A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels Read Online Free PDF

please," Eleanor told him as if she were a governess scolding her young charge. "Now, you boys go downstairs to Papa, who had the good sense not to come up here, and I will go in with the ladies and offer my assistance if it is needed as I introduce myself to your young woman."
    "She's not my—" Spencer gave it up as a bad job. "You'll let us know what's happening?"
    "I will," Eleanor said, her smile soft. "What's her name, Spencer? I should most probably know that."
    "Rutledge. Mariah Rutledge. And she's English. But that's all I know. Damn it all to hell, Elly, that's all I know."
    And that hair, that voice. ..
    Spencer pressed his fingers against his temples, hoping for more memories to assert themselves. But there was nothing. He did not know this woman, remember this woman. "Go downstairs, everyone, before we wake Fanny and Callie. I'm.. .I'm going to go talk to Clovis."
    He walked briskly toward the servant stairs and climbed to the top floor of the large house to where Anguish and Clovis had been installed upon their arrival at Becket Hall.
    Ainsley had given them the run of the house if they'd wanted it, in thanks for bringing Spencer back to Becket Hall, but neither man had felt comfortable with that sort of free and easy arrangement. After all, as Clovis pointed out, they were only doing their duty. Hiding them from an army they didn't wish to return to was thanks enough for both of them.
    Still, Becket Hall wasn't like most English homes, made up of a strict hierarchy of master, master's family, upper servants, lower servants. No, that wasn't for Ainsley Becket.
    He had run a taut ship but a fair one, and he ran a fair house. The servants were the crew, each lending a hand to whatever chore was necessary at the moment, and each still very much the individual...individuals who refused to see Ainsley as anyone less than their beloved Cap'n.
    There was no butler or major domo at Becket Hall. Whoever heard the knocker and was close opened the door. When beds needed changing they were changed; when rugs needed beating they were beaten.
    The only area of the house Ainsley considered to be off-limits to himself and most of the household was the kitchens where the cook, Bumble, reigned supreme by means of a sharp tongue and a sharper knife that had been waved threateningly a time or three over the years, and anyone who thought the man's wooden leg bad slowed him soon learned their mistake.
    When Clovis and Anguish were moved in nobody blinked an eye. The Cap'n said they could stay, so stay they would and welcome aboard. Clovis had insisted upon acting as Spencer's right hand and, since Anguish no longer had a right hand, he had offered his left to Bumble and now spent most of his day sitting on a high stool in the main kitchen, telling tall tales to make the females giggle behind their hands and sampling all of the day's dishes, It was an arrangement that worked well all around.
    Spencer knocked at Clovis's door, because personal privacy was also very much a part of living at Becket Hall, and entered only when he heard a grunt from the other side of the thick wood.
    He walked in to see Clovis sitting on the side of his bed, still completely dressed, an empty bottle in his hand.
    "Sir!" Clovis said, quickly getting to his feet. "I'm wanted?"
    "In several countries, no doubt," Spencer returned with a wan smile, indicating with a wave of his hand that his friend should sit once more, and then joining him. "You're still worrying about our decision to guard the freetraders?"
    "That I am, Lieutenant, sir," Clovis told him, then sighed. "You and Anguish see adventure, and I see only trouble. I think I'm old, and I don't know which worries me more."
    "No, not old, just prudent. But I'm here on another matter. Clovis, do you recall a woman named Mariah Rutledge?"
    Clovis shot to his feet once more. "You're remem-berin', sir? Well, sir, that's above all things grand."
    "No, I'm not remembering anything, more's the pity. She's here,