“But your father is your concern, and this is how you can feel close to him as he slips away.”

“Plain speaking, but accurate. Nita writes that he sleeps a great deal.”

“So he’s not in pain.” She shifted up on the pillows and tugged on Beck’s broad shoulders. “Cuddle up, Haddonfield, as we’re great friends and all.”

A little tentatively, he did as she bid, resting his cheek on the slope of her breast. She linked her arms around him and hugged him to her.

“Tell me about your papa,” she said, threading her fingers through the hair at his nape.

Slowly at first, Beck did. He started out with expected propaganda, reporting all of the earl’s most impressive accomplishments, the bills he’d seen enacted in Parliament, the sound advice he’d given the king or the regent. From there, Beck drifted closer to more personal recollections, until, an hour later, he was wondering aloud why his father had waited until death was knocking at his door to hold Nick accountable for securing the succession and marrying.

“You will sort this out with your brothers.” Sara kissed him again. “You like them too much not to, and they like you as well.”

“And you know this how?” Even her breasts bore her luscious fragrance.

“You said when Nick retrieved you from Paris he saved your life, Beckman. He will be the head of the family, and he will need your support. You’re the one who has actually seen the family holdings overseas. You’re the one who has met this factor and that competitor. You’re the one with the better sense of your younger sisters and the men who could make them suitable mates. While Nick has been off tending to whatever, and Ethan has been banished, you’ve been minding the family concerns.”

She turned facts on their heads, sounding very brisk and practical while she did. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“Ask Nick sometime how he looks at it,” Sara said. “For now, I need to move you. My arm has gone to sleep.”

“My apologies.”

Sara pushed at his shoulder. “Roll over. I’m going to rub your back.”

“You are?” It occurred to Beck she might be sore, so he acquiesced. He could ask her, of course, but his mood was a little off for lovemaking, and the shops would be closed tomorrow. They’d have all day to indulge his selfish impulses—and hers.

“Go to sleep, Beckman.” Sara’s hand began to knead his shoulder. “It will all be here in the morning, as will I.”

Usually, the idea that his troubles would greet him upon rising was not cheering. The way Sara said it put things in a different light.

Beck woke up the next morning spooned around Sara, a pleasurable novelty made all the sweeter by the breeze coming through the balcony doors. His erection was seated along her sex, and before she was fully awake, Sara was subtly moving against him.

Trusting she would tell him if he was asking too much, Beck shifted minutely behind her, wrapped an arm around her waist, and began to ease his way inside.

“Good morning,” Sara murmured, bringing his hand up to settle over her breast.

“Good morning,” Beck politely rejoined, pushing more firmly into her body. “It’s a lovely day.”

“Beautiful,” Sara agreed sleepily. She contracted her sex around him and sighed—contentedly, he thought—as he gained a deeper penetration.

“Is this…?” Beck paused while he focused on easing his cock that much deeper into her heat.

“Beautiful,” Sara assured him, closing her fingers over his on her breast. “Just… lovely.”

He hadn’t made love to her before in daylight. He wanted to, of course. He wanted to make love to her so he could see the sunlight on her face and not just on the erotic curve of her spine. He wanted to put her on her knees and fill her so deeply she groaned with the pleasure of it. Wanted her atop him, her hair drifting over them both, and he wanted her…

He slipped his hand out from under hers and closed her fingers around her nipple, then let his palm glide down over her belly, to her sex. His fingers found the seat of her pleasure, and in slow, glancing caresses, he began to drive her toward completion.

Beckman almost regretted it when he felt Sara surrender to her orgasm, so greatly had he been enjoying the lovemaking. He let himself join her, though his own orgasm became more intense for the control he tried to maintain over his body.

“You all right?” He stroked a hand down her spine when he could speak again, knowing she was unused to this much sexual activity, regardless of how he tried to contain himself.

“Blissful,” Sara said, sounding well pleasured and smug. “How do married people behave in company, Beck, when there’s all this between them in private?”

It struck him as an odd question. Sara had been married far longer than he had. Odd—but flattering.

“They start off with a honeymoon,” he said, “and have a little privacy in which to gain their balance. But I believe a certain kind of misbehavior is the signal attraction of the married state for most people. Stay put and let me tend you.”

Lest he ravish her the livelong day.

“I want to devour you,” he said as he tidied her up. “Visually at least, if not otherwise.”

“You need your breakfast,” Sara informed him. And yet she parted her legs farther and didn’t push his hand away. “Why shouldn’t you look?” she asked, watching his face. “I like to look at you. Love to, in fact.”

His gaze shifted to assess the truth of her statement, only to find the demented woman was smiling radiantly.

“I love the look of you when you’re dressed for town,” she said while his gaze traveled from that smile back to the damp, pink glory of her sex. “You’re handsome when you’re all country-gentleman-about-his-business. I love the look of you at breakfast, teasing Allie, ready to storm off on your list of tasks. I love the affection and exasperation I see in your eyes when you argue with North, or harry him off to the hot springs for his medicinal dip…” She might have gone on with her list of “I loves,” except Beck closed her knees and wrapped his arms around her legs.

“You are going to need a medicinal dip,” he declared, thinking he himself could do with a cold swim. God in heaven… The sight of her… so fearless and… generous. “I’m going to order you a bath, see about our breakfast, then scare us up a conveyance suitable for a drive along the water. Will that suit?”

“It will suit wonderfully.”

He rose from the bed and caught her—true to her words—admiring the view shamelessly. When they’d finished breakfast and Beck was leaving her to her bath, he paused at the door.

“Sarabande Adagio?”

“Beckman Sylvanus?”

He wanted to give her something, something in return for holding him in the darkness and all of those “I loves” in the light.

Something she would not reject as beyond the bounds of a frolic. “I’m already regretting we must leave this place tomorrow, and when the summons comes from Belle Maison, I will regret that too, and not just for my father’s sake.” And then he slipped out the door, giving her privacy and taking some for himself as well.

The day was idyllic and sleepy, like a Sunday in late spring should be, but warm enough to make the shore breeze comfortable. Beck hired a horse and buggy to take Sara up on the headlands for a picnic, finding a depression surrounded by stubby trees near a hilltop to spread a blanket. The view from the nearby cliff top was at once private and spectacular, with the sun bouncing off a sea of white caps and the town spread out below them.

Sara brought her book, and Beck read to her, her head on his stomach as he lay back on the blanket. He hadn’t packed wine for some reason, but felt as lazy and relaxed as if they were on their second bottle. He set the book aside, thinking perhaps he’d read his audience to sleep, and let his hand stroke over Sara’s hair. Her eyes drifted open, and she turned so her cheek was on his stomach.