Beckman: Lord of Sins Read Online Free PDF Page A

Beck and dark where Beck was fair, but there was something about the look of Mr. Gabriel North that stirred Beck’s memory. His features were harsh the way a man of the land came to look harsh—sun-browned, wind-scoured, crinkled at the corners, tried by biblical plagues and endless fatigue of the body and spirit.
    And yet, women would find him attractive. As many foreign lands as Beck had traveled, women in all of them would have found Gabriel North attractive.
    “I want to get Timothy and Tobias’s lazy feet out from under Miss Polly and Mrs. Hunt’s table,” Beck said, shrugging into a shirt. “They take more than they give, by all accounts. If you see it otherwise, I’m willing to listen.”
    “They eat like a plague of locusts,” North replied, swirling a large, blunt finger in the water in the warming tub. “And while they are not openly insolent with me, I seldom ask them for the time of day. They regard themselves as house servants and resent mightily that there’s no butler, no male hierarchy placing them above the womenfolk because I refuse to trespass on what would be a house steward’s domain. Sara occasionally inspires them to attempt some task, but they are adept at sabotage and have not enough honor to see that the women deserve their help.”
    “They’re gone,” Beck said, yanking his breeches up. “If they can’t see how hard the women work, much less how hard you work, then they’re blind as well as stupid. I can offer them to Lady Warne or just set them loose. God above…” He fell silent as North started calmly shedding clothes.
    “I am not so pretty as some,” North said as he tilted the warming tub to fill the bathing tub. “But then, I’ve no need to be.”
    “Was that a saber wound?” Beck asked, knowing curiosity was ill-mannered, but God’s toes, North was lucky to be alive. The scar ran from his shoulder blade, across his back, right down to the curve of the opposite hip, thick, red, and ugly.
    Few women would find that attractive—if any.
    North sighed as he sank into the hot water. “A dirty saber wound, and tomorrow night, I go first and bedamned to your papa’s title.”
    “You served King and Country?” Beck guessed, because sabers didn’t commonly find themselves slashing at the backs of English land stewards.
    “I did not. I’m going to have to appropriate your nancy damned soap, unless you’re willing to retrieve mine from above stairs while I soak.”
    “And my dinner gets cold? Not bloody likely. Here.” Beck proved himself the better man for all time and in all ways by not skipping the tin of soap into the tub, but rather, by handing it to the occupant. “You’re dodging my admittedly rude question.”
    “My younger brother served,” North said, his focus seemingly on washing one large male foot. “He was wounded. I went to fetch him home from the field hospital where he was not recovering to my father’s satisfaction. As we made our way back to Portugal, some renegade Frenchmen set upon us, though we were both civilians at the time. The French were convinced they’d found officers out of uniform and were anticipating a fine time extracting information from us. My back was slightly the worse for having to differ with them.”
    “Oh, slightly,” Beck allowed, wincing inwardly. A wound like that had to have pained him, had to have hurt like hell when he was tired, overworked, sweating like a beast… “You’ll need my shaving kit too, if you’re truly to make an impression.”
    “Needs must.” North accepted the tin very civilly handed to him then studied the label at some length. “I’ll need clean clothes too, damn it all. I came haring in here to heed your summons and anticipated I’d have to wait for my bath.”
    “My clothes will fit your scrawny frame,” Beck said. “You needn’t be so miserly with the soap, for God’s sake. I can get more.”
    “Millefleurs was ever a favorite scent of mine. Hildegard will find me