A Most Unsuitable Groom by Kasey Michaels (37 page)

He took hold of her upper arms, breathing heavily as was she, and crushed her mouth in a short, hard kiss before looking at her, his dark eyes intense. "I love you, Mariah Becket."

Mariah looked up at him, unable to move, unable to say a word, her head positively spinning. He loved her? He
loved
her!

"Yes," he said, grinning at her. "I thought that would do it. Clovis, take her. And if she tries to follow me— tackle her if you have to!"

"Um...sure thing, Lieutenant," Clovis said, his hands now clamped on Mariah's upper arms as he stood in front of her, his smile apologetic and a bit sickly. "Please don't make me tackle you, Missus," he begged as Spencer took Aloysius and two others with him, directing the remaining three men to his left so that they would come up on the area behind the bridge on both flanks.

"Clovis?" Mariah asked, regaining her bearings.

"Yes, Missus," he said, his hands still tight on her arms.

"I've got a pistol, Clovis. Feel it? I will use it on you, or I will use it to help my husband. My husband who loves me. Which would you like me to do?"

"Ah, now, Missus, you wouldn't do that to—"

Her hand inserted through the slit in her gown, Mariah pushed the barrel of the pistol more firmly against the body part Clovis probably cherished more than all others in this world. "I would, Clovis. You were with me in the swamp. You know I don't threaten. Not more than once. Now, Corporal Meechum, I've given you an order. Take your hands off me, Clovis...now."

"No, Missus, I can't do that. He loves you. I heard him, too. So I'm guessin' you'll just have to kill me, because the lieutenant will, if you don't."

"Oh, for pity's sake! Clovis, you love him, don't you?"

"Yes, Missus. He's my lieutenant."

"And I love him. He's my husband. So? Are we both just going to keep standing here?" She looked up as that peculiar sound, so different from the rockets meant to carry only fireworks, boomed and whistled yet again. And still nobody else seemed to notice. "Are we, Clovis?"

Clovis dropped his hands away from her. "He went that way, Missus."

Mariah didn't run, as she knew enough to be aware that the worst thing that could happen would be to inadvertently put Clovis and herself between Spencer and whoever was sending those deadly rockets into the air. So, instead of a full, frontal assault on the area, she cut far to the right side of the bridge, then circled around through the cover of a small stand of plane trees, hoping to come up behind Spencer as she called his name as quietly as possible.

Stopping behind one of the trees, she raised a hand to signal Clovis to halt and peered out into the cleared area where many of the fireworks had been assembled, lined up in clay pots all across the rear of the bridge and the Chinese Pagoda at its center. Several men holding brightly burning torches stood behind the rows of pots and, as she watched, one of them lowered his torch to the thick wick trailing away from one of the pots and, moments later, a white-hot fireball shot nearly straight into the air.

"Fireworks. They're simply setting off the fireworks. The real rockets must be somewhere else," she told Clovis, signaling that he should follow her as she threaded her way through the trees once more, still circling behind the bridge. "Damn! There goes another one. Did you see where it came from, Clovis?"

"I did that, Missus," Clovis said, pointing to a smaller clearing just now visible as they crept out of the trees, keeping behind some tall bushes that smelled slightly singed from all the gunpowder.

Even as Mariah watched, Spencer, Aloysius and two of the Becket Hall men crashed into the clearing, pistols drawn. There were no loud reports of gunshots, not that the noise would be remarkable with all the cheering and shouting coming from the main area of the park. Mariah shot a triumphant fist into the air as she could see the three men dressed all in black quickly lay down their torches and raise their hands in surrender—what her father would have called a bloodless coup of sorts, she supposed.

"Don't shoot, Spencer," she called out as she and Clovis emerged from the bushes, even as the rest of the Becket men joined the small group and began kicking over the metal stands holding three-foot-tall rockets aimed up and over the Chinese pagoda.

Spencer had just turned to look at Mariah, his mouth opening to tell her he knew full well that she'd never stay where he'd put her, when two men, also dressed in black, their lower faces covered by black silk, stepped out of the trees behind her. One of them knocked Clovis to the ground with the barrel of his pistol; the other grabbed Mariah and twisted her pistol out of her hand.

"We meet again, Mr. Joseph Abbott," the slighter man drawled, tightening his grip on Mariah, who knew she was being employed as a human shield and wasn't exactly willing to be that cooperative. "Later,
mon cherie doux,"
he whispered into her ear, "you may wriggle all you wish beneath me as I delight you past all bearing and then strangle you with your own fiery hair. I've thought about that a time or two, since last we met. But for now you will remain still
or your Mr. Abbott dies."

Mariah ceased her struggles and looked to Spencer.

"Let her go," Spencer ordered, leveling his pistol at the man. "Cowards, the pair of you, hiding your faces, hiding behind a woman. But it's Renard, isn't it? I think I can hear the same slime in your voice as I did in Calais."

"You would have known more than my voice had you stayed in Calais as you were supposed to, Mr. Abbott, or whatever your true name might be. I had so anticipated slicing your throat once we'd had a small chat as to the name of your employer. The War Office? You work for them, I suppose?"

The second man spoke.
"Tenez un moment, Renard, ne le tuez pas. Je connais ces yeux foncés, ce regard féroce. La mémoire vient clairement à moi maintenant. Spencer ? Les dents du Christ, c 'est la petite pousse, un des bâtards orphelins de notre vieux Geoffrey d'ami. Lui et moi ont beaueoup à parler. Je vous promets, Edmund embrasserai vos deuxjoues pour ceci."

Mariah's heart, already beating quickly, threatened to burst out of her chest as she translated the man's words in her head.
Hold a moment, Renard, don't kill him. 1 know those dark eyes, that fierce look. The memory comes clear to me now. Spencer? Christ's teeth, it's the little sprout, one of our old friend Geoffrey's orphan bastards. He and I have much to talk about. I promise you, Edmund will kiss both your cheeks for this.

"He knows!" Mariah shouted in warning. "Spencer, he knows who you are. Oh, God—"

Renard's forearm, tight against her throat, silenced Mariah, but didn't stop her from kicking back frantically with her heel, banging hard against the man's shin. Once, twice.

He reciprocated by slamming the butt of his pistol against the side of her head and she dropped to the ground beside Clovis.

"Bastard!" Spencer yelled, his opponent's shield gone now, and he leveled his pistol, fired from no more than six feet away, the ball making a small black hole in the center of Renard's forehead.

One of the Becket men with him tossed Spencer his pistol, which Spencer immediately pointed at the second Frenchman. But it was too late. The large man had pulled Mariah up by her hair and was now shielding himself with her limp, unconscious body even as he held a pistol pressed into her ribs.

"Well met, little sprout," the Frenchman said, already backing toward the bridge. "And Geoffrey? He lives? The coward lives?"

"He's no coward, Jules," Spencer said, daring a step forward, his pistol still trained on the man, not trusting himself to look at Mariah. "Beales is the coward. The cowardly murderer."

"Oh, yes, yes, the murderer. How terrible. Missed you, though, sprout, didn't we? Pity, that. Now," he said, hefting Mariah's body slightly as he ground the pistol barrel into her side, "we have us a dilemma of sorts here, don't we, sprout? I most certainly can't hold this woman much longer, especially if she begins to rouse, and I think you may care for her. Lacking a third arm, I can't easily snap her neck, now can I, keeping my pistol for you, and if I kill her, I die." He sighed theatrically. "What to do, what to do? Perhaps I'll merely choke her. Just a little bit."

"Just let her go, Jules, and I'll let you go," Spencer said, his intense gaze locked on Mariah, his prayer that she wouldn't begin to rouse, to struggle. "After all, we can't know if your plan has succeeded, can we? Do you really want to die not knowing if one of your rockets has killed the Prince Regent and the others?"

"The rockets?" Jules laughed out loud. "A diversion only, little sprout. No one can know for certain where one of Congreve's inventive toys might land, although we were assured that at least half of them would reach Hyde Park. No. It is as all those fat, panicked old men and their painted women race to protect themselves that my men will strike. Quickly, out of the darkness, a full two score of trained assassins. Martyrs all to the cause, willing to die, but not before their assigned targets are dead. I would have been with them, Renard and I both, save for the part about the martyrdom. Only fools die for what they are taught to believe is a grand, even holy purpose. Your fat prince may already be gutted, God willing. Sweet Jesus, this bitch becomes heavy."

"Then let her go. I promise, Jules, I won't shoot you," Spencer said, tossing his own pistol to the ground, aware that, behind Jules, Clovis had begun to wake up. Please God, don't let Clovis decide after years of avoiding such a thing that he wanted to play the hero. "See? You and I, we'll meet another day."

"Ah, but my good friend Edmund would not be happy if I told him I'd seen you, seen the little sprout, and then let him go. I fear we are at an impasse. So you will come with me. Have your loyal men put down their weapons as my loyal men regain theirs. That is, if you want this pretty little baggage to live."

"Agreed," Spencer said, motioning for his men to throw down their remaining weapons.

"Sir?" Aloysius all but bleated. "It's thinking, I am, that you've had better ideas, sir."

"Do as I said, Anguish," Spencer spat quickly and then added for Clovis's benefit, as the man had now gotten to his hands and knees behind Jules, "We will not do anything that might endanger Mariah any further. Not a single movement without a surety of success.
Do you understand?"

Clovis slowly sank back down on the ground.

"But Mr. Chance, sir," Aloysius persisted. "What do we tell him?"

"Mr. Chance?" Jules stepped back several more paces, past Clovis, closer to the end of the bridge, dragging Mariah along with him, his forearm hard across her windpipe. "Oh, if that isn't wonderful. Geoffrey's favorite bastard whelp. You're all here in London? And Billy? The inestimable Jacko? All of your miserable, cowardly crew? Geoffrey lives, doesn't he? How delicious. Come along, sprout—we have so much to talk about."