Free Beckman: Lord of Sins by Grace Burrowes Page B

They’re more partial to goats there.”
    “I am not raising goats at Three Springs.”
    Lest there be a species underfoot more stubborn than North himself? “I’m not asking you to, though they make a respectable poor man’s cow.”
    “So if we don’t plant here, where do we plant? The place can’t go a whole year without a crop to sell.”
    “We break sod, North.” Beck raised an arm. “There, where the drainage is equally good and the land looks like it’s gone halfway back to heath. It’s fallowed plenty long enough, and the field lies low enough we could irrigate it from that corner if we had to.”
    “We could, if we’re to bloody well break our backs digging ditches and serving as plowboys.”
    Our backs , because Gabriel North would not permit others to work while he sat on his horse and supervised—any more than Beck would.
    “You can’t keep farming the one patch forever without letting it fallow,” Beck argued. “And a better use of the place might be to farm produce and sell it in Brighton.”
    “Brighton is a damned long day’s haul, usually two days. Just how many teams and wagons do you think Three Springs owns?”
    This was North’s version of taking time to think something over, so Beck did not raise his voice. “Three teams. My four can be worked in pairs, and two wagons, because I’ll not be returning the one to Belle Maison. We can use your old team to haul produce.”
    “Why in God’s name are we hauling produce to bloody Brighton?”
    Beck grinned, because this was North’s version of enthusiasm for an idea with promise. “Stop whining. Our bloody Regent has nominally finished his bloody Pavilion and must show it off to all his gluttonous, bibulous friends. Your little patch of coast has become frightfully fashionable.”
    North’s habitually grim features became even more forbidding. “Brighton is already a horror. The Pavilion will bankrupt the nation so Wales can pretend he’s some Oriental pasha before his drunken guests.”
    Beck pulled a doleful face. “You flirt with treason, Mr. North, and a singular lack of appreciation for Eastern architecture.” Beck did not lapse into raptures about Prague or Constantinople, though it was tempting. “We’ll have to broaden your horizons, North.”
    “Spare me.” North nudged his horse into a walk. “I’m sufficiently sophisticated for Hildy, Hermione, and Miss Allie, so we’ll leave the broad horizons to you.”
    Beck let Ulysses walk on beside North’s mount. “You do not account yourself sophisticated enough for Miss Polly?”
    “Stubble it, Haddonfield.” North’s tone was deceptively—dangerously—mild. “Polly Hunt has seen every capital in Europe, converses passably in a half-dozen languages, can out-paint most of the Royal Academy, and out-cook whatever Frog rides the Regent’s culinary coattails. I will never be sophisticated enough for her.” North fell silent while his horse crouched in anticipation of leaping a rill. “But you might be.”
    Ulysses chose to wade the little stream. When he was again parallel to North’s mount, Beck studied his companion for a moment before replying.
    “Polly Hunt is a lovely lady, but she doesn’t look at me the way she looks at you. You matter to her.”
    “I matter to her,” North said patiently, “because she is a good Christian woman, and I eat prodigious quantities. You matter to her on the same account, as does Hildegard.”
    “How flattering. I am likened to a market hog.”
    “Not a market hog, our best breeding sow.”
    “Our only breeding sow. North, you are truly obtuse on the subject of Miss Hunt. Don’t compound it by seeing competition where there isn’t any.”
    “You are not competition. I’m not sure what you are, but you’re an earl’s son, and Polly deserves at least that.”
    “You’re daft.” Beck urged Ulysses up to a trot, and North’s mount smoothly followed suit.
    “What?” North cued the beast to a canter. “You’re a