ONCE BACK in Upper Brook Street, Mariah made several drawings of both Nicolette and Renard, so that whoever was assigned to watch the area around Oxford Street had copies of those drawings tucked up in their jackets, ready to be drawn out and compared to patrons frequenting the shop.
They also watched the houses along the side street, hoping for a bit of good luck. In the chance the shopkeeper, who had told them of Nicolette bringing a companion with her on her first visit—a male companion who the clearly frightened man seemed to believe held all the power of the devil—had lied to Mariah and Spencer about the expected date of her return to the shop to claim a bonnet she’d ordered, the same day as the Grand Jubilee. In the chance that she wouldn’t return alone or that someone else might arrive to retrieve the bonnet in her stead.
Even Julia had the drawings tucked up in her reticule as the others went about town, acting the part of rejoicing Londoners out to enjoy themselves, but always alert for the sight of a blond head, a glimpse of a closed black coach and its fairly singular coachman.
There was an air of carefully concealed optimism now. Nobody said that this could be the end of Edmund Beales, of their long nightmare—but everyone thought it, hoped for it, prayed for it.
Mariah had been confined to Upper Brook Street, much to her chagrin. But if she could recognize Nicolette, it stood to reason that Nicolette could likewise recognize her. As Renard could recognize her.
The last thing anyone wanted was to alert Renard and possibly send him scurrying away before they could corner him, convince him to give up Beales’s whereabouts.
So, while Spencer and Rian and Julia spent the succeeding days and evenings on the hunt, Chance, who could also be recognized because he’d been nearly grown when last he’d seen Beales and Jules, bore Mariah company in the small drawing room in Upper Brook Street.
Chance sat at his ease on one of the couches, watching as Mariah paced the carpet, reminding him very much of his brother, but in female form. “How did you and Spence meet in North America, Mariah? I ask this only because Julia wants to know, just as she longs to know everything.”
Mariah turned to him and smiled. “I have noticed that about her. She’s rather like a more kindly Spanish Inquisition. Oh,” she added quickly, “but I quite like her. I quite like all the Beckets. Even the ones I haven’t yet met, as Elly makes them all sound fascinating.”
Chance took a sip from his wineglass. “Have you considered volunteering to work for the Crown, Mariah? You’d make an admirable diplomat.”
“Not really,” she admitted, sitting down on the facing couch, frowning at him. “If I would, I wouldn’t be sitting here smiling at you and plotting ways to be outside on the streets searching for Nicolette.”
“Ah, but that’s what diplomats do,” Chance told her. “Smile quite happily, while busily plotting all sorts of devious things. I’d be out there, too, Mariah, if I didn’t know that I could end up doing more harm than good. Now, tell me how you and Spencer met in America.”
Mariah kept her mouth firmly shut for a moment, looking at the man. How could she dress this up in fine linen? In truth, she couldn’t. “Spencer was injured and feverish, delusional, and I crawled under his blanket with him to calm him and…and now there’s William. Spencer can’t even remember the event, but I can. Not with much fondness.”
Chance took another sip from his wineglass, fighting the impulse to drain its contents in one long gulp. “Well, that will teach me to leave Inquisitions to my wife, won’t it? Spence really doesn’t remember…any of this?”
Mariah shook her head, getting to her feet once more to pace the carpet. “I’m glad he doesn’t. It’s better that…that we make a fresh start of things, don’t you think?”
Chance shifted forward on the couch to look at Mariah, who had her back to him. “No, I don’t think so, my dear. Do you blame him for what happened?”
Mariah whirled around to face him, shocked by the question. “Me? Do I blame him? No, of course not. I was the one who—”
“So you blame yourself,” Chance said, looking down at his wineglass to see that he had in fact gulped down its contents. Not only that, but another drink was probably in order. “Spencer’s an odd duck, not one to share his feelings easily—excuse the candor—but he doesn’t seem particularly unhappy in his marriage. Frankly, if he hadn’t wanted to marry you, he would have said no to Ainsley and meant it.”
“We have a son,” Mariah said, blinking rapidly, surprised by the sting of tears in her eyes.
“Ah, I see. So, he married you to give a name to his son. Now, that does sound like Spencer. Of course, it doesn’t explain your presence here, now does it?” Or the love bite on my brother’s neck the other morning, Chance thought, but wasn’t stupid enough to say.
Mariah smiled a watery smile. “He couldn’t help it, Chance. I kept chasing after him. I chased him to Romney Marsh, I chased him to Calais and he knew I’d chase him here.”
“My poor beleaguered brother. Mariah,” he said, settling himself back on the couch once more, “do you really think Spencer couldn’t…outrun you?”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “No, I suppose not. He’s…he’s got quite a temper, doesn’t he? Then again, I’m not particularly…placid. I fear for our son’s temperament.”
Chance knew it was time to draw back from such a personal discussion. “You’ll have your hands full if your William is anything like Spencer. Let me tell you something about your new husband. Years ago, I think he was no more than twelve, Spence decided to build a boat and sail off to China.”
Mariah grinned, subsiding onto the couch once more. She knew so little about Spencer. “Twelve? Really? Why would he want to do that?”
Chance shrugged. “He hated us and wanted to be gone. I don’t remember why he hated us that time. There were so many times. Court and I were older, Rian was always with Fanny. Morgan and Elly and Callie were, well, they were females. And Ainsley? He was there but kept to himself, really not paying attention—something he regrets now. So Spencer was pretty much on his own, I guess. Poor little bastard.”
Mariah felt a pang of sympathy for the young Spencer Becket. “So, like many children, he decided to run away from home? But to China? That was rather ambitious, don’t you think?”
“But that’s Spencer. He thought—thinks—anywhere that isn’t Becket Hall has got to be better. He loves us as we love him, but you can’t make a family out of so many disparate parts and expect all those parts to fit. At least not completely. He still wants to leave, make his own way in the world,” Chance said, looking at her carefully. “Doesn’t he?”
Mariah kept her gaze steady. “You’d have to ask him that, Chance. For now, please tell me what happened when Spencer built his boat. He did build it, didn’t he? I doubt he gave up and forgot the idea.”
“Yes, he built it, and he didn’t want anyone’s help, either. So, over the course of a few weeks, he built himself his boat, commandeered food from the kitchens and set out into the Channel one morning without so much as a farewell to anyone. It’s the only time Ainsley ever went out on the water since we’d arrived in Romney Marsh. He took one of the long-boats, he and Billy, and they rowed after Spencer, who was bailing his little boat frantically as it began to sink about fifty yards offshore.”
Tears stung at Mariah’s eyes once more. “He must have hated being rescued.”
“Oh, Ainsley didn’t rescue him. He just rowed alongside Spencer as he swam back to shore, and then he stared down everyone on the shore so that none of us dared to say a word as Spence laid there, vomiting up half the Channel. The very next day Ainsley and Spencer and Pike—he was the ship’s carpenter then, before he…died—were back out on the shingle, building another boat.”
Mariah was incredulous. “So Spencer could attempt to sail to China again?”
“No, he never tried that particular escape again. I think he’d learned his lesson—the hard way, as Spencer seems to always learn the hard way—and then, of his own accord, he gave the boat as a gift to one of the local freetraders who’d lost his in a storm. The man’s probably still using it. That damn thing was a good, solid boat.”
“I think that story was supposed to be about Spencer, but it was also about Ainsley and all of the Beckets, wasn’t it? Still, if one day William attempts to sail to China, I’ll know that Spencer will handle the problem brilliantly.”
“Yes, I think he will. Spence is a good man, Mariah, even if he can occasionally run a bit…hot. I do want you to know that. And, bless his passionate Spanish heart, he can learn.”
“Maybe…maybe one day he’ll learn that he doesn’t have to be alone,” Mariah said quietly. “Maybe, one day, we’ll have more than William and our two stubborn natures between us.”
Chance smiled. “Oh, I think there’s already more than that between you.”
Mariah could feel a flush of heat running up her cheeks and was happy to hear the sound of the door opening on the ground floor and footsteps on the stairs. “They’re back. I hope they have good news for us.”
But when Spencer entered the room to say that Julia was continuing upstairs to wash her face and hands, and Rian had stayed in Green Park—presumably to look for Renard or Nicolette but, as Spencer suspected, more to watch the balloon being set up for its grand ascension—he looked tired and worn and more than a little discouraged.
“No luck,” he said rather unnecessarily, collapsing onto the couch beside Mariah. “There was one coach I hoped might be the one we’re looking for, but the coachman was English and wore no cockade. Still, I followed it on foot for three blocks before it stopped, letting down some grande dame who could no more plot against the Crown than see sixty again. Oh, and one thing more—I think every second person in this city wears one cockade or another. Damn stupid things. There should be a law against them.”
Chance and Mariah exchanged small smiles as Spencer levered himself to his feet and stomped over to the drinks table to pour himself a glass of wine. Yes, Spencer Becket sometimes ran hot.
It had been Julia who had given them all a short history of cockades, the ribbons worn to advertise their wearer’s allegiance to a political faction or cause. The recently reinstated Bourbon dynasty’s cockade was white, as was the English cockade for those favoring the restoration of a Jacobite monarchy. Not to be outdone, those men and women who wished to see the Hanoverian monarchy of the Georges maintained wore black cockades.
“During the revolution in France, men and women added to the white cockades, pinning on circles of red and blue, making them tricolor,” Julia had explained, drawing two increasingly smaller circles inside a larger circle, showing the division of the three colors. “But Mariah saw a white cockade with a red circle on top and a black circle at the center. I have no idea what that combination means.”
But Chance had a theory. “Edmund’s personal flag, a tri-corner thing, was always flown from the masthead of his ships. It was black, with a red skull and two white bones crossed beneath. I don’t think we need seek further evidence, do you? The cockade Mariah saw displayed an allegiance to Edmund Beales,” he’d said and they’d all gone back to work, searching the streets of London. Watching. Always watching.
And nothing. If Renard and Nicolette were staying in London, they were doing a commendable job of playing least-in-sight.
The carnival atmosphere in London had doubled and redoubled, as had the crowds in the streets. William Congreve’s scores of various fireworks, rockets and pinwheels on stakes, and Catherine wheels tied in the trees, were tantalizing reminders of the spectacle planned once the sun had set tonight. More booths and stalls, kiosks and arcades, follies of every sort, were still being hastily constructed everywhere; a half dozen elephants were now eating their heads off in Hyde Park.
Rowboats decorated to resemble grand ships had been floated in the canal as it ran through St. James’s Park, ready to reenact the Battle of the Nile. A supposed Temple of Discord had been constructed in Green Park, as well, but it didn’t hold a candle to the yellow bridge ornamented with slashing black lines that had been erected across the canal, dotted with four matching pavilions and centered with a seven-story, blue-roofed Chinese pagoda, the significance of either the pagoda or its blue roof not quite clear to anyone except, one could suppose, the spendthrift Prince Regent himself.
And Mariah was missing all of it, stuck in the house on Upper Brook Street, only reading about the celebration in the newspapers.
Spencer returned to the couch, carrying his glass of wine. “So, what have you two been doing in our absence?”
“I’ve been telling tales of your checkered youth,” Chance told him amicably. “But I believe Mariah has been plotting how to be a part of our party tonight.”
Spencer turned to look at Mariah, who was already looking at him, her chin stuck out mulishly. “Oh she has, has she?”
“Spence, I’m going,” Chance pointed out, hoping to avoid an argument. “Julia is going. We were right to be prudent these past few days but now is the time for action. We wouldn’t even know who we’re looking for if it hadn’t been for your wife. She’s earned the right to go with us this evening.”
Mariah tilted her head to one side, waiting to hear what Spencer would say.
“Madam, we’ll do this privately,” he said and stood, heading for the foyer, and the stairs to their bedchamber.
Chance shook his head. “Thick as a plank, that boy. And you think he doesn’t care for you, Mariah? Think again.”
By the time Mariah climbed the two flights of stairs it was to find that Spencer was seated in one of the chairs flanking the fireplace, the newspaper unfolded and lifted high enough to cover his face. Honestly, she could just box his ears for him.
“Spencer, don’t be obnoxious,” she told him, plunking herself down in the facing chair.
He lowered the newspaper and peered at her overtop it. “At least I’m not looming.”
Why did she think he was adorable? She should be grabbing that newspaper from him, rolling it into a makeshift club and beating him to flinders with it. “Then what are you doing?”
“I’m controlling my temper, Mariah. Please, let me do this.” He raised the newspaper once more. “Ah,” he said. “Here’s an item about one James Stadler—he’d be the one managing the ascension, and a quite famous balloonist, to read this. And, once the balloon is on the ascent, he and others in the balloon will be dropping programs listing the order of events as well as favors and fairings to the crowd assembled below.” He set down the newspaper. “There will be rioting, people will be trampled, all to catch a prize. Don’t those idiots realize anything?”
Mariah kept her hands carefully folded in her lap. If he was going to try to leash his temper, she could only do the same. “I already read today’s newspapers from one end to the other, thank you. And may I remind you that you’re asking this question of a royal prince who orders forty-seven courses for a state dinner for six hundred people?”
“No more than five hundred, and I think it was a mere thirty courses. Our great Iron Duke must be in agony this morning,” Spencer said, then carefully folded the newspaper, calmly, precisely, before smashing it into a ball and throwing it, with some violence, into the fireplace. “Damn it—and them—all to hell!”
Mariah was fairly certain a reasonable person would retire from the field for a space, but she found herself more amused than upset. She certainly wasn’t afraid of the man or his temper. “My goodness,” she said, crossing one leg over the other as she sat back at her ease, “I think I’m trembling in my shoes. I couldn’t possibly be insane enough to bring up the subject of tonight and my intention to go with you to the park. Except that I am—bringing up the subject, that is. And going with you.”
He glared at her with those dark black eyes.
She smiled at him. “Should I fetch you something else to throw? I’m sure Julia wouldn’t mind the loss of one of these vases on the mantel, for instance. In a good cause.”
Spencer looked at his wife. Shook his head. Felt the fool. And then moved even more swiftly than he could think, grabbing her up and carrying her over to the bed, following her down until they were belly-to-belly, nose-to-nose, her glorious hair slipping free of its pins to fan out round her head. “There isn’t another person in the world who would talk to me like that,” he told her, the corners of his mouth twitching in his growing good humor. “I feel as dangerous as a cannon with its fuse pulled free. How do you manage it? How do you manage me?”
Mariah slipped her arms around his back. “I’d never dream to manage you, Spence. Who on earth would wish a docile lap pet for a husband?”
He rolled onto his back, taking her with him, so that her hair formed a living curtain of fire around them. “And who would wish a docile lap pet for a wife? Not me, it would seem,” he said before sealing his mouth against hers.
Mariah felt a flood of feeling threatening to drown her as she gave her mouth to him, gave herself over to him, allowed him to be the aggressor, the man, the husband. His passion, his frustration; he’d brought them both to her. She soothed him as he sought release from both; she aided him and guided him, her own passion rising with each kiss, each fevered caress.
The feelings were the same. The heat, the hunger. But there was also something new, something different, and when the passion burst around them they held on tightly long after that passion was spent, Mariah nestled into the curve of his shoulder, Spencer lightly stroking her hair.
“Spence?” she hazarded, the thought coming into her mind without her seeking it out. “Do you trust me?”
“I don’t sleep with a knife under my pillow, if that’s what you mean,” he told her, yawning. Between searching London from one end to the other all day and making love to his bride whenever he could, he was beginning to believe he’d never feel completely awake again.
“You’re so amusing,” Mariah said drily. “But I’m serious. Do you trust me?”
Spencer reached down to tip up her chin. “I trust you, Mariah Becket. With my son, with my life, with the lives of my family. You’ve done as you said you wanted to do—you’ve proven yourself. There, is that sincere enough for you?”
Mariah blinked back tears. But then she pushed, because that was her nature. “It’s a beginning. I suppose I’d like you to trust me with more than what happened when Beales betrayed you all. You…you could begin with telling me the name of the island. Is that such a terrible secret?”
“Ah, women. Always feeling it necessary to know every small detail,” Spencer said, then held up his hands to ward off a blow that didn’t come. “I’m not hiding anything from you, Mariah. The island never had a name. It was just what I said—the island.”
Mariah didn’t understand. “But…but Ainsley lived there for a number of years. And he never named the island? His home?”
“Think about it for a moment, Mariah. If he’d named the island, then it would be possible for one of the crew to be overheard saying that he was going to return to Victory Island, or Saint Christopher’s Island or whatever name you could think of to give an island. Soon there would be maps and the island picked out on those maps, named on those maps. Ainsley’s enemies could find him, or follow one of the crew from Port-au-Prince or wherever he might happen to be at the time. Believe me, the island wasn’t named because of any lack of imagination but out of a large portion of self-protection. Not everything is a puzzle. Now, is there anything else?”
Mariah grinned up at him. “Well, of course there is. I’m a woman, aren’t I?”
So they talked about Virginia, Spencer telling her of books he’d read, letters from his friend Abraham. About the crops grown there, the climate, the animals, even the government. He promised to let her see those books when they got back to Becket Hall. They even discussed the merits of brick as opposed to wood houses.
They talked about William, how they both missed him—and wasn’t that strange, considering that not three months ago he hadn’t really existed. Not to Spencer, who hadn’t known about Mariah’s pregnancy, and not even to Mariah, who had been more concerned with how she would feed the child, clothe the child, leaving little time to think about herself as a mother.
Spencer pressed a kiss against her temple. “I wish I could remember what happened in America. I wish I could remember you, how magnificent you were. Clovis remains quite in awe, you know.”
Mariah ran her hand over Spencer’s chest, the soft hairs that tickled at her palm. “I’m glad you don’t remember,” she told him quietly.
He could feel her body tensing, held her against him as she tried to move away, sit up. “Don’t,” he said. “I think we need to talk about this, just the once. Did…did I hurt you?”
Mariah closed her eyes, took in a breath and let it out slowly. “I would suppose that was inevitable. I was a virgin. Which is no excuse. You were feverish, out of your mind with that fever. I could have overpowered you, pushed you away. I didn’t.”
“And I hurt you.”
Now she did struggle out of his arms, to raise herself up, look at him through the wild curtain of her hair. “You held me. You made me feel alive. You frightened me and you saved me. Your touch told me I was a woman, that my life wasn’t over, that there were still things for me live for, to experience. What…what if there had been no William? What would I have done? Because I don’t know, Spencer, I really don’t. Once we were safe in Canada, there was nothing for me. Nowhere to go, no one for me to take care of—no one to care for me.”
She pressed a fist into her abdomen. “You didn’t hurt me, Spencer. Not in any way that counts. You very possibly may have saved me.”
He pulled her down against him once more, relief flooding him as he realized how much he’d needed to hear her say those words. “As you saved me.”
Mariah smiled, her heart lightened. “Yes, I did, didn’t I? My, aren’t we both marvelous creatures?”
Spencer threw back his head and laughed, then pushed Mariah over onto her back and kissed her. And kissed her. And then kissed her again….
They were lying together once more, still breathing rather heavily from a mutually pleasurable exertion, when Chance knocked on the door and called through the thick wood. “There’ll be no dinner gong tonight, as Julia insists on sampling every booth in the park. Be ready to leave in an hour, all right?”
Spencer called back his agreement even as Mariah climbed out of the bed, dragging the sheet with her and wrapping it around her body, throwing one end up and over her shoulder. “You look like a Greek statue come to life, wife.”
Mariah was momentarily diverted, flattered. But just because she was still feeling warm and rosy from his lovemaking didn’t mean she was about to allow him to sneak away to the park without her. “Thank you. Now get dressed, please, so you can help me back on with my gown. We don’t want to keep everyone else waiting, do we?”
Spencer opened his mouth to protest and then just waved his hands in front of him as if to erase what he’d almost said. “They don’t have to wait for us. I chose the long straw, and we’ll be cooling our heels in St. James’s Park while Chance and Julia position themselves within sight of the Prince Regent and Rian and Billy make their rounds in Green Park.”
Mariah paused, half bent over, reaching to retrieve her undergarments from the floor, then gave up any notion of modesty, letting the sheet drop as she picked up her shift. “St. James’s Park? But why? I can understand you and Chance shuffling poor Rian off to where he’ll be safe. I know we have to divide our forces, keep watching for Renard and Nicolette, even though she hasn’t yet returned to the shop as she said she would to retrieve her new bonnet. But why would we expect anything to happen in St. James’s Park?”
“And why would I think you’d be happy just to be included in the plans? I should have known better. And, General Becket, we’re doing it this way because Chance received a note from Wellington late last night. It seems that the Czar has voiced a wish to personally inspect the Chinese pagoda at some point tonight, and now they’ll all be riding over there in state coaches. If we know this, we can’t be sure Renard doesn’t also know, so somebody is already guarding the pagoda and keeping an eye on the area.”
She pulled her gown over her head, let it drop around her shoulders. “Oh. Well, I suppose that’s a credible reason.”
“I’ll tell Chance you’ve agreed. I’m sure it will greatly relieve his mind to know that Our Lady of the Swamp has approved his plan.”
“Yes, he should be,” Mariah said, ignoring Spencer’s sarcasm. “Wait here. Don’t say another word.” Holding her unbuttoned gown at the shoulders, she raced into her dressing room to retrieve a fresh pair of white silk stockings. Perching on the end of one of the chairs in front of the fireplace, she began smoothing them up over her foot and leg.
Spencer pushed his arms into the sleeves of his coat and then simply watched her as she finished with her right leg and began slipping the silk onto the left. “Would you consider wearing those to bed?” he asked, then laughed when she shot him a shocked look. “And no, I’m not looming this time, Mariah. I’m leering. Let me help you with the fastenings on your gown.”
“I don’t think so, Spencer Becket, or the Prince Regent will be starting his Grand Jubilee without us. I’ll meet you downstairs. Oh, wait.”
“Good thing you aren’t leading this particular army. Chance is waiting for me.”
“Yes, yes,” she told him, hurrying back over to the bedside table. “But you can’t go without this.” She held up the gad he’d taken off because he hadn’t wanted the alligator tooth amulet to scratch Mariah’s fair skin. He lowered his head as she slipped the thin leather strip over it, patted the tooth as it laid against his shirt. “There. Now you can go.”
Spencer tucked the gad beneath his hastily tied neck cloth. “You really believe in Odette’s nonsense?”
“I believe in anything that might help us. I’ve been wearing my own gad pinned to my undergarments since the day Odette gave it to me.”
Spencer nodded, his mind suddenly and completely concentrated on the night ahead of them. “You’re right. We’ll believe in anything that might help us.”