Trouble With Harry Read online

  “Go,” finished Temple. He set down the glass he was about to offer his employer and went to fetch a footman to help carry the sleeping marquis upstairs. They laid him down next to Plum, who was sound asleep on her bed, fully dressed, her boots still on. Temple removed Plum’s boots and Harry’s shoes and spectacles, loosened the latter’s rumpled neckcloth, and spread a blanket over them both, quietly leaving them to their much-needed rest.

  Ten hours later Harry awoke with a desperate need to use the pot, a raging thirst, and a vague, nagging sense of something important that he needed to do.

  “McTavish!” he roared two minutes later and, having achieved one goal, slammed down the lid to the closestool, tucked himself back into his breeches, and raced out of the bedroom for the upper floor.

  He burst into the nursery prepared to find his youngest child gravely ill—or worse—but what he found was an exuberant McTavish crawling around on his bed, giggling and laughing as he played with a gray-and-white-striped kitten, just as if he had not been near death a few hours before.

  “Good evening, Harry. Did you sleep well?” Plum, sitting in the same chair next to the bed where she’d spent the last three days while they tended McTavish, looked as fresh as a spring daffodil—a somewhat faded and worn daffodil, he thought to himself, taking in her soft yellow gown. He made a mental note to have Temple bring a modiste to Ashleigh Court to fit Plum out with a new wardrobe. “I looked in on you twice, but both times you were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you. You look well rested.”

  “I am,” Harry answered, then strolled forward to ruffle his son’s hair. “How are you feeling, old man?”

  McTavish looked up from where the kitten was pouncing on a piece of string he was trailing across the bed. “I’m hungry. Mama says I can’t have anything but broth and toast until tomorrow. I don’t like toast and broth. I want mashed potatoes!”

  Plum’s velvety brown eyes were soft and warm as she smiled at him. “I melt every time he calls me that.”

  “What, Mama?” She nodded. Harry glanced around the empty nursery, a wry twist to his lips. “I have a suspicion it won’t be very long before you’re taking to hiding from them as they bellow ‘Mama!’ down the hallways in search of you. And as for you, young man, you do as your mother tells you.”

  McTavish made a face and turned his attention back to playing with the kitten. Plum rose and spoke to one of the nursery maids, turning back to Harry and smiling as she brushed a lock of hair off his brow.

  “I’ve ordered you a bath, husband. You look as if you could use a little freshening after the last four days. I’ll have dinner held back an hour.”

  “Ever the dutiful wife?”

  Her smiled turned cheeky. “Something like that.”

  “Plum—” Harry caught her to him, mindless of the fact that McTavish was behind them playing on the bed. The warm glow of happiness her touch brought him was spreading, changing to something more elemental, more earthy. He kissed the tip of her delightful nose. “I didn’t have a chance to thank you before, but I want to now.”

  “Thank me?” Her brow scrunched up, pulling those two straight brows together. “What do you have to thank me for?”

  “For helping with McTavish. For saving his life.”

  Plum stared at him for a moment in openmouthed astonishment, then struggled from his hold, her eyes all but spitting indignation at him. “Thank me? You want to thank me? As if I was a servant or a doctor?”

  It was Harry’s turn to stare in astonishment. What had he said that she took so badly? “Not as a servant, no, but you didn’t have to attend McTavish. I told you I would do it.”

  “You would do it because he’s your child,” Plum snarled, her hands fisted at her side.

  Harry was at a loss why she was so angry. “Yes, because he’s my child.”

  “Whereas he isn’t mine.”

  “No, he isn’t. Since you didn’t know about the children until after we were married, I realized that it might be expecting too much for you to tend one of them when he was ill.”

  Plum’s cheeks flared red. Harry was about to ask her what he had said to make her so angry when she slapped him, hard, then spun on her heel and stormed out of the room. He stood for a minute in confusion, rubbing his face as he wondered if lack of sleep had unhinged her mind.

  Gertie stood in the doorway to the girls’ room. “Ye’ve insulted yer lady.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Ye’ve insulted her by tellin’ her she’s not Tavvy’s rightful mama.”

  “She’s not.”

  “She’s his stepmama, and to her that’s the same.”

  Harry shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose to forestall the headache he felt blossom in the back of his head. “She didn’t even know about the children until after we were married. I didn’t expect her to plunge into motherhood so quickly. I wanted to ease her into it, so the children wouldn’t overwhelm her.”

  Gertie waved away his explanations. “Ye daft man, can’t ye see she’s achin’ to mother them? She needs them as much as they need her. By treatin’ her like she was doin’ ye a favor in takin’ care of Tavvy, ye’re tellin’ her she’s not part of the family. No mother would leave her sick child’s care to someone else. Ye insulted her in the worst way ye could by thankin’ her.”

  Harry groaned and rubbed his neck. The headache was getting worse. “I didn’t mean to insult her. I just wanted to show her my appreciation for all the assistance—”

  Gertie tsked and shooed him toward the door. “Go and take yer bath. Ye look half-dead. And when ye’re alone with yer lady, don’t thank her—tell her how lucky the children are to have her as their mama.”

  Harry allowed himself to be pushed from the nursery without defending himself further, despite the urge to shout from the highest mountain his recognition of just how lucky they all were to have Plum. Instead he bathed, shaved, and donned fresh clothing, ignoring both the dull rumble in his belly and the thick throb at the back of his head as he went downstairs to make amends with his wife.

  “—and I don’t see why I shouldn’t have them, they will make riding so much nicer, and it’s not as if anyone will see—oh, good, Harry’s here. Can we eat now? I’m practically faint with hunger.”

  Plum, Thom, and Temple were all sitting on the veranda, enjoying the cool evening air. Raised voices, shrieks of laughter, and loud accusations of cheating hinted that the children were engaged in a game in the overgrown garden.

  “Yes, of course we can eat now.” Plum’s voice was cool and impersonal as she rose and prepared to follow Thom into the house.

  Harry, who had much experience being a husband, knew better than to let another moment pass without correcting the slight he had inadvertently made against his wife. He put a restraining hand on her arm and gestured Temple on. “We’ll be along in a moment.”

  Plum kept her gaze on the wall beyond Harry’s shoulder, her face expressionless. He tried to form the words of an apology, but everything sounded too stilted and insincere. In the end, he did the only thing he could do. He pulled her into his arms and kissed the breath from her lungs.

  “You’ve married an idiot, Plum,” he murmured against her lips when his mouth finally parted from hers. “A fool, a simpleton, a bona fide half-wit.”

  Plum, who had been stiff as a board through the entire kiss, relaxed against him, her lips curving under his. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say you were a half-wit, but a fool…well, we all have our foolish moments.”

  “Some of us more than others,” he agreed and pressed kisses along her jaw to her hair. “I’m very sorry for what I said earlier. I realize how insulting that must have sounded, and I can assure you that was the last thing I meant. It’s been a while since I had a wife, so you’ll have to forgive me if I forget to go down on my knees every morning and bless you for
taking us all in hand.”

  Plum giggled and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You’ve never once gone down on your knees to me.”

  He smiled into her hair, pressed a last kiss to her temple, and with a sigh of regret, released her, grinning at her disgruntled look. “It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you, wife, but once I start, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

  Plum’s eyes went all liquid at him. He sucked in his breath and thought for a moment about just taking her right there, and everyone else be damned, but his body—willing as it was to fulfill that plan—was at war with itself over what it needed most.

  His stomach won out. It growled in a most vociferous manner.

  Plum laughed and pushed him into the house. “I’d better feed you if I want you to make good on that promise in your eyes.”

  “I hunger for many things,” he teased as he held the door to the dining room open.

  “So do I,” she said with a provocative glance that went straight to his groin.

  Dinner was a trial. Oh, the food was good, and the company—just him, Plum, Thom, and Temple—was convivial enough, but his eyes kept returning to the woman seated down the length of the table. Every time he looked at her, erotic, sensual images arose in his mind.

  With the soup, he thought about how smooth her flesh was against his mouth. With the game course, he mused over the flowing silk of her hair. With the fish, his nostrils were filled with the remembered scent of her skin, a scent that was faintly jasmine with overtones of warm, arousing woman. He ate whatever was set before him, his eyes on Plum as she chatted with both Thom and Temple, his mind filled with all the things he wanted to do to her, and quite a few he wanted her to do to him. This evening the house could come down around their ears for all he cared—he was going to consummate his marriage, or die trying.

  “What do you say, Harry?”

  He blinked away the mental image of Plum writhing with pleasure and looked at Thom. “What?”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Thom’s gray eyes laughed at him.

  “Leave him be, Thom, he’s hungry,” Plum said, her little pink tongue flicking out to lick her lips. The very sight of it had him hard and aching with desire.

  “Hungry. Yes, hungry,” he said, his gaze never leaving her mouth.

  Plum’s eyes lit with sudden recognition, a slow, knowing smile curved her lips in answer to the plea he knew to be in his eyes.

  He almost swallowed his tongue.

  “You’ve eaten enough that you can converse civilly,” said Thom. “This is important, Harry. Plum is being too old-fashioned for words.”

  It was an effort, but he dragged his mind away from his wife and tried his best to pay attention to what Thom was saying. “What is?”

  She gave a martyred sigh and said, “My breeches.”

  “Your what?”

  “Breeches! I want breeches to ride in, and Plum says it would shock anyone who saw me and ruin all my chances of making a good marriage, but as I’ve told her time and time again, I don’t want to be married. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a pair of breeches for riding when we’re in the country. It’s not as if we know anyone here. You wouldn’t mind if I were to ride in breeches, would you?”

  Harry, no fool he, slid a glance toward Plum before deciding how to answer his niece-by-marriage’s plea. Plum’s straight brows told him nothing, but the thin line of her lips spoke volumes. “I’m sure that Plum knows what’s best for you, Thom.”

  She made an annoyed sound and glared at Plum. “It’s all your fault, he’s besotted with you and wouldn’t dare do anything against your wishes. Now I’ll never get a pair of breeches.”

  He grinned at Plum. “I’m a bridegroom, I’m supposed to be besotted with my bride.”

  Plum grinned back at him as Temple made a witticism about husbands being led by the nose. He relaxed, warmed by both the avid look in his wife’s eye, and the knowledge that all in his world was well. McTavish was on the road to recovery, he had corrected his first misstep with Plum without too much difficulty, and she was evidently looking forward to the evening’s activities as much as he was. If there was one complaint he had to make against his late wife, it was that she seldom enjoyed their bed sport. She tolerated his advances, but no matter how much he tried to bring her pleasure, it was only rarely that he was left with the impression that she enjoyed herself. Plum was different. Harry was conscious of a pleasant tension that filled the air between Plum and him, a slight feel of static electricity in the air, as if a storm was approaching.

  Temple turned to him near the end of the meal. “While you were sleeping, I had the footmen scour the estate for poisonous berries. They found several, but none in the area Digger said the children were playing before McTavish became so ill.”

  Harry nodded, selecting a ripe peach from the bowl before him, his mind automatically traveling the paths of soft, ripe fruit to softer, riper woman. “Send what you found to Doctor Trewitt. He might be able to tell us if that’s what the boy ate.”

  “I wonder if he could have eaten a leaf,” Thom asked, slicing a bit of cheese from a large hunk of white cheddar. “My uncle used to tell me he thought I was part goat because I was forever eating leaves. You must be used to this sort of thing, Harry.”

  He stopped stroking the peach’s round, full softness and looked a question at Thom.

  “Your other children—you must be used to them having stomach upsets and such.”

  “Oh, yes. Somewhat used to it; none of them have ever been as ill as McTavish. Thankfully, Plum was here to take care of him.”

  Plum beamed at him.

  “She’s very good at that sort of thing,” Thom agreed. “She’s especially good with babies. They all seem to love her.”

  “I have no doubt of that,” Harry answered, giving Plum a little waggle of his eyebrows, just to let her know he was thinking about her. Her eyes flashed in response.

  “You’ll see how good she is with your babies.”

  He turned his head to look at Thom, puzzled by her comment. “What babies?”

  “Your babies. The babies you and Plum will have.”

  If he could have throttled Thom without Plum noticing, he would have. Dear God, what devil prodded her to say such a thing in front of her aunt? A few more comments of that ilk and Plum would leave him for certain. “We’re not going to have any babies.”

  Thom glanced from him to Plum. “You’re not?”

  “No!” He watched Plum carefully, noting the sudden pallor of her cheek and the stillness with which she held herself. Damn it! She probably thought the only reason he married her was to be a broodmare, popping out children of her own in between taking care of his five hellions. He prayed she could read the sincerity in his eyes. “I wouldn’t put Plum through that hell for anything in the world.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  Plum’s face was pale, her eyes black, her lovely chest not moving as if she wasn’t even breathing. He mentally cursed Thom, then set about making things right with his wife. “Women die in childbirth. My wife—my first wife—died of a fever shortly after McTavish was born.”

  “Oh.” The word was soft, filled with relief, with understanding. Color rushed back to Plum’s face as she spoke. “Not every woman dies in childbirth, Harry. It’s tragic that the late Lady Rosse did so, but I can assure you that should you wish to have more children, I would be willing—”

  He quartered his peach with a savagery that belied his inner feelings. He would not lose Plum as he had lost Beatrice. He would take whatever steps were necessary to see that she did not become pregnant. “I believe the children we already have are sufficiently challenging to keep you busy for many years yet.”

  “But”—Thom looked from Plum to him—“but Plum…”

  “Never mind, Thom,” she interrupted, her cheeks pink with a blu
sh. He glanced at his secretary, who kept his gaze on the grapes before him. No doubt Plum was embarrassed by such frank talk in front of Temple.

  In order to spare her any more discomfort, he turned the conversation to a general discussion of his plans for bringing life back to the estate. Temple and Thom argued long and hard over the subject of which was the better crop to plant—wheat or corn—and although Harry participated, he noticed that Plum had little to offer on the subject. Once her gaze met his, and her adorable little chin rose as if he had challenged her. He couldn’t help but smile at that. She was so utterly perfect, from the tips of her pink little toes to the gentle curve of that obstinate chin.

  The ladies withdrew, arguing over whether or not a riding habit with breeches underneath was a substitute for breeches alone. Harry sipped at a bit of port as Temple expounded on his recommendation for rebuilding cottages and charging the tenants a higher rate. He answered mechanically, his eyes frequently straying to the clock that sat on the sideboard. A half hour had passed—surely that was long enough for Plum to have chatted with Thom? Yes, yes it was. They couldn’t possibly have anything else to say.

  Smothering a yawn he had to force, Harry stood up, made a pretense of stretching, and said, “Good, good, it all sounds wonderful, Temple. Write it up and I’ll look at it in the morning. I’m off to bed.”

  Temple pursed his lips. “I suppose it would be impolitic to point out that just a few hours ago you awoke from a ten-hour sleep?”

  Harry shared an entirely male grin with Temple. “That would be extremely impolitic.”

  “Then I won’t do so. May I bid you a pleasant evening, sir?”

  Harry laughed and threw pretense to the wind as he hurried upstairs to his bedroom. He undressed quickly, dismissed his valet, and, waiting only long enough to draw on his dressing gown, went in search of his wife.

  He found her in the nursery, sitting on the edge of McTavish’s bed, all five children clustered around her in their nightgowns as she read to them from a familiar-looking volume. “‘September 30, 1659. I poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwreck’d, during a dreadful Storm…’ Oh, Harry, have you come to say good night to the children?”