A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (18 page)

Mariah thought of William, snug and safe in his cradle, and wrapped her arms about her waist, feeling physically ill. "How could he.. .how could
anybody..
. ?"

"I don't know," Spencer said honestly. 'There's more to it, I'm sure, and I don't know it all. We never talk, about it Tonight was the first time I'd ever really heard Ainsley say anything to the point about what happened. I'd always thought Beales did it simply because he wanted Isabella and Ainsley was leaving, taking her to England. And when she died trying to escape him, screaming to us to run, to hide, then tumbling down the stairs, be simply went mad and killed everyone. But that's not all of it I hadn't thought much about their profits or that they could have been hidden on our island. I assumed he'd been after Ainsley's share, but that's all."

"But Ainsley said this Beales person didn't find the—the booty, is it called?"

Spencer nodded, thinking back to what Ainsley had said. He'd seemed to hesitate before he'd said the words. What in bloody hell was included in that
profit ?

"The crew—the husbands and fathers—they wanted to stay, fight, but Ainsley knew they all just wanted to die so he wouldn't allow it. Instead, we repaired the ships—there'd been a battle at sea, something you haven't heard, another piece of this whole long nightmare of Beales's making—and we left for England and the house Ainsley had ordered built years ago, safe at the back end of nowhere. Beales supposedly was dead, anyway; his own crews turned on him when he couldn't find the fortune he'd promised them shares of as their reward for attacking the island."

He sat back in the chair, spreading his arms wide; a weight he hadn't known he'd been carrying seemed to have lifted off his shoulders, just by talking to Mariah, sharing his burden with her, a woman who had lost someone she loved in another senseless, stupid battle.

"The past is over, Mariah. It's done. The why of what happened doesn't really matter now and Ainsley has been doing his penance for too many years. What matters is that Edmund Beales is alive. We've known that, believed we've known that at any rate, for about a year, but he went to ground and we've been waiting for him to surface once more. If Ainsley's right, Beales has and he's gone far beyond attacking one small island. He's plotting to unleash Bonaparte to make a living hell out of half of Europe. More battles, more deaths. You said you hate war, Mariah. We both do. That's all I can think about right now. The rest, with Beales, happens when it happens. Our revenge has already waited for sixteen long years. But right now I have to think about something else
,
don't I? I have to think about how I'm going to find myself another impossible, flame-haired witch after I bloody well break your neck for being here."

Mariah went down on her knees in front of him. He had to let her help, now more than ever. "No, no, you don't I heard what you said to Ainsley, Spencer. You don't speak French."

"So?"

"So, Spencer, that's why I'm here. Because I do. We were stationed in Montreal for three years. I can be your ears when you meet with this person. Possibly hear things they don't want you to hear, comments they might make about you and their plans for you. And I can shoot. I wasn't threatening anything with MacTavish that I couldn't do. I could have your back while nobody bothers to consider me important at all. I can help you."

Spencer looked down into her serious, intense face for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed out loud. "How? First you'll have to find a way to get yourself untied, madam, and off this ship." She gripped his knees tightly. "No, Spencer, please,
listen
to
me. I heard what Ainsley said. And, hiding at the back of the hallway, I heard what Jacko said. I haven't been tested. I haven't...I haven't
proven myself.
If I'm to be a Becket, I don't want to be held at arm's length. Not by your family..
.not by you."

"And hiding yourself in this cabin is proving yourself?"

"No! Going into Calais with you would be proving myself. Nobody would think twice about your having a woman with you. It might even serve to allay anyone's fears if they thought you might be out to betray them. I mean, they may believe you're an idiot, taking time to...to diddle a woman when you're planning Bonaparte's rescue from Elba, but they'd be less inclined to believe you had some other motive for seeking them out. You'll just be the idiot Englishman who wants an adventure and not a danger to them."

"Diddle a woman?"
Spencer rubbed at his forehead, sure the world had just turned upside-down. "Where in bloody hell was your father when you were growing up in all these army postings?" Mariah relaxed slightly. "Our quarters were often very small, with my cot tucked up in a loft open to the ground floor where Papa and his friends sat around the hearth in the evenings telling tall tales. And little
pitchers have big ears. Please, Spencer, let me go ashore with you. I can be
your
ears. If we're to have that future you talked about, let me help you finish mis, gain your freedom. I...I want to earn my way, too."

"Ainsley never put conditions on any of us."

"I'm sure he didn't. You put those conditions on yourself because that's the sort of man you are. That's honorable, Spence. I admire you for that, I truly do," Mariah said quickly. "But the dream, Spence. Just tonight you finally spoke to me honestly, openly. You told me your dream and it's a wonderful dream. You offered to make William and me a part of that dream and I thank you for that. But please, don't ask me to know you're in danger, that the dream is in danger, and then stand back, do nothing. You're meeting with Frenchmen. I speak French, you don't. It's that simple. You
need
me."

"William..."

"Will be safe with your family until we return tomorrow or the next day. Please, Spence, let me help. I don't intend to die. And I damn well didn't save your life so you can throw it away."

"I'm never going to live that down, am I?" he asked, pulling her to her feet as he stood. "Maybe I should find a way to save your life so that we're even and you won't have that to hang over my head for the next fifty years. But it damn well won't be by dragging you into the middle of this."

She placed her hands on his forearms, aware of how small this cabin was, how near he was, how much she couldn't ignore the fact that his safety meant more to her than her own and probably had from that first moment she'd touched his brow and he'd looked up at her without really seeing her. "I found my way to safety after my father was killed. I found my way to Becket Hall while heavy with your child. I have found my way onto this ship, Spencer Becket, and I'll damn well find my way to your rooms in Calais. You know I will. I don't give up easily."

Spencer sighed in frustration. "Julia poked her nose in all sorts of places it didn'tbelong. And while anyone would expect Morgan to do the same, even Elly volunteered to—you're right. Chance never won nor did
Ethan or Jack. Why am I fighting this? All right, Mariah. You can come with me. But only if you obey me without question, without argument. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Mariah promised quickly. "As long as you give reasonable orders."

They stood there, gazes locked, each trying to exert their will on the other, as Anguish knocked on the door. "Kinsey is saying as how we'll be dropping anchor within the hour, sir."

Spencer continued to look into Mariah's eyes. "Thank you, Anguish. I have a few things to attend to here but I'll be up on deck in good time."

Mariah tightened her grip on his forearms. "Spencer? Please? I'm going to be a Becket in a few days. My son is a Becket. That makes this my fight, too."

He'd burn in hell for this. "You don't look like some low tavern wench. You look like my son's mother."

Made nearly giddy with relief, she quickly raised her hands to her hair, roughly pulled out pins and let them drop to the floor, then ran her fingers through the deep waves that tumbled into her face, onto her shoul-ders. She shook her head and one thick lock of fire-kissed sunlight hair came to rest over her left eye. "There, is that better?"

Spencer felt a tightening in his loins. "The gown.. .the gown isn't right."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Spence," Mariah said, unbuttoning the top three buttons of the old gown she'd chosen because she could then dress herself without assistance. "Now?"

He could just glimpse a hint of the enticing curves hidden by the plain gray material. "Being a fallen woman entails more than a few opened buttons, Mariah," he said as he eased four more buttons from their moorings and then spread the material, tucking the ends under themselves, to reveal the modest, lace-topped shift she wore beneath it. "Better," he said, "but I think we'll have to untie this as well," he said, reaching for the strings that held the shift closed.

Mariah shut her eyes, her skin burning as Spencer's fingers worked at the bow, and he smiled when those eyes flew open again as he slid his hands beneath the shift, cupping her bare breasts in his hands.

"Don't..." she breathed quietly.

He moved the pads on his thumbs across her nipples, which responded immediately to his touch. He'd been thinking about—dreaming about— touching her like this ever since the day he'd walked in on her so soon after William's birth. The image and the longing hadn't cooled with the passage of time but had driven deeper and deeper into his brain, making that longing even more intense.

And now he had her here, was touching her, and he wasn't idiot enough to believe she wasn't responding to him. He needed her now, needed a release after all he'd thought and said in the past hours. He told himself that she might feel the same.

He bent his head and captured her nipple in his mouth, the rasp of his tongue replacing the drag of his thumb.. .and Mariah seemed to collapse against him, allowing him this new freedom.

He moved his head, sliding his mouth into the valley between her breasts, licking at her, tasting her, his thumbs busy once more as Mariah clasped his shoulders, threw her head back, whimpered low in her throat.

The lightning bolt of passion evident to them from that day on the beach shot through them both again now in this small cabin, and Mariah didn't protest, couldn't even think to protest as Spencer turned her about, backed her against the wooden table in the center of the room.

So much need, all coming together in the form of a passion neither could deny....

His mouth was on hers. His hands were bunching up the material of her gown, pushing the hem up, up, out of his way. She worked frantically at the buttons of his breeches, her mind whirling, her senses swimming, her common sense departing without so much as a cautionary note of farewell.

Spencer ripped at her undergarment as he half lifted her onto the table, still ripping at the damn material, pushing himself between her legs as she freed him from his breeches. He came into her, hard and fast pulling her against him, his teeth nipping at the side of her neck as she gripped him tightly at the shoulders.

This was no weakened Spencer Becket in need of comfort, roughly, clumsily reaching out to that comfort. This was a dark and dangerous man, a fully potent man, taking what he wanted. But it was also what Mariah wanted. She hadn't known that when she'd stowed away in his cabin. That what she felt certain had almost begun in her bedchamber a few hours earlier and was culminating now was what she wanted more than anything on this earth, now or ever.

But it was.

The heat of it. The fierceness of it. The raw hanger of
it
Building. Building. Like a spring coiling tighter and tighter deep inside her, filling her with a tension that transformed itself and her into this wildly wanton creature that wanted nothing more than to hold on to Spencer Becket and take all that he could give her.

Take all that she could take....

"Mariah,"
Spencer breathed against her mouth before sealing his against her, his hands on her buttocks as he pulled her hard against him, moving deep inside her again and again as she wrapped her legs around his back, until he felt her clenching around him, heard her whimpered cry of surprise and allowed himself his own release.

Madness. Divine madness....

"Lieutenant?"

Spencer swallowed down hard, trying to bring his breathing back under control as Mariah buried her head against his shoulder. "In a minute, Clovis, in a minute."

"You want me to help you with the knife harness, sir?" Clovis called from the other side of the door... and Mariah' s arms tightened even more around him.

"No...no thank you, I can manage. And Kinsey won't run us aground. This isn't our first trip to Calais. Now go—I'll be right there."

"Sir," Clovis said, his tone rather injured at this dismissal.

"Is he gone?" Mariah whispered as Spencer stepped slightly away from her, held her steady as she seemed to collapse against the table edge.

"Yes, thank God," Spencer said, grabbing a length of toweling from the bunk in the cabin, using it and then tossing it to Mariah before turning his back, giving her some sense of privacy. "Ainsley designed a fine sloop but he neglected to put a lock on that door. Jesus God, Mariah, we're both out of our minds."

He turned to look at her again and saw her smile as she stood there, holding up her white lawn pantaloons, now ruined beyond repair.

"I don't have any other clothing with me, you know. You can be a generous protector and buy me more." when we land, but nobody but you can be allowed in the longboat before I've climbed down the ladder. Now, do I still look like the mother of your child, Spencer?" she asked him, feeling delicious, even as she wrapped her arms tightly about herself because otherwise she'd be throwing those arms around him, holding on tight.