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.”
Spencer advanced on the couch, to get a better look at the woman. No, he didn’t recognize her. Just the hair. Just that voice, a little low, faintly husky, the disdain in it flicking hard at his memory. “Miss…Rutledge, you said?”
She looked up at him, then returned her gaze to the older man, attempting to sort out the people in the room with her. His father? No, she saw no resemblance. “He truly doesn’t remember me, does he?” she asked, pushing herself up slightly against the pillows now that the pain had eased.
“I don’t think so, no,” Ainsley told her kindly. “He has no memory of anything between his last battle and being at sea, on his way back to us. Where, may I ask, did you two meet?”
“Actually, sir,” Mariah said, embarrassed but truthful, “we were never formally introduced.”
“I tried to bring her but she—Miss Rutledge? Here? Our Sainted Lady of the Swamp? Oh, now and isn’t this a fine kettle we’ve got boilin’ now.”
Spencer wheeled about to see Anguish standing just inside the door, his ruddy Irish complexion gone white.