A Most Unsuitable Groom

CHAPTER THREE

MARIAH SENSED someone looking at her and slowly opened her eyes. She’d slept, only a little bit, but couldn’t seem to tamp down the strange exhilaration she felt, as if she’d just accomplished something wonderful. And she had, hadn’t she?

“You,” she said, seeing Spencer, and closed her eyes again. He looked so solemn; please God he wouldn’t feel some compelling need to ask her again if he was truly the father of her son. And if he was, then it was just too bad for him. Odette said there was no doubt and he’d simply have to come to grips with the situation, wouldn’t he? “Come to see the fruit of my labor, have you?” she asked him, unable to restrain a smile at her genius. Goodness, she felt good. Sore, tired, but good, very good. And fiercely protective of her son…their son.

“Madam,” Spencer said, looking a bit awkward. “He’s a fine boy. Small, but Odette promises me he’s strong and healthy. And you? How do you feel this morning?”

Mariah opened her eyes once more, even summoned another smile. He looked rather like a boy who’d been caught with his hand in the candy dish and was now weighing the consequences as to the reward and the possible punishment. He also looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept all night. “Much like a horse that’s been ridden hard over rough country and put away wet, I imagine. How do you think I feel?”

“Abandoned,” Spencer said. “Clovis told me what happened.”

Her smile turned rueful. “Oh, I highly doubt that. He wasn’t there at the time.”

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly. “You might be down at the moment, Miss Rutledge, but you’re most assuredly not out, are you? Are you always this blunt?”

“I’ve just given birth to your child, Lieutenant. And I’ve no time for niceties. If you’re at fault, so am I. It was a…a frightening time. You really don’t remember? Eleanor swears you don’t. I wish I didn’t.” She regretted those last words as soon as she said them, for Spencer seemed to stiffen his spine as if she had just physically threatened him. “He…the baby has such a thick thatch of black hair just like yours. Did you see?”

“I did. A humbling sight. And I’m sorry that I questioned you last night. He’s mine, there’s no doubt.”

Mariah plucked at the bedcovers, avoiding his dark, intense gaze. He looked so different and yet so much the man she remembered. A handsome man, there was no denying that. Fiery. Exotic. All that was missing was the vulnerability. Healed, sound once more, he was rather formidable. But she could be formidable, too!

“He’s also mine, sir. I cannot, however, provide for him, not now with my father dead, our few possessions gone and with no other family to take me in. After paying for the passage, the coach, I have precious little left but what I can stand up in, once I can stand again, and Onatah to care for. I can’t…” Her voice broke slightly and she took a deep, steadying breath in order to say what she had to say. “I can’t even nurse him. Onatah has decreed that I’m too weak from our journey, that I need all my strength and that he needs more than I will be able to give him. Your Odette agreed and has kindly arranged a wet nurse. I hate both of them for that, but they both said I was being womanish, which I hate even more.”

Spencer felt even more uncomfortable. What could he say in answer to a statement like that? All he could do was reassure her, he supposed. “We’ll marry, of course. As soon as you’re recovered. You have no worries about your future, madam, I promise you that.”

Those green eyes flashed in quick anger, anger being preferable to tears. “Aren’t you generous,” she said, her voice all but dripping venom. “It’s not my future that brought me here.”

“Perhaps not, madam, but that’s what is going to happen. No son of mine will be a bastard, never knowing his father. Or did you simply think I would hand you money and send you and the child on your way?”

“I didn’t know what you’d do,” she admitted quietly. “Yes, marriage had occurred to me. It seemed a logical answer.” She looked up at him again. “Until now.”

“How did you find me?” Spencer asked, to avoid an answer to her last words, not that he had one.

Mariah shifted on the sheets. “There was a letter in your jacket. Bloodstained, but I could make out some of it. Someone named Callie signed it, adding the words Becket Hall, Romney Marsh to her signature. No one knew you when we landed at Dover but the closer we drove, the more people were able to direct the coach on the proper roads. It’s difficult to believe this is England. The landscape is so singular. I lived with my father in the Lake District, until we left for North America eight years ago.”

“Clovis tells me your father was the quartermaster at Fort Malden. Yet we never met.”

Mariah caught her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment, the mention of her father, who would never see her child, obviously piercing her heart. “Papa kept me fairly well isolated from the men once we were moved into the fort as our losses mounted. And the Indians, of course, no matter what Onatah told him to the contrary. He was certain they’d be after my hair if they had a chance.”

Spencer looked at the mass of golden-red curls spread out on the pillow; living fire. His fingers itched to reach out to stroke that hair, to learn whether it was as soft and warm to the touch as it appeared. “I remember your hair. I don’t know why, but I do. Your hair, your voice.” He shook his head. “But that’s all. I’m sorry. Clovis told me you were very brave and that he doubts anyone would have survived without you. Me, most especially. So I thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Mariah said, wishing he’d leave the room. She was going to cry. She wasn’t exactly sure why, but she was definitely going to cry. She wanted, needed, to cry.

“He also told me about the child who died. We…we have a small tradition, us Beckets. When I was brought to…when Ainsley adopted me, I was given the name of a sailor who had died. With that in mind, I thought we might name the child William. William Becket.”

Mariah squeezed her eyes shut. Would he please just go away? “William Henry Becket. After my father, as well.”

Spencer laughed shortly. “William Henry? As in William Henry Harrison, the American general who beat us so soundly?”

Now Mariah was caught between tears and laughter. Thankfully, laughter won. “General Proctor’s name is Henry,” she pointed out, grinning at him. “Perhaps we need to reconsider this whole thing?”

“No,” Spencer told her. “William Henry Becket. And he’ll grow to be his own man, as we all must. Now, madam, I think you should rest.”

“I was just about to suggest the same thing,” Mariah said, sighing. “But I would like to see William again, please. Just for a minute?”

Spencer looked to the door to the dressing room, then to Mariah. “He was sleeping when I looked in on him a few minutes ago. And alone. Um…I’ll go find somebody.”

“Why? Just bring him to me, Mr. Becket.”

“Spencer, Mariah. I think you’ll agree that we’re a bit beyond formalities.”

Just when she thought she could begin to relax, he was looking at her that way again. So intense. She had to look away and hated him for making her so nervous. “Yes, of course. Spencer. Just pick him up and bring him to me. You can do that, can’t you?”

He’d rather juggle siege cannonballs. With their fuses lit. “Yes, certainly.” He looked toward the door once more. “Is there…is there anything I should know about him?”

“I don’t think he’ll break, if that’s what you mean,” Mariah said shortly, then took pity on him. She threw back the coverlet. “Oh, let me do it.”

Spencer held out his hands to stop her. “I said I’d do it, damn it.”

“Thank God,” Mariah said quietly, falling back against the pillows. She really was exhausted and more than a little sore. “Support his head, please.”

“What?” Spencer asked, already halfway to the dressing room. But he kept going, knowing that if he stopped he’d probably turn into a complete coward and simply run away, like Proctor. So he opened the door slowly and looked into the dim room at the cradle someone had brought down from the nursery.

Their ship’s carpenter had made the cradle for Callie, so many years ago. Pike, dead now, one of the first casualties in their personal war with the Red Men Gang. But the cradle was still here, the magnificent carving done with such talent, such love, the oils of Pike’s hands as he stroked and smoothed the wood permeating it, giving it color and life. In this cradle, Pike lived on. They all lived on, every last lost man of the Black Ghost and Silver Ghost crews, if only in the memories of those who had sailed with them.

Just as young Willy would live on in William Henry Becket.

For the first time Spencer truly understood why he and the others had been taken to the island, taken in, been fashioned into a family by Ainsley Becket. By Geoffrey Baskin, who had died sixteen years ago, come to this most deserted area of Romney Marsh coastline, and become Ainsley Becket. If he could be half the father Ainsley was, he’d be a happy man.

Spencer looked down on his sleeping son, a cotton-wrapped warm brick snuggled against his back. There was a small brown cloth bag tucked into one corner of the cradle, tied with colorful ribbons and with a single feather protruding from the top. Odette and her charms and amulets. The child would soon probably have his own gad—an alligator tooth dipped in powerful potions to ward off bad loas, bad spirits. Spencer believed he might have some small trouble explaining that to Mariah. Ah well, as long as Odette was happy.

William’s incredibly small hands were in tight fists, hanging on to this new life with fierce tenacity, already looking as if he knew there would be times he’d have to fight.

But not alone; never alone.

Something drew up hard and tight in Spencer’s chest, just like William’s fists, and he marveled at the feeling, at the fierce protectiveness he felt all but overwhelm him.

My son. My God, my son.

“Spencer? Just put one hand beneath his bottom and the other behind his head,” Mariah called to him from the other room.

Spencer blinked, realized his eyes were wet. He’d been alone for so long. Alone, amid the crowd of Beckets. Always looking for his own way, some reason for being here, for being alive at all. Always angry, always fighting and not knowing why.

And now, William.

And now, in an instant, everything made sense.

He bent over the cradle, carefully scooping up the closely wrapped infant, pressing him against his heart. The knot in his chest tightened even more, then slowly dissolved, filling him with a warmth of feeling that threatened to completely unman him.

Slowly, as if he were carrying the most precious of treasures, he returned to the bedchamber and crossed to the high tester bed. “He’s so small. It’s like holding air.”

Mariah reached up her arms. “Amazing, isn’t it? For the past few months I would have sworn to anyone who asked that I was carrying a sack full of rocks wherever I went. Please? Give him to me?”

Spencer handed the child to her and immediately felt the loss of that slight weight. “He stays here,” he said firmly. “You stay if you wish, marry me, or go if you like. But the boy stays here.”

Mariah ignored him, gazing in wonder at her child who, until she’d actually seen him, held him, had been considered little more than yet another problem to be solved in a world filled with problems. “He has my eyes. See? Tipped up at the edges a bit? That won’t make him look too girlish, will it?”

“Madame, I’ll have your answer,” Spencer said, feeling fierce and wishing himself civilized. But then, he’d never been all that civilized.

She tightened her hold on the infant as she glared up at Spencer. “I liked you better when you were nearly senseless. You didn’t talk so much. Yes, I’ll marry you. For William, for what appears to be your very kind and concerned family, I’ll marry you. But attempt to touch me again, Spencer Becket, and I’ll gut you like a deer. Do we understand each other?”

Spencer watched her eyes, those tip-tilted green eyes that had looked so lovingly at William and now stared icily at him. The fire of her hair, the sudden ice of her eyes.

He remembered Jacko’s joking comment and un-ashamedly used it. “I could say the same to you, Mariah, as I was hardly in any position to fight off your advances, was I? Another man might say you took unfair advantage of me.”

“But another man didn’t say that, did he? You did. Another man might not have been fevered and distraught and reaching out to someone, to anyone. And another woman might not have been so frightened, so alone…so foolish as to yearn for someone to hold on to, for someone to tell her that, yes, she was still alive, she could still feel…and that being held, being kissed, being touched, was so natural, so human a need…”

“Sweet Jesus,” Spencer said, rubbing roughly at his aching head. She’d just said exactly what he’d thought last night, put those thoughts into words that sliced at him, humbled him. “I don’t remember, Mariah. I can’t remember. I’m…I’m so, so sorry. Was it so terrible?”

“You? Were you so terrible? Is that what you mean?”

Spencer attempted a smile. “Consider it manly pride, madam. If the thought of me touching you ever again upsets you so, I must imagine that the experience wasn’t exactly a maiden’s dream.”

Mariah didn’t know what to say, where to look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…that is, I didn’t know what to expect.”

“But, whatever you did expect, it wasn’t what you received?”

“No, I suppose not.” She kissed William’s head. “When you were gone, I was glad. I knew I couldn’t face you, not after what we’d…And then, when I realized what had happened…that I was…Can we please discuss this some other time?”

“When you realized you were carrying my child,” Spencer finished for her. He was pushing her, he knew that. But there was so much he couldn’t remember. How in hell could a man forget bedding this woman? “You must have hated me then.”

“I can’t hate you now. Look at him. Something good, coming out of something so terrible. So many lives lost, and now there’s him.”

Spencer sat on the side of the bed, laid his hand on the small, tightly swaddled infant. “Let’s begin again,” he suggested quietly, then smiled. “No, let’s begin. There’s no again about it, is there? For William?”

Mariah pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. “I’m so tired. I feel as if I’ve been fighting forever, fighting the entire world. I don’t want to fight with you now, too.” She managed a watery smile. “Besides, Eleanor tells me you’re all bluster and heat and hot passions, but really a very nice man. Of course, she’s your sister so she probably doesn’t really know you all that well.”

“You’re right,” Spencer said, grinning in relief. “I’m actually a blackguard who sold his soul to the devil years ago. We just don’t tell Elly because she likes to think the best of everyone.”

Mariah returned his smile. “You look nothing like her or the man I met downstairs last night. You said you were adopted. And Eleanor?”

Spencer made a small face. This was going to be difficult. There were things he could tell her and much more he could never tell her. Giving birth to his son did not make Mariah Rutledge a Becket.

The baby stirred in her arms and he pressed a finger against William’s opening hand, only to have the child grasp that finger tightly.

“Our son has Spanish blood,” he began slowly, feeling his way. “At least that’s what we believe. I’m told that I spat some fairly choice Spanish at Ainsley the day he found me, took me home with him. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten most of it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Spencer told her, smiling even as he sorted facts in his mind, deciding what to reveal, what to conceal. “Ainsley isn’t my father or father to any of us except Cassandra—Callie—whose letter you found. The rest of us? Flotsam and jetsam he picked up along the way when he was living in the islands. Haiti. Have you heard of it?”

Mariah nodded. “I think I could point it out on a map, yes. To the south and east of the American Florida, yes? It must be warm there.”

And then it got hot…too hot to remain there.

“Papa…Ainsley owned sailing ships. Trading ships,” he said, keeping to the story that had been told for so long that he sometimes even believed it.

“And you all lived on the island. Haiti.”

“No, not on Haiti itself. We, um, we had our own island. There are several to choose from in the area.”

Why, the man sounded positively embarrassed. Or leery of telling her about his youth. Which was it? “Oh, my. That does sound important. And wonderfully warm weather for all of the year. No snow, no ice freezing over the rivers every winter so that you are virtually isolated from the world. How could you bear to leave?”

“The girls were beginning to grow up, so he decided it was time to return to England. And here we are.”

“And who are we?”

Spencer felt on firmer ground here. “I told you that Callie is Ainsley’s own child. Her mother died shortly after she was born. Callie’s—good God, she’s about sixteen now. You’ll meet her soon enough, I’m sure—it’s difficult to keep Callie away from anything she wants. And then there’s Morgan. This is her bedchamber, hers and her husband’s, when they visit here from Ethan’s estate. Morgan’s the Countess of Aylesford now and the mother of twins I’ve yet to see, now that the earl is making himself useful at the War Office and a nuisance in Parliament—but that’s another story.”

“One I hope to hear,” Mariah said, committing the names to memory. “And the young man from last night? Rian, was it?”

He nodded. “You’ll have to excuse him. He isn’t usually so silly. Ainsley gathered up Rian and Fanny from the rubble of a church that had taken cannon fire.” He smiled wanly. “Another long story, I’m afraid.”

“Fanny and Rian,” Mariah repeated. “Are they brother and sister?”

“No, not by blood.” The baby stirred slightly, made a small sound, and Spencer’s heart lurched in his chest. “Is he all right?”

“I think so. He may be getting hungry, poor little scrap. You should probably call someone. And that’s all? You, Rian, Callie, Morgan and Eleanor, who has already told me that she lives here with her husband, Jack…”

“And Fanny,” he added helpfully. “Then there’s Chance, the oldest of us all. He has his own estate north of London and is married, with two children of his own. And Courtland. God, let’s not forget Court. He still lives here and probably always will. You’ll recognize him by the perpetual scowl on his bearded face. The world sits heavily on Court’s shoulders, you understand.”

Mariah lifted William’s hand to her mouth, kissed it. “Why?”

“Why?” Spencer repeated, inwardly wincing. Damn his tongue for running too hard. Explaining his family without exposing his family was difficult in the best of times. “No reason. Court just likes to see himself as being in charge of all of us. Elly, too, come to think of it. But they’re not. Ainsley is the head of the family, very much so.”

“Such a large family. I had only my father,” Mariah said. “It must be wonderful, having so many brothers and sisters.”

Spencer smiled. “Many would think so, I suppose.”

“But you don’t?”

“That’s not—of course I do. But I’m a younger son and sometimes I feel as if I’m standing at the end of a long queue, awaiting my turn to—never mind.”

“No,” Mariah said, truly interested. “Waiting your turn for what, Spencer?”

My turn to live. The words were in his mind, but he didn’t say them, ashamed of his desire, his need, to be his own man, unburdened by the shadow of Ainsley’s past and the dangers that past still held for them all. Because he’d always believed there was a life away from Romney Marsh and, now that he’d seen it, he felt more confined than ever. Because to say the words out loud would brand him as an ungrateful bastard.

Mariah felt the sudden tension in the room and raced to fill the silence. “So Ainsley was once in the shipping trade, you said. What do you all do here? Farm? Herd sheep? What do people do in Romney Marsh?”

Free trade. Ride hell for leather across the Marsh after midnight as the mist rises all round, outrunning the militia as the casks of brandy and tea are moved inland. Race ahead of the wind on the Respite upon occasion, just for the thrill of it, playing cat and mouse with a French frigate patrolling the Channel. Cool their heels two weeks out of every four and stare at the choppy sea, aching to see what lies beyond the water.