and again. "Forgive me. I should be courting you, shouldn't I?"
Mariah gave a short, nervous laugh. "Courting me? Really? With our son as chaperon, I suppose?"
The tense moment was broken, saved by Mariah's teasing remark, and Spencer laughed, that laugh ripe with relief. "I've got to go. You'll...you'll be all right here?"
"They're your family, Spence," Mariah said, lifting up William, who was now asleep. "You'd know the answer to that better than I."
His smile disappeared. "You'll be safe. We protect our own. Believe me when I say we've learned that lesson well."
And then, before he could say anything else, before she could ask him what he meant, he turned and left the room.
Scanned by Coral
----
CHAPTER SIX
Mariah was standing at the far corner of the terrace as the sloop anchored offshore, peering through the glass she'd seen days earlier in Ainsley's study and commandeered later that same evening, hiding it away in her room. After all, if there was one thing a quartermaster's daughter knew how to do, it was how to appropriate necessary supplies with a clear conscience. Hadn't her father told her that a quartermaster, especially in time of war, was actually little more than a thief with stripes on his uniform sleeve, gathering supplies for his troops by any means available?
Ainsley probably knew she had taken the spyglass. There didn't seem to be much Ainsley Becket didn't know, and if he didn't, Odette did. Or Eleanor. Or Callie. Or Fanny. Or Rian. Or Courtland.
So many people. She was surrounded by people who saw everything, noticed everything... and commented on very little.
They were all so friendly and welcoming, all of the Beckets. And yet, after a full week of being in their company at meals, in the drawing room after supper, Mariah knew that they had garnered much more information from her than she had managed to nudge out of any one of them.
She felt she had all the names and even the faces of the many Beckets straight in her head now, thanks to fine drawings Eleanor had made of her siblings and their mates and children. In return, Mariah had sketched Tecumseh's likeness for them all in colored chalks, and Rian had begged for the page, planning to hang it in his bedchamber.
They were all rubbing along well, quite well.
Yet Mariah knew only one thing for certain and that was that she still knew next to nothing. Fort Maiden, any of the outposts she had lived in with her father, even those surrounded by stout wooden walls, felt more open and free than Becket HalL If Spencer felt confined here, she could understand his feelings. But who were the hostiles the Beckets felt it necessary to protect themselves from, to keep at bay?
Eight days had passed since she'd seen Spencer walking across the sands; eight days since he'd lied to her, kissed her and then left her.
The Beckets were freetraders, smugglers. There was no other explanation, no matter what Spencer had tried to make her believe. A family living outside the King's law. Had they lived outside the law in the islands, as well? Privateering—or worse? It seemed quite plausible. Even the furnishings of Becket Hall were the stuff of which pirate booty was made.
A few kisses, a few, moments of madness, hadn't held up well when she'd been left alone for eight long days to think.
She and her son were now a part of this nefarious, fascinating family. Which, Mariah had to admit to herself, still far outstripped giving birth at a crossroads and living under a hedgerow, which was what she would have been reduced to if she hadn't been welcomed at Becket Hall. The last of the money her father had carried had gone for their passage to England and the traveling coach, and she had little more to her name now than the clothes she stood up in. Everything else, a broken wa-gonload of furniture and pots and even a few portraits of her mother, had been left behind at Moraviantown to become part of the spoils of war that went to the victor.
Spencer Becket may
Mariah gave a short, nervous laugh. "Courting me? Really? With our son as chaperon, I suppose?"
The tense moment was broken, saved by Mariah's teasing remark, and Spencer laughed, that laugh ripe with relief. "I've got to go. You'll...you'll be all right here?"
"They're your family, Spence," Mariah said, lifting up William, who was now asleep. "You'd know the answer to that better than I."
His smile disappeared. "You'll be safe. We protect our own. Believe me when I say we've learned that lesson well."
And then, before he could say anything else, before she could ask him what he meant, he turned and left the room.
Scanned by Coral
----
CHAPTER SIX
Mariah was standing at the far corner of the terrace as the sloop anchored offshore, peering through the glass she'd seen days earlier in Ainsley's study and commandeered later that same evening, hiding it away in her room. After all, if there was one thing a quartermaster's daughter knew how to do, it was how to appropriate necessary supplies with a clear conscience. Hadn't her father told her that a quartermaster, especially in time of war, was actually little more than a thief with stripes on his uniform sleeve, gathering supplies for his troops by any means available?
Ainsley probably knew she had taken the spyglass. There didn't seem to be much Ainsley Becket didn't know, and if he didn't, Odette did. Or Eleanor. Or Callie. Or Fanny. Or Rian. Or Courtland.
So many people. She was surrounded by people who saw everything, noticed everything... and commented on very little.
They were all so friendly and welcoming, all of the Beckets. And yet, after a full week of being in their company at meals, in the drawing room after supper, Mariah knew that they had garnered much more information from her than she had managed to nudge out of any one of them.
She felt she had all the names and even the faces of the many Beckets straight in her head now, thanks to fine drawings Eleanor had made of her siblings and their mates and children. In return, Mariah had sketched Tecumseh's likeness for them all in colored chalks, and Rian had begged for the page, planning to hang it in his bedchamber.
They were all rubbing along well, quite well.
Yet Mariah knew only one thing for certain and that was that she still knew next to nothing. Fort Maiden, any of the outposts she had lived in with her father, even those surrounded by stout wooden walls, felt more open and free than Becket HalL If Spencer felt confined here, she could understand his feelings. But who were the hostiles the Beckets felt it necessary to protect themselves from, to keep at bay?
Eight days had passed since she'd seen Spencer walking across the sands; eight days since he'd lied to her, kissed her and then left her.
The Beckets were freetraders, smugglers. There was no other explanation, no matter what Spencer had tried to make her believe. A family living outside the King's law. Had they lived outside the law in the islands, as well? Privateering—or worse? It seemed quite plausible. Even the furnishings of Becket Hall were the stuff of which pirate booty was made.
A few kisses, a few, moments of madness, hadn't held up well when she'd been left alone for eight long days to think.
She and her son were now a part of this nefarious, fascinating family. Which, Mariah had to admit to herself, still far outstripped giving birth at a crossroads and living under a hedgerow, which was what she would have been reduced to if she hadn't been welcomed at Becket Hall. The last of the money her father had carried had gone for their passage to England and the traveling coach, and she had little more to her name now than the clothes she stood up in. Everything else, a broken wa-gonload of furniture and pots and even a few portraits of her mother, had been left behind at Moraviantown to become part of the spoils of war that went to the victor.
Spencer Becket may
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