Chapter 32
BECKETT
After breakfast, Jack and Nolan disappeared into Jack’s study, leaving a restless Beckett to take himself off to the servants’ quarters to find something to do.
He was unsuccessful.
The servants here in Sevennis, just like the ones at Avendene and at Greylag, had their own hierarchy, their own well-defined roles, and no real use for an interloper.
Especially not one who’d helped carry the duke’s and his secretary’s food up to the breakfast parlour and, instead of discreetly withdrawing with the rest of them, had pulled out a chair and sat himself at the table.
You couldn’t have everything. Beckett knew that.
Squaring his shoulders, he headed back up to the main part of the house and off to Jack’s study. If he was going to interlope, may as well go and do it there.
He walked in without knocking, taking Jack by surprise. Jack snatched the spectacles he was wearing off his face so quickly that they skittered over the crowded desktop and skated clean off the side to hit the floor.
Jack sighed ruefully as Beckett crossed the room, scooped them up, and made a meal out of buffing them on his sleeve before handing them back to Jack with a little bow, as polite as you like.
Jack took them off him, paused for a second, then shrugged and popped them back on his large nose.
Bracing a hand on the desk, Beckett leaned into Jack’s space.
“You look very distinguished,” he said seriously.
“See if you can grow yourself a few more grey hairs, and you’ll be almost as distinguished as Marl.
” He yelped when Jack, the refined duke eight years his senior, sitting at his fancy desk as he worked on Council business that would affect the whole country, chopped a hand at Beckett’s inner elbow and made him loose his balance, thumping his forearm flat to the desktop.
It was a decent enough position to find himself in, Beckett thought, and took advantage, licking his bottom lip suggestively. Didn’t take him but a second to get a kiss, and a firm hand at the back of his head to keep him there.
A stern throat-clearing from Nolan’s adjoining office made them break it off.
Beckett pushed himself up and straightened his hair.
He tapped a finger on the stack of papers before Jack.
“Best get on with it so we can head home,” he said, and strode off to Nolan’s office.
He paused by the doorway, which was flanked by a pair of ladder-back chairs intended, presumably, for any visitors.
“I’ll be needing one of these,” he said, picked one up, and carried it with him into Nolan’s office.
The beta looked up with wide eyes as Beckett set it across from Nolan on the other side of his desk.
The desk was bigger than Jack’s.
“Right, then.” Beckett sat. “I’ve got a lot to learn with regards to figures and correspondence and the proper way to talk business to fancy folk without getting their hackles up, or so Marl says. Since you’re the one who knows everything, seems to me you’re the best man for the job.”
Nolan stared at him for a long, considering minute. He began to smile.
It wasn’t a pleasant smile, and Beckett knew he was in for it, but he wasn’t wrong. Nolan was the best for the job. Beckett meant to take his place at Jack and Arden’s side, and make them proud to have him there.
He’d let the stroppy little beta take all the jabs at him he wanted.
Nolan would get bored of it long before Beckett ever did.
Jabs and attitude he could take all day long. Two hours straight of sitting on his arse practising his letters, on the other hand, was about his limit.
Beckett threw down his quill, glared at the ink stains that spattered his fingers and the backs of his hands and had ruined the cuffs of his shirt, and decided he’d go back to being a footman for a nice break.
Whatever the other servants had to say about it.
He informed Nolan so, and got rudely waved away. He had one foot in Jack’s study when a tall, well-made alpha with dark-blond hair, sharp cheekbones, and furious, glittering blue eyes, came stalking in through the other door.
Ah, Beckett thought, taking in Jack’s expression.
This’ll be the brother, then. Lassit.
Jack didn’t spare Beckett a look. More likely than not, he’d prefer it if Beckett took himself back into Nolan’s office and shut the door, leaving them to it.
Beckett wouldn’t do that even with a direct order.
The butler caught up, red-faced and angry.
“Your Grace—” the butler began.
“It’s all right, Palmer,” Jack said without looking away from Lassit. “That’ll be all.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Palmer backed into the hall where he stood and gesticulated at Beckett, silently telling him to leave the alpha nobs to their pissing match.
Beckett shook his head. Not a chance.
Palmer looked like he was going to pop a vein.
Nolan came to stand at Beckett’s shoulder. He must have signalled to Palmer, because the man stopped his gesticulating and drew the door shut. He didn’t stop glaring, though.
To Beckett’s surprise, Nolan also withdrew, and he didn’t even try to get Beckett to follow him. He touched Beckett’s side briefly and shut the connecting door with a click, giving them all privacy.
Beckett slouched against the wall, hands stuffed in his breeches pockets and chin kicked up, and watched Lassit.
He didn’t mess about, this earl. Strode on up to Jack’s desk, leaned in and braced both hands flat on it as he ground out, “I want my brother back.”
To Beckett’s astonishment, he saw something like sympathy flicker over Jack’s face. It was there and gone, but for a second, it was there. “No.”
Lassit loomed across the desk threateningly.
Jack was unimpressed. “Get off my desk, Las.”
With a hiss of annoyance, Lassit shoved himself back upright. “You had no right to take him from me,” he said.
“I had, and have, every right over Arden,” Jack replied. “He is my duch.”
Lassit’s lips curled back in a snarl. “He’s not your anything. The marriage isn’t legal. He’s—”
“Mine. I have your father’s blessing.”
Lassit smiled—bright, wide, and wickedly handsome. Beckett wanted to smack him. “Unfortunately, Papa isn’t here to corroborate that, is he? A blessing? Pfft. That’s your word only.”
“If my word is not enough, may I remind you that I also have your father’s signature, on the betrothal contact and the settlements.” Jack relaxed back in his chair.
“Hmm, no. I don’t believe you have. I’ve been through Papa’s affairs.
It’s taken me months to get through the mess he left me, but I’ve been through it all.
Believe me. There is not one single document relating to Arden.
No contract. No correspondence. Not even a single mention of Arden in his journals. ”
And yet Lassit didn’t seem quite as confident as he should have.
“Because your father wasn’t stupid enough to leave any evidence somewhere you could find it, before or after his death, and destroy it,” Jack said.
“Copies of the contract are lodged with the Courts. The very Courts you are no doubt planning to petition. As for the originals, those are, of course, in my personal vault. The contract is ironclad, Lassit.”
Lassit’s large hands bunched into fists and he shifted his weight. “Forged,” he said roughly.
“It was witnessed three years ago by his lawyer, my lawyer, and an independent lawyer attached to the Council.”
“Arden said…” He thrust an agitated hand through the side of his hair. “You went behind my back three years ago? Jack.”
The man had the nerve to sound hurt, Beckett marvelled.
“I didn’t go behind your back. Your father was the one who contacted me to offer me Arden.”
“You only like alphas. Everyone knows it. You made very sure of that when we were younger.” Lassit scowled. “Why would he—”
Jack raised a single brow, and Lassit’s face at that! It hardened like a stone.
“Your father was devastated when Arden was born an omega, Lassit. You know he was.”
Beckett felt that blow in his gut. He hoped, suddenly and fiercely, that even if Lassit knew, Arden didn’t.
“He loved Arden,” Lassit said.
“Enough to secure his future by asking me to marry him, at least.”
“Why you, for fuck’s sake! Arden didn’t need to marry anyone, least of all you! I’d have taken care of him. Don’t look at me like that. I would.”
“You wouldn’t know how. Arden is a gentle man. You’re not even a good man.”
“Oh, and you are?”
“Not particularly, no. Which is what I told your father, when he offered Arden to me.”
“I’ll take him off your hands,” Lassit said instantly.
“And when I said that,” Jack continued, “your father stopped offering. He got on his knees. He begged me to take Arden.”
It wasn’t any easier hearing that the second time.
“Fuck’s sake.” Lassit threw his arms out. “This melodrama is unnecessary!”
“This melodrama? Lassit, you were auctioning him to the highest bidder.”
Lassit’s jaw clenched. “I was giving people the opportunity to court him.”
“With their dicks?” Beckett said.
Jack huffed a surprised laugh. Lassit didn’t even acknowledge him.
“You’d have given Arden away,” Jack said.
“Temporarily. Because I must. That was it. He’d have come home and never been bothered again. Not once. Be realistic, Jack. You must know what a state Papa left Dalbryn’s finances in. Arden would have fixed all that with one short affair, and then I’d have fixed it for him.”
“I’ll bet,” Beckett said. Jack didn’t laugh this time. He shot Beckett a warning glance, which Beckett wasn’t going to pay any attention to, thanks. Still nothing from Lassit.
Jack went on, “He’s your family, Lassit. Not a family asset. There’s a difference.”
“If I’d explained to Arden what the family needed, he’d have agreed to do it. So what difference does it make? I was saving him unnecessary anxiety over something there was no avoiding.”
“You could have sold one of your holdings, rather than your little brother.”
“I won’t be the first in the line to break up our holdings,” Lassit said after a truly startled pause.