“Right, that’s it, tomorrow. Five Courts. We’ll just see who’s too old.”
Harry cracked his knuckles with delight. “I accept. Been a while since I boxed with you. I still owe you for the time you blackened my eye.”
Noble rubbed the bump that marred an otherwise flawless nose. “And I owe you for breaking my nose. Good luck…and Harry?”
Harry paused as he was about to get into his carriage. “Yes?”
Noble gave him a look filled with concern. “Have a care. With all the men you’ve got guarding the children and your wife, your mysterious assailant may think it’s easier to attack you.”
“What a singularly charming thought. If only he would be so kind as to do that.” Harry shook his head as he waved his friend off. He was still dwelling on the number of tortures he’d like to inflict on the man who had tried to harm his children when the carriage pulled up outside his biscuit-colored stone town house. He frowned. There seemed to be a number of people outside on the street, and was that yelling he heard from inside the house?
Harry pushed his way through the crowd that had gathered at the steps leading to the doors, racing up them with a heart suddenly wrung painfully tight at the thought of trouble.
The sight that met his eyes as he dashed inside was so astounding he came to a halt. It was as if a tornado had set down right there in the hall, a tornado made up of several rings of people and children and a number of cats he recognized as belonging to Thom. The cats were running in a frenzied circle in the ring closest to him, around the perimeter of the hall, being chased by a small white-and-black calf that bore a short piece of rope tied around its neck and a wild look in its eyes. McTavish—who for some reason was nude except for a pair of too-large slippers that Harry recognized as being an old pair of his—chased after the animals. Two footmen and George chased after McTavish. Beyond the circling animals, a man he didn’t know lay on the floor, evidently having been knocked unconscious, while another was on his hands and knees, his arms held protectively over his head as he yelled a number of curses at the twins, who were taking turns beating him with two chamber pots. Harry spent a moment in gratitude that the pots had not been in use before the twins decided to beat the stranger with them, then moved his gaze to the next group of people.
Thom was arguing violently with a man in the dark clothing of a watch officer, waving her hands and yelling above the sound of the children and animals. Beyond Thom a man of middle years was being accosted by Digger and India, both of whom were trying to pull him away from the door to the library. The man was obviously trying not to hurt the children as he pried their hands from his arms, but no sooner had he removed one hand than another latched onto him, the children yelling at the top of their lungs all the while. Plum stood in the doorway to the library, wringing her hands and pleading with Juan to remove himself from where he stood with outstretched arms, as if protecting her from harm.
Harry watched it all for a moment—animals, children, servants, strangers, and Plum—then put his fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle that sounded painfully loud in such a confined space.
Miraculously, it worked. For a moment. Then the animals, children, servants, strangers, and Plum all descended upon him. “Halt!” Harry bellowed, then took immediate charge. He pulled off his jacket and handed it to George. “You children, to the right, over there in the corner. George, put this on McTavish. Ben, Sam: you two and Juan to the left, near the door. You, the one on your knees, help your friend into that chair. I don’t know who you are, sir, but I will thank you to stop glaring at my wife, she’s in a delicate condition. Please move yourself over there, near the stairs. Plum—” He held open his arms. She ran to him, clinging to his shoulders as she glared back at the man.
“Harry, that man says Charles is dead. Is it true? Is he really dead? Did you—you didn’t—you didn’t arrange—”
“Yes, yes, and no to all the rest.” Harry dropped a little kiss on her head just because he felt like it. He gently removed her hands from his shoulders, turning her so her back was to him, wrapping his arms around her in a protective gesture that he assumed the man standing near the stairs could not mistake. “I gather you are with the police force?”
The man bowed. He was a few inches shorter than Harry and had black eyes that glittered brightly in the soft glow of the lamps. “I am Sir Paul Stanford, my lord. I have the honor of being in command of the police within the bounds of the city. If I might have a word with you and your lady, I believe we can clear up this situation.”
“You will not take my most very lady into custard!” Juan declared, tearing himself from where the footmen held him, throwing himself at Plum’s feet, spreading his arms wide to protect her. “I will tear out your heart and eat it before your so black eyes if you try to take her, you worm the most pestilential, you!”
“Don’t let them take Plum,” India cried, running forward. The remaining children erupted from behind her, swarming him and Plum. “We like her! We want her to stay! She takes us places and doesn’t make us do our lessons and she lets me put my hair up. Don’t let that man take her!”
“Want Mama!” McTavish said, holding up his arms.
“Oh, you darling children,” Plum said, gathering them together in a hug. “You all mean so much to me! I couldn’t love you more if I had borne you myself. My sweet, adorable darlings.”
Harry had a very, very bad feeling. He looked over her head to where Sir Paul stood. “Would you care to explain why my family and servants are under the impression you mean to take my wife into custody?”
Sir Paul had the grace to look abashed. “If we might discuss the issue in private?”
Plum released the children and turned to him, her lovely velvety eyes hard with pain. “Sir Paul says he has proof that I killed Charles. He said he has a letter from Charles threatening me, and one of his men—”
“The one we hit on the head until he went to sleep,” Anne interrupted with no little amount of satisfaction, pointing to the still unconscious man now slumped in a chair.
“—one of his men found my scenarios when he searched the house. Harry, I didn’t kill him.”
He took her face in his hands, and before everyone, kissed the protestations right off her lips. “I know you didn’t, love. Don’t worry, we’ll get this straightened out.”
Plum trembled, but it wasn’t with fear, it was with the soul-deep love for Harry that made her feel as if she were invincible. As long as she had him and Thom and the children, she could not be harmed.
She turned to the man who had apologetically informed her that he had reason to believe she was involved with Charles’s death. “Would you please go into the library, Sir Paul? Thom, you and George and the footmen take the children to the park for their outing. Juan, I greatly appreciate your brave and very selfless attempt to save me, not to mention your offer to tear out Sir Paul’s heart, fry it, and eat it before his eyes while it was still smoking, but do you think you could release my knees? Harry, shall we?”
“Most certainly we shall,” Harry said, giving Juan a meaningful look as Plum extricated her knees with some difficulty from Juan’s fervent embrace.
With her head held high, Plum led the way into the library, seating herself in one of the two chairs before the large ebony table that Harry used as a desk. “Perhaps you would repeat to my husband what you told me?”
Sir Paul accepted her gesture toward the second chair, composing his face into one that reflected abject apology and no little distaste for the task at hand. Harry, to Plum’s surprise, did not take his seat at the desk, but stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder as if to show his support. Joy swelled within her for a few precious seconds before Sir Paul’s words deflated it, turning her insides cold and clammy as if they were made up of day-old gruel.
“It is with the greatest reluctance that I inform you I am ordered to take Lady Rosse into
charge until such time as the magistrate can review the case against her regarding the mysterious death of the Honorable Charles de Spenser, youngest brother of the Earl of St. Mead.”
“What case?” Harry asked, his voice even and apparently unconcerned, but Plum knew better. His tight grip on her shoulder belied his placid facade. “What reason, what proof can you possibly have that would make you think my wife, a gentle lady, a marchioness, would dirty her hands with the murder of a man so wholly unconnected to her?”
Plum smiled a sad little smile to herself. Harry was using what she had privately dubbed his marquis voice, the voice he used whenever he wanted to intimidate someone with his title and consequence. Unfortunately, she had no belief it would hold sway with Sir Paul.
“There are three reasons we believe that Lady Rosse is involved with the death of Mr. de Spenser. The first is this letter, recovered from his body.”
Harry looked startled for a moment as Sir Paul handed him a somewhat battered and grubby letter. Plum flinched a little at the sight of it. She’d read it earlier when Sir Paul had come to take her into charge. She could not deny the letter was from Charles, addressed to her.
“Hmm…vague innuendo, vaguer threat…”
“Keep reading,” Sir Paul said, his eyes black and impossible to read.
“‘If you do not pay me the sum we discussed Monday past, I will be forced to reveal all I know, thereby regrettably causing the ruin of yourself and your noble husband. I have not yet spoken to anyone of our past, but do not fool yourself into thinking the price for my silence is gratitude. I do not fear bringing my own good name into speculation. Our relationship was of a nature such that censure cannot fall upon me, but you will, I fear, feel it most heavily once the truth is known about your literary accomplishment. Lest you imagine I am not serious in my intention to make all known, I would be happy to forward you a copy of a letter which is but awaiting word from me to be delivered to the Times. They will, I have no fear, print it immediately upon receipt. I remain, yours…’ I fail to see how de Spenser’s threats of blackmail lead you to believe that my wife—a woman in a delicate condition—would murder the man. It’s outrageous! Entirely unlikely! You could just as soon say my children were responsible for his death as Plum.”
Plum tried to rally a smile at Harry’s outraged attempt to shield her. The truth was much less amusing.
“My lord, you will forgive me, this is no slight upon the characters of your children, but as they did bring down one of my men armed with nothing but two chamber pots, and were quite likely to bring down the second—”
Harry cleared his throat. “Regardless of that, this letter is no proof of Plum’s guilt.”
“There are also these.”
Plum licked her lips nervously. She had no trouble recognizing the sheets of foolscap she had used to write out her scenarios.
Harry glanced at them, not even bothering to take them. “I know about those. My wife has literary ambitions. She was no doubt simply putting to pen a few scenes for a novel.”
“A novel featuring a variety of detailed methods of ruining a man named Charles?”
“I have always detested the name Charles,” Plum said without the slightest conviction that Sir Paul would believe her. “It just came to me.”
His black eyes considered her for a moment. Harry’s fingers tightened on her shoulders until the grip hurt.
“My lady, I do not doubt that you have the greatest literary skills—anyone who could write so imaginative and detail-rich a book as the Guide to Connubial Calisthenics could not help but write creative methods to destroy the man who threatened her future—but I do not for one moment believe you wrote these descriptions as a piece of fiction.”
“You mentioned three items,” Harry drawled in a bored voice before Plum could dispute Sir Paul’s statement—not that she could without lying, and she hated to lie outright, although she would if it meant saving Harry or the children from grief. “What is the third?”
“A description given by a man who saw Mr. de Spenser walking last night with a very agitated woman of Lady Rosse’s coloring, a lady who was wearing a blue-and-gold dress remarkably similar to the one we found in Lady Rosse’s wardrobe.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Plum snorted, nervously aware that if Sir Paul found out she’d left the Davells’ home early, her goose would really be plucked. “My niece and I were out last evening at a private dinner party at the home of Sir Ben and Lady Davell. They will tell you we were there.”
“I have already spoken to Lady Davell,” the police head answered, his eyes filled with a light of speculation that had all hope within her plummeting to her boots. Her goose wasn’t just plucked, it was roasted and carved. “She informs me that you left early, leaving your niece behind. No one seems to have seen you leave. I find that extremely…curious.”
Plum glanced at Harry, unsure of what to say about their assignation.
“My wife was with me after she left the Davell home,” Harry said quickly. “I can vouch for her whereabouts from nine o’clock on. Your witness is mistaken.”
“No doubt you can vouch for her,” Sir Paul said smoothly. “Alas, sometimes gentlemen are mistaken about such matters as time, especially when it concerns their wives.”
“Dammit, man, are you accusing me of lying?”
Plum got to her feet, holding Harry back as he lunged forward.
Sir Paul also rose to his feet, slowly, as if he was savoring a pleasure. “I would not be so foolish, my lord. I suggest simply that you might be mistaken. And now, if you will excuse me, I must return to my offices…with Lady Rosse. I’m sure you understand that it is with the greatest regret that I must ask her to accompany me, but as you have no explanations for the proofs I have submitted—” He shrugged a delicate shrug.
Plum decided she loathed him, but realized that if she did not agree to be taken into custody, Harry would fight to the death to keep her free. She couldn’t allow that; she couldn’t bring even more trouble onto his head than she’d already caused. She had to go with the odious Sir Paul even though every fiber of her body protested against leaving Harry.
“Your proofs are nothing but cobwebs, insubstantial and unbelievable. I will not tolerate you slandering my wife in this manner. You will take her from this house over my cold, lifeless body!”
“Harry,” she said, turning her back to Sir Paul, facing her husband. She took one of his hands, rubbing his knuckles gently against her cheek, smiling into the fury that darkened his eyes from their normal hazel to almost pure forest green. “It’s all right. We both know I’m innocent, and the innocent have nothing to fear. I will go with Sir Paul now, and you will contact your solicitor and see about having me remanded to your custody.”
“No. It’s unthinkable that my wife should be taken away like a common criminal—”
“I know, my darling. I don’t like it any more than you, but I will not have anyone suffer any more for my folly and Charles’s cruelty. You have the children to protect. Once the scandal about Vyvyan La Blue is made public, they will need to be reassured and comforted.”
“Plum, you can’t do this,” Harry said softly, pulling her to him, his breath brushing her face, his eyes bleak with pain. “You can’t leave me. I need you.”
“And I need you,” she whispered, annoyed that such an intimate scene be witnessed by Sir Paul. She swallowed back the tears that wanted to form, knowing she must put a good light on the situation to keep Harry from forcibly ejecting the head of police from the house. She smiled and took his hand, placing it on her still flat belly. “We both need you, but you can’t help me if you’re arrested for assault or worse. You have to let me go with him. You have to stay here and protect the children from the scandal. I love you. I need you. But right now I need you at home more than with me.” She softened her words with a kiss, her lips clinging to his as if they hated parting.<
br />
Harry’s jaw tightened as he looked over her shoulder. “The least you can do is not say anything to anyone about Plum being Vyvyan La Blue. If that’s made public, it will ruin her reputation.”
“And no doubt yours, my lord,” Sir Paul said with an inclination of his head that didn’t quite hide the slight smile that left Plum with an even greater loathing of him. “I will of course endeavor to do all that I can for Lady Rosse, but the papers have ways of finding out such dirty little secrets.”
Harry’s fingers tightened around hers. She tugged his hands until he looked at her. “It will be all right, Harry, I promise. We won’t be parted for long. You must stay here. I count on you to…count on you…” She frowned, a sudden thought claiming her attention. She turned to Sir Paul. “How did you know I was Vyvyan La Blue?”
“Eh? Oh, it was mentioned in de Spenser’s letter.”
Harry’s quick intake of breath confirmed her dawning suspicion. “Is it? I don’t remember that he specified which book I had written.”
“That’s because it wasn’t there,” Harry said, stepping in front of her at the same time he shoved her behind him. Plum made a mental note to take issue with him regarding that action at a later date.
“You’re wrong. I distinctly remember de Spenser referring to Lady Rosse as being the author of a book that would cause no little grief should it be made public.”
“A fact that appears to give you great enjoyment,” Harry growled.
Plum moved to his side, putting a restraining hand on his arm. “Where did Charles mention that? It wasn’t in the letter you showed me.”
“Nor the one you showed me. Could it be that the letters are a forgery?”
“Your lady herself confirmed that the handwriting was that of Charles de Spenser,” Sir Paul said, but Plum interrupted him before he could go further.
“I said I thought it was Charles’s writing, but I couldn’t be certain.”
“It doesn’t matter if de Spenser did write the letter,” Harry said softly. Plum was aware that Harry’s muscles were tense, as if he was coiled, ready to spring. “He mentioned nothing about Vyvyan La Blue in the letter. Which brings us back to my wife’s question—how did you know about it?”
Trouble With Harry Page 27