THIS WAS ALL PERFECTLY silly. Here she was, already a mother, yet dressing for her wedding to her son’s father. She wasn’t facing a joyous ceremony. She and Spencer were only making proper what they’d obviously already done without the blessings of church or state.
What did any church or state have to do with a man and a woman and what happened between them, anyway, what they did in private? Honestly, it was all just too silly.
And she was so damnably nervous.
And fussing.
Fussing with her gown, the second of the pair she had brought back from Calais; a simple thing the color of newly churned butter; cunningly simple, but fashioned of the finest silk and in what she had been told was the first stare of fashion.
Fussing with her unruly hair, tying it up on top of her head, then pulling out the pins to let it hang loose, then tying it up again, but only half of it this time, so that some of it waved down over her shoulders. Then tearing out the ribbon and tossing it to the floor in disgust while trying to convince herself that she was not going to dissolve into tears like some petulant child over something so silly as how she wore her hair.
Callie retrieved the ribbon now and tied Mariah’s hair back one more time, then put her hands on Mariah’s shoulders, holding her in the dressing table chair with considerable force. “Touch it again and I’ll use the ribbon to tie your hands behind your back, I swear I will, Mariah. And wouldn’t that look just fine as I push you into the drawing room to meet your bridegroom?”
“I don’t know if it would look just fine, Callie,” Mariah told her, grimacing. “But it most certainly would convey my feelings quite well. This marriage is being forced on Spencer. And on me.”
“Oh, pooh,” Callie said, half pushing Mariah out of the chair so that she could sit down and check her own reflection in the mirror. “You have William. Of course you have to be married. It only makes sense. Even Fanny says so. You’re only nervous about everyone watching you as you say your vows, but you’ll soon forget all of that. I so envy you, traveling to London for your wedding trip. I never go anywhere. Do you want me to put a flower in your hair? I think brides wear flowers in their hair.”
“No, no flowers, Callie. The ribbon is fine. And I’m fine, truly I am. Let’s take William downstairs with us now, all right? It isn’t every child who can say he was a witness to his parents’ nuptials.”
She opened the door to the dressing room to see Eleanor Eastwood bending over the cradle, her hand resting lightly on William’s stomach. She straightened quickly, blinking back what Mariah was sure were tears.
“I…I thought I’d come take William down to the drawing room, if that’s all right?” she said, smiling at Mariah.
Mariah nodded, returning the smile. Eleanor Eastwood was a beautiful woman, a beautiful lady. Petite, her bone structure that of a princess, Mariah had thought more than once. Made a bit fragile by some unnamed old injury that caused her to limp when she walked, yet strong in her own quiet way. A woman wed only a year, very much in love with her husband…and yet there had been more than a trace of sadness in her lovely eyes when she’d been looking at William.
“Callie?” Mariah said, turning to the younger woman. “If you’d please, go downstairs and tell everyone that Eleanor and I will be joining them directly.”
Callie looked past Mariah to her sister, and suddenly the girl who was part silly child, part young woman, had a soft, sad look in her own eyes that had banished the silly child completely. “Yes, of course. But don’t tarry, or Odette will come up here after you and I know neither of you wants that.”
Mariah waited until Callie had gone and then approached Eleanor. “Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” Eleanor said, quickly brushing at her cheeks as she smiled at Mariah. “It’s just…it’s just that William is so wonderful, isn’t he? So small, so marvelously perfect.”
Just like any other proud mother, Mariah was quick to agree and thanked Eleanor for her kind words, only to hear the woman’s involuntary sob as she pressed a hand over her mouth. “Elly? Something’s obviously wrong. Please, let me help.”
“No, there’s nothing you can do, thank you, Mariah. I’m just being maudlin. Selfish. Entirely unreasonable. I…I began my monthly flux this morning, that’s all. It sometimes makes me weepy.”
Mariah felt she understood. “You and Jack…you want a baby?”
Eleanor fought to bring her emotions back under her control, where she’d always worked hard to keep them, except with Jack. “It’s more than a year…and nothing. You…you don’t even love Spencer and you have a baby. Without even trying, you have this beautiful baby. I love Jack with all my heart and soul, and yet we…we…oh, I didn’t mean that. I truly didn’t mean that. I’m so sorry, Mariah. So sorry.”
“No, don’t be,” Mariah said, wondering if she should put her arms around the smaller woman and then holding back, fairly certain that a physical expression of sympathy might dissolve Eleanor in tears. “What happened with Spencer, with William, was an accident, or so I believed at the time. But now it’s as if William was destined to be born. Your time will come, Eleanor, I’m sure of it. What…what does Odette say?”
Eleanor wiped at her eyes one last time and then took a deep breath, squared her slim shoulders. “Odette? She’s very vague, actually. She says she sees children for us, but when I ask her when, when does she see them, she only smiles and says I’ll know. It’s silly. I’m silly, wanting assurances from Odette, who is the first to say that she’s not always right, she doesn’t always…see. But I vow, Mariah, if she told me to walk around Becket Hall backward five times at sunrise and then spit in the Channel, I’d do it—anything to have a child.”
Mariah smiled, because she knew she was supposed to, and then she lifted the sleeping William from his cradle and handed him to Eleanor. “Here, why don’t you carry him downstairs for me? I forgot something in my chamber and need to fetch it.”
Eleanor tucked William close against her breast. “Thank you, Mariah. And I’ll watch over him while you and Spencer are in London. Please, stay safe. No matter what may or may not happen, coming back here to William is more important than anything or anyone else. One way or another, as Papa has said, the world will go on.”
“We’ll be fine, I promise. The, um, the plan? It’s already going forward?”
Eleanor nodded, suddenly very businesslike. “Court and Jack and Jacko lifted anchor hours before dawn and Billy is already well on his way to Chance’s estate. The men who will accompany you and Spencer and Rian to London have been chosen and are being prepared. And your bridegroom is cooling his heels in the drawing room, waiting for his bride. I know you must feel rushed, but Papa was adamant about this marriage, that it not be delayed any longer. He can be quite…sentimental.”
Mariah wasn’t surprised that Eleanor knew their plans, even as Callie had only been told that they were taking a wedding trip to the metropolis. Callie was still a child, and her father’s own child at that. As Mariah returned to her chamber to gather what she’d forgotten, she wondered If Ainsley Becket would ever be able to let Callie go…the child of his beloved and tragically lost Isabella.
“And that’s enough thinking for the moment,” Mariah told herself sternly. “It’s time to face going downstairs to marry the man who has threatened to make love to you until the entire world fades away.”
When she entered the drawing room it was to see all of the Beckets still in residence already there, chatting with each other and then turning as one to look at her as she made her entrance. It was a small but fine-looking gathering of people, all strong and confident people, all united in a way that most families bound by blood would envy.
She looked to Fanny, whom she’d barely gotten to know, and the girl smiled back at her, then winked. Mariah took that to mean that she’d been accepted, and that was nice.
But then Spencer stepped forward and she forgot anyone else was in the room.
He was dressed in a fine dark-blue jacket and fawn pantaloons, the lace at his throat as white as Canadian snow, his eyes and his barely tamed hair as dark as a moonless night, his skin as golden as the sun and his heritage made it.
She’d seen this man wounded and vulnerable. She’d seen him both careless and carefree. She’d experienced his anger, watched him play the fool, marveled at the sight of him up on the deck of the Respite, looking longingly out to sea. And now she saw him in the trappings of a gentleman, his fire scarcely tamed, only marginally contained. This was the man who’d made William with her, the man whose blood flowed in her son’s veins. He was so many men, this Spencer Becket, and she wanted to know all of them…all of him. Until the world fades away….
“Here,” he said, handing her a large bouquet of flowers. “Jacko cut them for you personally before he set sail. I’d say this means he’s officially approved of you. It’s up to you whether you want to feel flattered or turn on your heels and run from here as fast as possible.”
Mariah sniffed at a pale pink rose nestled in with several others. “What a strange man he is, isn’t he? I have to remember to thank him when he returns.”
Spencer held out his hand to her, as she held out hers to him and allowed him to lead her toward the grey-haired stranger standing in front of the fireplace, an open prayer book in his hands.
But before the vicar could say a word, Odette, dressed all in white from the enormous scarf wound about her head to the slippers on her feet, approached them to lay colorful silk scarves around their shoulders. She then recited a prayer in a mix of French and some language Mariah could not understand, moved her right hand in the air to sketch the sign of a cross and bowed to them before returning to the side of the room where Onatah stood, her wizened, small, walnut-shell face solemn yet shining.
After that, the ceremony was blessedly brief, with Spencer squeezing her hand as the vicar intoned the word obey, and her returning that squeeze while trying not to giggle. Giggles then became the furthest thing from her mind as Spencer slipped a gold and emerald ring onto her finger, the weight of the thing telling her of its worth and the seriousness of the bond that was now between them.
And when the ceremony was over she barely had time to think about Spencer’s quick, hard kiss as she was passed from one Becket to another, all of them kissing her cheeks, hugging her, welcoming her to the family.
Anyone would think she hadn’t shown up on their doorstep heavy with child, all but forcing this day on them.
And then William was christened, still held tight in Eleanor’s arms, but with every Becket sibling also standing for the child who would never be lacking in family love and protection. That thought alone was enough to bring tears to Mariah’s eyes and she took hold of Spencer’s hand and urged him out into the hallway.
“Is something wrong? I know we can be a bit overpowering at times…”
“No, no, I like your family very much. Even Odette, who I most sincerely hope was blessing us,” Mariah assured him, stepping away from the open doorway as she reached into the pocket of her gown. “It’s just that I wanted to give you this,” she said, holding out her father’s pocket watch and fob, the man’s most treasured possession, which she’d taken from his still-warm body that day outside of Moraviantown. “I miss him so very much.”
“I know, Mariah. I…we’ll all do our best to protect you for him. We’re your family now, which should frighten you not a little bit,” he said, smiling at her, trying to ease her pain.
Mariah nodded, took a steadying breath. “One day, when he’s grown, you can give it to William.”
Spencer looked down at the watch, then closed his fingers around it. Why couldn’t he relax? He felt so stiff, so formal. He hadn’t even told Mariah how beautiful she looked. “I’m honored, Mariah. And humbled. And, until that day, I’ll wear it in remembrance of a good man.”
Mariah smiled, releasing her breath in relief. “I know it’s not much, not worth a pittance compared to this ring…” She stopped speaking as a thought struck at her, looked at him seriously. “Was this ring…was it part of…?”
Spencer didn’t pretend not to know what she was asking. “The gold was fashioned here, in our smithy, Mariah,” he told her. “But that emerald definitely sailed an ocean at one time and landed at a destination not intended by its original owner. Do you mind?”
Mariah looked down at the ring, the huge stone. “Well, at least you’re honest about your thievery,” she told him, and then grinned. “Papa won his watch in a card game with a wealthy, well-born and very stupid captain of the Guards.”
“Now I’m doubly honored to have it,” Spencer told her, slipping the watch into the pocket of his waistcoat, attaching the fob. He sensed her nervousness, wished it away, just as he wished his own away, and turned serious. “Just as I’m honored to be your husband, Mariah. I know we’re still strangers with so much to learn about each other, but now we’ve got the rest of our lives, don’t we? The rest of our honest and upstanding lives.”
Mariah bit her bottom lip between her teeth as she nodded. “Eleanor…Eleanor told me to remember that the world goes on no matter what and that we need to protect ourselves so that we come back here to William. But we owe it to William to give him the best world possible, don’t we? Not a world of complete peace, because Ainsley was right, that’s impossible. But the very best world we can give our son.”
“One without Edmund Beales in it, yes.” Spencer cupped her chin in his hand, his dark eyes smoldering as he looked at her intensely. “You don’t have to go to London with me tomorrow, Mariah. You know I don’t want you to go, in any case. William needs at least one of us.”
She pulled her head away from him. “One of us? He’ll have both of us, Spencer. And he’ll have Virginia and a whole new world of promise. You said so and you damn well had better have meant it.”
Spencer smiled while once again silently questioning whether she wanted him or merely a safe home in Virginia. “Married less than an hour and already arguing. Does this bode well for our next fifty years, wife?”
She almost softened, but then quickly glared up at him. “Oh, no. Don’t think you can change the subject, Spencer Becket. You all think you’re such masters of diverting me, but it won’t work. When I wake tomorrow morning, it will be to see you lying beside me.”
He was more than happy to tease her. “Ah, this gets better and better. An invitation.”
She refused to rise to his bait or be embarrassed by his words. She had to know that he wasn’t going to trick her, escape to London without her. “No, a command. If I don’t wake up to see you, if you’ve left without me, watch your back in London, Spencer, because it won’t be just Renard who will be aiming at that back.”
Onatah, who felt most comfortable in Odette’s rooms, swept past them down the hall, muttering something in her own tongue as she went. Something that had Mariah flushing to the roots of her hair.
“Don’t tell me. Making an honest woman of you or not, I’m still the fornicating son of a three-legged cur, correct?”
Mariah lowered her head, shook it. “No. She reminded me that I am your woman now, and should not speak to my master with the sharp tongue of the serpent if I wish for many cooking pots and bear-skins.”
Spencer’s smile was wide and delighted. “I knew that woman was a treasure the first time I saw her. You’d be wise to listen to her, although I don’t think you should pin your hopes on a bearskin, as bears are in rather short supply on Romney Marsh. I do know where to find some fairly good cooking pots, however.”
“Oh, go to the devil,” Mariah told her bridegroom of less than an hour and flounced back into the drawing room, where she surrounded herself with Becket women for the next several hours.