A Most Unsuitable Groom. Kasey Michaels

to tell you. It’s knowin’I was comin’ for her that chills my marrow,” Anguish said, his bug-eyed stare still riveted on Mariah Rutledge, who had wrapped her arms around her belly once more. “Is she…is she…oh, Lord God, she is! Crikey, and her woman’s here, too? Ah, the sight of that takes me back to where I don’t want to go no more, lessen it’s to visit my poor arm, because at least my arm I miss seein’.”

      Anguish stepped back sprightly as the latest addition to this insane farce entered the room behind Rian, who was grinning like the village idiot, as if he’d just brought home a Christmas surprise. The woman was small, thin, bent—wizened, Spencer supposed—with wrinkled skin the color of mahogany and black bean eyes that would give small children and many grown men nightmares. She wore a dark gingham dress over moccasins, her thick grey hair twisted into a single braid falling halfway down her back, a patterned wool blanket clutched tight around her shoulders by one heavily veined hand.

      “Iroquois,” Spencer said quietly, recognizing the design on the blanket. “Bloody Iroquois.”

      Onatah paused a moment in her advance, just long enough to say something gruff and pithy to him, before she moved on toward the couch.

      “What did she say?” Rian asked excitedly. “Did you understand her? Do you know the language? God, Spence, this is magnificent. I never dreamed I’d ever see a real red Indian. Tell me, what did she say?”

      Spencer’s jaw was set tight at an angle as he shook his head. “I hate to disabuse you, brother mine, but I’m not that familiar with the dialect. I spoke mostly to Tecumseh, who knew our language better than half the men living on this island. However, and only for your amusement, I do think I’ve just been called the fornicating son of a three-legged cur.”

      “Oh, well, that’s understandable. I suppose. Ah, and here comes more trouble. I really should go wake Jacko and the girls. I shouldn’t be having all the fun.”

      Odette shuffled into the room in her aged carpet slippers and one of Courtland’s old greatcoats over a rusty black gown, her wiry silver hair also hanging down her back in a single braid, her skin ebony to Onatah’s mahogany and only half as wrinkled. She stopped, took in the scene—her attention centered on the Indian for several tense seconds—and then walked over to Spencer.

      “I was wrong,” she said sadly. “The good loa didn’t steal your memory. The bad loa took it, so that you would not know you’re to have a son. I only saw that in my bowl tonight, as she drew closer, too late to warn you. I ask your forgiveness for my failing.”

      And then, surprising Spencer even more, Odette lifted her hand and slapped him hard across the cheek, her unexpected strength knocking him back on his heels.

      “And what was that for?” he asked, holding a hand to his stinging flesh.

      “For thinking the boy isn’t yours,” she told him. “Now, come, help get this girl upstairs. Your son wishes to be born tonight.”

      Mariah was speaking quietly to Onatah, who had placed a hand on her mistress’s stomach, waiting for the next contraction. “They’ll stop now that I’m not in that coach, won’t they, Onatah? It’s too soon.”

      “Babies come when they come,” Onatah pronounced with all the gravity of Moses tripping back down the mountain with stone tablets in his hands.

      A gnarled black hand joined Onatah’s on Mariah’s belly, and Mariah blinked up into the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. “Foolish child, to hide the pains from your nurse. You’ve had them all day, since you first rose this morning. There is time yet, but not much. We will allow no harm to come to you or to Spencer’s son. Now come. Rise up, walk with us. And better you do it now, between the pains.”

      “Onatah?” Mariah asked, feeling suddenly very young again, and quite frightened.

      “Old women know best,” Onatah said and, between the two of them, Mariah was on her feet once more, being led toward the hallway.

      She had taken only a few steps when she could feel the pain begin in the small of her back once more, long, strong fingers advancing around her hips to grip tightly against her lower belly. She’d had the pains since that morning, but not like this, not so intense, so frequent or lasting so long. “Ohhh,” she said, her knees buckling slightly. The hallway looked miles away, the tall, winding staircase a mountain she could not possibly climb.

      “The devil with this!” Spencer exploded, storming across the room to take hold of Mariah’s arm and pull her toward him, then scoop her up in his arms. He turned toward the hallway. “Where? What room?”

      “Yours, of course,” Ainsley said smoothly, motioning with a sweep of his arm that Spencer should carry Mariah up the stairs.

      “No,” Spencer said flatly. “Morgan’s chamber.”

      Mariah moaned again, her eyes shut tight. “If I had a pistol, I’d shoot you,” she told Spencer quietly. “Just put me somewhere—and then go away.”

      “Go away, is it? Should have said that sooner,” Anguish whispered to no one in particular, unfortunately not that quietly. “Would have saved us all a boatload of bother.”

      Spencer’s last sight of Rian as he carried Mariah toward the stairs was of his brother sliding down the wall, clutching his stomach as he laughed uproariously at the Irishman’s assessment of his brother’s 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…”