A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (13 page)

"He's an infant. They really don't do much, you know, save eat and sleep. He's ravenous twenty-four hours a day," Mariah told him, smiling in spite of herself, for her love for that infant seemed to grow by the hour. "Piggish, like his father."

"Not quite like his father. I'm more hungry for the taste of your mouth than for any food."

Mariah quickly lowered her head. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that. We...we were getting along so well there, if just for a moment."

"Just for a moment, yes, we were," Spencer said, turning away from her to look back at the
Respite,
the painted name of
Athena
on the bow in order to disguise the ship now covered by a length of draped sail. He'd enjoyed being aboard the sloop, but solid land remained his preferred location. "I imagine that, in a fit of fantasy, I had thought you'd be eager to welcome the sailor home from the sea."

"I have welcomed you," she reminded hira. "I most distinctly remember saying
hello, Spencer, welcome home."
And then, because the questions had been building in her for over a week and she couldn't hold them back any longer, she asked, "Are the casks of brandy still in the hold or did you off-load them somewhere else along the coast?"

Spencer looked at
her owlishly, trying to keep his lips from twitching. God, she was a magnificent creature. And braver—or more foolish—than most. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. Or did you think I would believe that ridiculousness you told me about you traveling to Dover? I may have allowed myself to be convinced once—but not twice, not now that I've had time to sort through your clever lies and evasions. You're smugglers, freetraders, all of you Beckets."

He stopped walking and turned to face her. "Freetraders, are we? And you think I'd take the
Respite
out on a smuggling run? You'd best read again whatever marble-backed novel it is that put such foolishness into your head, madam. Smugglers do not advertise their presence by sailing willy-nilly across the Channel in well-marked sloops. Not unless they've a strong desire to be hung in chains at Dover Castle."

Mariah winced slightly, acknowledging the hit. But then she rallied. "You weren't in Dover, though, were you? Where did you go?"

Spencer rolled his eyes at her. "Not even wed and the woman has turned into a fishwife. Clovis told me you like to be the one in charge. Our Lady of the Swamp, I believe Anguish christened you. Am I to kowtow to you, too, now, as did my men, list all my comings and goings, ask your permission before I blow my own nose? I think not, madam."

Mariah opened her mouth to protest, then hesitated. "He.. .he called me that? Why?"

"Part angel, part taskmaster. Did you really cock a pistol at one Private Angus MacTavish, telling him either, he took his turn on the watch or you'd add another hole to his head? I remember Angus MacTavish. He probably survived the battle by hiding his fat backside behind a tree."

"They told you I did that?" Mariah felt her cheeks flushing at the memory, even as part of her knew he was once more steering her away from her pointed questions. "Your men tattle like little children."

"And with no end of stories to tell in order to pass the time aboard ship this past week," Spencer told her, pushing back the mass of sunset-red hair that had blown across her cheek. "You were very brave."

"I was very frightened," she admitted, looking up into his face. He'd added another layer of golden tan to his face aboard ship and it suited him. "All I could do was to think, what would Papa do if he were in this position? And then I did it. Except he probably would have shot MacTavish without warning him. In a situation like the one we found ourselves in, every man must pull his weight or pay the price. Besides, MacTavish ate entirely too much of our limited rations."

"I would have liked your father. A pity we never met.''

"He admired you," Mariah told him, their gazes still locked, mostly, she thought, because she was finding it impossible to look away. "For knocking down Proctor. It was long overdue, according to Papa. I cannot help but blame the general for my father's death. For all those deaths."

"It's a guilt Proctor will carry with him, no matter that he's been officially reinstated. But we must all go on and leave what happened where it is, behind us." He slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close against his side. He liked her like this, close against his side. "Now, unless there is something else you wish to accuse me of or tell me about, I suggest we get out of this wind. I can already smell the rain."

Mariah liked the feel of his arm around her shoulders, the warmth of his body against hers. She actually began walking with him, feeling in charity with him. For the length of about ten steps.

"No, wait. People have been
handling
me since I arrived here and I'm not going to let you do it, too. I want the truth. My son is under that roof over there. Are you smugglers? Were you all pirates years ago, before you came here? I won't tell anyone, I promise, not that there's anyone to tell. But this is not a simple country house, Spencer, and yours is not a simple country family. Only a fool would believe that."

"And you're not a fool, are you?"

"I wonder about that, whenever I think too hard about this place, and then simply go down to dinner and allow myself to be entertained by Rian as he parries verbal thrusts from Fanny, or sit and draw with Eleanor and let her lie to me in that sweet way of hers. I wonder why I am not gathering up my son and stealing away from here in the dead of night. I wonder why—" she lowered her head and mumbled the last words "—why I am not running from you."

Spencer put a finger beneath her chin and raised her face to his. "I'd be flattered, save that you've precious little elsewhere to go, Mariah. I had a dream the other night, or a memory. My poor, battered head, pillowed against the softness of your breasts, your arms fast around me, lending me both your comfort and your strength. Was it a memory, Mariah, or just a fanciful dream?"

"Don't..."

"I've never remembered anything, not since I was wounded. Hair like fire in the sun. A cool, clipped voice and the words
failed lieutenant.
That was all and I didn't know what either thing meant. And now this."

Mariah bit her lips between her teeth at the words he said. "I'm sorry for that, Spencer. I needed to rally the men, not have them looking at you, their fallen leader, believing they were lost without you in command. I needed them to think of you as dispensable."

"But not you," Spencer said, smiling. "You, Miss Rutledge, they needed to believe in, didn't they? Your father did a very good job raising you. I'm only grateful you didn't prove me dispensable by leaving me behind when it was time to move northward."

"I...I considered it, sacrificing you for the sake of the rest once Anguish and a few others were recovered enough to move on and you still just lay there unconscious. But what separates us from savages, Spencer, if not our compassion for a wounded soldier? Especially one who had bloodied General Proctor's nose?" She took a deep breath, then let out her next words in a rush. "I'm trustworthy, Spencer. I'm rational, practical and I can keep a secret, I promise you. And I, by damn, didn't save your life just to have my son's father hang. Please—are the Beckets smugglers?"

Family first, Spencer knew. That truth had been ingrained into his soul. And, fetching as this woman was, alluring as this woman was, as much as he was grateful to her and longed to have her in his bed, she was not family. Not yet. He looked deeply into her eyes, his expression as earnest as he could make it. "No, Mariah, we are not."

Mariah's knees went weak with relief and she clung to the lapels of his greatcoat. "I'm sorry. I've been...fanciful."

At last, he smiled at her. Indulgently, forgivingly, invitingly. He was, he knew, a bastard of the first water, all the way to the marrow of his bones. "Yes, you have, haven't you? I don't know that I will be able to forgive you. No, wait, I have an idea. I'll take a kiss."

"Spencer," Mariah said, backing up a pace. But she hadn't let go of his greatcoat. She noticed that immediately.—that her body wasn't totally in tune with what her mind was attempting to tell it to do.

"Spencer,"
he repeated, singsong. "And now I will. say,
Mariah.
Come, what is another kiss between us? We created a child between us, remember?"

"I do but you don't," Mariah said, wishing there were a way to bite off her own tongue before she said anything else, one more single word.

"True. But the first faint stirrings of memory are there now. Perhaps if you were to give me something else to help remind me?"

"You're laughing at me," Mariah said, shaking back her head because the wind had blown her hair every which way and it now whipped around her, even tangled against the wool of his greatcoat.

He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and then caught a lock of her hair between his fingers. "If s a long life we face, Mariah, without having to live together and be alone," he told her, surprised to hear the conviction in his voice. It would be more than a long life if he had to be this vibrant woman's husband and yet not bed her—it would be an eternity, with death a blessed relief from his torment. "But I'm not asking for everything now. A kiss, Mariah. Our first was interesting but I took you unawares. I want your full concentration now. Just one kiss, given freely. Please, Mariah. Welcome me home."

She must be mad. Or desperately lonely. Or even both. Mariah lifted her chin and pursed her lips together, closing her eyes. Waiting.

Spencer shook his head, marveling at this woman who remained a virgin in all but fact, and more than a little bit worried that, whatever they had done that night in the deep woods, he definitely hadn't been shown to his best advantage. The woman looked positively
resigned
to his kiss, as if it was something to be endured. How unflattering.. .and how challenging.

Mariah opened her eyes, her lips still pursed. She saw his fairly mocking smile and she reacted to it. She slapped him, hard, across the face.

Something snapped inside Spencer, releasing the rogue civilization had never, quite banished. He grabbed at her wrist and twisted her arm against her back, pulling her toward him at the same time, crashing their bodies together, taking her mouth hungrily, greedily, his other hand on her breast even as he coaxed her lips open and slid his tongue into her warmth.

With the wind blowing around them, with her hair tangling about them both, weaving a web that held him in the middle of her living fire, with the rain beginning to sting at them from an angry sky, Spencer heard Mariah moan softly against his mouth even as she struggled to free her wrist from his grasp.

He let her escape him and her arms were around him, pulling him against her even as he molded her body against his. Hot, violent, damn near a union of all their senses, right here, right now on this windswept beach, with all the world and heaven only knew who else watching, with her not quite two weeks out of childbed.

And the devil with all of it!

"Mariah." He breathed against her neck as he at last broke their kiss, his breath labored, her trembling body now his anchor, as he was hers. "By God, we'll make new memories. Together."

Mariah concentrated on regulating her breathing, her breasts heaving as she tried to control herself and the passion that filled her, frightened her. "I must be mad. I.. .1 don't even know you."

She was right. She didn't know him. And he'd just lied to her a second time. No, they weren't smugglers. Not in the strictest sense of the word. But they were the Black Ghost Gang, aiding the local freetraders, guarding them, facilitating them. Hell, because of the Beckets one of the King's own Waterguard lay beneath the shifting sands she'd seen him walk with Rian. They were not innocent. Good intentions be damned, they were now and had always been considerably less than law-abiding subjects of the Crown.

And this is what he had to offer Mariah, to offer his son. A life of secrecy, a life of isolation and a past that could not ever be exposed. A life of danger always lurking, ready to strike.

It wasn't enough.

He put her from him, his face now as dark as any thundercloud. "The rain is coming harder. We need to get inside."

Mariah looked at him, confused. That was all he had to say to her? Why? Was he ashamed of his reaction to her?
Her reaction to him?

Suddenly she felt soiled, something she hadn't felt the night he'd reached for her beneath the damp, ragged blanket, the night she'd given herself to him in the hope that she would then feel alive, believe she could go on living.

"I need to check on William," she said tightly, walking away quickly as he stood there watching her.

"Mariah..."

She lifted her skirts and began to run.

For now, for the moment, he knew he had to let her go. He had to stop lying, stop reacting as a Becket always careful to hide their dangerous secrets and begin acting as the man who would be her husband. He had to begin telling her the truth and hope she would share his vision for them both—and for young William.

He had to get Edmund Beales out of their lives, so that they would all be free to live....