As a change of topic, as a distraction, that apparently served well enough. “Allie made a list?”
“I asked her to, and, Sara, there is not one damned thing on that list for the girl herself. She wants me to get you some dress fabric and two new bonnets, the same for Polly. She says North needs a new set of farrier’s tools and two new shirts, as well as winter stockings. For Hermione, she wants harness bells, and for Hildegard, she wants one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. She claims the pig ate such a book last year then had thirteen piglets.”
“Even North laughed when Polly pointed that out.” Sara smiled in remembrance.
“As did Mr. Hildegard, no doubt.” Beck smiled as well, glad for the lighter mood. “You have to believe you’re doing very well with Allie, Sara, and I would like to buy her some paints and books on art when we’re in Portsmouth.”
Sara’s smiled faded into a staring contest with her last bite of muffin. “Is it important to you?”
“I think it’s important to her,” Beck countered. “If something important to her is denied by her elders, it will eventually foster rebellion in the child. I don’t gather any of the Hunt womenfolk are possessed of malleable spirits, and talent like Allie’s isn’t simply going to fade.”
“We’re not weak spirited,” Sara agreed, reluctantly. “We haven’t had that luxury, in any case. Just don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
“I don’t want Allie’s art to consume her, to sweep away her common sense and put her in the path of licentious, profligate dilettantes who think a little art excuses a lot of immorality.”
He didn’t ask—Is this what befell you and Polly?—but he would ask, eventually.
“Forgive me.” Sara rose and picked up the tea tray. “Again, I blunder onto difficult subjects, and it’s growing late. My thanks for the muffin, and I will look forward to seeing Mrs. Grantham on Monday.”
“I’ll walk you to your door, unless you want me to casually tuck Hildy in and shoo your sister back to your worried arms first?”
“That won’t be necessary. I’d like to send Hildy to go shoo my sister inside, because Hildy is a very conscientious and forceful parent. Polly is an adult, though, and Gabriel is a gentleman, but he’s going to leave, isn’t he?”
“Why do you say that?” When she set the tray down, he slipped his arm around her and began walking her toward her apartment.
“Because for two years Gabriel has hidden his regard for Polly from all, including himself sometimes. He arranged to spend time with her tonight, privately, and at some length. I can’t imagine him permitting himself such a liberty except in parting.”
“If he is leaving,” Beck said as they reached her door, “I am sure he has been absolutely honest with Polly about his plans, Sara. Maybe she can permit herself to acknowledge their feelings only for the same reason.” He knew far too well the emotional dynamics of leave-taking. Beck wrapped his arms around Sara, held her for a moment before kissing her on the mouth and stepping back. “Sweet dreams, Sarabande. I’ll see you in mine.”
“Good night, Beckman.” She rose on her toes and brushed her lips across his. “I’ll dream of shopping with you in Portsmouth.”
In the kitchen, Beck poured himself another cup of tea and wondered if he would wait up for Polly—or North—had Sara not expressed concern. He appropriated pen, ink, and paper from the library and started on a list of his own. A good hour later, he heard Polly’s voice in the back hall, followed by the less distinct rumble of North’s baritone.
About damned time.
North ambled into the kitchen, clearly having sent Polly to her bed. “You’re still awake?”
“Making my list.” Beck pushed the teapot toward North. “How’s your back?”
“Aching.” North lowered himself to a chair—slowly, slowly. “Thank God it’s merely aching, not cursing and making me wish I were dead.”
Beck put his pen down and considered his companion. North’s saturnine features held the usual complement of banked suffering. “Does it really hurt so much?”
“The physical pain is only part of it.” North stirred a little sugar into his tea, sipped, then added cream. “I know that’s likely temporary, and can cope with it. The indignity, however, remains intolerable even as it becomes mere memory rather than fact. But I suppose your golden life has not taught you this, yet anyway.”
Beck took off his glasses and waited until North was done stirring his damned tea.
“My brother had to carry me, bodily, covered in my own filth, from an opium den in Paris, and I fought him to my last breath to be left where I was. I cannot recall a great deal about months of self-indulgence in the same spot, but I can recall clearly the look on Nick’s face when he realized which bag of noisome bones was what was left of his little brother.”
North picked up Beck’s glasses and started polishing them on his handkerchief. “One would find that a tenacious memory.”
“He cried,” Beck said. “They weren’t tears of disgust or rage, though they should have been. They were tears of relief, because I was still alive.”
“Beckman…” Some of North’s characteristic gruffness slid away. “It isn’t that I’m ungrateful… I had last rites in Spain, you know, twice. It’s just I’ve made a muddle of things, and one grows… weary of one’s situation.”
“So you hare off,” Beck finished for him, knowing exactly the terrain North called home turf. “You leave, and you hope the change of scenery or people or horses or whatever helps, and it doesn’t.”
“We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?” North poured more tea for them both.
Beck waited while North appropriated the cream and sugar. “Sara worries about Polly and Allie, but I worry about you.”
“You needn’t.” North rose very slowly with his teacup. “I’m fully breeched, and I’ve made my bed, Haddonfield. One copes.”
Beck slid his chair back to look up at North. “Tomorrow one is going to cope by making a visit to the springs, and in the light of day, before the temperature drops back down to nippy, North.”
“Not a bad idea.” North sipped his tea and aimed a look at Beck. “Did you mean to kill yourself in that opium den?”
“I thought I did. I’d tried running and drinking and stupid risks and all manner of idiot means to deal with the low cards I’d found in the hand life dealt me, but I also made halfway sure Nick knew where to find me, and eventually, he did. Part of me just wanted to know somebody would try.”
North set his mug on the counter. “When I leave, you needn’t engage in such heroics, Haddonfield. I have a trade, and some means, and will land on my feet. But as for you…” He turned to go. “I’m glad this brother of yours found you in time.”
He left before Beck could reply, while Beck hoped wholeheartedly that there was a brother out there looking for North.
Eight
“North is leaving.”
The studied calm in Polly’s voice didn’t fool Sara for an instant. She put aside the pinafore she was mending, and put aside the urge to give Gabriel North a stern talking to as well.
“Why now?”
Polly sank into her rocking chair and sat still. “He says he must, that it’s a family matter, and that Three Springs will come around in Beckman’s care. I’m not to worry.”
So much had been taken from Polly, it seemed wrong that North should try to deprive her of her justifiable concern too. “He didn’t ask you to go with him?”
Polly shook her head once, a gesture of defeat and heartache.
“What will you miss the most?” If Sara didn’t ask, then Polly would bottle all the misery up inside, making extravagant desserts out of it, and subtly spiced dishes fit for the Regent’s pavilion in Brighton.