The Lights of Avendene

Chapter 1

BECKETT

It was after midnight when Marl came for him.

Beckett was a light sleeper, and he was awake before Marl, lit by the glow of a shaded oil lamp, reached the side of his bed.

“What is it?” Beckett pushed up to his elbows. “What’s wrong?” Something had to be very wrong indeed for the butler to be up in the servants’ quarters, rousting the footmen. “Is it a fire?” Beckett threw the covers back and scrambled out.

Marl shook his head and laid a finger to his lips. He didn’t come any further into the room. He gestured at Beckett and slipped silently out into the corridor.

Beckett frowned and grabbed his breeches from the small chest crammed between his bed and the door. As he pulled them on, he heard Hapton in the room next to Beckett’s call out a quiet, sleepy question. Marl hushed him.

Beckett hurried out. Marl stood at the far end of the corridor, and he gestured impatiently at Beckett again.

Beckett shoved his tangle of sleep-mussed hair out of his face and jogged lightly towards the butler, bare feet scuffing on the cold wooden floor. Marl set off, heading for the stairs, and Beckett picked up his pace. “What is it? Is it…?”

“Is Jack home?” he nearly asked. “Is it Jack?”

He didn’t ask, though. If Jack was home and wanted to see Beckett, he wouldn’t send his butler. He’d come and turf Beckett out of bed himself. Or else climb in on top of him.

Besides, if Jack was home, before he came to find his lover, he’d probably want to check in on his new husband first.

The duch.

The omega Jack had sent to Avendene, and had arrived a mere six hours behind the messenger who’d galloped up with his horse in a right lather, found Marl first, Mrs Foley second, and was too late to hand Jack’s letter to Beckett, because by then, he’d already heard the news.

He’d been in the kitchen when Garvey, one of the other footmen, came rushing in to yell about it.

“You’ll never believe it! His Grace has gone and got himself hitched. To an omega!”

Everyone had immediately looked from Garvey to Beckett.

He’d calmly lifted his mug of tea and sipped at it as if he hadn’t been cut open, right there at the kitchen table.

“Ooh, he never did!” Magda gasped. Went a bit overboard with the dramatics, clutching her chest and all, but it served its purpose and broke the tension. Everyone looked away from Beckett. She was a good lass.

Beckett sat and drank his tea, refusing to hurry.

He finished eating the small apple turnover Cook had slid his way when he sat at the table not ten minutes ago. He even saved a small piece of crust for the birds, as he always did.

As if it was any other day.

Then he ducked out the kitchen door and strode off to the woods at the back of the orchard.

Once he was out of sight, he broke into a run until his legs shook and he was deep among the trees, and only when he was sure there was no one around to hear it did he unleash all the emotions he was going to allow himself, and he didn’t go back until his throat was hoarse and his eyes were dry.

The minute he returned to the house, Mrs Foley summoned him to the housekeeper’s parlour to give him the letter.

Marl had chickened out, Beckett reckoned. Mrs Foley was the only one at Avendene who had the balls to do it.

Beckett had thanked her politely, stuffed the letter into his breeches pocket, and asked when the duch was due, and if he should be putting on his dress livery for the traditional welcome line on the front steps or not?

It wasn’t the first letter Jack had ever written him. He’d sent Beckett notes once or twice when they started up a couple of years ago. While Beckett had managed to get himself some learning since then, and could at least read the letter, he didn’t.

Didn’t read the other two letters Jack sent after that one, either.

He knew Jack. Sure as the sun rose in the east, there was a good explanation for everything.

He just…he wasn’t ready to hear it.

He wanted to get over it himself first.

So he’d stayed away from the duch as best he could, even though the little mouse had, for some reason, been spying on him, and—

“It’s the duch,” Marl said as he reached the bottom of the ancient, winding stone stairs, Beckett on his heels. He rushed off.

“What?” Beckett caught up in two strides. He had half a foot in height on Marl, who was puffing as they hurried through dark corridors. “What’s wrong with him?”

Back rigid and jaw tight, Marl glared straight ahead and turned towards the ducal chambers.

Shit. “He’s all right, isn’t he? Marl?”

The house was still around them, all the servants except for him and Marl in bed at this time of morning. Barely two o’clock, if Beckett had to guess.

The house was still, but it wasn’t entirely silent.

There was something at the fine edge of Beckett’s hearing. No, it wasn’t a sound. It was a vibration in the air, a sultry heaviness. Like a storm approaching, or the rush of a river breaking a dam upstream. The destruction was coming, and there was no stopping it.

The thing was, Beckett’d had omegas before—well, two—but neither of them had been in heat.

He didn’t realise what that vibration meant, or what his own growing restlessness over the past few days had been about, until it was too late and Marl, the prick, had walked him into it.

“Listen,” Marl said as they stopped outside the duch’s chamber.

“I sent word to His Grace in town as soon as I suspected. His Grace will try to get here in time, we both know that, but I can’t stand by and let the duch suffer any more.

It came on too quickly. It’s bad, Beckett.

If he doesn’t accept a proxy before dawn, I fear he’ll lose his mind.

And then so will the master.” Marl grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out and squeezing Beckett’s bicep.

His hand was cold against Beckett’s bare skin.

“I’m sorry to have to ask you, of all people.

I need your help, lad, or…we might lose him.

His Grace would never forgive me. I would never forgive myself.

His Grace sent the duch here to be safe. ”

And while Beckett was mean and angry, and he didn’t want to fuck any stupid omega let alone the duch, who had spent nigh on ten days now, sneaking around and peeking at him—ducking behind curtains, gawking out of windows, peering around corners—Beckett wasn’t that much of an arsehole.

An alpha’s rut was nasty but survivable. An unmet heat, if it didn’t outright kill the omega, which was the most likely outcome, would leave them in ruins.

He wasn’t about to let anyone lose their mind or their life for want of a shag. Gods.

Beckett didn’t have to roll right over with no protest, though. “I’m not the only alpha on the estate you can ask. What about Vickers?”

Marl ran a hand through his thinning grey hair. “He’d be kind.” He eyed Beckett as if to say, I’m not sure you will. “But it will cause trouble with his wife.”

Beckett knew that. He grunted. “It’s fine.” No point going on.

“I suppose there’s Dunn—”

“No,” Beckett said.

Marl shrugged. “He’s an option.”

“He’s eighteen.”

“He’s an alpha.”

“Barely. He doesn’t have the control and you know it. He’s eighteen.”

“He’d be a risk, yes. When it comes down to it, a risk is better by far than waiting for His Grace and letting the duch burn.”

Dunn would hurt him. He wouldn’t want to but he’d hurt him, and even then, the odds of him actually being able to knot an omega were slim. Beckett couldn’t stand by and let either of them go through that.

“Shit.” He slumped against the wall and tipped his head back with a hard thud.

“You’ll do it?” Marl asked.

“I will.”