A Most Unsuitable Groom. Kasey Michaels

blinked, surprised to see that she was now standing on an immense stone terrace overlooking a stretch of sand and shingle beach, the Channel lapping quietly at the shoreline, the blue sky seemingly limitless.

      “It’s…it’s beautiful,” Mariah said honestly and walked over to the railing, placing her palms on the cool stone. How did Spencer see this view? Did he recognize it for its own beauty or stand here to look longingly toward the water and all that lay beyond it? “Oh, and two ships. Aren’t they sleek-looking?”

      Callie also looked to her left to where the sloops rode at anchor offshore, about one hundred yards apart, their sails rolled up and firmly lashed to the masts. “The first is Papa’s Respite, and the other is Chance’s Spectre.”

      “Spectre? You mean, as in ghost?”

      Callie’s smile suddenly seemed awfully bright. “Yes, that’s it. Chance, um, Chance says that with a wife and two children now and his estate to oversee, he has only the ghost of a chance to go sailing on her more than twice a year. He says that and then Julia gives him the hairy eyeball and he laughs.”

      “The hairy eyeball and an anchor firmly tied to his ankle. Well, they’re beautiful ships.” She leaned forward slightly, still looking to her left, to see a few peaked roofs peeking up behind a rise in the land. “And there’s the village, I suppose. I’d like to walk over there someday, but not just yet.”

      She then looked to her right where there was—nothing. Only some tall grasses waving in what must be a constant breeze from the water. Even the shingle slowly faded away, leaving only a wide stretch of sand.

      “You aren’t allowed to walk there,” Callie said, suddenly serious, as if she knew where Mariah was looking. “The sands can shift and swallow you whole, the way the whale swallowed Jonah. But the sands never spit you out again. Long ago, someone told me, some local freetraders taking their wool across the Channel used the sands to beach their boats where the Waterguard wouldn’t dare follow, and then offloaded the contraband they brought back with them. There are so many legends. But the smugglers knew the sands and we don’t. They’re not safe. Nobody goes there. And nobody smuggles from these shores anymore, of course. Not for years and years.”

      “Really?” Mariah asked, still looking at the sands, fascinated by them for some reason she didn’t understand. Perhaps it was the stark beauty of waving grass and sand and water…and the danger hidden beneath that beauty. Or perhaps it was the rushed way in which Callie had told her small story and then added even more warnings.

      “Oh, yes. There’s no smuggling here. There’s no need.”

      “But it must have been so very exciting, don’t you think, Callie?”

      Callie sniffed. Quite an adult sniff, at that. “That’s just romantical. Smuggling is…smuggling was what they did to survive, nothing more. Nobody smuggles for the adventure of the thing. That would be silly.”

      “Yes, of course it would be,” Mariah said, stepping back from the railing, ready to return to the house, as she was beginning to feel as if her legs were fashioned out of sponges. But then she caught a movement in the distance, and moments later Spencer Becket appeared out of the tall grasses. He was striding surefootedly across the sands toward Becket Hall, a staff taller than himself in his right hand. The young man she recognized as Rian Becket from that first night walked along behind him.

      Rian Becket had a small wooden cask hefted up and onto his shoulder and he was whistling. The sound carried to her on the stiff breeze.

      She felt Callie’s hand on her arm. “We should go inside now.”

      Mariah blinked, closed her mouth, which had fallen open at the sight of the two men. “Yes, yes we should. I’m afraid I’ve done too much too soon.” She allowed herself to be led back across the wide terrace to the French doors they had used earlier, turning only at the last moment to take one last look to the beach.

      He carries the staff in case the sands try to take him. To either hold out to a rescuer, or brace it lengthwise against the sands and employ it to crawl to safety. But he carries it carelessly, because he already knows the way.

      What had she asked him? How did he amuse himself here on Romney Marsh? And what had he answered?

      Oh yes, she remembered now. “We keep ourselves busy….”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “SHE SAW ME, saw what I was doing.”

      “Is that so? And precisely what did she see you doing, Spencer?” Ainsley asked coolly as he continued to slowly move the magnifying glass across the map on the table.

      Spencer fisted his hands at his sides, trying to hold on to some semblance of calm, remaining at least marginally civilized. “I saw her hair. That damn hair, burning in the sunlight. She was on the terrace when I came through the sands, and Callie with her.”

      He closed his eyes. Yes, he’d seen her hair. He’d seen considerably more of her earlier. No wonder his eyeballs burned in his head. Just as his soul should be burning in hell for lusting after a woman who’d just given birth. To his son. And he couldn’t even remember impregnating her. What a damnable mess. He could barely wait to be shed of this place for a space, concentrate on something other than his own confused feelings. And if that made him a coward, then so be it.

      Ainsley put down the magnifying glass and looked at his son who, as he’d expected, didn’t so much as blink, even as he was sure Spencer would like to be pacing, seething, perhaps even shouting—anything but standing still in front of Jacko and his father. Standing tall, never cringing. Personal bravery had never been an issue with Spencer. Good sense, however, had. Still, he had gone away a lad, and come home a man. “How nice that Mariah feels strong enough to be up and about so soon. You’ll arrange for the wedding now, of course.”

      “No, not yet,” Spencer said, thinking back on the promise he’d made to Mariah. “She’d, um, she expressed a wish to be fully recovered from the birth before we hold the ceremony.”

      “I see. And you’ve agreed?”

      “I’ve agreed. Hell, it was the least I could do.”

      Ainsley nodded. “Very well. Was there anything else?”

      Spencer dropped unceremoniously onto the leather couch, taking a moment to glare at Jacko, who sat at the other end. He loathed subterfuge, and Ainsley was so very good at it. “Don’t pretend you both don’t know what I’ve been planning, Papa. You made it clear the other night that you knew and warned me against it.”

      Ainsley looked levelly at him and then smiled slightly. “Clearly my powers of intimidation have gone sadly missing then, because you still plan to leave for Calais tonight to arrange for the first smuggling shipment.”

      “You know even that? Clovis told you,” Spencer said, smacking his fist against his thigh. Mariah’s arrival had delayed his first trip across the Channel, but he would go tonight or know the reason why. “He’s turned into an old woman, afraid we’ll all be caught and hanged. But I never thought he’d betray me.”