A Most Unsuitable Groom

“It’s humble,” Mariah said cheekily, “but I imagine that, to you, it’s simply home.”

Callie frowned at her, not understanding, and Mariah wanted to slap herself for speaking so plainly. This was a fine home and she should be on her best behavior…and she would be, if she knew what that was. But she was a quartermaster’s motherless daughter, brought up in some rather rough-and-tumble locations, and she was probably both more unsophisticated and more blunt than most young English ladies.

The paintings on the walls were magnificent: landscapes, seascapes. And, when she walked toward a fireplace that could probably comfortably roast an ox on a spit, it was to see something else she had missed that first night—the nearly life-size portrait of one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen. Her hair was a mass of dark curls, her smile lit up the room and her striped, full-skirted gown was bright, colorful. Exotic.

“Mama,” Callie said as Mariah walked closer for a better look. “Her name was Isabella. I don’t remember her and I don’t look like her. Everyone says I do, but I’m not half so…so vibrant. I’m the pale English version, I suppose. Papa bought most everything in this room and many of the others while he lived in the islands and had it all shipped here on his boats, for years and years, to be stored until we found Becket Hall. Oh, and I meant ships. Jacko winces if I don’t say ships.”

“Jacko again.” Mariah returned her attention to Callie, who could prove to be a fountain of information—if she could only find the correct way to ask her questions, that is. “I don’t recall that name in the list of Becket siblings. But he is a Becket?”

“Jacko? Oh, no, he’s not a Becket. Jacko is Papa’s business partner. Most everyone came here with Papa when he decided it was time to return to England. Why, they even broke up the ships and used the lumber to build the village. We’re very self-sustaining, Papa calls it.”

“And quite isolated,” Mariah said, now heading for the hallway again. “This room seems to be at the front of the house. I want to see the water. I don’t know why, as I saw much too much water for six long weeks. I think I’m simply attempting to get my bearings and I’m all turned about at the moment. Which way would I go?”

“This way,” Callie said, leading the way down another wide hallway, Mariah following slowly, taking time to peak into several other large rooms, all of them furnished in equal grandeur. The Beckets were obviously not worried where the pennies for their next meal might come from. She stopped at one doorway, leaning a hand against the jamb. “A piano! Oh, and a harp! Do you have musical evenings, Callie?”

Callie backtracked to look into the room done all in golds and reds, just as if she’d never seen it before this moment. “The music room. The piano is mine. Papa gave it to me one Christmas, as soon as he learned of the invention. What sort of present comes with an obligation for daily practice? Elly plays much better than I could ever aspire to do. And Spencer sings. But never ask Court to sing. He will, most willingly, but he’s not very good. Now come on. We can’t be safe for much longer before someone will see us and—oh, good morning, Jacko.”

Mariah turned around to see a huge man standing in front of her. Not that he was overly tall, but he was, as her father would have said, a door-full of man. Broad, with a hard, rounded stomach that she felt certain she could bounce coins off, if she dared. He was dressed simply in white shirt and tan breeches, his muscular calves straining at white hose. His dark hair had begun to thin atop a huge head and he had a smile that seemed to be full of amusement and a joy for life.

Until, that is, she looked more closely. Because that’s what he was doing—looking more closely at her, his head forward on his neck, his heavy, slightly hunched shoulders hinting at an aggression his smile would put the lie to only for anyone who wished to believe in fairy tales.

This was the man who had grown all those beautiful flowers? The idea seemed incomprehensible, as he looked more like the ogre who would invade a town, frighten all the children and stomp on all the pretty posies.

Mariah fought the urge to step back a pace and instead lifted her chin even as she dropped into a slight curtsey. “Mr. Jacko, I am Mariah Rutledge. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Jacko reached up his right hand to scratch beneath his left ear, a curious gesture, but one that now had his head tilted to the right, so that he seemed to be looking at her now out of the corners of his bean-black eyes. “Just Jacko. There’s no mister about it. So, you’re the one who gave us that fine boy upstairs. I haven’t laughed so long or hard in a long time.”

Mariah lifted her chin even higher. “You find my son amusing, Jacko?”

Now he tipped his head from side to side, as if weighing how he would answer. A fascinating man, but perhaps fascinating in the way a North American rattlesnake could be fascinating. “No, Mariah, girl. I find the fix Spencer’s in amusing. You’ve just tied him fast to Becket Hall, didn’t you now? Tied him hard and fast, when we couldn’t find a way to make him stay. The Cap’n’s over the moon, though he’d never say so. He likes to know where his chicks are.”

Mariah knew her cheeks had gone pale. “Spencer…Spencer didn’t plan to stay here? Where was he going to go?”

Jacko shrugged those massive shoulders. “Which way is the wind blowing today, Miss Rutledge?” He lifted a hand to his forehead in a blatantly mocking salute. “But he won’t be sailing off now. What with the fine great anchor you tied fast to his ankle.”

“Jacko,” Callie said quietly. “That was a mean thing to say. Go away.”

And, to Mariah’s amazement, that’s just what the man did, turning his back on the pair of them and heading toward the front of the house. Her body inwardly sagged in relief.

“Did he mean that, Callie? Was Spencer planning to leave?”

Callie shrugged. “Spencer has always talked about the places he’d like to see. China. America. I think he’d cheerfully sail off to the moon, if it took him away from Becket Hall. That’s why he went off to the Army. He wanted to fight Napoléon, see the Continent. But he was sent to Canada instead.” She smiled. “But that’s how he met you, Mariah, and now you’re going to be married. Elly says Spencer has to grow up now, stop chafing at living here. I don’t know why he chafes. I think it’s lovely here. But Spence was ten years old, I think, when we came to Romney Marsh. He remembers the islands and I don’t. I only know Romney Marsh.”

“But Spencer knows other places exist,” Mariah said as they began walking once more. “Whole other worlds he hasn’t seen. And now, because of William and me, he won’t see them.”

“Nonsense. He hasn’t even been to London. You can take William and go to London, surely. That’s another world, or at least that’s what Morgan and Elly say. Come on, we’ll go outside, let you smell the fresh air.”

Mariah nodded her agreement, knowing she’d just heard an opinion straight out of the innocence of youth. It would serve no purpose to argue that she, Mariah, had put an end to all of Spencer’s dreams, whatever those might be. A wife and child meant responsibility and, if she knew nothing else about Spencer Becket, she knew he was a man who took his responsibilities very seriously.

She’d had time, around their nightly campfires, to listen to Clovis tell her about Spencer Becket, the man who had bloodied General Proctor’s nose. She’d heard the same story from her father, who’d believed the man had deserved a medal, not two months in the small gaol and being stripped of his rank.

Was it any wonder that the night she’d crawled beneath the blanket to share her body’s warmth with Lieutenant Becket, and he’d reached for her, felt her softness, began to fumble with the buttons of her gown, that she’d welcomed that touch, sought…sought something in that touch? Not only allowed what the feverish man was doing, but aided and abetted him?

Even the pain that had come when he’d entered her had been welcome, proving to her that, yes, she was still alive and she could still feel.

And now she had tied an anchor to the man’s ankle; he felt duty-bound to marry her, care for their son. She’d quite possibly saved his life; he’d quite possibly saved hers without knowing it and his reward was to be a lifetime in this house, on this land—where he didn’t want to be.

“Mariah, what do you think?”

Mariah blinked, surprised to see that she was now standing on an immense stone terrace overlooking a stretch of sand and shingle beach, the Channel lapping quietly at the shoreline, the blue sky seemingly limitless.

“It’s…it’s beautiful,” Mariah said honestly and walked over to the railing, placing her palms on the cool stone. How did Spencer see this view? Did he recognize it for its own beauty or stand here to look longingly toward the water and all that lay beyond it? “Oh, and two ships. Aren’t they sleek-looking?”

Callie also looked to her left to where the sloops rode at anchor offshore, about one hundred yards apart, their sails rolled up and firmly lashed to the masts. “The first is Papa’s Respite, and the other is Chance’s Spectre.”

“Spectre? You mean, as in ghost?”

Callie’s smile suddenly seemed awfully bright. “Yes, that’s it. Chance, um, Chance says that with a wife and two children now and his estate to oversee, he has only the ghost of a chance to go sailing on her more than twice a year. He says that and then Julia gives him the hairy eyeball and he laughs.”

“The hairy eyeball and an anchor firmly tied to his ankle. Well, they’re beautiful ships.” She leaned forward slightly, still looking to her left, to see a few peaked roofs peeking up behind a rise in the land. “And there’s the village, I suppose. I’d like to walk over there someday, but not just yet.”

She then looked to her right where there was—nothing. Only some tall grasses waving in what must be a constant breeze from the water. Even the shingle slowly faded away, leaving only a wide stretch of sand.

“You aren’t allowed to walk there,” Callie said, suddenly serious, as if she knew where Mariah was looking. “The sands can shift and swallow you whole, the way the whale swallowed Jonah. But the sands never spit you out again. Long ago, someone told me, some local freetraders taking their wool across the Channel used the sands to beach their boats where the Waterguard wouldn’t dare follow, and then offloaded the contraband they brought back with them. There are so many legends. But the smugglers knew the sands and we don’t. They’re not safe. Nobody goes there. And nobody smuggles from these shores anymore, of course. Not for years and years.”

“Really?” Mariah asked, still looking at the sands, fascinated by them for some reason she didn’t understand. Perhaps it was the stark beauty of waving grass and sand and water…and the danger hidden beneath that beauty. Or perhaps it was the rushed way in which Callie had told her small story and then added even more warnings.

“Oh, yes. There’s no smuggling here. There’s no need.”

“But it must have been so very exciting, don’t you think, Callie?”

Callie sniffed. Quite an adult sniff, at that. “That’s just romantical. Smuggling is…smuggling was what they did to survive, nothing more. Nobody smuggles for the adventure of the thing. That would be silly.”

“Yes, of course it would be,” Mariah said, stepping back from the railing, ready to return to the house, as she was beginning to feel as if her legs were fashioned out of sponges. But then she caught a movement in the distance, and moments later Spencer Becket appeared out of the tall grasses. He was striding surefootedly across the sands toward Becket Hall, a staff taller than himself in his right hand. The young man she recognized as Rian Becket from that first night walked along behind him.

Rian Becket had a small wooden cask hefted up and onto his shoulder and he was whistling. The sound carried to her on the stiff breeze.

She felt Callie’s hand on her arm. “We should go inside now.”

Mariah blinked, closed her mouth, which had fallen open at the sight of the two men. “Yes, yes we should. I’m afraid I’ve done too much too soon.” She allowed herself to be led back across the wide terrace to the French doors they had used earlier, turning only at the last moment to take one last look to the beach.

He carries the staff in case the sands try to take him. To either hold out to a rescuer, or brace it lengthwise against the sands and employ it to crawl to safety. But he carries it carelessly, because he already knows the way.

What had she asked him? How did he amuse himself here on Romney Marsh? And what had he answered?

Oh yes, she remembered now. “We keep ourselves busy….”

CHAPTER FIVE

“SHE SAW ME, saw what I was doing.”

“Is that so? And precisely what did she see you doing, Spencer?” Ainsley asked coolly as he continued to slowly move the magnifying glass across the map on the table.

Spencer fisted his hands at his sides, trying to hold on to some semblance of calm, remaining at least marginally civilized. “I saw her hair. That damn hair, burning in the sunlight. She was on the terrace when I came through the sands, and Callie with her.”

He closed his eyes. Yes, he’d seen her hair. He’d seen considerably more of her earlier. No wonder his eyeballs burned in his head. Just as his soul should be burning in hell for lusting after a woman who’d just given birth. To his son. And he couldn’t even remember impregnating her. What a damnable mess. He could barely wait to be shed of this place for a space, concentrate on something other than his own confused feelings. And if that made him a coward, then so be it.

Ainsley put down the magnifying glass and looked at his son who, as he’d expected, didn’t so much as blink, even as he was sure Spencer would like to be pacing, seething, perhaps even shouting—anything but standing still in front of Jacko and his father. Standing tall, never cringing. Personal bravery had never been an issue with Spencer. Good sense, however, had. Still, he had gone away a lad, and come home a man. “How nice that Mariah feels strong enough to be up and about so soon. You’ll arrange for the wedding now, of course.”

“No, not yet,” Spencer said, thinking back on the promise he’d made to Mariah. “She’d, um, she expressed a wish to be fully recovered from the birth before we hold the ceremony.”

“I see. And you’ve agreed?”

“I’ve agreed. Hell, it was the least I could do.”

Ainsley nodded. “Very well. Was there anything else?”

Spencer dropped unceremoniously onto the leather couch, taking a moment to glare at Jacko, who sat at the other end. He loathed subterfuge, and Ainsley was so very good at it. “Don’t pretend you both don’t know what I’ve been planning, Papa. You made it clear the other night that you knew and warned me against it.”

Ainsley looked levelly at him and then smiled slightly. “Clearly my powers of intimidation have gone sadly missing then, because you still plan to leave for Calais tonight to arrange for the first smuggling shipment.”

“You know even that? Clovis told you,” Spencer said, smacking his fist against his thigh. Mariah’s arrival had delayed his first trip across the Channel, but he would go tonight or know the reason why. “He’s turned into an old woman, afraid we’ll all be caught and hanged. But I never thought he’d betray me.”

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