A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (35 page)

He glared at her with those dark black eyes.

She smiled at him. "Should I fetch you something else to throw? I'm sure Julia wouldn't mind the loss of one of these vases on the mantel, for instance. In a good cause."

Spencer looked at his wife. Shook his head. Felt the fool. And then moved even more swiftly than he could think, grabbing her up and carrying her over to the bed, following her down until they were belly-to-belly, nose-to-nose, her glorious hair slipping free of its pins to fan out round her head. 'There isn't another person in the world who would talk to me like that," he told her, the corners of his mouth twitching in his growing good humor. "I feel as dangerous as a cannon with its fuse pulled free. How do you manage it? How do you manage me?"

Mariah slipped her arms around his back. "I'd never dream to
manage
you, Spence. Who on earth would wish a docile lap pet for a husband?"

He rolled onto his back, taking her with him, so that her hair formed a living curtain of fire around them. "And who would wish a docile lap pet for a wife? Not me, it would seem," he said before sealing his mouth against hers.

Mariah felt a flood of feeling threatening to drown her as she gave her mouth to him, gave herself over to him, allowed him to be the aggressor, the
man,
the
husband
His passion, his frustration; he'd brought mem both to her. She soothed him as he sought release from both; she aided him and guided him, her own passion rising with each kiss, each fevered caress.

The feelings were the same. The heat, the hunger. But there was also something new, something different, and when the passion burst around them they held on tightly long after that passion was spent, Mariah nestled into the curve of his shoulder, Spencer lightly stroking her hair.

"Spence?" she hazarded, the thought coming into her mind without her seeking it out. "Do you trust me?"

"I don't sleep with a knife under my pillow, if that's what you mean," he told her, yawning. Between searching London from one end to the other all day and making love to his bride whenever he could, he was beginning to believe he'd never feel completely awake again.

"You're so amusing," Mariah said drily. "But I'm serious. Do you trust me?"

Spencer reached down to tip up her chin. "I trust you, Mariah Becket. With my son, with my life, with the lives of my family. You've done as you said you wanted to do—you've proven yourself. There, is that sincere enough for you?"

Mariah blinked back tears. But then she pushed, because that was her nature. "It's a beginning. I suppose I'd like you to trust
me with more than what happened when Beales betrayed you all. You...you could begin with telling me the name of the island. Is that such a terrible secret?"

"Ah, women. Always feeling it necessary to know every small detail," Spencer said, then held up his hands to ward off a blow that didn't come. "I'm not hiding anything from you, Mariah. The island never had a name. It was just what I said—the island."

Mariah didn't understand. "But.. .but Ainsley lived there for a number of years. And he never named the island? His home?"

"Think about it for a moment, Mariah. If he'd named the island, then it would be possible for one of the crew to be overheard saying that he was going to return to Victory Island, or Saint Christopher's Island or whatever name you could think of to give an island. Soon there would be maps and the island picked out on those maps, named on those maps. Ainsley's enemies could find him, or follow one of the crew from Port-au-Prince or wherever he might happen to be at the time. Believe me, the island wasn't named because of any lack of imagination but out of a large portion of self-protection. Not everything is a puzzler Now, is there anything else?"

Mariah grinned up at him. "Well, of course there is. I'm a woman, aren't I?"

So they talked about Virginia, Spencer telling her of books he'd read, letters from his friend Abraham. About the crops grown there, the climate, the animals, even the government. He promised to let her see those books when they got back to Becket Hall. They even discussed the merits of brick as opposed to wood houses.

They talked about William, how they both missed him—and wasn't that strange, considering that not three months ago he hadn't really existed. Not to Spencer, who hadn't known about Mariah's pregnancy, and not even to Mariah, who had been more concerned with how she would feed the child, clothe the child, leaving little time to think about herself as a mother.

Spencer pressed a kiss against her temple. "I wish I could remember what happened in America. I wish I could remember you, how magnificent you were. Clovis remains quite in awe, you know."

Mariah ran her hand over Spencer's chest, the soft hairs that tickled at her palm. "I'm glad you don't remember," she told him quietly.

He could feel her body tensing, held her against him as she tried to move away, sit up. "Don't," he said. "I think we need to talk about this, just the once. Did...did I hurt you?"

Mariah closed her eyes, took in a breath and let it out slowly. "I would suppose that was inevitable. I was a virgin. Which is no excuse. You were feverish, out of your mind with that fever. I could have overpowered you, pushed you away. I didn't."

"And I hurt you."

Now she did struggle out of his arms, to raise herself up, look at him through the wild curtain of her hair. "You held me. You made me feel alive. You frightened me and you saved me. Your touch told me I was a woman, that my life wasn't over, that there were still things for me live for, to experience. What...what if there had been no William? What would I have done? Because I don't know, Spencer, I really don't. Once we were safe in Canada, there was nothing for me. Nowhere to go, no one for me to take care of—no one to care for me."

"She pressed a fist into her abdomen. "You didn't hurt me, Spencer. Not in any way that counts. You very possibly may have saved me."

He pulled her down against him once more, relief flooding him as he realized how much he'd needed to hear her say those words. "As you saved me."

Mariah smiled, her heart lightened. "Yes, I did, didn't I? My, aren't we both marvelous creatures?"

Spencer threw back his head and laughed, then pushed Mariah over onto her back and kissed her. And kissed her. And then kissed her again....

They were lying together once more, still breathing rather heavily from a mutually pleasurable exertion, when Chance knocked on the door and called through the thick wood. "There'll be no dinner gong tonight, as Julia insists on sampling every booth in the park. Be ready to leave in an hour, all right?"

Spencer called back his agreement even as Mariah climbed out of the bed, dragging the sheet with her and wrapping it around her body, throwing one end up and over her shoulder. "You look like a Greek statue come to life, wife."

Mariah was momentarily diverted, flattered. But just because she was still feeling warm and rosy from his lovemaking didn't mean she was about to allow him to sneak away to the park without her. "Thank you. Now get dressed, please, so you can help me back on with my gown. We don't want to keep everyone else waiting, do we?"

Spencer opened his mouth to protest and then just waved his hands in front of him as if to erase what he'd almost said. "They don't have to wait for us. I chose the long straw, and we'll be cooling our heels in St. James's Park while Chance and Julia position themselves within sight of the Prince Regent and Rian and Billy make their rounds in Green Park."

Mariah paused, half bent over, reaching to retrieve her undergarments from the floor, then gave up any notion of modesty, letting the sheet drop as she picked up her shift. "St. James's Park? But why? I can understand you and Chance shuffling poor Rian off to where he'll be safe. I know we have to divide our forces, keep watching for Renard and Nicolette, even though she hasn't yet returned to the shop as she said she would to retrieve her new bonnet. But why would we expect anything to happen in St. James's Park?"

"And why would I think you'd be happy just to be included in the plans? I should have known better. And, General Becket, we're doing it this way because Chance received a note from Wellington late last night It seems that the Czar has voiced a wish to personally inspect the Chinese pagoda at some point tonight, and now they'll all be riding Over there in state coaches. If we know this, we can't be sure Renard doesn't also know, so somebody is already guarding the pagoda and keeping an eye on the area."

She pulled her gown over her head, let it drop around her shoulders. "Oh. Well, I suppose that's a credible reason."

"I'll tell Chance you've agreed. I'm sure it will greatly relieve his mind to know that Our Lady of the Swamp has approved his plan."

"Yes, he should be," Mariah said, ignoring Spencer's sarcasm. "Wait here. Don't say another word." Holding her unbuttoned gown at the shoulders, she raced into her dressing room to retrieve a fresh pair of white silk stockings. Perching on the end of one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, she began smoothing them up over her foot and leg.

Spencer pushed his arms into the sleeves of his coat and then simply watched her as she finished with her right leg and began slipping the silk onto the left. "Would you consider wearing those to bed?" he asked, then laughed when she shot him a shocked look. "And no, I'm not looming this time, Mariah. I'm
leering.
Let me help you with the fastenings on your gown."

"I don't think so, Spencer Becket, or the Prince Regent will be starting his Grand Jubilee without us. I'll meet you downstairs. Oh, wait."

"Good thing you aren't leading this particular army. Chance is waiting for me."

"Yes, yes," she told him, hurrying back over to the bedside table. "But you can't go without this." She held up the
gad
he'd taken off because he hadn't wanted the alligator tooth amulet to scratch Mariah's fair skin. He lowered his head as she slipped the thin leather strip over it, patted the tooth as it laid against his shirt. "There. Now you can go."

Spencer tucked the
gad
beneath his hastily tied neck cloth. "You really believe in Odette's nonsense?"

"I believe in anything that might help us. I've been wearing my own
gad
pinned to my undergarments since the day Odette gave it to me."

Spencer nodded, his mind suddenly and completely concentrated on the night ahead of them. "You're right. We'll believe in anything that might help us."

All of London pushed into the parks for the first night of the Grand Jubilee, members of the
ton
rubbing shoulders with chimney sweeps, the smells of food, costly perfumes, horse dung and sweat mingling together to have Mariah reaching for her handkerchief, pressing its scented linen against her nose and mouth as she held on to Spencer's arm and did her best to not step in anything more vile than the mud churned up by ten thousand pairs of feet that had already destroyed every blade of grass in St. James's Park.