A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (34 page)

Mariah turned to him and smiled. "I have noticed that about her. She's rather like a more kindly Spanish Inquisition. Oh," she added quickly, "but I quite like her. I quite like all the Beckets. Even the ones I haven't yet met, as Elly makes them all sound fascinating."

Chance took a sip from his wineglass. "Have you considered volunteering to work for the Crown, Mariah? You'd make an admirable diplomat."

"Not really," she admitted, sitting down on the facing couch, frowning at him. "If I would, I wouldn't be sitting here smiling at you and plotting ways to be outside on the streets searching for Nicolette."

"Ah, but that's what diplomats do," Chance told her. "Smile quite happily, while busily plotting all sorts of devious things. I'd be out there, too, Mariah, if I didn't know that I could end up doing more harm than good. Now, tell me how you and Spencer met in America."

Mariah kept her mouth firmly shut for a moment, looking at the man. How could she dress this up in fine linen? In truth, she couldn't. "Spencer was injured and feverish, delusional, and I crawled under his blanket with him to calm him and...and now there's William. Spencer can't even remember the event, but I can. Not with much fondness."

Chance took another sip from his wineglass, fighting the impulse to drain its contents in one long gulp. "Well, that will teach me to leave Inquisitions to my wife, won't it? Spence really doesn't remember.. .any of this?"

Mariah shook her head, getting to her feet once more to pace the carpet. "I'm glad he doesn't. It's better that.. .that we make a fresh start of things, don't you think?"

Chance shifted forward on the couch to look at Mariah, who had her back to him. "No, I don't think so, my dear. Do you blame him for what happened?"

Mariah whirled around to face him, shocked by the question. "Me? Do I blame
him?
No, of course not.
I
was the one who—"

"So you blame yourself," Chance said, looking down at his wineglass to see that he had in fact gulped down its contents. Not only that, but another drink was probably in order. "Spencer's an odd duck, not one to share his feelings easily—excuse the candor— but he doesn't seem particularly unhappy in his marriage. Frankly, if he hadn't wanted to marry you, he would have said no to Ainsley and meant it."

"We have a son," Mariah said, blinking rapidly, surprised by the sting of tears in her eyes.

"Ah, I see. So, he married you to give a name to his son. Now,
that
does sound like Spencer. Of course, it doesn't explain your presence here, now does it?"
Or the love bite on my brother's neck the other morning,
Chance thought, but wasn't stupid enough to say.

Mariah smiled a watery smile. "He couldn't help it, Chance. I kept chasing after him. I chased him to Romney Marsh, I chased him to Calais and he knew I'd chase him here."

"My poor beleaguered brother. Mariah," he said, settling himself back on the couch once more, "do you really think Spencer couldn't.. .outrun you?"

She pressed her hands to her cheeks. "No, I suppose not. He's...he's got quite a temper, doesn't he? Then again, I'm not particularly.. .placid. I fear for our son's temperament."

Chance knew it was time to draw back from such a personal discussion. "You'll have your hands full if your William is anything like Spencer. Let me tell you something about your new husband. Years ago, I think he was no more than twelve, Spence decided to build a boat and sail off to China."

Mariah grinned, subsiding onto the couch once more. She knew so little about Spencer. "Twelve? Really? Why would he want to do that?"

Chance shrugged. "He hated us and wanted to be gone. I don't remember why he hated us that time. There were so many times. Court and I were older, Rian was always with Fanny. Morgan and Elly and Callie were, well, they were
females.
And Ainsley? He was there but kept to himself, really not paying attention—something he regrets now. So Spencer was pretty much on his own, I guess. Poor little bastard."

Mariah felt a. pang of sympathy for the young Spencer Becket. "So, like many children, he decided to run away from home? But to China? That was rather ambitious, don't you think?"

"But that's Spencer. He thought—thinks— anywhere that isn't Becket Hall has got to be better, He loves us as we love him, but you can't make a family out of so many disparate parts and expect all those parts to fit. At least not completely. He still wants to leave, make his own way in the world," Chance said, looking at her carefully. "Doesn't he?"

Mariah kept her gaze steady. "You'd have to ask him that, Chance. For now, please tell me what happened when Spencer built his boat. He did build it, didn't he? I doubt he gave up and forgot the idea."

"Yes, he built it, and he didn't want anyone's help, either. So, over the course of a few weeks, he built himself his boat, commandeered food from the kitchens and set out into the Channel one morning without so much as a farewell to anyone. It's the only time Ainsley ever went out on the water since we'd arrived in Romney Marsh. He took one of the longboats, he and Billy, and they rowed after Spencer, who was bailing his little boat frantically as it began to sink about fifty yards offshore."

Tears stung at Mariah's eyes once more. "He must have hated being rescued."

"Oh, Ainsley didn't rescue him. He just rowed alongside Spencer as he swam back to shore, and then he stared down everyone on the shore so that none of us dared to say a word as Spence laid there, vomiting up half the Channel. The very next day Ainsley and Spencer and Pike—he was the ship's carpenter then, before he...died—were back out on the shingle, building another boat."

Mariah was incredulous. "So Spencer could attempt to sail to China again?"

"No, he never tried that particular escape again. I think he'd learned his lesson—the hard way, as Spencer seems to always learn the hard way—and then, of his own accord, he gave the boat as a gift to one of the local freetraders who'd lost his in a storm. The man's probably still using it. That damn thing was a good, solid boat."

"I think that story was supposed to be about Spencer, but it was also about Ainsley and all of the Beckets, wasn't it? Still, if one day William attempts to sail to China, I'll know that Spencer will handle the problem brilliantly."

"Yes, I think he will. Spence is a good man, Mariah, even if he can occasionally run a bit.. .hot. I do want you to know that. And, bless his passionate Spanish heart, he
can
learn."

"Maybe.. .maybe one day he'll learn that he doesn't have to be alone," Mariah said quietly. "Maybe," one day, we'll have more than William and our two stubborn natures between us."

Chance smiled. "Oh, I think there's already more than that between you."

Mariah could feel a flush of heat running up her cheeks and was happy to hear the sound of the door opening on the ground floor and footsteps on the stairs. "They're back. I hope they have good news for us."

But when Spencer entered the room to say that Julia was continuing upstairs to wash her face and hands, and Rian had stayed in Green Park—presumably to . look for Renard or Nicolette but, as Spencer suspected, more to watch the balloon being set up for its grand ascension—he looked tired and worn and more than a little discouraged.

"No luck," he said rather unnecessarily, collapsing onto the couch beside Mariah. "There was one coach I hoped might be the one we're looking for, but the coachman was English and wore no cockade. Still, I followed it on foot for three blocks before it stopped, letting down some grande dame who could no more plot against the Crown than see sixty again. Oh, and one thing more—I think every second person in this city wears one cockade or another. Damn stupid things. There should be a law against them."

Chance and Mariah exchanged small smiles as Spencer levered himself to his feet and stomped over to the drinks table to pour himself a glass of wine. Yes, Spencer Becket sometimes
ran hot.

It had been Julia who had given them all a short history of cockades, the ribbons worn to advertise their wearer's allegiance to a political faction or cause. The recently reinstated Bourbon dynasty's cockade was white, as was the English cockade for those favoring the restoration of a Jacobite monarchy. Not to be outdone, those men and women who wished to see the Hanoverian monarchy of the Georges maintained wore black cockades.

"During the revolution in France, men and women added to the white cockades, pinning on circles of red and blue, making them tricolor," Julia had explained, drawing two increasingly smaller circles inside a larger circle, showing the division of the three colors. "But Mariah saw a white cockade with a red circle on top and a
black
circle at the center. I have
no
idea what that combination means."

But Chance had a theory. "Edmund's personal flag, a tri-corner thing, was always flown from the masthead of his ships. It was black, with a red skull and two white bones crossed beneath. I don't think we need seek further evidence, do you? The cockade Mariah saw displayed an allegiance to Edmund Beales," he'd said and they'd all gone back to work, searching the streets of London. Watching. Always watching.

And nothing. If Renard and Nicolette were staying in London, they were doing a commendable job of playing least-in-sight.

The carnival atmosphere in London had doubled and redoubled, as had the crowds in the streets. William Congreve's scores of various fireworks, rockets and pinwheels on stakes, and Catherine wheels tied in the trees, were tantalizing reminders of the spectacle planned once the sun had set tonight. More booths and stalls, kiosks and arcades, follies of every sort, were still being hastily constructed everywhere; a half dozen elephants were now eating their heads off in Hyde Park.

Rowboats decorated to resemble grand ships had been floated in the canal as it ran through St. James's Park, ready to reenact the Battle of the Nile. A supposed Temple of Discord had been constructed in Green Park, as well, but it didn't hold a candle to the yellow bridge ornamented with slashing black lines that had been erected across the canal, dotted with four matching pavilions and centered with a seven-story, blue-roofed Chinese pagoda, the significance of either the pagoda or its blue roof not quite clear to anyone except, one could suppose, the spendthrift Prince Regent himself.

And Mariah was missing all of it, stuck in the house on Upper Brook Street, only reading about the celebration in the newspapers.

Spencer returned to the couch, carrying his glass of wine. "So, what have you two been doing in our absence?"

"I've been telling tales of your checkered youth," Chance told him amicably. "But I believe Mariah has been plotting how to be a part of our party tonight."

Spencer turned to look at Mariah, who was already looking at him, her chin stuck out mulishly. "Oh she has, has she?"

"Spence, I'm going," Chance pointed out, hoping to avoid an argument. "Julia is going. We were right to be prudent these past few days but now is the time for action. We wouldn't even know who we're looking for if it hadn't been for your wife. She's earned the right to go with us this evening."

Mariah tilted her head to one side, waiting to hear what Spencer would say.

"Madam, we'll do this privately," he said and stood, heading for the foyer, and the stairs to their bedchamber.,

Chance shook his head. "Thick as a plank, that boy. And you think he doesn't care for you, Mariah? Think again."

By the time Mariah climbed the two flights of stairs it was to find that Spencer was seated in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace, the newspaper unfolded and lifted high enough to cover his face. Honestly, she could just box his ears for him.

"Spencer, don't be obnoxious," she told him, plunking herself down in the facing chair.

He lowered the newspaper and peered at her overtop it. "At least I'm not
looming."

Why did she think he was adorable? She should be grabbing that newspaper from him, rolling it into a makeshift club and beating him to flinders with it. "Then what
are
you doing?"

"I'm controlling my temper, Mariah. Please, let me do this." He raised the newspaper once more. "Ah," he said. "Here's an item about one James Stadler—he'd be the one managing the ascension, and a quite famous balloonist, to read this. And, once the balloon is on the ascent, he and others in the balloon will be dropping programs listing the order of events as well as favors and fairings to the crowd assembled below." He set down the newspaper. "There will be rioting, people will be trampled, all to catch a prize. Don't those idiots realize anything?"

Mariah kept her hands carefully folded in her lap. If he was going to try to leash his temper, she could only do the same. "I already read today's newspapers from one end to the other, thank you. And may I remind you that you're asking this question of a royal prince who orders forty-seven courses for a state dinner for six hundred people?"

"No more than five hundred, and I think it was a mere thirty courses. Our great Iron Duke must be in agony this morning," Spencer said, then carefully folded the newspaper, calmly, precisely, before smashing it into a ball and throwing it, with some violence, into the fireplace. "Damn it—and them—all to hell!"

Mariah was fairly certain a reasonable person would retire from the field for a space, but she found herself more amused than upset. She certainly wasn't afraid of the man or his temper. "My goodness," she said, crossing one leg over the other as she sat back at her ease, "I think I'm trembling in my shoes. I couldn't possibly be insane enough to bring up the subject of tonight and my intention to go with you to the park. Except that I am—bringing up the subject, that is.
And
going with you."