A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (8 page)

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."

"Not in my mind, I'm not," Mariah told him honestly. "In my mind, I'm committing murder upon your person, in several unlovely and definitely painful ways. But as long as you're here, now you may button me again. Please."

"Ah. Please. How can I possibly refuse?"

Mariah stood still, fuming as he began buttoning the shift, from bottom to top. His fingers kept brushing against the skin of her back and for some reason that incidental contact—please let it be incidental—served to tighten her nipples, so that she felt her breasts to be actually straining against the material.

Which was nothing compared to the way her insides reacted when, finished with the buttons, he put his hands on her shoulders, then bent to lightly brush his lips against her nape. "Thank you, again, Mariah, for William."

She whirled around to push him away, completely
forgetting that she was still standing within the puddle of her night rail, and ended by crashing against his chest, her hands on his shoulders to support herself.

"My God," Spencer said, his senses swimming as he looked at her; that swirl of living fire that was her hair, those bewitching green eyes. "How in bloody hell could I have forgotten you?"

"I.. .1 don't know. As you said, I took advantage of you," Mariah said, closing her eyes as his hands slipped down to cup her waist. "Don't.. .don't do that."

"We're to be married;" he reminded her, his concentration centering on her full, slightly parted lips.

"And?" Mariah asked, arching one brow at him. "You sound as if you're purchasing a horse. Pay the price, and I'm yours to...to do anything with?"

Spencer removed his hands, held them up at his sides in mock surrender. "Clearly we don't know each other very well yet, do we? Will you feel better if I tell you that I don't believe marriage makes you my possession?"

Mariah stepped out of the tangle of night rail and walked to where her robe hung over the back of a chair. "Yet you said 1 could leave, but William would stay. I think we should
see this
marriage for what it is, don't you? It will be for William. As for anything else?" She slipped her arms into the robe and turned to face him, the material of the robe held tight over her

breasts. "I should wish to be recovered from William's birth before we even discuss the idea of marriage again."

At the moment, Spencer believed he would agree to anything. His palms still burned from where they had made contact with Mariah's soft skin, so pale beneath his tanned hands, and the mere thought of her creamy breasts, how she had seemed to be holding, weighing them in her cupped palms—as if offering them to him, or at least that's how he'd always remember that sight—would probably haunt his nights. "You want time, Mariah. I understand that. How long?"

She shrugged, wondering how much time she could reasonably ask for without daring his refusal. "A month? Two?"

He nodded. "A compromise, then. Six weeks, Mariah. But we will be married."

"For the child," she reiterated.

"For whatever reasons may occur to us. The gutting me like a deer, Mariah, will remain negotiable," he replied, and then turned his head as Callie knocked lightly on the door and then reentered the room. "Callie, help Mariah finish dressing, please."

"You say that as if that wasn't what I was doing when you first stumbled in here and sent me out of the room," his sister reminded him. "Or have you forgotten that?"

Spencer rolled his eyes. "No wonder Court calls you his unholy terror," he said before bowing to Mariah. "Don't overtax yourself, madam. Good day."

"I'll be very careful, sir," Mariah shot back at him. "Just as you will be careful to knock next time you come to visit, and then wait for my permission to enter my chamber."

The door had slammed
on
Spencer's back before the last words left Mariah's mouth.

She looked at the closed door for a few moments and then at Callie. She raised her eyebrows.

Callie raised her own eyebrows.

The corners of their mouths twitched as their eyes danced.

And then the two of them laughed out loud.

"Did you see his face when he first came barging in here?" Callie said, wiping at her eyes as their laughter subsided. "I thought he was going to swallow his own tongue."

"Well," Mariah said, removing the robe, "I was standing there, holding on to myself, just as brazen as you please. Oh, Lord, Callie,
what
am I laughing at? He
dressed
me! I'm so embarrassed.
Mortified.
Quickly, help me on with my gown before I'm tempted to crawl back under the covers, never to show myself again. As it is, I'll never be able to look at the man again."

"I don't know. He certainly was looking at
you,"
Callie said, helping Mariah into her gown. "Turn around and let me button this, if I can see the buttons through my tears. Mariah, I'm so glad you're here. With Morgan gone, we're so stodgy and boring these days. But I think that's about to change."

Mariah slipped into her shoes and walked across the large room to the dressing table where Onatah had laid out her brushes. She sat down in front of the three-piece mirror and fairly goggled at herself. Look at her hair! She looked like a wild woman. Why hadn't Spencer run screaming from the room, convinced he'd been compromised into wedding a witch?

She picked up a brush and began attacking the mass of hair that fell well past her shoulders, waving so wildly that it was almost as if only half of her face could peek through to the world. Which might not be too terrible, if she didn't want to look at Spencer. "It's all so thick and heavy and a terrible nuisance. I should have Onatah just cut it all off," she said as Callie picked up another brush and began working on the left side of Mariah's head.

"Cut this beautiful hair? Are you mad? I've never seen hair this color. It's so alive. It's like.. .like a candle flame. I heard Spencer the other night when he thought I wasn't listening. He was telling Rian that he remembered your hair. 'Like fire in the sunlight,' he said. It's not like Spence to be poetical."

"It's not?" Mariah asked, daring to open the drawers in the dressing table, then
borrowing a dock
green ribbon she discovered in one of them. She was so curious to learn more about the man who was to become her husband. "What is it like Spencer to be?"

"Angry," Callie said, taking the ribbon and tying back Mariah's hair in a thick tail at her nape. "He's always angry. Papa says he's got the passions of a hot-blooded man and chafes at the confines of Becket Hall, of how we live. There! Doesn't that look pretty? Are you ready to go downstairs now, before Spencer finds Odette and tattles and you're slapped back into bed?"