A Most Unsuitable Groom

Within months of his joining them, they’d fled the island, Spencer still mostly wild, a wildness that had never really left him. What a long way they’d come. How little he still knew about his adopted son. The timing had been wrong. He’d brought Spencer into his world only months before he had wished himself out of it, and Spencer had been left mostly to his own devices for the past sixteen years.

“Spencer? You can say it. I do understand.”

“Then, yes, damn it, I’m bored! How do you bear it, living here, day after day after day, year after year after year? At least when the Black Ghost rode out, there was something to break the monotony. I’d almost welcome the Red Men Gang back to threaten us, just for the excuse to ride out, bang a few heads together.”

“There will be no more smuggling from these shores, Spencer, and therefore no need for the Black Ghost to ride out to protect our people. With Napoléon contained, the government is able to use its ships to set up a blockade all along the coast. Smuggling has become much too dangerous an enterprise. And I won’t commit the Respite again. It’s too risky for us.”

Spencer knew they were getting into dangerous territory now, and spoke carefully. “Not everyone in this part of the Marsh is willing to give up the life.”

“I’m aware of that. But we took more than a few chances these past few years, and I don’t believe in pushing our luck, so those who persist in making runs will have to do so without the protection of the Black Ghost.”

Spencer kept his gaze steady on his father. “A few of the younger men are restless, confined here the way they are. They want their turn outrunning the Waterguard. They want their own adventure.”

Ainsley steepled his long-fingered hands beneath his chin as he looked at his son. “You had yourself an adventure, Spencer. Killed your share of men, watched friends die. Do you really long for another such adventure?”

“You coming, Spence?”

Spencer turned his head to see that his brother Rian had poked his head inside the room. “Oh, right. I forgot the time,” he said gratefully, getting to his feet, careful to look Ainsley full in the eyes as he added, “If you’ll excuse me? A few of us are meeting at The Last Voyage. Would you care to join us?”

Ainsley smiled, shook his head in the negative, just as Spencer had known he would—or he wouldn’t have invited him. Not this evening. “No, thank you, I think not. And watch for the storm. You wouldn’t want to get stranded in the village for the night.”

“Because to walk home along the beach in the rain might serve to melt me.”

“Probably not, but neither of us really needs to have Odette ringing a peal over our heads about her poor injured bird, now do we?”

Spencer grinned. “It’s gratifying to know I’m not the only one afraid of Odette’s mighty wrath. I promise you again, I’m fine, completely healed,” Spencer said, sighing. “Good night, Papa. I’ll see you tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that…”

Spencer motioned for Rian to precede him into the hallway, and then the two brothers sought out woolen cloaks and made for the front door, hoping to avoid Jacko and anyone else who might ask where they were going. “You saved me there, you know. Papa was being his usual self, asking questions for which I have no answers.”

“You can thank me later. They’re probably all waiting for us now,” Rian told him, donning his cloak with a flourish that seemed to come naturally to the almost poetically handsome young Irishman, with his riot of black curls and clear green eyes, the almost feminine, soft curve of his cheek. Less than two years Spencer’s junior, he seemed so very much younger…possibly only because he was so damned inconveniently pretty. He needed a few scars; that’s what Rian needed, if he was ever going to convince anyone he was a man, even at the ripe old age of twenty-five.

“Good. If we can all agree tonight, the Black Ghost will soon be riding again,” Spencer said, stepping onto the wide stone landing, pausing only to look out over the endless flat land that was Romney Marsh. On a clear day a man could see for miles, see distant church spires taller than any tree, as the few trees that grew here could only rise so high before being bent over by the ever constant wind from the Channel.

This place was so different from the North American continent with all its tall trees, rolling hills, rushing cold, clean waters and bluer-than-blue skies. Romney Marsh was stark, not green.

Spencer had lied to Ainsley. He did miss America. It was an old land and yet also new; young and raw and vibrant. When Tecumseh had spoken of his land, he had made Spencer see it through his eyes. An all-glorious land of bounty and promise. And freedom. Maybe he would go back some day. Not to fight, but to explore, to find his place. Because much as he’d tried, as much as he’d attempted to conquer his discontent, his place wasn’t here at Becket Hall. That Ainsley knew this concerned Spencer, but he knew his father would not stop him when it came time to leave.

Rian hefted the lantern they’d need to guide them along the path to Becket Village. “Spence? They’re all waiting on us. You looking or moving?”

He shook himself back to attention just as the skies opened up and the dark night turned extremely wet in an instant. “Right. Sorry. Rian? Do you think Papa knows what we’re up to?”

His brother involuntarily backed up a pace, nearly tripping down the steps. “Knows we’re planning some freetrading across the Channel? Please God, no. Why would you ask that?”

Spencer pulled the hood of his cloak up over his already drenched head as they headed down the stone steps. “No reason. We were having a conversation just before you came to get me, that’s all. I’m imagining things.”

“But Papa does have this way about him,” Rian said and then sighed. “He never goes anywhere, never does anything, and yet he seems to know everything. Spence? Damn this rain. Look out there, see if you see what I think I see. Is that a coach heading this way? By God, it is. Spence?”

Instantly on the alert, for visitors were rare at Becket Hall and never arrived uninvited, Spencer motioned for Rian to go alert their father as he watched the coach lurch to a halt and a groom hop down to open the door and let down the steps.

He squinted through the dark and the slashing rain, watching as a female form emerged from the doorway, holding tight to the groom’s hand as she stepped to the ground, a small moan quickly cut off as she thanked the servant.

Now what? You don’t turn away a woman, not late at night, not in the middle of a growing storm that could last for days. But who the hell was she, and why was she here? Was she alone?

That unspoken question was answered when the groom shut the door without anyone else having stuck his or her head out the doorway.

The groom looked good only for hanging on to and probably would have let the woman stand there until she drowned in the downpour, so Spencer advanced until he was in her line of sight, such as it was on this starless, moonless night. “Good evening, madam. Lost your way on the Marsh? This is Becket Hall.”

Her head lowered, the woman replied crisply, “What a happy coincidence. I fully intended to be at Becket Hall, albeit much earlier in the evening. Do you make it a point to keep visitors out in the rain, sir?”

“A thousand apologies, madam,” he said, gesturing with his left arm that she should walk ahead of him, climb to where Rian now stood in the open doorway, light spilling out onto the wide stone porch.

He followed her up the steps, the newly supplied light not quite bright enough for him to be able to inspect and perhaps admire the woman’s ankles as she lifted her gown and cloak in order to navigate those steps. Pity. He hadn’t been with a woman in a long time. Long enough to have forgotten both the time and the woman.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. He had to start thinking like a Becket, and a Becket would be calculating how dangerous this unexpected visitor could prove to be, not hoping for a glimpse of shapely ankle.

“Ma’am,” Rian said, bowing slightly to the hooded figure that brushed past him as he looked to Spencer, his expressive eyebrows raised. “Yes, of course, ma’am, please do come in,” he ended, the woman having already disappeared into the house. “Spence? Who in hell—?”

“Did you alert Papa?”

“I did. He’d just gone up to his bedchamber. He’s throwing on a jacket and will be down directly. Spence?”

“Good, he can handle our unexpected guest. I have no bloody idea who she is,” he told his brother as he shrugged out of his sopping cloak, looking toward the woman who had her back to him as she surveyed the large entry hall.

As she lifted her head the hood of her cloak fell back and Spencer looked hard for a moment, then squeezed his eyes shut as a memory flashed into his mind. Sunlight. A halo of golden red fire. And a voice. We can’t just stay here and freeze as well as starve, not for one failed lieutenant.

He shook his suddenly aching head and opened his eyes again to see that the woman had turned around and was looking at him now. God. Hair the color of golden fire was only the beginning. Her green eyes were those of an imp of the devil, tilted up at the edges and penetrating as a pitchfork to the gullet. Her full lips were slightly parted over straight white teeth; her skin was the color of fresh cream. With her masses of wavy, disheveled hair, she looked like a woman who would bed well. A passionate woman. One who might even bite…

And then she shrugged out of her cloak, allowing it to drop to the floor, which exposed an out-of-fashion plain gray gown and the fact that she was—good God, the woman was pregnant.

“As you can see, Lieutenant, I don’t arrive alone,” she said just as Ainsley Becket descended the last step to the marble floor. “Congratulations, sir,” she added, her green gaze fastened on Spencer. “It’s possible the coach ride from Dover so soon after my sea journey may have been ill-advised. I do believe, Lieutenant, that you’re about…to…to become a father.”

Spencer opened his mouth to hotly deny her ridiculous accusation. But his words were cut off when the woman swayed like a sapling in a breeze, then gracefully collapsed into Ainsley’s waiting arms.

“Rian, you help me get her into the drawing room. Summon Odette, Spencer,” Ainsley ordered tightly. “Spencer. Now.”

CHAPTER TWO

SHE WAS LYING on a couch now, in a large, splendidly appointed room. How lovely, after so much time at sea and then in that terribly sprung coach, to be somewhere that didn’t move. “Thank you…thank you, sir. I’m fine now, really. Perhaps I’d…I’d simply over-reacted. The jarring of the coach, you understand. I must apologize. I’m not by nature a blatantly dramatic person and hadn’t planned quite so intense an entrance.” She then quickly placed her hands on her swollen belly in surprise as another pain gripped her. “Oh.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Spencer said, fairly skidding into the drawing room after flagging down Anguish in the hallway and sending him to fetch Odette. “She’s really giving birth?”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Oh, dear. I had hoped for at least some small modicum of intelligence from the man. For the child’s sake, you understand,” she said, looking at Ainsley. “I…I should introduce myself, shouldn’t I? My name is Mariah Rutledge. I, um, I met Spencer in America.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Rutledge. I am Ainsley Becket.”

“Would someone be so kind as to go out to dismiss the coach and bring in my maid, Mr. Becket? Her name is Onatah. And she won’t scalp any of you, I promise, which is something I had to swear to those idiots whose coach I hired. If you’re nice to me she won’t, that is.”

Rian grinned at Spencer. “Onatah? Is that an Indian name, Spence? Did she bring a red Indian with her from America? Yes, of course she did. Oh, this is beyond splendid. Except for you, I imagine. Sorry,” he added quickly, losing his smile as Spencer all but growled at him. “You stay here. Let me go get her. Yes? Well, I’m off, in any event.”