Beckman: Lord of Sins

“You don’t suppose Polly is objecting to Sara coming into Portsmouth with me?”

“Who can fathom the mind of the female?” North sighed the sigh of Every Man. “I have some reason to believe Polly encourages the outing, and not entirely out of sororal selflessness.”

“Does this have to do with that truce you mentioned?”

“A man can dream.” North studied the clouds beyond the filmy new leaves on the oak.

“Maybe the argument goes the other way,” Beck suggested. “Maybe Sara is getting cold feet, and Polly is being obdurate.”

“Polonaise Hunt could write the book on being obdurate.”

“With a forward by your lovely self.”

“Beckman?”

North’s use of his given name had Beck studying the clouds too.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t mean to be so contrary, at least not all the time.” North rose very carefully.

“So who is telling the meek and selfless steward on your estates what to do now?” Beck asked.

North braced his hands on the small of his back and arched slowly. “The rightful heir, of course. Now let’s be about planting your magic trees.” North’s reply was airy and unconcerned. When he quickened his step, Beck let him move on ahead alone, for that seemed to be how the man functioned most comfortably.

* * *

“Tremaine is Reynard’s brother,” Sara pointed out for the dozenth time. “There is no giving him the benefit of the doubt. Even Reynard didn’t trust him.”

“He never struck me as cut from the same cloth as Reynard,” Polly argued. “And he kept his hands to himself.”

Sara spoke more quietly, when she wanted to scream. “You were a girl, Polly. At the risk of opening old wounds, your judgment of a man’s character was not necessarily your best feature.”

“My judgment of some men’s characters was miserable, I admit it. But Tremaine wasn’t one of those men, and I credit him for that. And when we did run across Tremaine, Reynard received him with every evidence of affection.”

“Reynard would have received the devil with every evidence of affection if Old Scratch’s pockets were full, but I did not receive Tremaine with every evidence of affection, and neither should you.”

Polly folded her arms and braced herself against the shelves of the small pantry housing their altercation. “At least write back to him, Sara. Tell him his niece is provided for. Tell him to stay in perishing France, impersonating a comte or whatever he’s doing.”

“He’s not in France,” Sara said miserably. “He rents out the chateau—Vive le roi! —and he’s bought a place not far from Oxford.”

“Near St. Albans?” Polly verbally cringed.

Sara stopped pretending to arrange the rack of spices Beckman had brought with him. “Quite the coincidence, don’t you think?”

“You have to warn Mama and Papa,” Polly pleaded. “He’ll call upon them, and there will be no end of fuss.”

“I doubt it. We haven’t made a secret of where we are, not to Mama and Papa, Polly. If they wanted to fuss, we would have heard from them.”

“I have left the decision of how to deal with them to you, Sara.” Polly’s tone became thoughtful. “If you’re tiring of that responsibility, I can change my position.”

Sara regarded Polly narrowly, but when she saw Polly’s offer was genuine, her shoulders dropped.

“You miss Mama and Papa.” Sara missed them too, and Allie didn’t even know them, her only maternal relatives.

“I miss them, and I can’t help but think Allie has the right to know them. She can’t know her father’s parents, but Mama and Papa are decent people, Sara. Stubborn, true, and misguided and provincial, but they’d love her.”

They would. They would love the child regardless of her origins. “You’d want to tell Mama and Papa all the sordid, sorry details, Polly. They aren’t that forgiving.”

“That is not the decision before us,” Polly countered gently, uncrossing her arms. “The decision before us is if, given that Tremaine is making overtures, we can continue to cling to the fiction that we’ll be safe standing alone and ignoring him.”

“We do stand alone.” Sara was never more miserably sure of anything. “It isn’t a fiction, and Tremaine isn’t making overtures, he’s making threats, saying he has been remiss not to play a role in Allie’s upbringing, and so forth.”

Polly planted her fists on her hips. “I thought he was apologizing for his absence.”

“He’s French,” Sara shot back. “That was a threat, couched as an apology. They excel at it. ‘So sorry, your head, he got in the way of my guillotine. Quel domage! Zut alors! And such the mess!’”

Polly’s lips quirked at Sara’s parody. “Half French, and the other half of Tremaine’s heritage is Scottish. They don’t apologize for anything.”

Sara managed a weak smile. “Our poor Allie.”

“Go to Portsmouth and put this from your mind. You can always write back to Tremaine later, but I think you’d be best advised to make some reply, lest you give him a reason to jaunt down here and see for himself that Allie thrives. Then too, Sara, you have another alternative—we have, rather.”

“What is that?”

Polly ran a finger over the nearest shelf, as if dust might have had the temerity to gather in her pantry. “You can put this situation in Beckman Haddonfield’s capable hands. He’s big enough to intimidate anyone, well connected, wealthy, a gentleman, and enamored of you. He’d take any threat to Allie very seriously.”

Abruptly, the tidy little pantry with its interesting scents of exotic cooking and clean aprons felt stifling.

“Tell Beck…? And what would he think of us, Polly Hunt, did he know how far we fell from his polite, titled world? He knows I performed, but he never saw my bare feet on the stage. He doesn’t know about the private performances. He doesn’t know the leverage Tremaine possesses should he seek to make our lives miserable.”

And of course, Polly had an answer for that: “Tremaine likely doesn’t know the leverage he possesses. We have to hope that’s the case.”

Sara did not hear hope in Polly’s voice; she heard thinly veiled, old despair. “And how long will you punish yourself for that?”

“I don’t punish myself for it, but it’s always there, Sara.”

“I know.” Sara slipped an arm around her younger sister and hugged her. “There are some decisions we make it seems we never stop paying for. I still don’t think I should go to Portsmouth.”

“You’re going,” Polly assured her, hugging her back and stroking a hand over Sara’s blazing hair. “You need to loosen your grip on Allie and let Beckman spoil you, as a woman needs to be spoiled.”

Sara slipped away. “Will you let North spoil you?”

“It’s as much a matter of letting me spoil him, though we’re working on it. Seriously, Sara, use this little trip to put your troubles aside, enjoy some time with Beck, and come back here refreshed and restored.”

“You will not let Allie out of your sight, Polonaise. I mean it.”

“I will let her paint, with your permission,” Polly countered. “She’s dying to do another canvas, Sara, and trying not to pester you for it.”

“You’re right. Beck points out, and he’s right too, she’ll just sneak and dodge her way around my permission if I don’t allow her reasonable access to her paints. You corner her on the subject matter of this one before she starts, though.”

For the first time in their exchange, Polly smiled. “I can do that. I ought to make her do a study of Hildegard and challenge her to make the pig beautiful.”

“She could do it,” Sara said. “She really could.”

Polly tucked Sara’s braid over her shoulder. “If she sees beauty in a wallowing pig, Sister mine, it’s because you showed her where to look.”