His arms came around her; his scent tickled her nose.

“Don’t be scared for me, Sara. Get those paints put away and stored somewhere St. Michael won’t find them.”

Sara let Beck go find North. As relieved as she was to have this secret aired, she’d also noted that now—when the respectable suit of an earl’s son might have faced Tremaine down—Beck hadn’t renewed his proposal.

Which was of no moment, really. She still could not have accepted him.

* * *

“Did Polly tell you about the paintings?”

North glanced up from where he was cleaning his bridle in the saddle room, but his expression was harder than usual to read.

“She did.”

“I can offer to buy them.” Beck lowered himself to sit beside North on the plank bench. “Our womenfolk will do anything to keep those paintings from becoming public, though, and establishing that Tremaine doesn’t have title to them will make them public indeed.”

Which, of course, he hadn’t pointed out to Sara.

“Polly says Sara’s face isn’t clear in any of them.” North eyed his reins, which looked perfectly clean to Beck. “Sara’s hair will give her away to anybody who knows the artist.”

“Polly’s upset?”

“Oh, one might say that.” North went silent for a moment. “I’ve never seen her cry before.”

“Christ.” Beck leaned back against the wall. “I will be more relieved when this is over than I was to get home from Virginia.”

“Too many snakes?”

“Slavery, in all its brutal splendor, with no softening fiction I was among Bedouins or South Seas’ cannibals. My father’s chums from school, no less, slaveholding and quoting Scripture to support it at table.”

“Polly and Sara felt like slaves. They don’t want Allie to suffer that fate.”

“I won’t allow it,” Beck retorted. “You won’t allow it.”

“Allow?” North blew out a breath and settled back beside Beck. “Just who are we, Beckman, that we’re allowing and not allowing matters in the lives of the Hunt womenfolk?”

“Damned if I know.”

* * *

“I shouldn’t be here.” Sara stared up at the ceiling of Beck’s bedroom, having held her fire until his door was safely closed behind them.

“Nonsense.” Beck shucked his dressing gown and climbed in beside her. She wasn’t volunteering to take off her nightgown, so he pulled her to his side clothed as she was. “You asked me to leave you in your own bed only when Tremaine is underfoot. I will miss you badly in this bed starting tomorrow night, so I’m gathering rosebuds while I may. Or Sarabuds.” He kissed her nose, hoping to lighten the mood.

“I’m bleeding.”

He absorbed that, though it wasn’t the first time the topic had been mentioned between them.

“Cramps?”

“A little,” she said and turned away from him onto her side. He spooned himself around her, settling his hand over her womb.

“Sorry, love. I wish I could hurt for you. You’re worried about Tremaine?”

“Of course.” She sighed and rolled over to her other side, tucking her face against his chest. “I hate the waiting, and I’ll hate having him about, and I’ll hate not being able to spend my nights with you.”

“One is encouraged to hear that last,” Beck said, drawing her braid over her shoulder. “You leave a man to wonder, Sara Hunt.”

“Don’t wonder. Be assured, Beck, when Tremaine shows up, our dalliance is over.”

Beck gathered her closer, getting a whiff of flowers and worry for his trouble. “I want to marry you.”

“It doesn’t help, you know?” Sara’s index finger began to draw patterns on Beck’s bare chest. “You need to stop proposing to me and consider when you’ll move on about your life.”

“I’m about my life now,” Beck rejoined. “This very minute I’m about my life, Sara.”

“This very minute you are depriving yourself of sleep so I might scold you yet again for being unrealistic.”

“For caring about you?” Beck shifted, covering her with the warmth of his naked body though she lay on her side. “For loving you?”

Silence, and then tears. Quiet tears eased from her on long, careful breaths, while Beck held her and wondered why on earth a woman would cry to know she was loved. They fell into exhausted slumber without finding an answer.

* * *

Tremaine St. Michael had been at Three Springs for two days, and Beck was increasingly perplexed by him. He was a man of odd contrasts, physically, socially, intellectually.

He’d bowed very correctly over Sara’s and Polly’s hands, but swept Allie up in a tight, protracted hug. He was reserved with Beck and North, but possessed of a quick, dry wit as well. Physically, he was built like a dragoon—tall and well muscled—but he moved with peculiar quiet. His features were at odds as well, with eyes and hair of such a soft, lustrous dark brown as to appear black, but high cheekbones, a Viking nose, and a jawbone that looked descended from Vandal antecedents. His voice was a unique blend of growling Scots burr and graceful French elision.

Nothing about the man added up, though Ethan’s letters claimed Tremaine St. Michael knew the Midlands wool trade inside and out, and was profiting accordingly. Toward the ladies, Tremaine was unfailingly polite, but to Beck’s practiced eye, Sara and Polly were both avoiding the man.

Which left him often in Beck’s company, or Beck’s and North’s.

“That end is too hot,” Beck said, pointing off to the water on his left. “Here, however, it’s just right. Bring the soap, will you, North?”

“Soap I can carry,” North said. “You can haul your own damned spirits.” He fired a pocket flask at Beck and finished undressing.

“There’s a ledge here.” Beck sank into the water. “It’s just made for man’s weary fundament. I don’t know if the Romans put it here, or Mother Nature, but to me, it’s the best feature on the property.”

Tremaine took a seat beside his host. “So far, I have to agree with you.”

He sank down on a long sigh and leaned his head back against the stones.

“You could fetch a pretty penny for the property based on the springs alone,” Tremaine said when North had taken a place several feet away on Beck’s other side.

“Drink?” Beck uncapped the flask and passed it to his guest.

“Mighty fine,” Tremaine declared, his burr showing more clearly. “So, now that we’re great friends, Haddonfield, drinking by moonlight and larking about like pagans in your grandmother’s springs, tell me why my brother’s widow won’t give me the time of day.”

“Plain speaking,” North growled. “Have to give him points for that.”

“Drink.” Beck passed North the flask. “And hold your tongue, old man.”

North obliged and passed the flask back.

“It’s complicated,” Beck said carefully. “I think it has to do with items that came into your possession after Reynard’s death.”

“Items?” Tremaine took a swig from the proffered flask. “That doesn’t narrow it down. Reynard sent me scads of things over the years, particularly after he married. His fortunes improved, I gather, and he had nowhere else to hoard his treasures.”

“You still have these things he collected?” Beck asked. “Because by law, unless he willed them to you or conveyed them overtly, I believe they belong to his wife and daughter now.”

“One comprehends this.” Tremaine had to be reminded to pass the flask along by Beck taking it from his hand. “I have a load of plunder for Sara and Allie to go through and sort, at least. There are paintings, too, which I gather might be Polly’s work or purchased for her. I’m surprised she isn’t still painting—she’s very good. Reynard considered her every bit as great a find as Sara.”

“How did Sara feel about being found?” Beck asked. He sent the flask on to North without partaking.

“Gentlemen…” Tremaine’s voice took on a hint of steel. “We can agree my brother was a rotten excuse for a man. He lived off his womenfolk, exploited them shamelessly, and refused to let them rejoin their parents when his scheme became obvious to his young wife. I offered to see the ladies back to England at one point, but Sara refused to go.”

“She refused?” That made no sense, like everything else associated with Tremaine and his infernal brother. Beck passed the flask back to his guest, though trying to inebriate St. Michael into confidences was likely a lost cause.

“For two reasons.” Tremaine took a goodly pull before elaborating. “First, I gather Reynard had written to the senior Hunts, lamenting Sara’s difficult temperament, her lack of gratitude for his hard work on behalf of her art, her lack of dedication to her God-given gifts, and so forth. When Sara wrote to them asking if she could come home with her daughter and sister, her parents replied with a scathing lecture about a wife’s vows and familial sacrifice. I gather the damage has become permanent.”

“She’s written to her parents recently,” Beck said, though her epistle barely qualified as a note.

“She has,” Tremaine replied. “I paid my respects to them on my way down here, but neither Sara nor Polly has asked after them.”

“Did they ask after her?”

“I have a letter from them.” Tremaine closed his eyes and sank lower in the water. “I’m not to pass it to Sara unless she inquires.”

“So prompt her to ask,” Beck growled, getting up from his seat and leaving North and Tremaine to share the remainder of the brandy. Beck retrieved the soap and started scrubbing himself briskly.

“You think I should?” Tremaine sounded genuinely perplexed. “I was hoping the ladies would accept my aid rather than go running home to Mama and Papa.”

“Why?” Beck submerged and came up. “Three females are a substantial expense.”