A Most Unsuitable Groom by Michaels Kasey

Author:Michaels, Kasey [Michaels, Kasey]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781460305454
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2007-04-02T07:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mariah was asleep on one of the couches when Spencer unlocked the door from the bedchamber and came into the room, the door swinging back so wildly against the wall that she half jumped from the couch to confront him.

"We're leaving as soon as you can make yourself ready," he told her, looking toward the bandboxes in the center of the room. "Good, you haven't unpacked. Clovis has a closed coach waiting in the alleyway. Mariah? Don't stand there gawking at me. I want to catch the wind before it has a chance to turn."

"I'm not gawking, I'm exhausted." Mariah rubbed at her eyes, then read the time on the mantel clock. Just past four. "What... what happened?"

Spencer picked up the bandboxes even as he tossed the paisley shawl at her so that she automatically reached out and caught it. "It's not what happened, Mariah. It's what's going to happen. Quickly, before they discuss the thing and decide I might take it into my head to disappear."

She would have thought he was being melodramatic had she not seen Renard for herself. As it was, she wanted nothing more than to be shed of this hotel, this place, the memory of Nicolette's pleadings, the sounds of Renard beating her.

Anguish led them down steep servants' stairs and through the boiling-hot kitchens of the hotel, the smell of roasting chickens fairly turning Mariah's stomach, and then she was all but tossed into the dark interior of a nondescript coach with the side windows covered.

Spencer sat in the seat facing hers, dropping one of the shades to keep a watch out of one window for the few minutes it took for the coach to push through the crowds of people and vehicles before the horses were pulled up and the coach stopped, the off-wheel sinking low into a small ditch.

Such a fine beginning. Such an ignoble ending.

Then it was a barely controlled dash across the wide, still-bustling beach to the longboat and the half dozen seamen waiting inside it to row them out into the harbor to where the Athena-dubbed Respite waited. As they reached the side and the rope ladder, it was to see the anchor already being hauled up, the sails unfurling and flapping loudly, filling with the constant breeze from the Channel.

It was the retreat from Detroit all over again. Only better managed, thank God.

Mariah put up her hand to be hoisted aboard and felt her wrist clasped tightly and given a hearty yank. She scrambled the last few feet and landed with a thump on her knees on the deck, thoroughly winded and more than a little upset.

"You weren't hauling up wood, you know," she muttered, shaking back the hood of her cloak as she stood up to glare at the bandy-legged little man who was grinning at her as if she was the most amusing thing he'd ever seen.

"Ah, now look at that hair, would you, buckos. Like living, breathing flame, ain't it?"

Mariah narrowed her eyes,

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