“Nudes. Of me.”

Nothing about his embrace shifted. Not one thing. “Nudes are acceptable artistic subjects.”

“Nudes of some statue might be. Nudes of mythical gods and goddesses are allowable. Nudes of one’s neighbor aren’t. Nudes of one’s housekeeper aren’t. With those paintings in his possession, Tremaine can ask pretty much anything of me, Beckman, and I’ll comply.”

“Polly feels responsible?”

“She was young and angry and didn’t see the harm. The poses are such that my face isn’t quite visible in any of them.” Nor was it quite obscured.

“How many?”

He had to know one painting was enough to destroy a woman’s life.

“Three.” Sara turned in his arms and laid her cheek against his chest. “They’re good, almost charming.”

“Is this why Polly stopped painting for others?”

“Part of it. Most of it.”

Beck pressed a kiss to her temple. “So we’ll buy the damned paintings.”

“Why should he sell them to you?” Sara asked miserably. “He can have the cow, so to speak, by holding on to those three pictures.”

Beck was quiet for a minute, his hands stroking idly over Sara’s back. “How does he have title to them?”

She went still when he posed the question—a simple question. Or was it? “What do you mean?”

“Provenance is the first thing any reputable collector will want to prove.” Beck took half a step back and led Sara over to the table.

“The dishes…”

Beck was out the back door in three strides, bellowing for Maudie, who came from the carriage house at a trot.

Beck pointed toward the kitchen. “The dishes, my girl. And mind you don’t be getting the lads in trouble.” She bobbed a blushing curtsy and scurried to her task.

When Sara had been escorted to Beck’s sitting room, the door firmly closed behind them, she had the sense the real inquisition was about to begin.

Beck settled beside her on the sofa. “Let us discuss provenance. The painter owns the painting unless paid a commission. In this case, I doubt Reynard commissioned the works.”

And why, in years and years of being mentally dogged and harassed by those infernal paintings, hadn’t Sara once considered this?

“He did not, though he could argue he was owed the paintings for putting a roof over our heads, that sort of thing.”

“He didn’t put a roof over anybody’s head,” Beck shot back. “You did.”

“But what belongs to me belonged to him, as my husband, so he was owed, not me.”

“In the absence of a contract of some sort, that’s at least debatable. Polly is family, but if Reynard sold her paintings in addition to your performances, then she earned her keep.”

“He did, or he sold most of them.”

“We have a situation where you and Polly are both bringing in income, but you think Reynard somehow had title to the paintings Polly created? What sort of man would rely on that reasoning to keep paintings from the women who should have them? And what sort of uncle would use those paintings to control women he ought to have been assisting for the past several years?”

“Reynard’s brother,” Sara said shortly. “Possibly—I don’t know, Beck, but it’s my rosy fundament that will hang in some drawing room if Tremaine decides to be difficult.”

“Is this what has been bothering you?” He phrased the question delicately, though Sara suspected he was asking if this was why she hadn’t accepted his proposal. Proposals, plural.

“It bothers me, yes.” Haunted her, more like. Sara forced herself to ease her grip on Beck’s hand. “It bothers me terribly.”

“Did you pose for these paintings?”

“Of course not, though I could see why you’d ask. Polly was on hand, backstage, before I’d perform sometimes. She and Allie both saw me in all manner of dishabille, and at the coaching inns, quarters were often cramped and privacy limited. No one thought anything of it.”

“But your trust was somehow betrayed. Do you think Reynard put her up to it?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t something we talk about.” One of many things they didn’t talk about, at least until recently.

“I am beginning to think nobody talks about anything on this property,” Beck muttered. “Will Polly confide in North?”

“I don’t know that either. Somebody should explain this to him. He’s family.”

“If she doesn’t, I will.”

“What about the others?”

“They don’t need to know. How much does Allie comprehend of these difficulties?”

“Not much.” Sara chewed a thumbnail. “I hope.”

“Somebody is going to have to explain to her that discussing her art with Uncle Tremaine is not well advised. Her little studio is going to have to be dismantled for the nonce.”

Well, of course, though Sara had been too upset to see even this far ahead. “We can do that. How long do you think he’ll stay?”

“It’s England in the summertime. Who knows? I can summon reinforcements if we need them. Lady Warne might enjoy taking a hand in things.”

Sara stopped mistreating her thumbnail as one more confidence went flying past her common sense. “I’m scared, Beckman.” She pitched against him. “I’m scared for me, Allie, and Polly, and even a little bit for you.”