Kasey Michaels - A Most Unsuitable Groom

He shook his head. “I ain’t never seen the like, not from a woman. Walkin’ around in that scarlet jacket she took for her own, givin’ us all what-for, tellin’ us what to do. Our Lady of the Swamp, Anguish called her, too, when she couldn’t hear him. I think he half expected her to be growing wings at any minute—when he wasn’t thinking she should be sprouting horns. A hard taskmaster, Miss Rutledge. But she saved you, sir. Her and her Indian woman. She saved us all.”

Spencer wished he could remember, hated that he’d been a burden rather than a help. “So Miss Rutledge was in charge of me, Clovis? Not you?”

Clovis went red to his hairline. “I did…the personal things, sir. Bathing you and such like. Don’t fret about that. But nights, sir? There were only a few of us men and we had to stand guard on the camp, you understand. So Miss Rutledge would watch you then. Give you water for the fever, lend her body to heat you when the chills took you, shook you. The night…the night after Willy died, you were shakin’ bad, sir. Really bad. I was sure you were dyin’ on us then.”

“So she laid with me, sharing the heat from her body,” Spencer said, imagining the scene. The dark woods, the chill October night air, their two bodies close together in the middle of nowhere, hope fading, young Willy dead, their collective future looking bleak. Sometimes you just needed to hold on to someone, believe you were alive…

“I see.” He got to his feet. “Thank you, Clovis. You won’t speak of this to anyone.”

“No, sir, Lieutenant,” Clovis said, standing to attention. “Not a word to anyone. She’s a good woman, sir. Daughter of the quartermaster at Fort Malden, him cut down in the first volley. A world of hurt she had that day, but she never gave herself a moment to mourn, never gave us a moment to think on our dire straits. A true soldier’s daughter. Just movin’, keep movin’, and she got us safe out of there.”

“And then?” Spencer asked. “How did we become separated?”

Clovis lowered his head. “Well, sir, it’s like this, sir. Anguish didn’t want no more of the Army, and I could agree with him, seein’ as how General Proctor made a holy mess out of everythin’ he touched. We saw a boat, stole you out of the cabin they put you in that first night, and off we went, fast as we could.”

He looked up at Spencer pleadingly. “They were safe, sir, everyone was safe. But we wanted to be gone before everythin’ froze and we was stuck there all the winter long, and we couldn’t think to leave without you. But she found you, so that’s all right, isn’t it, sir? A baby you said, sir? Doesn’t that beat the Dutch for somethin’?”

“That it does, Clovis, thank you,” Spencer said as he walked out of the room, ducking his head under the low lintel, for the room was tucked into the eaves of the large house. His head stayed down as he walked the length of the hallway to the servant stairs, then slowly descended to the next floor. He paused for a moment, looking down that wider hallway toward his sister Morgan’s room.

The woman had saved his life. She’d saved many lives.

And he’d rewarded her by impregnating her, leaving her and then forgetting her.

She was here now, straining to bear his son, and he still didn’t remember her, couldn’t remember her.

“Bloody hell,” he swore, and turned his back, headed all the way down the servant stairs to the kitchens. He walked past a startled young cook’s helper he didn’t recognize and slammed out of the house and straight into the raging storm, the windblown rain plastering his thick black hair to his head and his shirt against his skin in mere moments.

He half walked, half staggered to the slippery sand and shingle beach. He didn’t stop until he was standing knee deep in the angry Channel, where he punched his tightly fisted hands high above his head, lifted his face to the wind and rain and screamed out his frustration at the lightning-streaked sky.

MARIAH SENSED someone looking at her and slowly opened her eyes. She’d slept, only a little bit, but couldn’t seem to tamp down the strange exhilaration she felt, as if she’d just accomplished something wonderful. And she had, hadn’t she?

“You,” she said, seeing Spencer, and closed her eyes again. He looked so solemn; please God he wouldn’t feel some compelling need to ask her again if he was truly the father of her son. And if he was, then it was just too bad for him. Odette said there was no doubt and he’d simply have to come to grips with the situation, wouldn’t he? “Come to see the fruit of my labor, have you?” she asked him, unable to restrain a smile at her genius. Goodness, she felt good. Sore, tired, but good, very good. And fiercely protective of her son…their son.

“Madam,” Spencer said, looking a bit awkward. “He’s a fine boy. Small, but Odette promises me he’s strong and healthy. And you? How do you feel this morning?”

Mariah opened her eyes once more, even summoned another smile. He looked rather like a boy who’d been caught with his hand in the candy dish and was now weighing the consequences as to the reward and the possible punishment. He also looked exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept all night. “Much like a horse that’s been ridden hard over rough country and put away wet, I imagine. How do you think I feel?”

“Abandoned,” Spencer said. “Clovis told me what happened.”

Her smile turned rueful. “Oh, I highly doubt that. He wasn’t there at the time.”

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly. “You might be down at the moment, Miss Rutledge, but you’re most assuredly not out, are you? Are you always this blunt?”

“I’ve just given birth to your child, Lieutenant. And I’ve no time for niceties. If you’re at fault, so am I. It was a…a frightening time. You really don’t remember? Eleanor swears you don’t. I wish I didn’t.” She regretted those last words as soon as she said them, for Spencer seemed to stiffen his spine as if she had just physically threatened him. “He…the baby has such a thick thatch of black hair just like yours. Did you see?”

“I did. A humbling sight. And I’m sorry that I questioned you last night. He’s mine, there’s no doubt.”

Mariah plucked at the bedcovers, avoiding his dark, intense gaze. He looked so different and yet so much the man she remembered. A handsome man, there was no denying that. Fiery. Exotic. All that was missing was the vulnerability. Healed, sound once more, he was rather formidable. But she could be formidable, too!

“He’s also mine, sir. I cannot, however, provide for him, not now with my father dead, our few possessions gone and with no other family to take me in. After paying for the passage, the coach, I have precious little left but what I can stand up in, once I can stand again, and Onatah to care for. I can’t…” Her voice broke slightly and she took a deep, steadying breath in order to say what she had to say. “I can’t even nurse him. Onatah has decreed that I’m too weak from our journey, that I need all my strength and that he needs more than I will be able to give him. Your Odette agreed and has kindly arranged a wet nurse. I hate both of them for that, but they both said I was being womanish, which I hate even more.”

Spencer felt even more uncomfortable. What could he say in answer to a statement like that? All he could do was reassure her, he supposed. “We’ll marry, of course. As soon as you’re recovered. You have no worries about your future, madam, I promise you that.”

Those green eyes flashed in quick anger, anger being preferable to tears. “Aren’t you generous,” she said, her voice all but dripping venom. “It’s not my future that brought me here.”