A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels Read Online Free PDF Page A

predicament.
    Mariah kept her eyes closed as Spencer carried her up the stairs, holding her breath against the pain of the contraction and the added pain she felt each time he jostled her as he climbed the stairs, not opening them again until she felt herself being laid on cool sheets.
    When his arms left her, when he stood back from the bed, she felt curiously abandoned.
    "When?" he asked her, his dark eyes boring into her. "Where?"
    "What does it matter?" she asked in return. "Believe me, it was considerably less than unforgettable. Go away."
    "Do as she says," Odette told him as the Indian woman stepped between them to begin stripping Mariah out of her clothing. "Go downstairs and fall into a bottle. It's what men do. Women know what to do here."
    "But—" Spencer knew when he was beaten. "All right. But she and I have to talk. I have to understand how this happened."
    Odette's white teeth flashed bright against her dark face, "Boy, I think you already know how. Now go."
    Spencer stomped out into the hallway to see Jacko standing there in baggy brown trousers, his nightshirt hanging over his large, tight belly and dropping all the way to his bare knees. The man's eyes were fairly dancing. "Rian came to tell me your news. Congratulations, papa."
    Spencer spoke without thinking, because a wise man never gave Jacko an opening he could slip his tongue through. "I don't even remember her."
    "You bedded what Rian tells me is a fine-looking woman and you don't remember? Ah, bucko, there's all kinds of hell, aren't there? But I think you've managed to conjure up a new one."
    "As long as I can amuse you, then it's all right," Spencer said, heading for the stairs only to be stopped by his sister Eleanor, who had come out into the hallway in her dressing gown. Had Rian run from chamber to chamber, ringing a bell and banging on every door, eager to tell everyone?
    "Spencer," Eleanor asked, "is there anything I can do to help?"
    He thought about this for a moment as he looked at his sister. So small, so fragile and beautiful. Yet Eleanor and her Jack had almost single-handedly dismantled the Red Men Gang last year. If there was anyone whom he could count on to move mountains, it would be Eleanor. Calm, steadfast Elly.
    "Odette's in with her, Elly, and her own Indian nurse. But," he said, a thought just then striking him, "you could answer a question for me, one Odette would box my ears for asking. How long, um..." He hesitated, waving one hand in front of him. "You know. How long from.. .beginning to end?"
    Elly blinked, then smiled. "You're asking me the length of a pregnancy, Spencer?"
    He nodded, looking back at the door to Morgan's bedchamber, to see Jacko stepping forward to hold open the door for two of the Becket Hall women, Edyth and Birdie, to enter with pots of steaming water and an armful of towels. This was happening. This was really happening.
    "I would say approximately nine months, Spencer," Elly told him. "So that would be.. .last September?"
    Spencer shook his head. "No, that can't be right. We didn't meet the Americans at the swamp until the beginning of October. So that's...that's..." He began counting on his fingers, then looked at his sister before looking at the closed door, his stomach suddenly uneasy. "It's too soon, isn't it? If it's mine."
    " If it's yours? Spencer?"
    He held up his hands to ward off the harder tone of Eleanor's voice. "It's mine. Odette says so. The woman says so. I'm the fornicating son of a three-legged cur. I just don't remember. Why don't I remember?"
    "You had that knock on the head," Jacko reminded him. "Your shoulder, your leg, the knock on the head, that fever that hung on for months according to Clovis. Damn, boy, I'd say the woman had her wicked way with you when you couldn't fight her off. You lucky devil."
    "Jacko."
    One word, just one, from Eleanor and Jacko lost his smile and much of his swagger. "I was just saying..."
    "Yes, and now that you have, you will forget you've said it,