“You’re no friend of mine,” Charles said with a haughty sniff, straightening his waistcoat.
“Is it not said that my enemy’s enemies must be my friends? I believe we have a shared interest in the Rosse family. Yours, I gather, is to seek revenge on Lady Rosse, while mine…”
“Yes?” Charles said, only moderately interested in the man. He had no time to waste in idle gossip. He had to return home so he could best plan out the next step in his revenge.
“Mine is to see them all destroyed.”
Charles’s head snapped up at that. He eyed the mysterious man for a moment, considering whether or not he might make use of the man, then gestured graciously. “I find that you interest me strangely. Shall we take a little stroll?”
“Indeed we shall,” the man said, smiling again. “Indeed we shall.”
“I’m quite able to walk, Harry.”
“No you’re not. You’re not doing a blessed thing until you’re safely delivered of the babe. Not one single thing, do you understand me? Not one. I shall beat you mercilessly if you attempt even the littlest act.”
Plum kissed Harry’s ear as he carried her up the steps to their home. “But some exercises are beneficial for ladies in my condition.”
“No,” Harry said abruptly, kicking the door until Ben the footman opened it. “No walks, no riding, no driving through the park, nothing. You are to remain off your feet at all time. Exercise of any form is entirely out of the question. I might allow you to lay in a chaise and read if you promise not to exert yourself while you do so.”
“My lord, if I might have a word with you?”
“Not even calisthenics?” Plum whispered in his ear, ignoring the footman trying to get Harry’s attention. Her teeth grazed his earlobe. “Say, perhaps, ones that might be done from the comfort and safety of one’s bed?”
“It is a matter of some importance, my lord.”
Harry paused at the foot of the stairs. He looked at her with narrowed eyes. She rubbed her nose against his. “Do you honestly believe, madam, that my will, my resolute, inflexible, unbending will is so easily swayed?”
“Yes,” she said, all but purring in his arms.
“You know me so well,” he said with that wonderful twinkle in his eyes as he started up the stairs.
“My lord, I would not bother you if it was not a matter of some urgency—” Ben was summarily ignored by both Plum and Harry.
“Papa!”
Both Plum and Harry looked up at the shouts that greeted their arrival.
“Papa, you’ll never guess!” India said as she appeared at the landing.
“—but you should know, my lord, about the incident that happened here earlier.”
“I get to tell it, I’m the one who pushed him down the stairs,” Digger said. The other children followed quickly, swarming Harry and Plum, all of them talking at once.
“I pushed him, too, and I’m the eldest.”
“You’re just a lady, I’m an earl.”
Ben gave it another valiant try. “It was just a short while ago, my lord. I was on duty in the hall, as I have been these past three nights—”
“Children—” Harry said, trying to make himself heard above the din.
“Mama, pet Harry!”
“Papa, Andy bit the man, and I kicked his shin, and he ran away!”
“—when a man ran down the stairs, followed by the children.”
“An earl is nothing compared to being the eldest,” India informed her brother. “The eldest is the most important.”
“One at a time! You can’t all speak at once.” Harry ordered. No one paid him any attention.
Plum giggled, filled to overflowing with love and happiness and hope even in the midst of such a maelstrom. Harry knew the worst about her, and he didn’t care.
“He ruined our surprise, too. Tell him, Anne.”
“My lord, the man appeared to have met with some accident, which, Lord Marston later informed me, was of his and the other children’s doing.”
“Pet Harry, Mama!”
“He did, he ruined our surprise. I didn’t like him.”
“I didn’t like him more than you didn’t like him, Anne!”
“An earl is a title. Being eldest isn’t a title, it’s just a thing.”
Harry loved her still! How could she have been so foolish as to ever doubt his strength of character?
“I cannot understand when you all talk at the same time. Calm down, all of you. Who are you talking about?” he asked.
Plum kissed the muscle that was jumping in his jaw. He was the most divine creature on the whole planet.
“Being eldest isn’t a thing! Plum, tell Digger that being eldest is more important than being an earl.”
Perhaps the most divine creature that ever was.
“PET HARRY!”
“Nothing is more important than being an earl except being a marquis or a duke, isn’t that right, Papa?”
And he was hers, all hers. They all were hers, every last one of them, right down to Ben the footman who was so desperately trying to get Harry’s attention. She loved them all — her family.
“You take that back! I didn’t like him the most, not you!”
“Lord Rosse, you must listen. I tried to ascertain the man’s business in the house, but he ran off before I could know what was what.”
Everything was right in her world. Harry knew all, and he loved her, and she loved him, and everyone loved everyone else, and wasn’t life the most fabulous thing that ever was?
“The children later said that the man claimed he knew Lady Rosse, and was attempting to find out the location of her bedchamber.”
“That’s a lie! I told him I didn’t like him, and you didn’t, so I didn’t like him most of all. Papa, tell Andy I didn’t like him most of all.”
“SILENCE!” Harry roared.
“Harry?” Plum asked, her cup of happiness overflowing.
“What?” he barked, then immediately looked contrite.
“I love you. Shall we try The Virgin and the Unicorn toni—” Plum’s eyes widened as Harry’s lovely hazel eyes went dark.
“Man?” she asked him.
“Bedchamber?” he asked her.
They both turned to Ben.
“What man?” Harry yelled. “What was he doing in Plum’s bedchamber? Good God, man, don’t stand there gaping like a fish, tell us what happened!”
Plum nudged Harry until he set her on her feet, clinging to him as the incoherent bits and pieces the children and Ben tripped over each other to tell merged into one horrifying narration.
“It must have been Charles,” Plum said, her happy world crumbling about her. “The description sounds like him, but how could he dare come into the house—”
“He’s a dead man,” Harry snarled.
“And you thought I was bloodthirsty,” Plum said under her breath, then gasped aloud as her husband started for the door, “No, Harry! You can’t call him out, remember?”
Harry paused to shoot her an outraged glare.
She put her hands on her hips, ignoring the captive audience of children and servants who were gathering behind her. She might yield to Harry about other things, but over this she would not, and the sooner he learned that, the happier they all would be. “Even if you did kill him, and I wouldn’t want that because I like living in England, even if you did, it would be too late. The second Charles thinks you’re threatening him, he will tell as many people as he can find the truth about me.”
“It’s my right, Plum,” Harry growled, pacing back and forth before the door. “What the devil am I going to do if I can’t call him out?”
“I don’t know, but there has to be another way.”
Harry paused. “What if I were to thrash him within an inch of his life? He wouldn’t know about that until it happened, and afterward he would not be in any condition to tell anyone.”
There was a distinct wheedling tone to his voice that made Plum want to smile. Such a dear man h
e was. She pursed her lips and thought it over. “Alas, my darling, if he survived the thrashing, he would tell someone sooner or later, and if he didn’t survive it, you would be hung for murder.”
“Bah,” Harry said, resuming his pacing.
“You see my dilemma,” Plum said, all her attention on her angry spouse. “You see why I had to hire a mur—” She stopped and shooed the children upstairs to bed. They didn’t want to go, but Plum was in no mood for argument. She waved the rest of the servants away, pulling Harry into the library to discuss the situation.
“Harry, sit down, you’re making me dizzy,” she said a few minutes later as he paced a circle around her chair.
“This is ridiculous. I’m to allow — without challenge — the man who dishonored my wife to creep into my house for who knows what reason? I’m supposed to tolerate the scum who dared ruin your name, and let him escape without justice? I’m to turn a blind eye when he threatens you? I won’t have it, Plum! I have to call him out. It’s the only way.”
“Then our lives will be destroyed,” Plum said softly, her gaze on her hands. She knew not one word of blame would ever pass Harry’s lips, but the truth of the matter was simple — she should never have married him. She knew she wasn’t to blame for Charles’s lying to her, but Harry…he was another matter. She had willfully hid the truth from him, and now he and the children and Thom were going to pay the price for her selfishness.
“You’re exaggerating,” Harry scoffed. “Our lives will not be destroyed.”
“Am I?” she asked miserably. “You know society better than anyone, husband. You said you could hush up the scandal of my marriage to Charles, and you were right. Can you say the same thing about the scandal that will be born should the world know that the marchioness Rosse is the author of a book as notorious as The Guide to Connubial Calisthenics?”
Harry paused in his pace, resuming it with a little less vigor, his eyes dark behind the lenses of his spectacles. “I don’t see why anyone should care if you wrote the blasted book if I don’t. And I don’t. Why should such information do us or the children any damage?”
“Now who’s exaggerating?” Plum asked, her throat growing tight with unshed tears. “You know that there is no way a scandal to end all scandals could be avoided if the truth were made public. A marchioness simply cannot be the author of such a book without receiving censure. Oh, Harry…” Plum’s bravado dissolved as her heart crumpled. Her worst nightmare had come true, and it was all of her own making. Self-pity warred with guilt. The guilt won. “I should never have married you, but you were so nice, and I was desperate, but now look what it’s come to—”
Harry took Plum’s hands and pulled her to her feet, allowing her to sob into his shoulder. He pressed his lips to her forehead, a caress so sweet that it made Plum cry that much harder. She wept for several minutes, aware every second just how much she owed the man who gently stroked her back and murmured soothing words in her ears.
“Tears solve nothing, my love,” Harry said softly when she stopped weeping and started sniffling.
“I know, but sometimes they make you feel better. Unfortunately, all I feel now is stuffed up.” She hiccupped, wiping her eyes on his cravat before looking up to him. “Harry, one of the things I wanted in a husband was someone who had no secrets from me, and yet I went into this marriage keeping secrets of my own. I’m very sorry about that. You deserve better. I know you don’t blame me for this, but I also know that we wouldn’t be in this situation now if it wasn’t for me, and for that I humbly apologize.”
“This isn’t your fault, sweetheart. None of it is. You did nothing wrong. To tell you the truth, I’m proud of you.”
“Proud?” She goggled at him, a tiny goggle to be true, but still a goggle. He was proud of her? For what? “How can you be proud of me? I’ve done nothing to be proud of, quite the contrary!”
“I beg to differ, you’ve done much to be proud of. You survived a bigamous marriage that might have warped lesser women.”
Plum sniffled again, her heart still heavy. “I didn’t have much choice.”
“You wrote a book that has brought pleasure to hundreds of people.”
“A book so notorious that no bookstore would admit to carrying it.” Plum took the handkerchief Harry offered and delicately blew her nose.
He tipped her chin up, smiling down at her with love shining in his beautiful eyes. “You married me.”
“Any woman with a shred of common sense would have done that,” Plum replied, warmed by the look despite the knowledge of what she was going to have to do.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “You accepted my five little hellions into your heart despite their best attempts to drive you mad.”
“Well,” she said with a little smile, “I will admit that might have taken a tiny little morsel of courage, but they are good children. Most of the time. Sometimes. Underneath, where it counts, they’re good. Even India has come around, and I thought she’d never warm up to me, although I admit, allowing her to wear her hair up and that pair of pearl earrings I bought for her birthday might have something to do with the thaw in her affections.”
“She simply realized her good fortune in having such a wonderful stepmother. Not many women would stop running from the little monsters long enough to see their better qualities,” Harry said dryly, then pulled her closer, his hands warm on her backside as he teased her lips with his own. “What amazes me the most is that despite everything, you love me.”
She melted completely against him, unable to hold out under the heat of his passion. “I would have to be witless not to, you’re eminently lovable.”
“I am,” Harry agreed, swinging her up in his arms. “I am so lovable, you should worship me in tangible methods that will leave me exhausted, but sated. Would you mind opening the door?”
Plum turned the latch. “Harry? Where are we going? I thought we were going to discuss Charles, and what to do with him?”
“We are. We will. Later. Right now I must address the issue of a wife who keeps secrets from her husband.” Harry climbed the two flights of stairs without the least sign of strain.
Plum, for a moment concerned by what Harry said, realized by the heated gaze that seared her that he was truly not angry with her for not telling him everything before they married. “There simply couldn’t be a more perfect man than you,” she sighed, tugging at his cravat, freeing the tanned column of his neck from its snowy hold.
“No, there couldn’t,” Harry said shamelessly, the twinkle in his eye warming her almost as much as the stark, burning desire she saw there. He pushed open the door to his bedchamber, kicking the door shut behind him. “Which is why I feel you should worship me. Daily. Hourly, even. I am a god amongst men, wife, and I expect you to treat me as such. Let us discuss the form this worship will take.”
“Well,” Plum said as he allowed her to slid down his body until she was standing. His fingers danced along the back of her gown, slipping free button after button. Plum shivered with anticipation as her gown parted. “I thought that first I might make a sacrifice.”
“A sacrifice?” Harry cocked an eyebrow at her. She gently took the spectacles off, followed by his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about—”
“Acolyte Worshiping the High Priest,” Plum said, her hands dancing along the fastening to his breeches.
Harry sucked in his breath, looked wild for a moment as she reached within his breeches to wrap both hands around the hard length of his arousal. “You said that was the one connubial calisthenic that had not been taught to you. You said that was the one you had thought up all yourself, the one you had never put into practice, the pinnacle of all the calisthenics, the one you were saving for a very, very special occasion.”
“This is such an occasion,” she said, smiling because he was panting. Her smile deepened when he shuddered, prying her hands off him with a look that warned her he was close to losing control. He jerked her
gown off, not even pausing to admire her lovely new frothy shift before he removed it, too. She kicked off her shoes. “My stockings?”
He eyed her, a deliciously wicked glint to his eyes. “We will leave them. You are, after all, a deliciously naughty acolyte. You will have to be punished later.”
“Oooh,” Plum said, giving up the last of her guilt. She loved him, and knew he loved her. She would do whatever she had to do to make sure that nothing tarnished that love. She took a deep breath, then immediately lost it when Harry’s warm mouth closed over her breast. His mouth was hot as it kissed a path around her soft flesh, teasing an already aching nipple with both tongue and teeth. Her fingers bit hard into his shoulders as she tried to keep her legs from giving way under her. “What sort of punishment are you speaking of? Will it involve your hand and my bare…um…sit-upon?”
“It might. Or it might involve two feathers, and the leather cuffs,” Harry said as he pulled her close to him, fitting the soft curves of her flesh exactly against his hard planes as if they were designed specifically for one another.
She breathed in the wonderful scent of his lemon soap, allowing her head to fall to his shoulder as she pressed her lips to the pulse point in his throat. “And what sort of form would you like the ritual purifi cation of spirit to take, oh mighty High Priest?”
“Bathing,” Harry said, sliding his hands along the long length of her thighs, his eyes alight with love and passion and desire. “You will need to bathe me. Later. Much later. I plan on being very sweaty.”
Plum opened her eyes and tipped her head back to gaze into his face as he slid an arm around her waist, lifting her and carrying her the few steps to the bed. She mused for a moment about the ridiculously wonderful nature of men that made them feel it necessary to carry their women to a bed, then pushed that thought aside to concentrate on more important things. “About Charles—”
One boot thudded to the floor. Harry glanced at Plum for a moment, a glance so full of promise she squirmed on the bed as he used the bootjack to pry off the other boot. “Later, Plum. We’ll talk about that bastard later.”
“Yes, but I am worried—”
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