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.”

The trip to Portsmouth took the entire day, much of which Sara spent reading Mansfield Park to Beck on the wagon’s seat, while wishing she’d chosen a less judgmental tale.

As the day had progressed, she’d droned on with her book, not knowing how to manage a real topic of conversation. Her mind in the past week had been too divided, too busy—too worried. Now she had three nights with Beckman ahead of her, three days with him as well, and she wasn’t ready.

Judging from his increasingly silent mood, maybe he wasn’t either.

The inn was lovely, and Sara was made keenly aware Beckman—the male half of “Squire and Mrs. Sylvanus”—knew exactly how to manage himself there. He greeted the innkeeper with the perfect blend of cordiality and condescension to guarantee attentive service, and the suite of rooms they were shown to was comfortable, spotless, and possessed of an enormous bed. Tea and scones with jam and butter appeared within minutes of their baggage being brought up.

Sara glanced around the room, noting a fresh bouquet of roses on the sideboard and lace curtains on each window. “This is every bit as nice as Three Springs itself.”

“I would tolerate no lesser accommodation for you.” Beck eyed her across the little sitting room, and Sara understood clearly: The Subject Had Changed. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do, Sarabande Adagio. Will you allow me some privileges while we’re away from Three Springs?”

Her expression must have given her thoughts away, for Beck smiled.

“Not that,” he said. “Well, yes, that, soon and in all its glorious permutations, but we’ll settle in here first, bathe, have our meal, and enjoy some anticipation, if that’s acceptable to you.”

He was sophisticated enough to enjoy anticipation, while Sara experienced worry.

“That’s acceptable.” She swallowed, because five syllables had left her mouth dry. Beck sidled over to her, his walk predatory and just plain… erotic.

“Let me be your lady’s maid, Sarabande.” He leaned in and ran his nose along her jaw. “I want to take your hair down, and I don’t mean simply take the pins out to free your braid. I want to see it completely unbound, your hair in all its glory. The frustration of never having seen you thus, the anticipation of seeing you thus, has kept me up nights.”

The husky, intimate note in his voice made her insides flutter, but she didn’t move, didn’t glide over to their luggage, find her hairbrush, and set it into his waiting hand.

She’d never glided in her life.

“Beckman, I don’t know…” Beck’s fingers brushed along her nape.

“You don’t have to know.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her spine. “You just have to trust that I’ll know, and when the time comes, you’ll know too. Let me.” He got down to business, relieving her hair of pins with deft dispatch. He piled his finds neatly on the vanity then guided Sara by the shoulders to sit on the stool facing the folding mirror. He fished in her traveling bag, while Sara watched in silent alarm as he produced the hairbrush.

“I’ve ordered you a bath,” Beck said, his hands on her shoulders drawing her back against his thighs. “And I’ve a few things to see to while you soak, but the tub will be put in the bedroom, and if you shut the door, dinner can be set up out here. Will that suit?”

“Of course.” Good heavens, what did people talk about in situations like this?

“I want to make this weekend special, Sara.” Beck got her braid free, and it uncoiled down Sara’s back until he caught it in his hands and untied the ribbon at the end. “I realized as we approached the town that where you see the beauty of the place, I see only the many, many times I left my homeland from these shores, or came back to it, exhausted in body and spirit, wondering what the point was of the excursion.”

He paused as he unbraided three thick skeins of hair. “Sometimes, I wondered what the point of my entire excursion on earth was. Portsmouth was so pretty, so bright and busy, while I—”

He gathered her hair up in his hands. In the mirror, Sara watched as he buried his nose in bright, coppery tresses.

“While you?” She wanted to hear the rest of his recitation, wanted it badly enough to lose sight of her worry.

“My brother had found me in an opium den, doing my utmost to shuffle off this mortal coil. For much of the journey home, the drugs were leaving my system. At the time, I thought it fitting I should endure such an ordeal while at sea.”

This was important, also sad. “There is opium in Portsmouth, Beckman. There’s opium in any town with an apothecary, and many people believe a small amount has no untoward consequences.”

He dropped her hair, and in the mirror seemed to stand very tall behind her. “There was sunshine in Portsmouth, blinding sunshine, the gulls wheeling overhead, the hum and bustle of commerce on the dock. There was something of the essential goodness of an English town. I think sometimes I was saved by a delayed case of homesickness.”

“Saved?” She raised the question, because her heart would have said a part of Beckman, as competent, hale, and confident as he was, was still at sea.

Beck’s mouth tipped up in a wry smile. “Your hair should be a wonder of the modern world.” He resumed running his hands through the unbound mass of it. “It’s every bit as soft and silky as I imagined, and how other women must envy you its beauty.”