The Trouble With Harry n-3

by Katie MacAlister

  Thom laughed and patted her on the arm. “Don’t be such a pessimist. I’m sure you’ll have a perfectly lovely time in town, and no one will know who you are if you don’t want them to. Twenty years is a long time.”

  “Not nearly long enough, but at least I can do right by you,” Plum said thoughtfully, noting how well a new gown suited Thom. Her dark curls were glossy with health, her cheeks bright, her eyes sparkling with good humor and happiness. “I can see my duty through with regard to your future. You will make your debut. You will go to balls and routs and breakfasts, and possibly the opera, if I can arrange all of that before I’m recognized and our lives are completely and utterly destroyed.”

  “No!” Thom said, her face turning pale. “I don’t want to go to balls and routs and breakfasts, and I especially do not want to go to the opera! I can’t think of anything I’d like less! I’ll be miserable! I’ll hate it! I’ll be wretched!”

  “Welcome to my world,” Plum said, then hurried off to rescue a goose that had been cornered by the twins and McTavish.

  Two nights later Plum stood with a trembling hand on her husband’s arm as they paused at the top of a long curved flight of stairs. She wondered briefly if she threw herself down the stairs whether or not she’d break her neck outright, dying instantly, or if she’d just bounce down the steps, embarrassing Harry by displaying to everyone not only her sad lack of ability to navigate stairs, but also showing too much limb and perhaps even petticoat. Since she suspected it would be the latter, she allowed him to pull her unwilling self down the stairs, a grim smile curving her lips.

  “Plum.”

  “What?” she asked, transferring her grim smile to her husband.

  “You look like you’ve been asked to roast a small child over an open fire.”

  “I do not.”

  “You do. You have a horrible expression on your face.”

  “It’s called a smile, Harry.”

  “Yes, but it’s a I’ve-been-asked-to-roast-a-small-child-over-an-open-fire sort of smile, one that is going to frighten the elderly and make everyone else stay away from you.”

  “Good,” Plum said, her voice rich with satisfaction, the first morsel of satisfaction he’d heard her express since he had informed her that morning that they would be venturing into society by way of Lady Callendar’s ball. “Perhaps that way no one will discover who I am and I might just possibly survive this evening.”

  Harry stopped at the bottom of the stairs and drew his wife aside, out of the way so he could speak to her without being overheard. He stopped her next to a large man-sized potted palm. “Why do you think I would lie to you?”

  “Lie to me?” Plum looked startled, her lovely brown eyes wide with surprise. At least that wiped the childroasting smile off her face. “I’ve never thought you’d lie to me, Harry. Never!”

  “Then why do you assume that what I’ve told you before — that your past will not be an issue — is untrue?”

  “I…I—”

  Harry kissed her hands, damning the need for him to prove to her that she had nothing to worry about with regards to her past. He’d much rather be home with her now, trying out yet another of the inventive Connubial Calisthenics, but he couldn’t just think of his own needs, he had to reassure his wife once and for all that she was worried needlessly over something so trivial only she and a few countrified tabbies remembered it. “I will say this just one more time, and then if you continue to disbelieve me, I shall be forced to punish you — no one will care what happened to you twenty years ago. You are my marchioness, and that is all.”

  Plum stopped worrying her lower lip and pursed it, instead. Harry resisted the urge to kiss the wits right out of her. “Punish me? What sort of punishment are you talking about? Because frankly, husband, forcing me to come to this ball should count as the worst sort of punishment.”

  “Look at it this way,” he answered, tucking her hand into his arm. “At least you’re not alone in your desire to be elsewhere. Thom is miserable, too.”

  “Yes, there is that,” she said, looking to the right. Thom was marching down the stairs with a martyred look on her face that almost identically matched Plum’s grim smile. Harry couldn’t help but smile at the two of them — two of the loveliest women he had ever seen, and both looked like they were being sent to their own executions.

  Harry had no qualms about the evening’s outcome — he had done a little investigating on his own regarding Plum’s first husband (as he then thought of the bastard) when Plum and he were first married, and had found that the man had drowned in a boating accident off the coast of a small Greek island where he had been living the past ten years. Harry had enough experience with the collective mind of the ton to know that without the stimulus of de Spenser, no one would recognize Plum, let alone remember the scandal. He also knew, however, that despite assurances to the otherwise, Plum believed with every morsel of her being that she would be the tool of his destruction.

  Harry did his duty. He strolled around the crowded, overheated rooms, introducing his wife to every person he knew, and quite a few he hadn’t met, not even flinching when her grip on his arm turned painful. He dragged her around to every single person he could find, and only when they had met and had a few polite words with everyone present did she begin to relax. He coaxed her into a waltz, a dance that normally Harry loathed, but one that afforded him the possibility of holding his wife in his arms. He pulled her tighter than was polite, grinning at her mock-scandalized look in response. “You no longer look as if hot pokers are being inserted under your fingernails, so I assume that means you are beginning to enjoy yourself?”

  The smile that had been teasing her lips faded as guilt flashed in her lovely eyes. “Oh, Harry, how selfish I have been! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for ruining your evening.”

  “My evening hasn’t been ruined. Well, it will be if you don’t accompany me out into a dark corner of the garden where I can kiss you silly, but assuming you have no objections to that plan, I will survive an evening in society.”

  The delicate blush he was delighted to see touch her cheeks grew darker as her eyes flashed a challenge he felt obliged to meet. “You can certainly try, my lord. As for the other — you were right, no one remembers who I am, not one person! Harry, truly you have my humblest apology for not believing in you. You’ve performed a miracle!”

  Harry held her for a few seconds after the dance ended, wishing more than ever he was at home where he could receive her — unnecessary — gratitude in a much more tangible form. He took her hand in his as he led her to the next room, his eyes alighting on a familiar — and very welcome — figure. “Much as I would like to be worthy of such an appealing look in your luscious eyes, I can’t claim the responsibility for a miracle. The ton is notoriously fickle, and voracious where gossip and scandal are concerned. They no sooner consume one, then they’re on the prowl for their next source of entertainment. Now, if you can stand one more introduction, I’ve just seen a man whom I’d very much like you and Thom to meet.”

  Plum looked around as Harry led her through the throng toward a group of men near the card room. “Where has Thom gone to?”

  “No doubt she’s made her escape while we were distracted. My dear, may I present to you Lord Wessex? Noble, this is my wife, Plum.”

  The tall, dark-haired man spun around at his voice. “Harry! What the devil are you doing here?”

  Harry allowed himself to be enveloped in a hug of such enthusiasm that his wife’s eyebrows raised in surprise. He grinned and thumped his old friend on the back. “We had a little business in town. I thought you were in the north?”

  “Came back for Parliament. It is a pleasure, madam. I had no idea you’d married again until I saw the notice in The Times.”

  Plum’s hand twitched. He patted it. That announcement had been a sore point with her, but he’d be damned if he hid the existence of his wife as if he were ashamed of her. “Is Gillian here? I’d like her to meet Plum.�
��

  Noble’s brows pulled together in a scowl. “She’s home with the children. The two youngest are down with chicken pox — you must come for a visit if you’ve had ‘em. Nick’s due to meet me here in a bit. He’ll be delighted to see you as well — it’s been how long? A year? Too long.”

  Harry agreed, and spent an enjoyable ten minutes catching up with all of his friend’s doings, aware the whole while that Plum was distracted, nervously looking around herself. He took the opportunity of an acquaintance drawing Noble’s attention away to ask her what was wrong. “You’re not still worried, are you?”

  Plum’s gaze swept the room. “Not about myself, but where do you think Thom has disappeared to?”

  “Probably dancing. She’s a good girl, Plum. She won’t do anything to shame you.”

  “Shame me?” Plum gave him a disgruntled look. “I’m not worried about her shaming me, I’m concerned that she was so bored she left without telling me. I think I’ll go look for her…”

  Plum hurried off. Harry mingled with the gentlemen lounging inside the card room, pulling Noble aside when he was free.

  “I like your wife,” Noble said to him as they strolled to the far end of the room. “And you look happy with her. I’m glad you remarried, Harry. It was time.”

  “It was beyond time, but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”

  “Aha!” Noble said, his grey eyes alight with humor. “I knew it. You didn’t just come to town to introduce your lady, did you?”

  “Hardly. You know I have no love for society. I’m here because the new head of the HO wants my advice concerning the Stanford situation.”

  “Stanford?” Noble frowned, shaking his head when Harry offered him a cigar. “Wasn’t he responsible for bringing you up on charges of treason?”

  “That’s the man. Lord Briceland had heard some disturbing rumors that Stanford wasn’t acting alone. He asked me to look into it. I’ve spent the last six weeks combing my records looking for a clue to the identity of the man who might be involved.”

  “And now you’re here to report in?”

  “I’m here to find proof.” Harry lit a spill and waved it under the end of his cigar until it glowed red. “It shouldn’t be too diffi cult.”

  “Who is it you suspect?” Noble asked, his voice dropped so no one would overhear.

  Harry smiled a wry smile. “The last person you’d imagine. I believe it’s—”

  “Harry!” Plum pushed her way through the room, oblivious to the curious glances she was receiving. She grabbed his arm and started tugging him toward the door. “Forgive me for interrupting you, Lord Wessex, but this is a grave emergency. Harry, you have to help me find Thom. She’s disappeared! No one has seen her for the longest time. You don’t think something’s happened to her, do you? She’s never been to London before. I’ll never forgive myself if someone said something cruel to her, and she ran away…”

  Harry threw his cigar into the fireplace, casting an apologetic glance at his friend as Plum dragged him out in search of his errant niece-by-marriage.

  CHAPTER Eleven

  Thom was bored. She was more than bored, she was nigh on moronic with the insipidness of the ton. She had heard much of them from her aunt, and although Plum seemed to recall her pre-Charles days of dancing and flirting with much fondness, Thom had no desire to waste her life in such frivolousness. It wasn’t that she was serious, per se, nor a bluestocking, it’s just that she felt there was more to be had out of life than talking about nothing but gowns, babies, the latest rake to hit town, and the hundreds of other meaningless things that caught the attention of the upper class.

  She wandered around the big house, exploring those rooms that had been opened in honor of the ball (and a few rooms she suspected had not), smiling at people, but initiating no conversation. She finally settled on the dark, quiet library as the best place to pass time uninterrupted by the demands of her aunt that she dance with one foolish man after another. She’d suffered through dances with three such men, men so similar in their banalities and appearance, she couldn’t distinguish one from another, let alone remember who they were.

  “No one will notice if I spend a bit of time in the library,” she said to herself as she slipped into the room she had noted earlier in her wandering. “No one will bother me, and I won’t be a bother to — oh! You there! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Thom closed the door behind herself and marched into the room, not the least bit intimidated by the fact that a young man with filthy hands and face had turned to scowl at her. She grasped a poker from the fireplace and pointed it at him, taking in his shabby, dirty clothing, a small cloth bag at his feet, and the window he was in the process of opening. It was obvious what was happening — the young man’s hand was on the sill as if he was preparing to escape with his bag of no doubt ill-gotten goods.

  “You’re a thief!” Thom said, a secret thrill running through her. At last, something of interest to save her from the mundanity of the evening. A thief, a real thief. How very fascinating. What was the correct way to deal with one, she wondered as she eyed him. Polite but fi rm, that should do it. “I’ve never met a thief before. Especially not one so—” She stopped. There was no need to tell the villain that despite the dirt and grime, she thought he was a very handsome man.

  “Especially not one so what?” he asked, his hands rising in surrender as she prodded his dirty waistcoat with the poker to make sure he wasn’t armed.

  “Bold. Only a bold person would think of burglarizing a house while a ball is going on. That or a very stupid one, and to be truthful, you don’t look particularly stupid. Oh. I probably shouldn’t have said that, should I? I should be convincing you as to the folly of your current path. It is foolish, you know. Sooner or later you’re bound to be caught, especially if you insist on burglarizing houses where the occupants are holding entertainments such as a ball.”

  The man smiled, and Thom found herself unable to keep from smiling in response before she realized what she was doing — smiling at a burglar! What was next, laughing with an arsonist? Swapping charades with a strangler?

  “ ‘Bold,’ ” the burglar said, looking oddly pleased by her words. “I rather like the sound of that. What would you say if I told you I wasn’t a burglar?”

  She snorted. What did he take her for, one of those simpering, idiotic young ladies in the other room who knew nothing but how to look pretty and flirt and embroider nicely? She walked around him, keeping her poker handy in case he got any ideas. “Let me see, why would I think you were a burglar? Well, for one, there is the matter of your clothing. It is ill-kept and just the sort of thing that I imagine thugs and ruffians and men of bad repute wear when they engage in acts of a nefarious and illegal nature. It fairly reeks of burglary.”

  The man looked down at his clothes, rubbing a bit of dirt off a grimy waistcoat so tattered, she wouldn’t bed down one of her cats on it. “Ah. That. I can explain—”

  “And then there is the fact that you have in your possession a bag of such dimensions as might be used to hide your swag.”

  “Swag?” The man’s lips twitched.

  Thom felt a corresponding twitch in her own lips, but quickly regained control of them, schooling them into what she hoped was a stern, forbidding line. “That is, I believe, the correct slang? I read it in the Flash Dictionary. It does mean stolen booty, does it not?”

  “It does,” the young man said, giving in and grinning at her again. “I’m just surprised you should be familiar with such a word, let alone the Flash Dictionary.”

  “I have a very eclectic reading taste,” Thom told him, momentarily charmed by the amused light in his handsome gray eyes. Really, he was very agreeable for a burglar. He seemed well-spoken despite the obvious wicked nature of his employment. “In addition to the other items, there is the fact that you were attempting to escape via the window.”

  He looked behind him to the window, his head tipped on the side
as he studied it. “It seems to me that unless you actually caught me in the act, you can’t be sure of whether or not I was opening or closing the window when you arrived.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, your bag is positively bulging with swag and such. It’s quite clear to me that you’ve allowed your lower nature to run amok, and now you are escaping with the fruits of this labor. Can you deny that the bag holds your swag?”

  “I could,” the man said, leaning back against the wall, looking just as comfortable as if he had been born there. “But that would take all the enjoyment out of you attempting to sway me from my sinful path. You were going to try to sway me, weren’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Thom said guiltily, dragging her mind away from the pleasing contemplation of his eyes. “Of course I am. It is my duty. Er…I’m not quite sure how to begin. I’ve never had to sway a burglar before. How would you advise me to proceed?”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “You might get further if you told me your name. It’s the personal touch, you know.”

  “It is? Very well, if you insist. I am Thom.”

  “Tom?” He looked a little surprised.

  “Thom. It has an H in it.”

  “Ah.” He nodded wisely. “That makes a difference.”

  “Yes, it does. What is your name?”

  “Nick. No Hs in it whatsoever. And your surname?”

  “Is none of your concern. We can be personal without it. Now, Nick, it is my duty to lecture you about the sins of your chosen path.”

  “You may proceed,” Nick said, his lips curving slightly as if he found something she said amusing. Thom had no idea what that could be, but admitted to herself that she found the young man in front of her a hundred times more pleasing than the dandified fops she had just left. At least this man was real. He had a goal in life, even if that goal was to steal items belonging to others. “Don’t spare me. I am ready and willing to hear your thoughts on the despicable life I have chosen to lead.”