A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (28 page)

"Well," maybe you didn't," Mariah said, suddenly unsure of herself. "But you are looking smug, you know."

"Ah, but I'm not looming," he pointed out, grinning at her.

"And I'm not going to stay here at Becket Hall while you go haring off to London."

"Did I ask that?"

"No, but you were going to, weren't you?"

Spencer decided that the least he could be was honest. "Yes, I was. We have a son, Mariah—"

"Yes, we do. And I would very much appreciate it if you would not
hang
him over my head every time I want to do something you don't want me to do. I can
help,
Spencer. I won't do anything foolish. But I can play the silly woman and hang on your arm as we go about London looking for Renard and Nicolette. I can do this, I really can. We can help keep this new peace between the world and France. We can possibly avert a disaster in London. We can find this Edmund Beales and none of you will have to hide anymore. And then we can—"

"And then we can leave here, go to Virginia," Spencer finished for her. "Which of those things holds the most appeal, Mariah?"

She sat back, feeling threatened, as if her answer would either free her or damn her. "Can't.. .can't it be all of them?"

Spencer threw back the covers and left the bed, pulling on his dressing gown. "I suppose so. And I'm an idiot for asking so much of you when we've just married, when we, hell, when we barely know each other.. .what we really think, what we really feel."

What was the matter with the man? Mariah reached for her own dressing gown, lying at the bottom of the bed, and pushed her arras into it before sliding her feet to the floor, hastily tying the sash at her waist. "What's wrong, Spence? Oh. Wait. I see it now. You think.. .you think I'm only thinking of myself, of William, and not of you. Don't you?"

She marched around the bed to confront him, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.

"Don't you, Spence? Perhaps you even think I deliberately set out to bear your child, knowing you lived in a place so grand it was known by your family name? You think I came here already knowing the size of this house, the fortune that built it—and now all I want is to be taken care of, William and I? Oh, and
Virginia!
What a coup that is, isn't it? My own home in a new land? I've certainly landed on my feet, haven't I? Is
that
what you think?"

He took hold of her at the shoulders, gave her a quick, short shake. "No! No, damn it, I don't. I—"

"You
did,"
Mariah said accusingly, cutting him off. "Admit it, Spence. You might not think it now, now that I've dragged it all out for an airing, but you
did."
She smiled, painfully. "Well, isn't this above all things wonderful? Your family accepts me, your family trusts me. But my
husband?
My husband still wonders, doesn't he? I never should have married you."

"Mariah, I'm sorry. I'm an idiot, I'll admit it. I can't explain myself to you. That's impossible. I'm a part of this family, yes. But a part of me has always been alone, separate. I don't know why. Hell, I don't even remember my hfe before I was a Becket." He shook his head slowly, trying to banish the fog that crowded his brain. "I've spent my entire life being.. .angry.. .feeling apart from everyone else... longing to go my own way. I just never.. .I just never thought anyone would want to go there with me."

Mariah raised her hand to his face, stroked his cheek. Such a complicated man, living such a secretive, complicated life. "You have a son now," she told him quietly. "And, for good or ill, you have a wife. Is that really so terrible? To not be alone anymore?"

He shook off his melancholy mood, not without effort, and smiled at her, covered her hand with his own. "I've been reading one of the books in Ainsley's study, and I think I can probably find a bearskin for you in Virginia."

Mariah's heart did a small flip in her chest. She wouldn't push at him anymore, but just follow his lead. They had their lifetimes to talk about the past. "And cooking pots? Fine cooking pots? I'm afraid I'll have to insist on the very best cooking pots."

They were standing so close together, in more than a physical way, perhaps even standing on the brink of something wonderful. Spencer sensed it.. .and then he ruined it. "Don't go to London with me, Mariah. Don't make me worry about you when I should be concentrating on finding Renard."

"Oh, Spencer," Mariah said, closing her eyes. "If we're ever to have a future together, you're going to have to understand that I'm going to walk beside you, not behind you."

Then she turned away from him and walked to her dressing room. She'd be gowned and ready before he was, and sitting in the coach, ready to leave for London, even if that meant missing her breakfast.

"You'll drive a man to drink," Spencer called after her.

She stopped, then turned to face him, her smile wide and genuine. "My father said that all the time. You really should have known him. Then, maybe, you'd understand me."

Spencer stood alone in his bedchamber for a full minute, attempting to figure out what in hell was happening to his life, his solitary life. But then the mantel clock struck the hour and he realized he had to get ready to leave for London or, hell's bells, Mariah would go without
him.

So they'd start off on their wedding trip to the metropolis, one that would be filled with deceit, treachery, danger and the very real possibility of disaster. That was life. That was being a Becket. And, damn him, now that there was a possibility that life could be different, he resented the hell out it.

"Church steeple ahead! Another change of horses coming up fast, Lieutenant!" Clovis yelled down through the opened portal cut into the roof of the traveling coach.

Or, as Mariah considered it, the man had
bellowed
the warning just when she'd found a comfortable position on the velvet squabs and had dozed off for a few minutes. Her wedding night had been wonderful, but she hadn't spent very much of it asleep.

"He still calls you Lieutenant," Mariah grumbled, pushing herself into a more upright position. "Does that mean you can order him shot?"

Spencer, sitting on the facing seat, reading the newspaper he'd found in the posting inn in the last village they'd passed, learning as much as he could about the coming Grand Jubilee, put down the paper and grinned at his wife. 'This is only our third stop, Mariah. Between now and tomorrow evening you'll sleep in this coach and take your meals here, as well. We've got horses posted all along the way and will stop only to change teams and mounts. I warned you that this wouldn't be an easy journey. I can put you down here with a man to guard you or hire a coach to return you to Becket Hall."

"You wouldn't dare and I'd never agree," she told him, adjusting her bonnet, fearing she'd sadly crushed one side of it by leaning her head against the side of the coach. "I've been on forced marches before, Spencer Becket, more than once. Your threats don't bother me. Just make sure you can keep up."

"I think I'll ride Fernando between this stop and the next, bear Rian company," Spencer said prudently, folding the newspaper and placing it beside him on the cushion. "It may be safer."

"It most certainly may be," Mariah told him, wondering what maggot she'd gotten into her head that made her think she even
liked
the man. "And we'll stop at this inn long enough for me to step inside it for at least five minutes."

"Mariah, I told you—"

"Oh, for pity's sake, Spence, I need to relieve myself. Something, by the way, you never considered when you locked me in that parlor in Calais. You men may be able to step behind a convenient tree or building, but I am female enough to insist on at least some semblance of civilization."

Spencer felt hot color running up the back of his neck as the coach halted in the yard of the inn. His hand was on the door latch before the wheels had stopped turning. "Clovis will assist you from the coach. I'll go ahead and secure a private dining room for us. We'll stay here for an hour. No longer, Mariah."

She folded her hands in her lap, smiling sweetly at him. "I wouldn't dream of it, Spencer."

He shot her a dark look and slammed out of the coach. This journey couldn't end soon enough for him.

It was nearing dusk and raining a day later as their party of a pair of traveling coaches and slightly less than two score men on horseback made its way into London. Mariah rode in the first coach; the second was loaded with baggage and an assortment of weapons and munitions. The coaches were accompanied by six outriders; the remainder maneuvered separately through twisted streets on their way to the mews and the back entrance to Chance Becket's town-house in Upper Brook Street, three doors down from Hyde Park.

The knocker wasn't on the door to discourage visitors, but there were candles burning in one of the upper windows. A liveried footman opened the door at Spencer's knock, ushering everyone inside and to the back of the house, where a fire burned in the fireplace of Chance's study.

Chance rose from his seat behind a large desk and came around to clasp Spencer and Rian to him, one after the other, welcoming them to his home, telling them that he and Julia had only beaten them to town by a few hours.

There was good humor and backslapping all around and Mariah watched, yawning behind her hand. She'd had only one victory during their journey, had seen the inside of only one inn for more than the five minutes Spencer had allotted her to, as he said, "Do what you have to do," just as if a more reasonable woman could override nature.

No, the bride and groom were not currently on the best of terms. And Mariah was too tired to care.

Now she attempted to take the measure of the man who, Spencer had told her during one of the rare times he'd chosen to ride inside the coach with her, had been the first orphan Ainsley had brought to his island home. Island headquarters. Whatever that accursed, unnamed island had been called.

Mariah was now Spencer's wife, shared his bed, but it was clear that this didn't mean that he and his family would now be an open book to her, not if he wouldn't even tell her the name of the island. She wanted his trust, if not his love, and that was why she had tearfully kissed her small son goodbye and insisted upon accompanying her new husband to London. To earn her way into this family and perhaps into Spencer's carefully guarded heart. Couldn't the stupid, thickheaded man understand that?

Besides, she wasn't the sort of fainthearted woman who could sit home and slice up sheets for bandages, waiting for the outcome of a battle. It wasn't in her nature. That part of her, Spencer also would simply have to get used to, because if she could accept him, his family, his foibles, then he would have to accept hers, as well.