generally. “So he has feelings for her, but she’s gone, and it’s you who can’t wait to dive into your green dressing gown each night, and who has started wearing your new bootish things all over the house. It’s you who looks down the drive a hundred times a day, and you who has slept in his bed since the night he left.”
“I want the scent of him—I want even just the scent of him.”
They were probably the most honest and private words Sara had said to Polly in years. Polly wished she didn’t understand them so easily.
“Sara, he could well come back.” Polly did not believe these words, but a loyal sister had an obligation to be kind as well as honest.
That Sara didn’t bother arguing caused more alarm than relief. “Tremaine wants to come for a visit, and I did not wave him off, not exactly.”
Sara rose as well. “He will not visit. You wanted me to write to him, to assure him all was well, but he won’t believe those assurances unless he hears something approaching a welcome. All is well, Polly, we’re managing now, and Three Springs looks better than it has in decades. I reminded him that a housekeeper hasn’t the authority to invite guests, which is the simple truth. He won’t come, but if he did, now would be the time for him to see we’re not in need of his avuncular resources.”
Polly stopped short and narrowed her eyes on her sister. “You’re bluffing, then.” There was some sense in Sara’s position—they’d bluffed their way through many a daunting circumstance—also some risk. “Did you explain this to Beckman?”
“Explain what to Beckman?” North’s rasping baritone cut through the tension in the kitchen.
“There’s a remote possibility we’ll have company,” Polly said, giving Sara time to form her answer. “Family might drop by, briefly, one hopes.”
“Family?” North’s green eyes narrowed. “I’ve known you ladies for going on three years, and now family pops out of the woodwork? I’m just the steward, so the goings-on here in the house could not possibly affect me, you understand, yet I admit to curiosity. Who is this family?”
Sara answered with enviable composure. “His name is Tremaine St. Michael, and he’s my late husband’s half brother. He has been writing lately to inquire as to Allie’s well-being, and in his latest letter has suggested he’d like to visit. I said we appreciated his concern but intimated that a visit wouldn’t be appropriate, given our positions here.”
“You hope he won’t visit,” North countered abruptly. He regarded Sara, then Polly, then Sara again, his frown deepening. “Mind you warn the child. I was thinking to take her into the village with me this afternoon, if you ladies don’t object?”
“Of course not,” Sara replied, but she’d glanced at Polly first, and Polly had no doubt that North, being North, had seen that too.
“I cannot fathom why the earl didn’t fire that lot of vultures.” Ethan handed Beck a drink, which Beck sipped, sighed over, and set down.
“That is fine libation, Mr. Grey.” Though a cup of Polly’s stout black tea would have been finer.
Ethan shrugged. “One grows used to what comforts money can command. Did any of the terms of the will surprise you?”
“Your presence surprised me.” Beck bent forward to tug off his boots. He was staying with Ethan at his London town house, the invitation coming as another surprise in a week full of them. At Nick’s request, both Ethan and Beck had stayed in Town for the reading of the late earl’s will.
“I’ve had some chance to get to know our new sister-in-law.” Ethan’s big feet appeared beside Beck’s on the low table—this was the private lair of a man in charge of a bachelor household, after all. “I think Wee Nick has met his match, and I’m not inclined to wander too far afield until he acknowledges this.”
The new Countess of Bellefonte, Leah, was pretty, kind, smitten with Nick, and very much up to the new earl’s weight in mischief and marital machinations. That alone would have recommended her, but she’d also taken charge of the logistics of the earl’s funeral, so the Haddonfield family could more effectively manage its grief.
Beck leaned his head back against soft leather and listened to the fire crackling in the hearth. What was Sara doing on this cool and cozy evening? Had Allie taken the slop bucket to Hildegard?
“Nick still carps at me to see to the succession.”
Ethan eyed him dispassionately. “You’re a reasonably appealing fellow. A wife solves a few problems.”
“And creates others,” Beck shot back. “Or are you prepared to march back up to the altar yourself, Ethan?”
“As you no doubt know,” Ethan replied evenly, “when a man is lonely for certain pleasures, he need not assuage them with a wife.”
“That isn’t lonely, that’s merely randy, and you well know the difference.” Beck knew the difference too, much better than he had even weeks ago.
“I know the difference, but in my marriage, I was far lonelier than I’ve ever been in the unwedded state.”
Beck peered at his brandy. “I have to say I came to the same conclusion, though I was married just a few months.”
“And I, a few years, but they were long, long years. What happened to your wife?”
This was a question a brother shouldn’t have to ask, not because it was impertinent to inquire, but because a brother—any brother—ought to know these things.
“She was carrying another man’s child when we wed,” Beck said, closing his eyes. “And I did not learn of this until we’d endured our honeymoon and I’d gone up to Town in deference to my new wife’s wishes. She was not…
Though it had fallen to Beck to notify the poor bastard of Devona’s passing—at his wife’s dying request.
Ethan crossed his feet at the ankle, a man apparently comfortable with secrets Beck hadn’t intended to share with anybody. “And being Nick, he went after the man with guns blazing?”
“Being Nick, he blistered my wife’s ears for all to hear. Until then, she’d thought I was the Berserker of the Bedroom’s younger brother and at no risk for siring the next earl. Nick set her straight, and things went to hell from there.”
“I’m sorry.”
It was the same damned platitude Beck had heard over and over again, but when he glanced at Ethan—a brother and a fellow widower—there was a world of understanding in his blue eyes.
“She didn’t kill herself outright.” Beck stared hard at his drink. “She took steps to make sure she lost the child, but she also lost her life as a consequence. I have not acquainted Nicholas with the specific consequences of his actions, and he has atoned for them in any case.”
And there was peace of a sort in that realization. For years, Beck had assuaged his own guilt by blaming Nick for interfering, blaming Nick for presuming and assuming and generally being Nick.
Bold Nick, stubborn Nick…
“Atoned by retrieving you from one of your less successful journeys.” Ethan cursed softly in the direction of stubborn idiot younger brothers generally, rose, and refreshed his drink. He cocked an eyebrow at Beck, who shook his head. He’d barely touched his brandy, despite being in the midst of a discussion that might make a man very thirsty indeed.
Ethan dropped down right beside Beck on the sofa. “Did you love her?”
For reasons having to do with red-haired housekeepers and difficult partings, this question had been on Beck’s mind for much of the last week. His first inclination was to offer Ethan a shrug, a platitude, and the sort of smile that would allow the question to remain essentially unanswered. Ancient secrets were one thing; recent
