The Trouble With Harry n-3

by Katie MacAlister

  “My dear, my dear,” Charles protested in so patently false a tone of dismay that Plum wanted to kick him in the shins. “I am wounded that your thoughts have not softened toward me over the years.”

  “Softened?” Plum asked in mingled horror and fury. “You ruined me, cast me aside without any protest to your family, without any regard or interest as to my wellbeing or future. For all you knew I might have been pregnant, and yet you allowed your family to bundle your wife and you off to the continent without so much as a second thought about me. How is your wife, by the by?”

  “Dead these last seven years, poor soul. I remarried, the daughter of a Greek nobleman, a rather rough girl, but pleasing enough.” Charles tried to chuck her under her chin. She smacked at his hand. “Helena is much more biddable than you were, my dear, but alas, that has its drawbacks. She has not the fire you had in bed—”

  Plum slapped him, as hard as she could with her gloved hand, which unfortunately did not allow her much of a slap. Still, it was better than nothing. “I tolerate your presence here simply because I must know what you want of me, but I will not allow you to abuse me any further, not even verbally — Juan, no, release him, he is not a rabble-rouser.”

  “You struck him the blow,” Juan said, his eyes filled with Basque vengeance as he grabbed Charles by the neckcloth. “Now I must strangle him. Harry would not like it if I did not avenge the dishonor this one has done you.”

  “It’s all right, he simply spoke without thinking. Please release him, Juan,” Plum soothed, pulling the distraught butler from a red-faced Charles.

  Juan allowed himself to be stopped from throttling Charles, but he spat something out to the latter that sounded like it was a curse before walking a few feet away to seethe in a menacing manner.

  Charles sputtered over the incident until Plum snapped at him. “Stop acting like such an infant, you brought that upon yourself. Now, please do me the kindness of stating your goal without harassing me further—”

  “I can assure you that I have no intention of harassing you,” Charles said, his muddy brown eyes alight with anger. He rubbed his cheek, his lips thinned. “Indeed my thoughts of you have been quite of the opposite variety, especially upon my arrival in Paris last month, when a very interesting tome was placed into my hands, a tome concerning acts of great intimacy that seemed oddly familiar.”

  Ah, now they were arriving to the meat of the discussion. Plum said nothing but raised her brow in imitation of Harry’s best quizzical look.

  “I find myself — naturally, it is embarrassing to have to admit this — in a particularly unpleasant situation of having my funds tied up.”

  Plum almost laughed aloud, a sigh of relief on her lips. Money — that’s all Charles wanted, just money. Both the laughter and sigh dried up as she realized that she had no money whatsoever.

  “As it would appear that the book you so cleverly penned using our experiences together as man and wife—”

  “Illegally man and wife, although you hadn’t bothered to tell me that until it was too late,” Plum couldn’t help but add.

  “—as the sole basis of this, I’m told, very popular book, I cannot help but think that you might be willing to show gratitude and appreciation in a pecuniary sense to one who made the book possible, as it were.”

  “Gratitude,” Plum sputtered, outraged almost to speechlessness. “Appreciation? For ruining me?”

  “Appreciation for me giving you the means to raise yourself from such an ignoble end to the lofty heights of a marchioness.”

  “The Guide had nothing to do with Harry marrying me—”

  Charles bowed to an acquaintance, lifting his hat politely before turning back to Plum. “If you do not lower your voice, my dear Plum, you will find that the silence I suspect you so desperately seek will be of no use.”

  Plum took a deep breath, reminding herself that she had Harry and the children to think of. She couldn’t punch Charles in the nose as he so rightly deserved. “I owe you nothing, Charles, no appreciation, no gratitude.”

  “Alas,” he answered, giving her an odious smile. “I had feared you might adopt such a regrettable attitude. Might I take a moment to remind you of the peculiar situation you find yourself in? From what I gleaned last night at the ball, you have been married to Rosse but a very short time, and no one — other than myself — seems to be aware of the fact that the Marchioness Rosse and the bawdy Vyvyan La Blue are one in the same. I doubt if even your honorable husband is aware of that fact.”

  Plum wanted to deny it, but knew he would see through her lies. She did the best she could to salvage the situation. “Harry knows about you. I told him everything.”

  “Which is why I am taking great pains to avoid that gentleman. From what I hear, he would not be above calling me out, and as you are no doubt aware, my dear, I am a lover, not a fighter.”

  Plum’s stomach roiled at the slimy tone in his voice, but she clenched her hands together in fists to keep from striking out at him. “How much do you want?”

  Charles smiled. “I think the sum of five thousand will suit me. For now.”

  “Five thousand!” Plum gaped at him, her mind boggling at such an amount. “I don’t have five thousand pounds!”

  “No? I would have thought that the proceeds of The Guide to Connubial Calisthenics were ample enough to allow you to share a small portion with the man to whom you owe all.”

  “I haven’t had money from that for years, and I most certainly don’t owe you any of it. As for the figure you named, it is ridiculous. I simply do not have that sort of money.”

  “Ah, but your husband does.” Charles leaned toward her. She recoiled. “I checked on that last night, too. Rosse is one of the richer marquises gracing our fair isle. I am sure that if you put your mind to it, you will come up with some excuse to acquire the money. I understand many ladies have gambling debts for much more.”

  Plum all but spat fury at him, grinding her teeth together and digging her nails into her palms to keep from flying at him. “I am not a gambler,” she finally said, admittedly in a strangled voice.

  Charles shrugged. “I will leave the inventive excuses to you, my dear. I have every confidence that you will not wish to ruin both your recent marriage and your husband’s reputation should word of your literary pursuits be made public.”

  “You’re despicable,” Plum couldn’t help but saying. “I thought you were odious twenty years ago, but you’re a vile, disgusting creature now. You make me sick.”

  Charles laughed and captured her hand, pressing his lips to the back of her hand as he made a show of bowing over it despite a growl of objection from Juan. “Do you know, I had not wished to return to England, but now I’m quite looking forward to the future. I anticipate much reward for my past efforts. And speaking of that, do let me know if you are planning a future book.” His gaze raked her in a brazen manner. “I would be very pleased to guide you to further knowledge of connubial exercises.”

  He stepped back before Plum could slap him again (although what she had in mind was more of a fist punched into his stomach), walking back toward his horse as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Juan was at her side in an instant, his jaw set at in an aggressive manner as he glared after Charles.

  “That one is the stink most foul. He did not bother you again, beauteous lady?”

  “Not in the way you mean, no.”

  “Are we to go after the diablitos?” he asked, nodding in the direction Thom and the children had disappeared.

  Plum hesitated between following them and returning home to be sick into the nearest receptacle — a result of her discussion with Charles, not of the babe she carried beneath her heart.

  “No, I think not,” she said slowly. “Thom will have no difficulty managing the children — heaven knows they seem to mind her better than me. I think instead I will go home…”

  An idea flared to life within her brain. “No,” she corrected as Juan turned toward home. She pointed
to the right, toward Piccadilly Street. “I’ve changed my mind — I wish to go to Old Bond Street. Would you see if a hack is available for hire? It’s a bit of a walk, and I want to visit Hookham’s Library and be home before the children return. I have a great deal of thinking to do, a very great deal, and most of it is unpleasant.”

  Juan said nothing, but set off to find her a hired carriage.

  Charles was going to have to be disposed of, that’s all there was to it. She shied away from the actual word murder but that was the path her thoughts were leading. If she had just herself to think of, she wouldn’t even contemplate such a thing, but there was Harry and the children now. Charles would have to be eliminated.

  “I just hope Hookham’s has a book on how to murder someone without being caught,” she sighed as she walked after Juan.

  “Good Lord, they’re drowning! Save them! SAVE THEM!”

  Nicholas Britton, the eldest son — albeit illegitimately — of the Earl of Wessex, paused in the act of handing a prostitute two shiny new guineas, glancing over toward the artificial lake known as the Serpentine. The prostitute, worried that she wouldn’t get her money, snatched the coins from his hand before scurrying off. Nick paid her no attention as he started toward the lake, his gray eyes narrowing as he watched a familiar young woman with short, curly dark hair rip her shoes from her feet and prepare to dive into the water. Beyond her, floundering around a few feet from shore were a handful of children, shrieking and thrashing in the water. Without a thought to anything but the need to save the children, Nick raced toward the water, throwing himself into it without even pausing to remove his boots.

  “Save them!” Thom yelled, pointing at the children. Hampered by her skirts, she was having a hard time reaching where the children, surrounded by a variety of toy boats, were obviously floundering.

  “Stay calm,” he yelled, long powerful strokes bringing him to the children. “I have you, don’t worry. Just stay calm, and I’ll get you out.” He grasped the nearest child around the waist, only to have the child — a boy of some eight or nine years — kick him in the shin and bite his hand.

  “Save them, they’re drowning!” Thom yelled again.

  “I’m trying,” Nick snarled, wrestling with the boy as he reached out to a girl who splashed by him. “Stop struggling, I have you! You’re safe!”

  “Not the children,” Thom yelled, swooping down on one of the boats that floated toward her. “They can swim. The mice, save the mice! They’re drowning!”

  “Mice?” Nick asked, looking at a blue-and-green painted boat that bobbed up and down near him. Sure enough, clinging desperately to the mast was a little white mouse. The child in his arms kicked him in the kidneys, squirming out of his grasp. It was at that point that Nick realized two important things — first, the water was only waist deep; second, that he had risked life and limb to save a mouse.

  Well, to be truthful, the life and limb part was an exaggeration, but it was an exaggeration that Nick felt allowed given the circumstances.

  “Mice?” he bellowed to Thom, who had corralled a second boat and was rescuing its rodent inhabitant. “I jumped into the water fully clothed to rescue mice?”

  “No one asked you to,” Thom said indignantly. Nick tried very hard not to notice the effect of water on light gauze, but it would have taken a saint not to appreciate the lovely lines of Thom’s body, and Nick was no saint.

  “I distinctly heard you say, ‘Save them, they’re drowning.’ If that isn’t asking me to save them—”

  “Them being the mice,” Thom interrupted, reaching for a third boat. The children, having had their dip, scrambled to shore where they called out advice and suggestions for gathering up the remaining boats.

  Nick fished a sodden mouse out of the nearest boat, tossing the boat to shore where it was pounced on by two wet children who argued over its ownership. “I didn’t know you were screaming about the mice, I thought you meant the children were drowning. It was a logical mistake, considering the evidence.”

  “Well?” Thom asked, three drenched mice sitting on her shoulder. She pointed to one last boat, which had floated well out into the middle of the lake.

  “Well what?” he asked, knowing exactly what she wanted.

  “Aren’t you going to get it? The boat could sink at any time.”

  “I am not a mouse rescuer,” Nick said with great dignity, or as great a dignity as one could have when one was wet to the neck while clutching a squirming white mouse.

  “No, you’re a burglar, but even burglars can have high morals — at least about some things. You’re not going to be responsible for that poor innocent mouse’s death, are you?”

  “Why not? I don’t see it doing anything to save my life.”

  Thom gave him a look that would have blistered a lesser man.

  Nick splashed his way over to her, admiring against his will how delightfully the damp gown clung to the curve of her hip and the high roundness of her breasts. He thrust the mouse at her, gave her a look that he hoped was stern and unyielding and didn’t in the least show the fact that he was fast becoming utterly besotted by her, and swam out to return the remaining boat and its passenger safely to shore.

  “There, you see? You do have some good in you after all,” Thom greeted him as he sloshed his way to the grassy banks, taking the mouse and boat from him. “I knew you couldn’t be all bad. Digger! Just look at Rupert! He almost drowned!”

  “He almost drowned,” Nick muttered, shaking the water from his boots.

  “Rupert can’t swim,” Thom said, kissing the mouse on its little wet head. “I assumed since you jumped into the lake that you could. I think, however, they have suffered as much as anyone could expect from mice. I shall have to let them go.”

  “That would probably be best for all concerned,” Nick said, somewhat sourly as he attempted to wring the water from his jacket.

  She released the mice to the freedom of a nearby shrub, then looked up and gave him a smile so dazzling, he promptly forgot his grievances against her. “That was very brave of you jumping into the lake. Quite dashing, in fact. I was very impressed.”

  “You were?” he beamed at her.

  “Very much so. Burglars, after all, usually operate on dry land. You did splendidly in the water. I’m sorry you got wet,” she said, eying his chest, “but I doubt if it will do anything but benefit your clothing.”

  Nick looked down at his grubby outfit he wore when he was incognito, and thought briefly of telling her just who he was and why he had been sneaking into the house the previous evening, but decided that silence on the subject was probably the wisest course. He bowed and plucked a weed from his shoulder, offering it as if it was the rarest hothouse rose. “I endeavor always to be of service.”

  She accepted the weed with a giggle, quickly rounding up the children and dismissing the footman after a glance at Nick.

  “Your brothers and sisters are a little…lively, aren’t they?” Nick asked, falling in beside Thom as she herded the chattering children away from the lake. The oldest boy looked familiar, but Nick couldn’t quite place his freckled face.

  “Oh, they’re not my brothers and sisters. I don’t have any. These are my aunt’s new children. They belong to her husband.”

  “Ah,” Nick said. “And who would that be?”

  Thom pursed her lips as she thought about his question. He had the worst desire to kiss her, an urge he knew that he had no right to act on, certainly not while she thought him a burglar. “I shouldn’t tell you, but if I don’t, you might burgle Harry’s house by mistake, so I suppose it would be smarter to tell you.”

  “Harry?”

  “Harry, my aunt’s new husband. Lord Rosse. He’s a marquis, and I don’t think he’d take kindly at all to being robbed, so I would appreciate it if you’d strike his house from your list of possible sources of revenue.”

  Nick almost choked, pushing his wet hair back from his head to glance at the children running ahead of them.
These unrecognizable monsters were Harry’s children? True he’d been away at Oxford having an education pounded into him the last few years, but had it really been so long since he had seen them? He counted and found it had been almost five years since he had accompanied his father and stepmother to Rosehill.

  Thom was looking at him with a worried frown. He hastened to reassure her. “I think I can swear without any difficulty to never robbing Lord Rosse.”

  “Oh, good,” she said with obvious relief, pausing before they crossed a busy street. “I was hoping you’d see reason. Harry isn’t as big as you are, but my aunt says he’s fought duels. Of course, he wouldn’t challenge you to a duel since you aren’t a gentleman, but still, I imagine he’d thrash you soundly if you were to rob him.”

  “Undoubtedly so,” Nick answered, about to explain to her that he might not be a nobleman, but he was a gentleman. When they stepped into a narrow alley between two houses, down which the children had run, he assumed it was a shortcut to Harry’s town house. But before he could say anything, Thom gasped and darted forward.

  Ahead of them, about twenty yards away, the children were yelling in horror as they ran toward them, looking over their shoulders at a carriage that bore down on them, the coachman slumped sideways in the seat as if he had fainted, the horses foaming as they thundered unchecked down the confi ned passage.

  Nick took in the children, horses, and distance to safety in one quick glance as he raced after Thom. There was no way he could get the children out of the alley, and not enough room to hope the carriage would pass cleanly by. The horses were wild and obviously heavily panicked, and there was no guarantee they wouldn’t plow down anyone who stood in their path. The only solution was the miniscule rubbish area for the house on the left. If he could get the children into that area, they would be safe.

  He passed Thom, who had evidently had the same thought since she was waving her hand to the left and yelling at the children to run to the rubbish area. He ran past an oncoming India and Anne, snatching the youngest boy out of Digger’s arms.