Chapter 41
JACK
Jack slept like the dead, and gods above, his body had needed it.
He woke at lunchtime, had a brisk splash at the washstand in water long gone cold though his valet had replaced last night’s ewer with a fresh one at some point, and by the time he made his way to the breakfast parlour, Magda was tidying away the empty plates.
“Your Grace,” she said, dipping a quick curtsy but not stopping her work. “Shall I bring you breakfast? Or is it lunch you’ll be wanting?”
“Neither, thank you, Magda,” Jack said. “I’ll grab something from the kitchen.”
He strode through the halls, clattered down the back steps, and made Cook jump when he burst into the kitchen.
Marl, sitting at the large, well-scrubbed table and sipping coffee from the earthenware mug that was particularly his and he’d been using for as long as Jack could recall, didn’t flinch. He merely raised an eyebrow at Jack, who shot him an answering eyebrow.
Marl’s lips twitched.
“When is he going to start behaving as is befitting his station, is what I want to know?” Cook said loudly to the workbench, transferring small golden tarts filled with dark ruby jam from a tray to a cooling rack.
“Or is it time for us to give up hope? It’s not as if he wasn’t raised proper, oh no.
Yet here he is, an old man coming up fast on forty and—”
Jack crossed the room, took hold of her dangling apron strings, and gave them a brisk tug, just as he used to from the moment he could crawl and his nursemaid, one of Cook’s nieces, had to tote him about with her wherever she went or else he’d escape the nursery again.
Just as he’d continued to do until he decided he was too grown-up at six years old for such obvious displays of affection, at which point he’d progressed to less obvious displays that garnered more exciting reactions, such as gathering caterpillars from the garden and tucking them into her lettuces, sneaking spiders into her lidded pots, and popping toads into her sacks of potatoes.
She whirled on him, all set to give him a great (and familiar) scolding…only she didn’t.
Instead, she astonished him by reaching up and touching his cheek fleetingly with a worn hand.
He blinked.
It must have been two decades, and a few more years besides, since Cook had shown him any tenderness. She was a practical woman, not given to expressing her emotions unless she was yelling them at her staff.
Jack didn’t know what this uncharacteristic tenderness was for, until she turned her back to him with a shake of her grey head, saying, “Your men are out in my garden, and you’ll be telling your little duch that if him and the lad want to go digging around in it and making changes, he’ll have to come and take tea with me first to discuss it. ”
“Very well,” Jack said.
She made an impatient noise and shooed him away. “Off with you.”
Because he could, and because he was filled with something today—hope, energy, love, love, love—he leaned over her rounded shoulder, snitched a tart from under her nose, and rushed out.
Not at all in a manner befitting a duke, which she screeched after him as he slid out the back door, catching Marl’s amused expression as he did.
He set off down the gravelled path that wound through the kitchen garden and on into the orchard beyond, which was where he assumed they were, since he’d found Beckett there often enough.
And, yes.
There they were indeed.
For all the mockery he’d got from Beckett and, he thought indignantly, from Arden, he hadn’t been far off in his dreams for Arden being centred around a garden, with flowers and bees.
The scale had been somewhat off, admittedly, since Avendene wasn’t a cottage, but he’d been correct in thinking it would make Arden happy.
Then again, Arden had only ever needed one thing to be happy.
Love.
He had it now, and you could see it.
Jack stopped before they noticed him, taking a moment to appreciate them together. And to appreciate his stolen tart.
Beckett was lounging on the small stone bench—a curved, backless thing that was tucked away between a pair of ancient apple trees. His thighs were spread and his upper body was canted back at an angle as he leaned his weight into the hand braced behind him.
The other hand was resting, light but possessive, on Arden’s hip.
He’d drawn their omega between his legs and was holding him there, trapped.
Arden had no idea he was caught, of course, and Jack could tell that Beckett was doing his best not to grab, to pin, to dominate.
To Arden, it probably felt like nothing more than an affectionate, casual touch, and yet Jack saw the fine tension there in his alpha lover.
Once again, he was struck by how protective it was.
Beckett had been this way from the moment Jack had come upon them in Arden’s bedchamber months ago, and had seen Beckett inside Arden, moving over him, tending to him and bringing relief from his first, brutal heat.
His immediate response when he’d sensed Jack was to curl around Arden protectively.
Not one in a hundred thousand alphas would have responded like that.
Arden chattered away, hands sketching things in the air. Beckett’s eyes were steady on his face. Arden dropped his gaze shyly again and again. But again and again, it returned to Beckett. Soaking in the attention.
Oh, he was going to bloom under them, Jack knew. Everything that he’d wanted for Arden was going to come true.
And, because of Arden, everything that he’d wanted for Beckett would also come true.
Jack had worried that he’d never be able to convince Beckett to claim his place at Jack’s side. He’d meant it when he said to Arden once that Beckett wouldn’t have agreed to be his duch if Jack had held him at sword’s point.
But this…oh, this. It was better than anything.
Beckett wouldn’t be a duch, but he’d guard one.
He was going to boss Arden about for the rest of their lives, and Arden would love it.
Jack wouldn’t ever have been able to convince Beckett to accept anything for himself. He’d take it for Arden. He’d demand more.
He would be—he was—magnificent.
Beckett’s gaze cut in Jack’s direction.
As their eyes met, Jack felt their connection, as he always did, like a bright spark crackling over his skin.
Beckett winked at him.
Arden broke off, turned to see who he was winking at, and his face lit up when he saw Jack. He waved and took a step towards Jack.
He tried to take a step towards Jack.
Beckett scooped him closer, off his feet, and set him on his lap.
By the time Arden was finished flailing about it, Jack had joined them at the bench. It was small and there wasn’t much room.
Room enough for three, though.
He sat down, Arden squawked again as Beckett shuffled him about, and then Arden was perched sideways on Beckett’s thighs and had his legs draped over Jack’s.
Jack dropped a hand on his ankle and squeezed. “Good morning.”
“Hello,” Arden said breathlessly, and looked away.
“He’s shy after last night,” Beckett said, earning himself a little scowl.
“I am not shy,” Arden said.
“No?”
“No.” And to prove it, Arden reached out, drew Jack close with a gentle hand on his jaw, and brushed a kiss over his smiling lips. Then, keeping hold of Jack, he turned and looked into Beckett’s face, surprising him by doing the same.
“Well,” Jack said. “I am all yours for the next week before I have to go back to Sevennis. What is the plan?”
“Let’s fuck,” Beckett said.
At the same time, Arden sighed and said, “Let’s live happily ever after.”
Jack laughed even as Arden scolded Beckett, sitting on his lap with an arm tight around his neck and his legs resting light and warm over Jack’s.
“I think we can manage both,” Jack said.