The Trouble with Harry Page 4

  "Oh, I love them," she said, her eyes lighting up, their midnight depths soft and compelling.

  Harry could not help but believe her, as the truth shone like sunlight on a still pond within her dark eyes. He allowed himself a silent sigh of relief as he moved uncomfortably in the saddle, then waved toward Temple. "Just so. I see no reason that you will not suit. I must... er ... return home. Temple will take down your particulars. Have you an objection to marrying the day following tomorrow?"

  Plum didn't even bat an eyelash. Harry wanted to smile, but knew in his present uncomfortable state, it would be likely to come out a pained grimace. There are few things that became a bridegroom less than grimacing at his bride-to-be.

  "None, except I have not interviewed you, sir."

  He blinked in surprise. She wanted to interview him? None of the other women had. How delightfully refreshing of her! He had the sudden warm satisfaction of knowing that he would not easily be able to second-guess Plum. "Ah. Yes. Of course. You wish to know about me."

  "Yes, sir, I do," she answered, and lifted her chin a little higher.

  He liked that chin a great deal. He applauded her high spirits, and began to think with pleasure upon his future with her as he quickly rattled off the important particulars about himself. "My name is Harry ... Haversham. I live here in Raving, out toward the north spit. Do you know it?"

  She shook her head.

  "Good. That is ... er ... it's of no account. I'm forty-five years of age ..." He paused, narrowing his eyes as he looked carefully at her face. "If you will not be offended by me asking, how old are you?"

  "I... I..." Plum looked nonplussed for a moment, then that adorable chin rose again. "I'm forty, sir."

  He did smile then, a pleased smile, a happy smile. Really, she was perfect for the position. Intelligent, liked children, wasn't too young and silly, and heaven knew he desired her in a more fundamental manner. Every time she lifted her chin, he wanted to kiss her. "Excellent. As I said, I'm forty-five and in reasonably good health, possess means that leave me comfortable, and don't have any excessive vices that I'm aware of. Do you have any questions? No? Very well. I shall leave Temple to take down your information, and will obtain a special license tomorrow so that we may be married the following day." He touched his riding crop to his hat in salute, and was about to ride away when it suddenly occurred to him to ask a final question. "Er ... what village are you from?"

  Plum looked a bit stunned around the eyes, but other than a momentary pause, gave him no indication that he had just rushed her through a proposal. "Ram's Bottom, sir."

  Harry's eyes widened as he glanced down at her muddy hem. "You walked eight miles?"

  The chin rose again, just as he knew it would. He smiled to himself, more than satisfied with his choice. This woman would not leave him bored after a few days, as all the others threatened to do.

  "Yes, I did. I find walking quite beneficial to the constitution."

  "And so it is, however, sixteen miles in one day is a bit more benefit than anyone could need, even someone who is in your"-he allowed his gaze to caress her curves for just a moment, not long enough to be offensive, but enough to let the lady know he found her attractive-"fit condition. Temple?"

  "Yes, sir. I will arrange for Miss Pelham to be taken home."

  Harry beamed at her, bid her a good day, and put his heels to Thor, riding home with a whistle on his lips, satisfaction in his heart, and a throb in his breeches that predicted a very happy future.

  Plum entered the dark cottage as the hired carriage rattled down the lane, more than a little dazed by the happenings of the day. She was betrothed! To a gentleman she had known for all of five minutes, a very handsome man, a man who had laugh lines around his eyes, and an unruly lock of sandy hair that hung over his forehead. A man who either had some infirmity of the lower limbs that prohibited him from dismounting, or... Plum giggled as she lit the candles around the small room. Once when she and Charles were having tea at her old nurse's cottage, he had been unwilling to leave at the end of the visit. He told her later that he had been musing upon the pleasure of their most recent connubial calisthenics, and had to remain seated until several minutes later when he had himself in control. The way Harry had draped his coat over his lap was reminiscent of Charles playing with her shawl in such a manner as to conceal his groin.

  "If he was in a similar situation because of me," she told the cat Maple as she lit the fire and prepared to warm up the potato soup remaining from the day before, "I shall be very pleased, very pleased indeed, for it indicates that he is interested in bedchamber sports. Heaven knows I am."

  "I am as well, despite the fact that you won't let me read your book," a voice said behind her.

  Plum shrieked and dropped the soup ladle, clutching her heart as she spun around.

  Thom was seated on the floor in a dark corner, a bowl of milk and several pieces of straw beside her. "Which is silly, when you think about it, for how am I ever to learn the joys of such activities if you won't let me read about them?"

  "You swear you won't ever marry, so such knowledge is of no use to you. What are you doing there sitting in the corner in the dark?" Plum, having reassured herself that her heart was not going to leap out of her chest, returned to warming the soup.

  "Feeding mice. Their mother was taken by one of the cats that live in the shed. I've found that they'll drink milk easily enough if I use a piece of straw." Plum gave a resigned sigh at the newest inhabitants of their little cottage, and hunted for the stale heel of bread she remembered seeing. "As for the other, I do not intend ever to marry-at least none of the gentlemen you think are so suitable. They're nothing but idle fribbles, bent on wenching their way through their lives. But I should like to see your book nonetheless. After all, one does not have to be married to perform calisthenics, connubial or otherwise."

  Plum's cheeks heated as she turned to glare at her niece. "No, one doesn't, as I know well, but issues of morality aside, to do otherwise is to put yourself in a position of disadvantage. Women have little enough control over their lives, and even less power against men. Marriage at least offers some protection."

  Thom shrugged and bent over the clutch of tiny pink bodies squirming in her lap. Plum found the heel of bread, tapped it on the counter, winced at the solid thunk, then sighed and tossed it into the goat's bucket.

  "Is that why you went to meet with Mr. Harris? For protection?"

  "No," Plum answered, and bent down to look in the one small cupboard that served as their pantry. Surely there were a few greens left from last week? A bit of suet their neighbor had given them? A handful of dried beans? "I met with the gentleman-his name is Haversham, and have accepted his offer of marriage-because I wished to be married again and have a family, and he seemed a pleasant man. Wasn't there a rind of cheese?"

  Thom ducked her head, and carefully allowed milk from the tip of the straw to drip into the little pink mouth of the baby mouse.

  Plum straightened up, dusting off her hands. "I see. I don't suppose you ate it?"

  Thom's shoulder twitched.

  "No, I can see you didn't." Plum sat on the rickety chair, thought seriously about crying, but decided that laughter was probably the only thing that would save her sanity. She allowed the-only slightly hysterical-giggles to build up inside her, her lips twitching as she asked, "Did you give the cheese to a mouse? A rat? An orphaned vole?"

  Thom peeked at her from under her lashes, an affecting look Plum had never been able to master since her eyelashes, like her brows, were thick and seemed to have a mind of their own. "There was this adorable little monkey-"

  "Thomasine Laurel Fraser!" Plum gasped in between unladylike snorts of laughter. "To give away your meager luncheon is bad enough, but to make up a falsehood of such magnitude is going too far."

  "It's not a falsehood, there really was a monkey. He was with a very old man, so bent and frail he looked as if he would be blown over by a strong wind. He was very charming, ho
wever, and told me his name was Palmerston, and his monkey was named Manny. They both looked in such a poor way, I gave him a bit of cheese, and a few other things that I thought you wouldn't mind...."

  "At least you have the grace to look ashamed at such a bald-faced lie," Plum said, her lips still twitching as she gave in and had a good long laugh. By the time she was finished and mopping up her eyes, Thom had tucked the baby mice away on an old worn cloth, and was standing next to her, watching her warily. "It's a good thing Mr. Haversham wishes to marry quickly, else I think you'd give the cottage away."

  "I'm sorry, Aunt Plum, I know it was wrong of me, but Mr. Palmerston and Manny looked in such need of a little kindness, and he did give me something in return."

  "Oh?" Plum allowed one last giggle to express itself, then schooled her lips into a more seemly position. "What did he give you? Certainly not any coin?"

  "No, he gave me some advice."

  A ripple of amusement shook her for a moment, but she kept it under control. She had a suspicion that if she gave in to it, she'd end up witless and giddy. Or rather, more witless and giddy, since she was fast approaching that state. Perhaps it was hunger that was unhinging her mind. Perhaps if she had eaten something earlier, she wouldn't now be giggling at the thought of her niece giving away the last of their stores to a beggar who offered advice in return. "How very gracious of him. What advice did he give you?"

  "Oh, it wasn't advice for me, it was for you."

  Plum raised both brows as Thom served up two bowls of soup. "For me? Why would he offer advice for me? How did he know who I was?"

  "Evidently he stopped in town."

  Thom kept her gaze on her soup, a small mercy since Plum still felt sick to her stomach whenever she thought of the townspeople cackling over her past. That the news had spread like wildfire was not surprising, but what made her furious was the way Thom was made to suffer for her ignorance and Charles's cruelty. She didn't mind-much-them ostracizing her, but the drubbing Thom had taken the last few days was untenable. Her conscience rubbing her raw, she fought the desire to immediately pen a note to her intended, informing him of her history and breaking their betrothal. "What's done is done. I will tell him the truth after we're married. It's a matter of self-preservation, not selfishness. I simply have no other choice, and it's not as if he will be losing out-I will be a devoted wife and mother."

  "Of course you will," Thom said, just as if Plum were making sense, which she sadly acknowledged to herself as not necessarily true. "You'll be a wonderful wife and mother, and I completely agree with you that you're not being selfish."

  "Mmm." Plum firmly told her conscience to take a holiday for the next two days, and picked up her spoon. "What was the advice the beggar had for me?"

  "He wasn't a beggar, he seemed quite well spoken, although he was rather dusty." Plum glanced up and caught the look of curiosity her niece was bending upon her.

  "He said that sometimes that which you've thought is lost, is found, and what you think you have, has vanished."

  Plum blinked for a moment, wondering if it was the lack of food that made Thom's words seem incomprehensible, or if the old man's advice was supposed to have some meaning for her. "Well, that was very nice of him, although it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, but I do appreciate the fact that he didn't say something in reference to his ... er ... cods."

  They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the heavy drone of bees on the wisteria that hung next to the window the only noise. Plum wrestled with a variety of emotions-anger, fear, and a general all-purpose worry-as she spooned up the last of the soup.

  "Aunt Plum?"

  Plum dragged her mind from the painful contemplation of just how she was going to explain to Harry about her past. "Hmm?"

  Thom stood with their soup bowls before the wash bucket, twisting a threadbare linen between her hands, her brow wrinkled in a frown. "You're not marrying this Mr. Haversham on my behalf are you? Because if you are, I wish you wouldn't. I know I'm not of much use to you, but I-"

  Plum gave in to the need to hug the younger woman. "No," she said, patting Thom's cheek. "I'm not martyring myself for you, if that's what you think. Mr. Haversham is a very nice man, I could tell that at once. He is a gentleman. He has a library. He wants children. And even if he isn't wonderfully handsome, I like his face. His eyes are particularly nice, an attractive hazel that seems to change color. And the rest of him is"-a warmth tingled pleasantly within her at she remembered his large, strong hands with their long fingers. She had always had a fondness for a man's hands, seeing in them a mixture of strength and gentleness that never failed to intrigue her-"just as pleasant. Does that put your mind at rest that I'm not marrying solely to put food in our bellies?"

  Thom smiled, then leaned forward to kiss Plum's cheek. "I hope you will be very happy, Aunt. You deserve a good life. When do you marry?"

  "In two days, if Mr. Haversham is able to obtain a special license." Plum turned and surveyed the small room with its two cots, two chairs, one table, and a collection of broken baskets that Thom fixed up as beds for her animals. "What do you say, Thom, are you willing to give up all this in order to live in a home that doesn't leak whenever it rains, or allow the cold in during the winter?"

  Thom smiled and divided up the last of her soup between the cats' bowls and the goat's bucket. "It will be a strain, but I will suffer in silence as best I can."

  Plum laughed again, and in a moment of pure whimsy, threw out her arms and spun around in a circle. "A family, Thom! At last, at very long last, I'm going to have a husband and children of my own! Life just cannot get any better!"

  Chapter Four

  Plum sat stunned to the point of silence as a maidservant combed out her long black hair. That thought rattled around in her mind like a pea in an empty bowl. She had a maidservant, someone who would comb her hair whenever she so desired. Her husband had provided her the maidservant. She had a husband and a maidservant. And a room of her own. Her eyes looked away from the up-and-down motion of the comb as it slid through her hair, and gazed again with wonder at the reflection of the room behind her, a lovely soft rose-colored room that smelled faintly of fresh paint, with a huge fireplace, a fainting couch, and a bed with rose and dark red bed curtains.

  The maid's hand flashed white in the mirror.

  "No one has combed my hair for me since I was twenty."

  "Is that so, my lady?"

  That was another thing, she was a lady. Not that she had behaved in any other manner, for no matter how poor she had been, Plum had ever acted as a lady should-with the regrettable, if extremely satisfying, exception of the pot and Mr. Snaffle's cods-but now her husband of five hours informed her earlier, she was also a lady in title. Lady Rosse, to be exact. Harry turned out to be a marquis in disguise, therefore, she was a marchioness.

  A fraudulent marchioness, her guilty conscience whispered.

  "No. It is too much. I just cannot take it all in," Plum protested to her reflection. "The husband and the maid and the rose-colored room, yes, that I am willing to accept, nay embrace whole-heartedly with a great deal of happiness and pleasure if not outright ecstasy, but the rest of it, I just cannot absorb. It will have to wait for another time, a time when I can think about it without wanting to scream."

  Edna the maid carefully set down the silver comb and stepped slowly away from Plum. "Why would you be wanting to scream, my lady?"

  There they were again, those two words. My lady. She had deceived a marquis, led him to believe she was a poor but honest woman. Well, truly, she was poor but honest, honest with the exception of neglecting to tell him about one minor little fact.... Plum moaned softly and leaned forward until her forehead rested in her hands. "Edna, would you happen to know if it's a hanging offense to deceive a marquis?"

  "Erm ..." Edna backed toward the door. "Will you be needing anything else, my lady?"

  Plum tilted her chin up and spread her fingers so she could see the maid in the mirr
or. "Yes, please. Would you mind terribly not calling me my lady? It makes me a bit uncomfortable, not as uncomfortable as I deserve, to be sure, but uncomfortable enough that I flinch, and one can only do so much flinching before one starts to twitch, and it's a short path from twitching to utter and complete madness. Do you understand?"

  "Eep," said Edna, and with eyes as big as saucers, she slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her.

  "Well, now you've done it," Plum told her reflection, "you've frightened your maid. She probably thinks you are already mad. She's probably right. Stupid, stupid Plum. What am I going to do? How am I ever going to tell Harry-a marquis, for heaven's sake, he's almost royalty-the truth about me?" Plum looked away to the door connecting her bedchamber to her husband's, giving it a righteous glare. "Although I don't know why I should feel guilty about this. After all, it's his fault, it's all his fault. If he had told me before we were married who he really was, then I would have told him who I... who I... oh, pooh. I don't know what I would have told him."

  Plum rose from the small gilt dressing table and fidgeted with the ribbon on her night rail. It was an old night rail, patched and mended and somewhat frayed on the bottom, not at all the sort of night rail a real marchioness would wear, especially on her wedding night, but it was all she owned, and she was pathetically grateful that Edna had found a rose-colored ribbon to replace the bit of braided cloth that had previously graced the neckline. "You are a coward, Frederica Pelham. You are nothing but a base coward, and you have no right to whine about anything because this is what you wanted."

  The scent of jasmine carried on a warm evening breeze hung heavy on the air as she gazed out the window at the blackness beyond. Because they had arrived after dark, she hadn't had much more than a glimpse of Ashleigh Court as Harry had brought her home, but what she had seen stunned her almost as much as the carelessly tossed out fact that he, Harry, her lord and master, was truly a lord if not her master. True the house and grounds were horribly ill-kept, but Harry had reassured Thom (Plum being at the time too stunned by the marquis's revelation to do much but sputter, "But, but...") that he had plans to renovate and rejuvenate the once-proud estate, and he looked forward to the help and advice of his new wife.