Chapter 19
BECKETT
Beckett stared at Marl. “You what?” he demanded in disbelief.
“The duch has gone,” Marl repeated. “To Greylag. It’s one of His Grace’s smaller properties on the south coast. His Grace the duch has always had a fancy to live by the sea. I’m sure he’ll be happier there. I’m sure you’ll be happier with him there. Won’t you, Beckett?”
Beckett turned on his heel and strode out of the butler’s parlour without a word.
…he’ll be happier there.
Beckett broke into a light jog.
…he’ll be happier.
He rattled down the grand staircase—it was quicker than taking the servants’ stairs—and loped across the Great Hall, boots ringing loud on the marble.
…he’ll be happier.
Won’t you?
Beckett didn’t even bother knocking on the study door. He flung it open and strode in. “What the fuck are you thinking, Jack? You can’t just let him go!”
Jack sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves, with a steaming cup of coffee at his elbow, a pen in his hand, and a weary expression on his face. Beckett scanned him critically as he crossed the room.
He didn’t look too bad, considering the bastard nearly died yesterday.
He was paler than usual. Dark circles beneath his eyes. Lips pressed tight. Strain showed at the corners of his eyes and in the grooves beside his mouth, but he was all right. Beckett had seen him looking worse.
Marl had told him that Jack was perfectly fine, right before he’d dropped the news about Arden in the godsdamned bitchiest way possible. Still. Beckett felt better seeing it for himself.
And seeing it had the odd effect of making his worry for Arden flare even brighter. He wasn’t in rut, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t know a moment’s peace until he had eyes on the little omega again.
Jack’s secretary, Nolan, who must have left Sevennis right after Jack to have made it here so soon, was standing by Jack’s desk, a sheaf of papers in one hand and his ever-present notebook in the other.
Jack didn’t react to Beckett’s entrance.
Nolan, however, looked over in astonishment.
His eyes narrowed to glittering slits and his expression filled with loathing.
Bit of a puzzler, that. They were friendly, if not friends. Beckett had kept the secretary at arm’s length, and after a few years, Nolan had given up trying to get closer.
Bad enough Beckett was running around with a duke in the first place, he didn’t need to go getting ideas above his station like making friends with the duke’s fancy secretary. He had limits.
He had his pride.
Beckett ignored Nolan and said to Jack, “He can’t go. He needs to be here.”
Jack sat back in his chair, tossing the pen on the polished desktop. He didn’t say anything.
To be fair, he didn’t get a chance.
Nolan bristled up like the stuffy little hedgepig he was. “What do you think you are doing?” he barked. “You may not barge in here and start throwing—”
“I may,” Beckett said. “Blanket permission is what I got, from His Grace an’ all, so you can shove that noise right back in your hole.”
Nolan recoiled as if someone had thrown a bucket of iced water in his face.
Beckett didn’t blame him. Not really. This was the old Beckett.
Nolan didn’t know him like this. He knew Beckett as a professional and distant footman, who was always polite, and never showed by so much as a lingering glance that he and Jack were fucking.
Nolan knew, as everyone did, but Beckett had never shown it.
“Nolan,” Jack said quietly. “We’ll pick this up later. Beckett and I do have things to discuss.”
“As you wish.” Nolan snatched up the satchel he was never without from beside the desk, stuffed his notebook and papers into it, and stalked out of the room. He didn’t so much as look at Beckett as he passed, even though it was clear that he’d like to do more than look at him.
Beat him about the head with his little bag, probably.
Or kneecap him.
Beckett crossed the room with impatient steps to lean over the desk, bracing his hands flat on the cool wooden surface. “You can’t let him go.”
Jack contemplated him in silence.
Beckett scowled, hackles rising.
“His heat is over,” Jack said. “As is your rut.”
“Yes.”
“Does it matter, then?”
Beckett scowled harder. “Of course it matters.”
“Why?”
Beckett stared at him for a long moment before he burst out indignantly, “He’s my omega!”
Jack sat back in his chair and laced his hands over his stomach. “He’s not, though.”
Now Beckett felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of iced water at him.
“You’re the one who said it,” Jack reminded him.
“Well—”
“And he is my husband.”
Beckett straightened and lifted his chin.
“My husband,” Jack continued, “who has asked me for one single thing the whole time I’ve known him. Do you want to know what he asked of me?”
Beckett could tell by Jack’s sad face, and by the sympathy in his eyes, that Beckett did not want to know.
He nodded.
“Arden asked me to let him ‘go away’.”
“What’s that mean?” Beckett snapped. “He wanted a holiday?”
Jack smiled faintly and lifted a hand to rub at his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that morning. “No. He wanted me to let him remove himself from this…situation.” He gestured between him and Beckett.
“What’s that mean?” Beckett demanded again.
“What happened between you two?” Jack countered.
“You know what happened.” Beckett stalked over to the bay window.
“I fucked him like he needed. Like he wanted. Like you wanted.” He stared out across the vast lawn.
In the distance, beyond the stand of chestnuts, the sun glittered on the lazy river.
That was what made his vision sparkle. The sun. He blinked rapidly.
Jack came to stand behind him. After a moment, Beckett took a deep breath and turned to face him.
They stared at each other in silence. Beckett searched Jack’s face for disapproval, disappointment, anger.
For any of the things he’d be feeling for Beckett right now, if Beckett really had managed to screw up Jack’s marriage within forty-eight hours of them all being together in the same place.
The only thing he saw was that sympathy.
Beckett’s stomach clenched. “I don’t know what happened,” he said, feeling suddenly very young, in a way that he hadn’t even when he was young. He dropped his gaze to the floor and glared at his boots.
Jack, damn him, just waited.
“I was…I was fucking…I was angry with him!” Beckett burst out. He reached up and clasped the back of his neck, squeezing for comfort.
Jack stepped in, bringing their bodies together. He brushed Beckett’s hand away, laid his own over Beckett’s nape, and held him.
Beckett had never let anyone touch him here. Not quite like this, with this intent and purpose. He was an alpha. This wasn’t the way an alpha touched another alpha; they didn’t submit to it. But Beckett did, because he needed it, and because this was Jack, who he’d thought he’d lost.
He softened and slumped against Jack’s body. Fine. No point in holding back now. He wound his arms around Jack’s waist, and rested his forehead on Jack’s shoulder.
“Thought I’d lost you,” he muttered into Jack’s shirt. “Thought you’d died.”
Jack squeezed gently. His other arm looped around Beckett’s back.
“I can’t lose you,” Beckett said, turning his head just enough to brush his cheek against the warm skin at the base of Jack’s throat. He wanted to bite it. He didn’t. He wasn’t a complete idiot, though you couldn’t tell from the way he’d been carrying on.
Jack ran a soothing hand up and down Beckett’s ribs. “I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of this, I truly am.”
Beckett grunted, got a sneaky kiss in on the skin beneath his lips, and pushed himself upright, gathering himself as he did.
Jack released him with reluctance.
“I found you unconscious,” Beckett said.
He frowned, then reached out and smacked Jack’s arm.
“Don’t ever take suppressants again. If anyone needs to do it, I will.
I’m younger. I can bear it better.” The tight band around his chest loosened at Jack’s smile.
Beckett blew out a hard breath. “I was angry,” he said.
“Gods, I was angry. I let him see it. Hear it.”
“Ah. That’s why he’s afraid of you.”
Beckett’s heart spasmed. “He’s afraid of me?”
“Did you think he wouldn’t be? You said it to me yourself. Be gentle. Were you gentle with him, Beckett?”
Unfamiliar heat scorched Beckett’s cheeks. He scrubbed at his face as if he could scrub away the shame. He couldn’t. “I’m not used to you refined folk,” he said defensively.
“It’s got nothing to do with him being ‘refined’,” Jack said. “I asked you to help with his heat for two reasons. One, because I was foolish enough to hope that we could all…never mind. It isn’t likely to happen now. The other reason is because you’re experienced where I am not, and—”
“Hold up. To hope we could all what? What isn’t going to happen?”
Jack contemplated him. “I never intended to marry Arden,” he said eventually. “I never intended to be in Arden’s life at all. I intended to have someone else at my side. I still do.”
Beckett frowned.
“Good gods,” Jack said. “Well. I suppose that answers the question as to whether or not you bothered to read the letter I sent ahead of Arden. You, my love. I’m talking about you.” He gave a short, dry laugh. “How can you not know?”
“What?” Beckett said shakily.
Jack tugged him in, kissed him on the forehead, then nudged his chin up and kissed him firmly on the lips.
Beckett allowed it. He liked it. Right now, feeling young, and cruel, and knowing that he may very well have broken something as important as it was fragile, he more than liked it; he welcomed it.
“You,” Jack said, gazing at him with that look he got on his face sometimes, the one that Beckett hadn’t ever been able to quite get a handle on, but which he now had a sneaking suspicion meant more than he’d ever let himself dare to hope.
Because he was nothing if not a practical man, and what practical man would ever imagine a duke pledging himself to his footman?