A Most Unsuitable Groom

She shook her head, wishing away these silly tears that kept threatening. “We had storms most of the way. For six long weeks I spent the majority of my time with my head over a bucket, I’m afraid.” She lifted a hand, let it drop onto the coverlet once more. “I know they’re right.” Her face crumpled slightly. “But I’m his mother.”

Spencer felt as useless as a wart on the end of Prinney’s nose and sighed in real relief when the door to the hallway opened and Odette came sailing in, a young woman following behind her.

“Here now,” Odette said, taking in the scene. “Is this what you’re good for, Spencer Becket? Making the girl cry? Take yourself off and be glad I don’t turn you into a toad and step on you.”

“But I—oh, never mind. Who’s this?”

“I’m Sheila, sir,” the small brunette said. “Jacob’s wife.”

“Jacob Whiting? Morgan’s Jacob?” Spencer asked, remembering how Jacob had followed Morgan like a puppy for years, the poor besotted fool.

“Not no more he ain’t, sir,” Sheila said, raising her chin. “I’m weaning my own little Jacob now, and Odette asked for me to nurse the new little one, and that’s what I’m doing. Sir.”

It seemed he was being put in his place every time he opened his mouth, so Spencer merely nodded and quit the room, promising to return later to see his son again, adding to himself: when there weren’t so many damned women around.

Mariah sniffled, still feeling sorry for herself, and watched him go, because asking him to stay would make her appear weak and she had the feeling that, no matter how rosy a picture Spencer had painted of Becket Hall and its inhabitants, she would need to be very strong in order to survive here in this strange place. What was odd was that she was beginning to think that Spencer thought the same thing about himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

FOUR DAYS PASSED with Mariah sleeping almost constantly, regaining strength dissipated by the long journey and the hours of labor. And she was content, except when she was complaining. She could see William. He could be laid on her bed. She could stroke his head, kiss his fingers. But she couldn’t hold him because, Onatah explained, to hold him would be to draw more milk into her breasts.

She saw Spencer twice during that time, as he seemed to be avoiding her chamber, even as he used the separate door from the hallway to the dressing room to see his son. He could hold William and, irrational as she knew her feelings to be, she hated him for that.

On the fifth day, Mariah decided she’d had enough. Remain in bed for ten long days? What nonsense! She had given birth. Surely a natural process for a woman. And she felt fine. Well, as fine as anyone could possibly feel, being deprived of most fluids in order to keep the milk away, her breasts strapped tight to her—not to mention the layers of folded cloth between her legs as she continued to bleed, also something she had been told was perfectly natural.

Onatah and Odette had already come and gone, fussing over her, subjecting her to the indignity of washing her, just as if she couldn’t do such basic things for herself—it was an amazement to her that they let her clean her own teeth! William was back in his cradle, sleeping the sleep of the well fed; Sheila Whiting had gone back to her own baby.

Mariah was alone. Blessedly alone.

She pushed back the covers and swung herself into a sitting position, ignoring the fact that lying prone for five days could tend to make a person slightly dizzy when that person first attempted to stand up. She took a few deep, steadying breaths, then looked down at the floor, which seemed quite far away.

There was a knock at the door moments before it opened. “Damn it!”

“Mariah? Mariah, what are you doing?”

“Shh, Callie,” Mariah called quietly. “Come in here and close the door. Lock it, if necessary. I’m getting up. I’m getting up, I’m getting dressed and I’m going downstairs to see something besides these four very pretty but confining walls before I go stark, staring out of my mind. And it wouldn’t be quietly, I promise you.”

Callie closed the door and padded across the room to stand at the bottom of the bed. Such a petite, pretty child, all golden-brown curls and huge velvet-brown eyes over a small, pert nose and bee-stung mouth. An angel of a child. Except that, as Mariah had learned to her delight over the past days, Cassandra Becket had the heart of a warrior. And all the deviltry of a born mischief-maker.

“Odette won’t like this, you not obeying her orders. Everyone obeys Odette, you know, and is afraid to take a step wrong around her,” Callie pointed out and then grinned. “Should I get your clothing for you?”

“Would you?” Mariah asked, sliding off the mattress until her bare feet connected with the carpet. “Everything has been washed and pressed, thank God, not that there’s much I didn’t strain at the seams these past months.” She looked down at her belly beneath the voluminous white night rail. “Oh, would you look at me? Do you think there’s another babe still to come out? I still look as round as a dinner plate.”

Callie giggled. “Oh, you should have seen Morgan after the twins were born. Ethan called her his pumpkin, which earned him a shoe tossed at his head. Do you ride? Morgan was back on her horse before anyone could say differently and she swears it helped. I’ve always been a little plump, although it’s finally going away—Odette said it was baby fat. But I know how you feel. Not that I’d want to be all bones like Elly, but no one wants to have someone else shaking their head and tsk-tsking, just because you’ve reached for a second muffin.”

While Callie was chattering she was also opening drawers and cupboard doors, pulling out undergarments, hose, a yellow and white sprigged muslin gown that had been one of Mariah’s father’s favorites—and one of the few personal possessions she had insisted on dragging through the woods after the battle—and a pair of black kid slippers that, alas, had seen better days.

“Would you like anything else?” Callie asked. “I can turn my head, but it would probably be easier if I just helped you, don’t you think? I helped Morgan the day she sneaked out of bed. I think she lasted one more day than you, though.”

“Thank you.” Mariah believed she may have left her modesty somewhere, because she couldn’t seem to muster much at the moment, and began stripping out of her night rail, allowing it to drop to her feet, so that she stood there in her cloth-wrapped bosom, pantaloons that held the cloths between her legs in place, and not much else. “There are a multitude of indignities associated with giving birth, Callie,” she told her seriously, “beginning with the moment a woman you once thought to be perfectly rational kneels on the bed between your spread legs and shouts excitedly, ‘I can see the head! Push! Push!’”

Callie giggled again. “Morgan says she wouldn’t have cared if the whole world had been standing there watching while her bottom was bare, just as long as someone for God’s sake got that baby out of her. Of course, she had two babies in there. Morgan does nothing in half measures.”

“She won’t mind that I’ve been using her chamber?” Mariah asked as she began unwrapping the cloth binding her breasts and then sighed in blessed relief once it was gone, feeling as if she was now taking her first full breath in days. She cupped her bare breasts in her hands, rather marveling at a new heaviness, gained during the pregnancy, that hadn’t seemed to have abandoned her. “Oh, that feels so much better. Would you please hand me my shift?”

“Mariah, I thought I’d see how you—oh, bloody hell.”

Mariah looked toward the door to the dressing room, to see Spencer standing there, looking at her as if…well, she really didn’t want to consider what he might be thinking.

She grabbed at the shift Callie was holding and pressed it against her breasts. “Some people knock and then ask permission before entering a woman’s bedchamber, sir,” she said, hoping the tremor she heard in her voice wasn’t apparent to him. She wouldn’t even think of the way her nipples seemed to have tightened the moment she realized he had seen her bare breasts. She had never suckled William, but that night, that wild and insane night, Spencer Becket had fastened his fever-hot mouth to her as she’d given herself over to the moment—and the man.

Spencer was looking at the floor as if there might be something of great interest lying there. “Some people, madam, were supposed to remain in bed, resting. What in blazes do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Spence,” Callie said, rolling her eyes at Mariah. “She’s getting dressed. What did you think she was doing? Go away.”

As quickly as it had come, Spencer’s embarrassment left him. “No,” he said, raising his eyes to look at Mariah. “You leave, Callie. Now.”

“But, Spence, she’s not even dressed. I can’t, oh, for pity’s sake, don’t glower at me like that.” She looked apologetically at Mariah. “Ten minutes. I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she promised. Then she stomped past Spencer, glaring at him, and left the room.

Mariah turned her back to the man. “Are you always such a bully?” she asked, fumbling with the shift, trying to cover herself better even as she knew her back was bare to her waist.

“Probably, yes,” he said, reaching around her to take hold of the shift. He should have left the field, retreated, but not yet. Definitely not yet. “Here, let me help you.”

“No,” she protested, knowing that the bundled shift was all that covered her breasts. But he wasn’t listening to her or at least he wasn’t obeying her.

She couldn’t struggle or else his hand might slip. The shift might slip.

“Mariah, you just gave birth,” Spencer told her, his breath warm against her bare shoulder. “I’m not a monster.”

She closed her eyes, nodded. And let go of the shift.

“Ah, that’s better. Raise your arms, Mariah.”

She’d rather die. She felt so vulnerable. “Just…just drop it over my head, please. I can manage from there. And turn your back!”

Spencer smiled, then realized he was probably fortunate Mariah couldn’t see that smile. “Would turning my back come before or after I lower the shift over your head? After all, my aim might be off, and I’d end up dressing the bedpost.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake! You’re perfectly useless, aren’t you? I’ll do it myself.” Keeping her right arm pressed across her bare breasts, she turned on him, grabbed the shift from his hands and then turned her back to him once more, struggling with her free hand to find the head-hole of the damned, uncooperative shift.

He didn’t know why he did what he did, even as he knew he was being, as so many told him, so often, impossible. Because what he did was perch himself on the side of the mattress, right next to Mariah, fold his arms and say with a grin, “Have at it, my dear. I’ll just watch.”

“I could cheerfully hate you,” Mariah told him honestly, then gave up all modesty in order to turn the shift about with both hands, locate the head-hole and finally drop the damnable thing over her head, shoving her arms into the armholes. And tug. Tug again. “It doesn’t fit. Did you open the buttons?”

Spencer looked at her, her head poking up from the bodice that seemed stuck halfway over her lush, full breasts. Even her arms were stuck. “I believe I’ve seen scarecrows in the field that look much as you do now, madam. But you’re correct. I do think I neglected to open all of the buttons. Would you like me to do that now?”

“No,” Mariah groused, knowing she must look exactly like a scarecrow, damn him. She was hot, she was frustrated, her hair was tumbling into her eyes, and if he didn’t help her she’d be stuck in this ignoble position until Callie came back into the room. “What I’d like is for you to go straight to hell, Spencer Becket.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, in any event,” Spencer said, pushing away from the bed and stepping behind her to open the last half dozen buttons on the shift, then giving the material a yank, settling the straps on her shoulders. “There, you’re decent now.”