Chapter 19 #2
“But…” he began. It was as far as he got.
Jack’s lips curled in a smile as Beckett floundered.
Jack let him flounder, the cock.
“But…Arden? You love him. I know you do.”
Jack gave a single nod. “I do, yes.”
“Then why didn’t you want to marry him?”
“Because you and I are cut from the same cloth, whereas Arden...” He trailed off meaningfully.
Beckett winced. “He’s sweet.”
“He’s got more than a little spice to him, when you get to know him.
But, yes. He is a gentle, sweet, quiet man.
You and I are not the best mates for a man such as him.
” He sighed. “I’ve loved Arden for a very long time.
Enough time to look inside my heart and know that if I truly loved him, I had to let him go.
To know that I wasn’t the best for him. Not by a long shot. ”
“Bollocks. Can’t get better than you,” Beckett said stoutly. His cheeks warmed again. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to take it back.
“I’m glad you think so, my love.”
Beckett’s cheeks warmed further at that. My love. He’d said it before. In the dark, in bed, during a tussle or perhaps afterwards, if Beckett allowed himself to sprawl over Jack’s chest, or allowed Jack to lie on top of him and pin him for a bit.
He’d never said it like this. In daylight, in his study, with Beckett standing before him in his livery.
Beckett didn’t know what to make of it, so he decided to make nothing at all. Or at least, to shove it away out of sight until he could mull it over in privacy.
“I wanted a beta for Arden. A man as gentle as he is.”
Beckett bristled at the thought of anyone else with his omega. With Jack’s omega, he corrected. And a little bit his, that small, greedy voice in his head said. “He needs more than that.”
Jack didn’t seem convinced.
“He does,” Beckett said. “Passionate little thing like him? A beta couldn’t make him feel. Couldn’t make him come alive like I could. You could.”
Like we could.
“His body might be made for it, but I always wondered whether or not he’d welcome that kind of awakening.
It is moot now, of course. There’s no winding the clock back for any of us.
” He paused, then said heavily, “What I wanted for Arden was a life of peace and happiness. I wanted him with a man who would cherish him. Love him, with all that he had.”
“Right. Sounds like you’d managed that,” Beckett pointed out.
“You think I’d bring him peace?”
Beckett scrunched up his nose. It was an old, childish habit that he’d trained himself out of as unbefitting for a footman with his ambitions. It made Jack laugh, though.
“Exactly,” Jack said. “I envisaged him living in a tidy little house somewhere, with a garden of his own, filled with blossom and bees. He is exceptionally fond of bees. Used to be beetles. I liked the idea of him with a skep or two tucked in amongst his flowers. He’s an artist, did you know?
He could sketch all day long in the sun, somewhere like that.
Read, perhaps. Keep his bees. Live how he pleased. Be valued.”
“Apart from the good fucking he’s going to get on the regular,” Beckett said, “he can still have every last bit of that lovely future you’ve planned for him. If he wants it, that is. Did you ever ask him his opinion on it?”
“No. I haven’t had much contact with him in recent years.
And the last time, before I took him from Dalbryn…
well. You’re not the only one in this room who has been unkind to him.
I did it for a reason, but that is no excuse.
Even so, he agreed to marry me. I told him I’d keep him safe. Arden trusted me to keep him safe.”
His cheeks didn’t heat at that. No amount of embarrassment could stand against the cold shame that crackled through him.
Jack made a soft noise. “Beckett, you may have been cruel about it, but you didn’t do anything he didn’t want, you have to understand that.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I asked. I made very sure.”
“I still hurt him.”
“You did,” Jack said mildly. And then, not so mildly, “Badly enough that his one request of me, the only request he’s ever made, was to let him leave.” He tilted his upper body a fraction towards Beckett and said in a confiding tone, “I am very angry about that.”
Beckett got a glimpse, then, of the powerful man his lover truly was, and how dangerous he would be to cross. Jack’s face was a blank mask but his eyes burned.
“Mostly at me, however,” Jack continued, and broke their stare down. Thank fuck. After a moment of silence, he said abruptly, “His brother, Lassit, is an alpha. As is his brother, Aloys, and his sister, Dahli. Syl is the only beta in the family, and furious about it. Arden is the only omega.”
Beckett’s eyes widened. “Uh...”
“Indeed,” Jack said. “There’s a very good reason that families don’t, in general, have mixed designation children. It’s unusual enough to have a beta with alpha siblings. But Arden…” He shrugged. “I comfort myself with the knowledge that my Arden simply didn’t notice things.”
“How much older are the alphas?”
“Lassit is the same age as me, Aloys a year or two younger. Dahli is your age. You actually know Dahli.”
“I do?”
“She sent you here.”
“What? That was Arden’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Glad I didn’t shag her when I had the chance,” Beckett said, and enjoyed Jack’s surprised choke.
The brief moment of humour faded. “Lassit and I were friends once.” The smile that twisted Jack’s face was anything but friendly.
“More than I was friends with Arden. At least at first. My grandmother’s estate adjoins Dalbryn Hall, Arden’s family seat.
I used to spend time there as a child during the summer, when my father got fed up with me and sent me off. Which happened a fair bit.”
“Terror as a child, were you?” Beckett said.
“Ask Mrs Foley one day. Ask Marl.”
“Marl probably won’t speak to me again. Least not for chitchat. He’s, uh. I was a bit difficult about seeing to Arden.”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I heard.”
Beckett firmed his jaw. “I’ve ain’t never come across someone like the duch,” he said, “not that it’s any excuse. Couldn’t think anyone would let themselves hurt so much to spare anyone else, is all.”
“No?” Jack gazed at him levelly. “You would. In a heartbeat.”
Beckett shrugged. For Jack? Yeah. Wasn’t the same, though.
“I’ve kept watch over Arden for a long time now.
Since before he even presented. I had a sense that he wouldn’t be a beta.
I started off with bribing a maid when I was about…
oh, seventeen, I think? I placed a couple of my own servants there a few years after that, not that Lassit knew.
Arden’s father suspected that I was keeping tabs on him.
Lord Dalbryn and his wife were more than happy to put their heads in the sand about Lassit. ”
“Hang on.” Beckett grinned. “You been spyin’ on that little duch for ’ow many years?” He kicked out lightly at Jack’s ankle where it rested close to his.
Jack rolled his eyes at Beckett’s deliberately taunting tone, and no doubt at himself. “Twenty years.”
“Oof. Must love him a lot.”
“I do.”
Beckett wasn’t surprised. He’d only spent two nights with the man and he was already in some kind of love himself.
The fragile kind, like a fresh new pea blossom just opening up in one of his mam’s vegetable barrels back home, ready for the sun.
Jack’s expression tightened, his brows lowering. “Lassit always looked at Arden…and then when their father died…” He broke off and shook his head. “I don’t know how he could have done it.”
“What?” Beckett said, dreading the answer.
“He was auctioning Arden off.”
“He what?” Now that, he hadn’t seem coming.
Jack nodded, his lips pressed together in a grim line.
“Oh, he can call it what he likes, but the fact remains he called together a pack of rich alphas, all of whom wanted Arden for the connections marriage into the family would bring, or because they wanted a virgin omega for a husband, or they wanted an affair with a virgin omega they couldn’t impregnate, and Arden didn’t have a say in any of it.
Lassit assumed guardianship of Arden the moment his father was in the ground. ”
“Guardianship?” Beckett stared. “He’s a grown man!”
“A grown omega. Luckily, in his later years and after his wife had died, Arden’s father finally acknowledged that the interest Lassit took in Arden was not kindly meant.
He’d ignored it Arden’s whole life. I’ll always hate him a little for that.
For keeping Arden close and at risk, rather than giving him options and setting him free.
A few years ago, the earl contacted me. His wife was gone and his own health was declining.
He asked me to take care of Arden.” Jack’s face was bleak.
“The old man got on his knees in his study. He begged me.”
“Said no, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“No? Didn’t even try to fob him off with talk about that nice beta with the bees?”
Jack shook his head. “I should have at least tried, shouldn’t I?
No. I signed the contract there and then, without ever asking Arden.
Or telling him. It’s as bad as if I’d put my bid in at the auction.
There’s no getting away from it. There isn’t.
I’m not letting myself off the hook for that one.
He said yes when I asked, but, Beckett, he was already mine. I’d bought him.”
“The way I hear it, you noble folk are always buying each other for spouses. Called a dowry, ain’t it? How’s that any different?”
“Honestly, Beckett, haven’t you been listening? I told you I’ve messed up just as badly as you did. Worse! He never had the choice to marry me, not really. Gods. He thinks he did, and he didn’t.”
“All right,” Beckett said soothingly.
“He was supposed to be safe here. Sex wasn’t supposed to be part of this.
He’s romantic and affectionate and so, so desperate to be loved, but I’ve never looked at him and thought that sex with him was a possibility.
Cuddling, yes. Kissing, yes. As I said, he is affectionate.
I had no idea if he was the sort of man to want more or if he was happy with that. It didn’t even matter to me.”
“You’ve got me for fucking,” Beckett said, moving closer to stand beside Jack, shoulder to shoulder.
“Have I? I’ve managed it so badly. I told Arden about you before we exchanged rings, but I wanted to introduce him to you myself.
After I’d told you about him. To your face, and not in a letter that you didn’t even read.
I didn’t have time to think. The idea that Lassit would move so quickly, that he would auction him off hadn’t crossed my mind.
All I could do was get Arden safe and hope he’d forgive me one day. Hope you’d forgive me.”
Beckett blinked at Jack, right up into those black eyes an infuriating two inches higher than his. “Eh?”
Jack lifted a hand to Beckett’s cheek. “I am sorry I didn’t talk it over with you first.”
“Why…?” Why would he think he needed to?
“Why? Because you are mine, Beckett. For all time. I thought it would be polite to mention the fact I was marrying someone else before the fact, rather than springing him upon you as a fait accompli.”
Beckett couldn’t wrap his head around it. And not just because he didn’t know what fait accompli meant.
“Didn’t you know that you’re mine?” Jack said.
“You could have mentioned it,” Beckett managed to say.
“Yes. Well. I kept putting it off. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
What, if a duke claimed him for all time? He’d have had a laugh, most like.
He didn’t feel like laughing now.
Jack slanted him a rueful look. “Would you care to give me a hint as to what you’re thinking?”
“Let you know as soon as I do,” Beckett muttered.
“Fair enough.”
Ah, fuck it. Beckett turned and pushed his body against Jack’s, wrapping his arms around him.
If Jack had trotted that one out—you’re mine for all time—before Beckett had seen him sick as a pig, who knows what he’d have said in response? Probably got uppity about it. On his high horse, ego all flared up and the like.
Having thought he’d lost Jack for good…
“I’m yours,” he said gruffly, and forced himself to meet Jack’s eyes, forced himself to be as open as he’d ever been. “Long as you want me, Jack. I’m yours.”