A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (21 page)

"Please.. .please..." she begged as she pushed back the heavy draperies tightly shut against the early afternoon sun and her prayers—or her curses—were rewarded. Not windows this time but a pair of French doors. There was a balcony outside that ran along the entire width of the building, overlooking the wider, busier street at the front of the hotel.

She held her breath as she reached for the latch holding the door shut and it depressed easily.

"Not quite so smart as you think yourself, Spencer Becket. And I'm not so easily defeated as you'd like to believe."

But then she dropped her hand to her side, frowning as she realized she had no idea what to do next. Escaping the room proved that she could follow him if she wanted to, if she put her mind to it. But would that even be wise? Could she be putting him in danger, just by her own obstinacy?

She could, most definitely. She could not go chasing herself up the steps to Room Eighteen. Not without putting Spencer and the entire plan in jeopardy.

But the balcony was out there. If nothing else, she could possibly knock on another set of doors along its length and ask to be allowed through to the hallway. From the hallway she could go down the stairs to the large, ornate foyer, perhaps to have someone bring her a dish of tea and an iced cake. Spencer could keep her from attending the meeting with him, but he would not get past her and onto the street without taking her wherever he went.

It was petty, bordering oh willful and even stupid. But she'd do it, just to prove that she could, just to see the look on his face when he finally found her.

Somewhere, she thought with a quick smile, her father was sighing and nodding his head, telling the angel on the next cloud, "Yes, that's my Mariah...."

She flung her ridiculous shawl over her shoulders, shrugged so that it fell into the crooks of her arms, opened the French door to the balcony, took a deep, steadying breath and stepped outside.

Nobody on the street below seemed to notice her, not that it would be all that strange to have a guest of the hotel take some afternoon air, in any case.

She turned to her left and walked down the balcony, skirling the white wicker chairs that seemed to have been placed along it willy-nilly. She and Spencer were staying in Room Four. It had two sets of French doors facing the street She counted down and knocked at the first set of French doors that did not belong to her own suite.

There was no answer, so she moved on, counting down two more doors and knocking again. No one answered her knock. And there were only two more French doors fronting on the balcony.

Her last chance.

She raised a hand to a windowpane and knocked sharply on the glass, then stood back, hoping for the best.

Moments later she saw a hand push back the heavy draperies and a man's face appeared at the window. He had thick, light-brown hair that was cut to reach halfway down over his ears. His eyebrows were low and straight above pale blue eyes; his nose well-formed but rather sharp and prominent; his mouth a wide slash with a full bottom lip above a square jaw that hinted of a cleft. He was dressed in pantaloons, a workmanlike brown coat and a high-necked black ribbed sweater. A sailor? Perhaps. And definitely very French.

Mariah tipped her head to one side, fluffed at her hair and smiled.

The man smiled back at her, showing a fine set of straight white teeth, and opened the door before bowing her inside.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," Mariah gushed as she stepped past him and into a room that looked remarkably similar to the one she had seen when she'd poked her head into the bedchamber of her suite.

Good God! She'd expected a sitting room but she'd just invited herself into a stranger's bedchamber!

"Forgive me, please, sir," she said quickly, belatedly attempting to look demure and maidenly, which was all but impossible in this gown, with her hair blown about her head by the breeze on the balcony. "It seems that I stepped outside for a breath of air and the door closed and latched behind me."

She spread her arms in a gesture of feminine helplessness. "I've been frantically knocking on doors all up and down this balcony, hoping someone would save me. I feel so very windblown. And embarrassingly stupid, of course. Would it please be possible for me to pass through your rooms to the hallway and then hopefully someone from the staff will give me access back into my own rooms?"

"Now, now, we can't have you tripping about the hotel hallways unaccompanied, not a lovely young lady like yourself," the man drawled in accented English. And he was positively leering at her. "Much better that I ring for someone and order that someone to fetch a key for you. And what number would that be, Miss—?"

"Jenkins," Mariah said, borrowing her mother's maiden name, as well. "Lily Jenkins. Oh and what else did you ask? Ah, I remember:" She smiled at him, looked at him from beneath her lashes and continued to lie as smoothly as Spencer had lied to her. "That would be Room Six, sir. And I don't believe we've been introduced?"

His smile faded slightly and his eyes went cold, hard. But then he smiled again. "No, we haven't, have we. Nicolette!"

Mariah's eyes widened in surprise as the covers on the unmade bed shifted and a woman's head and thin shoulders appeared, her long, almost white-blond hair a tangle around her narrow face, her bare breasts small and pink-tipped. Her voice was low, husky, heavy with sleep. She spoke in French. "Jesus. You're still here? You said you had an appointment to attend to. Not now, Renard. I'm exhausted and I feel as if I've had a nettle rubbed between my legs. Go rut with someone else and bloody well leave me a—" She blinked twice, pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Ah, so that's the way of it? This is your so important appointment? Very well, bring her here. But this time I only watch...."

The blonde head subsided once more into the mass of pillows and rumpled coverlet.

"I...I'm so prodigiously sorry, sir. I don't speak French, but it's obvious I've disturbed your lady wife. Please give her my apologies. I'll go now," Mariah stammered, backing toward the balcony. Nicolette was a
real
doxy!
Damn!
This wasn't working out at all the way she'd supposed.

"No matter, Miss Jenkins," he said as she stepped outside the room. "And please pardon my...wife. She's never at her best before nightfall. I'd escort you downstairs, but Nicolette has just reminded me that, alas, I have an important meeting to attend to in just a few moments. I will, however, send someone to unlock your doors for you. Good day, miss."

Mariah's cheeks were burning, she was sure of that, as she ran back down the length of the balcony, looking back to make sure he wasn't watching her and then quickly stepping inside her own suite, locking the French doors behind her. Her back to the doors, she took several deep breaths, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart, and then opened her eyes wide.

What was she doing here? Nicolette said the man had an appointment. Had she just come face-to-face with the man Spencer was to meet in a few minutes?

She had to go back, take another look.

"I'm ripe for an asylum," Mariah muttered as she stepped out onto the balcony, tiptoeing her way down its length once more, relieved to see that the man named Renard hadn't bothered to pull the drapes shut again. Even better, the door was slightly ajar.
How could she be so lucky?

She stayed close to the wall of the building, hoping Renard and Nicolette would speak some more, say anything of importance, but all she heard was the startling, sickening sound of flesh connecting with flesh and Nicolette's squeals of pain.

"Quiet! Never question me again, you ditchwater drab," Renard ordered in harsh, guttural French.
"Never."

Nicolette's answer was barely a whimper. "But, Renard, I only asked—"

"You only
asked,
Nicolette?" His voice lowered even more but now he seemed amused, making him truly frightening. "No, my cabbage. You only ask do you like this, Renard? Do you want me to turn onto my belly like the bitch I am and wriggle my pasty white buttocks for you, Renard? Do I please you enough
that you'll let me live another day,
Renard?" And with each filthy suggestion accompanied by the sound of yet another open-handed blow landing on bare flesh.

"Renard, no. Stop. Anything—I'll do anything, you know I will. Here, let me show you. Look, look. See? I'm all wet for you. Ready for you. You're excited now? Please, Renard, let me—
no, Christ, don't hurt me. Don't do that. God, no, don't do
—"

Mariah bit her bottom lip between her teeth, part of her wanting to rush inside the bedchamber and rescue the hapless Nicolette and the other part of her knowing that would be madness.

And then all was quiet inside the room.

Mariah chanced another quick look through the glass doors, just in time to see Renard position himself in front of a mirror, adjust the collar of his strange coat and then pull a black silk hood over his thatch of light brown hair before leaning forward to peer more closely into the mirror. Satisfied, she assumed, he removed the hood and stuffed it into his pocket and then exited the room.

He was the man. The man who was on his way to meet Spencer—she was sure of it.

Moments later, she heard Nicolette begin to cry. Thank God; at least the unfortunate creature was still alive to cry.

Mariah whispered a silent
I'm sorry
to the woman and then headed back down the balcony once more.

There hadn't even been holes cut in the hood for the man's eyes, so she imagined he could see through the material, although anyone looking at him, anyone like Spencer Becket, couldn't possibly see his features well enough to identify him if Renard passed him in the hallway an hour later, dressed in other clothes.

Nobody, that was, except her.

Which comforted her not at all as, realizing how foolish she'd been, how lucky she'd been, she hurriedly tossed a bouquet of lovely white roses onto the floor, dropped to her knees and vomited into the vase.

Mariah was asleep on one of the couches when Spencer unlocked the door from the bedchamber and came into the room, the door swinging back so wildly against the wall that she half jumped from the couch to confront him.

"We're leaving as soon as you can make yourself ready," he told her, looking toward the bandboxes in the center of the room. "Good, you haven't unpacked. Clovis has a closed coach waiting in the alleyway. Mariah? Don't stand there gawking at me. I want to catch the wind before it has a chance to turn."