Beckman: Lord of Sins

The village was a modest little widening in the cow path between the South Downs and Portsmouth. It wasn’t exactly isolated, but it wasn’t aswirl with commerce, either. Beck was comfortable in such places, far more comfortable than in the rarified artifice of Vienna or London. The two years he’d spent mucking stalls had taught him that much, at least.

He left the team at the livery, paid in coin of the realm for a full wagon of hay, and made arrangements for some oats to be loaded on as well, while North took off to do actual shopping for the ladies. By the time Beck had made a circuit of the streets intersecting at the green, midday was closing fast, so he went to find North at the inn.

The innkeeper sized Beck up with a practiced smile as Beck approached the polished plank bar. “What’ll you have, then?”

“Have you a decent winter ale?” Beck detested the dark, hearty quality of winter ale and could trust himself not to drink much of it.

“We do.” The innkeeper got down a pint glass. “Until the first of May, at least. Some years, it seems we’re never without. Will you be having some tucker to tide you over, sir?”

“No, thank you.” Beck turned around and lounged back against the bar. “Have you any mail for a Beckman Haddonfield, Three Springs?” North was nowhere to be seen, but the ladies had wanted a bit of this and that, and depending on custom, Beck could see their errands taking some time.

“Be ye him?”

“I am.” Beck kept his back to the bar. “Decent ale.”

The innkeeper reached under the bar and withdrew a thick packet of mail. “There’s notes in here for them Hunt ladies, too. The best of it’s for ye, though.”

“My thanks.” Beck pushed away from the bar, left a coin, and scooped up his mail, then turned with careful nonchalance. “You haven’t seen Tobias and Timothy since last night, have you?”

“Them two.” The innkeeper’s ruddy features contorted into a scowl. “Me missus done run ’em off the last time yester eve. She had the hostlers and stable boys toss ’em, in a wagon headed for Portsmouth, and their haversacks with ’em as they was sayin’ as they’d been turfed out from Three Springs.”

“I take it they left an unpaid tab?”

The innkeeper nodded. “Missus is right when she says they’ll never pay as much as they drink and carry on.”

Beck passed a small pouch across the bar. “This is intended as their severance, their employment at Three Springs having indeed come to an end. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind keeping it safe for them, for a reasonable period?”

Not by a blink or a twitch did the innkeeper hesitate.

“I’d owe it to ’em as loyal customers.” He slipped the pouch into his apron pocket. “Missus would agree.”

“A woman of discernment, your missus.” Beck smiled pleasantly and took himself, his mail, and his beer to the snug, where he could see the whole room, be seen by few, and have the table space needed to set his correspondence down in private.

Lady Warne had written, her florid feminine hand evident in the largest packet, and Nita had written as well. There was a thin epistle from a location obscured by the rain having gotten to the sender’s direction—Beck supposed it to be from one of his factors on the Continent—and a note from Nick.

Nothing was banded or sealed in black, so the news couldn’t be that awful. That he didn’t yet have to leave Three Springs came as a relief, and not simply because it meant the earl yet drew breath.

Pushing his beer across the table, Beck opened the note from Nick first. Nick was the realm’s largest grasshopper, shifting about from one residence to another, one friend’s holding to another’s, one county to another with a speed and frequency that left his family dizzy.

But he made up for it by being a good correspondent, in two senses. First, he was conscientious, and second, he was to the point.

Becky Dearest,

Am up to my miserable arse in dancing slippers, cravats, and interminable small talk. I do not wish you were here, not when I feel about as comfortable with this charade as the Regent would riding a lame donkey. No countess yet, and I shudder at the potential candidates. They all look as desperate as I feel. If you ever have sons—for I shall not—don’t make them promise to marry until they’re at least forty.

No bad news from Nita. I’ve asked her to keep you well informed while you are in the provinces. Lady Warne is delighted you’re on premises down there, and says to warn you the women on staff are her personal friends—I don’t know if she means you are honor bound to flirt with her collection of relics, or you’re honor bound not to. I know Papa appreciates the effort you’re making, as do I. When the day comes that the title befalls me, the last thing I’ll have time to do is racket around the South Downs, restoring Three Springs.

Don’t let the old dears pinch your tender bottom too hard. If you should make a progress to Sutcliffe and run into Thomas Jennings doing the same, I specifically told him to leave you in peace, but recall, Linden is just a few hours the other side of Brighton if you need reinforcements. He says Loris fares well and is nowhere near as big as a freshening heifer. If you’re going to bide there for a spell—and I encourage you to, the scenery up here being pathetic—then I’ll have Nita send you some pigeons.

Papa would want to hear how you go on, as do I.

Love,

Wee Nick

Beck set the letter aside, vowing to return fire soon. Nita’s letter was equally brief, but reassured Beck the earl was comfortable, if “fading.” Nita’s guess was the old man would hang on until Nick had chosen his bride.

The letter from Lady Warne was indeed accompanied by sealed notes for Polly and Sara, but the tone of Beck’s missive was puzzling.

My dear boy,

Trust I am keeping an eye on that imp of a brother of yours. I will not allow him to indulge in too much folly in the choice before him. Still, one wishes you could be two places at once, because your ability to discreetly manage our Nick would come in handy. Instead, you have been set to checking up on my property, for which I am grateful. Nicholas has hinted all might not be in order with Three Springs, but I have assured him you have my power of attorney and will soon address whatever minor neglect has occurred.

You will please ensure the enclosed are delivered to their respective addressees in person, because there has been a peculiar quality to my correspondence with my staff. While the Misses Hunt are most amiable and competent ladies, I’ve found their attendance to epistolary matters oddly unreliable. They write only sporadically, seldom answer the direct questions I put to them, and often remark on matters of random interest. I’d be concerned, except Mr. North’s quarterly reports arrive timely into the hands of my secretary, who assures me they are current and complete.

When you are done rusticating, you must come up to Town that I may sport about on your arm and be the envy of my friends—and their granddaughters.

Your loving Grandmother

Della, Lady Warne

The letter explained at least one thing: Lady Warne was not reviewing North’s reports herself. She left them in the hands of her secretary, a cheerful, practical little man who’d looked exactly the same since Beck had first been introduced to him fifteen years ago. Three Springs, alas, was falling through the cracks, with the secretary certain the earl was managing it, and the earl comfortable to leave it to his shifty solicitors.

And as for managing Nicholas, Beck attributed that to harmless flattery or willful misdirection on Nicholas’s part.

The other part of the letter, the almost querulous description of communication from her house staff at Three Springs, that bothered Beck, and put him in mind of Sara’s comments regarding Lady Warne’s own letters and notes.

“Whiling the morning away as I work myself to a nubbin.” North grunted as he slid into the snug beside Beck. “Any news?”

“My father lives so you will not yet be rid of me, my brother is not yet married, and Mistress Innkeeper has cashiered the twins into Portsmouth because they were foolish enough to disclose they’d lost their