To have Arden trust Beckett as he trusted Jack.
It would take time, he knew that. It had taken long enough for Beckett to trust Jack, after all.
His forceful strokes slowed and he backed himself away from the edge.
When he’d first come to Avendene, he’d admit it right here and now, he’d had a right chip on his shoulder.
He’d jumped down from the carrier’s cart that he’d wheedled a ride on in town, taken a shortcut through the parkland that the carrier had pointed out, and half an hour later, he laid eyes on the huge, sprawling house in the distance and thought, yeah.
This would do.
He was going to be the best godsdamned footman this fancy duke had ever seen.
He marched up to the back entrance and asked for the butler. A wary footman, Garvey, showed him into Marl’s office, where he presented Lady Dahli’s letter of recommendation, endured Marl’s nosy and irritated questions, and was told to go and ask Cook for some refreshments while Marl consulted with the housekeeper.
It probably helped sway them toward keeping him that Dunn, who was fifteen then and had surprised everyone by presenting as an alpha not two weeks ago, chose the moment Beckett walked into the kitchen to have his first tantrum.
It happened. Sometimes when you were young, your hormones got the better of you and no matter how hard you tried to ride the wave of it, you got dragged under.
Dunn was all the way under, and then some.
The lad’s face was red, neck and forearms stark and corded with painfully tight tendons and blood-fat veins. He kicked back the chair he’d been sitting on, flipped the table and sent every last dish on it flying, and went after Hapton, who’d made the mistake of being a beta and taking the biggest piece of pie right in front of Dunn’s face.
Hap tried to calm him down and avoid getting smacked about for his troubles, Magda was yelling, “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him!” to both of them, and Cook was all set to clobber him with a pan.
Beckett scruffed the lad and ran him out to the paved kitchen courtyard.
There, he indulged Dunn in the kind of knockdown, drag-out fight that he knew from personal experience was the only way Dunn would be able to burn through the rapid-onset rage.
He even let Dunn get a couple of hits in.
The lad was a decent fighter, or he would be once he got control of his gangly limbs. He couldn’t hope to match an older, coordinated alpha like Beckett. And Beckett was a big one, too.
He always, always had the advantage.
It made him careful. So as not to shame the lad, he let Dunn put him on the ground. Just the once. It didn’t seem fair to give him a total drubbing, not with folk standing around watching and taking bets like arseholes.
By the time Dunn was tiring and starting to listen to Beckett’s soothing talk about how he’d be fine, he’d be fine, it wouldn’t hurt much longer, what must have been half the staff and all the stable lads were there for the show.
Dunn went down hard, the rage dropping from him like a stone tossed down a well. Beckett caught him when his legs went out, and eased him to the flagstones. He sat there with the lad’s head on his thigh as Dunn gasped through the last of it.
He paid no attention to the wide-eyed crowd. They scarpered as soon as Marl showed up, anyway.
And maybe Beckett getting hired in the end was partly down to Lady Dahli’s recommendation and partly because Marl knew he needed someone around to help manage Dunn’s unpredictable transition, since Vickers was in his fifties and not likely to be able to hold his own against a new alpha.
Beckett made damn sure that when the probation period was up, Marl kept him there forhim.
As the months passed, Beckett’s former life faded easily behind him, like morning fog lifting, and all he knew was this place, these people. He was, for the first time in his life, happy.
He hadn’t even known he’d been unhappy.
But he was happy now, and he knew it.
And then Jack came home.
Looking back, it was a miracle they didn’t fuck each other blind on that first day.
Beckett’s caution and Jack’s control managed to keep them apart for a whole week, until Jack tracked Beckett down when Beckett was clearing the supper tray in the library, he pushed Beckett flat against the wall, and he growled in Beckett’s ear, “Well? Are you going to come and get it or not?”
