A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels by Kasey Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

so much he couldn't remember. How in hell could a man forget bedding this woman? "You must have hated me then."
    "I can't hate you now. Look at him. Something good, coming out of something so terrible. So many lives lost, and now there's him."
    Spencer sat on the side of the bed, laid his hand on the small, tightly swaddled infant. "Let's begin again," he suggested quietly, then smiled. "No, let's begin. There's no again about it, is there? For William?"
    Mariah pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. "I'm so tired. I feel as if I've been fighting forever, fighting the entire world. I don't want to fight with you now, too" She managed a watery smile. "Besides, Eleanor tells me you're all bluster and heat and hot passions, but really a very nice man. Of course, she's your sister so she probably doesn't really know you all that well."
    "You're right," Spencer said, grinning in relief. "I'm actually a blackguard who sold his soul to the devil years ago. We just don't tell Elly because she likes to think the best of everyone."
    Mariah returned his smile. "You look nothing like her or the man I met downstairs last night. You said you were adopted. And Eleanor?"
    Spencer made a small face. This was going to be difficult. There were things he could tell her and much more he could never tell her. Giving birth to his son did not make Mariah Rutledge a Becket.
    The baby stirred in her arms and he pressed a finger against William's opening hand, only to have the child grasp that finger tightly.
    "Our son has Spanish blood," he began slowly, feeling his way. "At least that's what we believe. I'm told that I spat some fairly choice Spanish at Ainsley the day he found me, took me home with him. Unfortunately, I've forgotten most of it."
    "I don't understand."
    "I wouldn't expect you to," Spencer told her, smiling even as he sorted facts in his mind, deciding what to reveal, what to conceal. "Ainsley isn't my father or father to any of us except Cassandra— Callie—whose letter you found. The rest of us? Flotsam and jetsam he picked up along the way when he was living in the islands. Haiti. Have you heard of it?"
    Mariah nodded. "I think 1 could point it out on a map, yes. To the south and east of the American Florida, yes? It must be warm there."
    And then it got hot...too hot to remain there.
    "Papa...Ainsley owned sailing ships. Trading ships," he said, keeping to the story that had been told for so long that he sometimes even believed it.
    "And you all lived on the island. Haiti."
    "No, not on Haiti itself. We, um, we had our own island. There are several to choose from in the area"
    Why, the man sounded positively embarrassed. Or leery of telling her about his youth. Which was it? "Oh, my. That does sound important. And wonderfully warm weather for all of the year. No snow, no ice freezing over the rivers every winter so that you are virtually isolated from the world. How could you bear to leave?"
    "The girls were beginning to grow up, so he decided it was time to return to England. And here we are."
    "And who are we?"
    Spencer felt on firmer ground here. "I told you that Callie is Ainsley's own child. Her mother died shortly after she was born. Callie's—good God, she's about sixteen now. You'll meet her soon enough, I'm sure— it's difficult to keep Callie away from anything she wants. And then there's Morgan. This is her bedchamber, hers and her husband's, when they visit here from Ethan's estate. Morgan's the Countess of Aylesford now and the mother of twins I've yet to see, now that the earl is making himself useful at the War Office and a nuisance in Parliament—but that's another story"
    "One I hope to hear," Mariah said, committing the names to memory. "And the young man from last night? Rian, was it?"
    He nodded, "You'll have to excuse him. He isn't usually so silly. Ainsley gathered up Rian and Fanny from the rubble of a church that had taken cannon fire." He smiled wanly. "Another long story, I'm afraid."
    "Fanny