"Yes, but Harry did say the wallpaper needed replacement."
Plum thought back to the scene during dinner, giving a mental sigh. It was the mashed potatoes that had proved to be the children's undoing. After having ordered the removal of the piglet that had ("It just followed me in, honest!") trotted in on Andrew's heels, Plum had managed to get everyone seated without too much ado. She saved the lecture she was aching to read them for later, when Harry's hazel eyes weren't watching her. She extracted the dead snake from McTavish's grip and seated him next to her on a chair with several pillows, allowing the other children to select their own seats. Thom sat on Harry's left hand, while Temple sat across from McTavish, on her right.
"Well, isn't this lovely?" Plum asked, smiling at them all, pleased to see that the children had some sort of training in table manners. It never once entered her head that having dined exclusively on nursery fare, they were stupefied into silence by the vast array of food she'd ordered for their first dinner as a family. "Here we are, all together, just one very large happy family."
Harry, who had been giving his children gimlet glances, nodded without saying anything. Plum's heart fell a little at that wordless nod. Clearly his faith in her was still shaken by the garden shed incident. The dinner would show him how wrong he was to doubt her abilities as a mother. She kept her smile firmly in place as Juan and his footmen glided around the table in an efficient dance, offering dishes to her before moving down the table, assisting the children where needed.
"Digger, don't be a pig. Leave some for others," India said as he scooped an entire quartered capon off the serving tray, and deposited it onto his plate.
Plum, alert to possible signs of malcontent (and its more worrisome brother, outright trouble), saw Harry turn a frown to his son and quickly stepped in before he could say anything. "Such a healthy appetite, Digger!" she said as she waved on Ben, the capon-bearing footman. "I'm sure Cook will be gratified to know that you find dinner so appealing."
"Huh," India sniffed, and took a dainty wing with a pointed look at Digger.
"Huh yourself," Digger replied, and stuffed a whole roll into his mouth. Harry, turned in the opposite direction to help himself to a portion of the remaining capon, missed the-somewhat amazing-event of Digger shoving a large dinner roll into his mouth, but the boy's bulging cheeks, not to mention the crumbs that sprayed the table before him as he chewed, could not be overlooked. Plum, racking her brain to think of something to distract Harry from the sight of Digger swallowing python-style large chunks of bread, helped herself to a spoon of mashed potatoes, and said-without thinking of possible repercussions of such a foolish statement- "Mashed potatoes! When I was a girl, my sister used to amuse me by making little sculptures out of her mashed potatoes. I can still remember the time she rendered Michelangelo's David into potato form."
Eight pairs of eyes stared at her as she ladled gravy over her capon and potatoes. Five pairs of those eyes, alight with sudden speculation, turned to the footman offering the potatoes. There was a brief tussle over who would be served first, resolved when Harry barked, "Sit down, all of you!"
"Children, please," Plum begged, worriedly noting the frown on Harry's face had settled in and looked like it was going to be there for a while. She hurried to correct their behavior before he had an opportunity to comment on the fact that they were out of control. "Andrew, dear, a gentleman does not punch a lady in the arm, no matter if she does poke you with a fork. Anne, do not poke people with silverware, even if they are closer to the potatoes than you. Digger, why don't you wait until your father says grace before... oh, never mind. William, would you please bring more beets? It seems Lord Marston has a fondness for them."
Harry cast a disbelieving glance at the huge mound of food on his son's plate. Beets topped the mountain of potatoes that dotted the landscape around the quartered capon set atop a field of French beans.
"Growing boys need lots of sustenance," Plum told him with a weak smile, mentally thanking her stars that she had arranged for three more courses.
"So do pigs," India muttered under her breath.
"I am not a pig!" Digger growled, shooting his sister a mean look. "You take that back."
"Of course you're not a pig," Plum soothed. "Young ladies do not eat as much as young men-"
"Are so! Piggy, piggy, piggy!" India said, narrowing her eyes at Digger.
Plum, one eye on Harry's deepening frown, cleared her throat. "Children, since this is our first night together-"
"Piggy, piggy, piggy," the younger children started chanting. Digger, his face flushed and hot with anger, snarled an imprecation at his siblings that had Plum blinking in surprise.
"What did you say?" Harry asked, setting his napkin on the table and looking as if he was about to escort his son out to the woodshed to introduce him to his razor strop.
Plum, desperate now to just get through the meal without anyone being punished, pleaded with Harry. "I'm sure he didn't say what you thought he said. He probably said something similar, but not quite, if you know what I mean."
"He said merde," India said smugly as she formed her dollop of mashed potatoes into something that to Plum's eye vaguely resembled a church spire. "Only not in French. Mademoiselle said it was much worse to say it in English than in French, so you see, Digger really is a pig, because only a pig would have such a privy mouth."
"ARGH!" responded Digger. With one deft flip of his wrist, he sent a forkful of mashed potatoes flying at his sister. India, with long practice, ducked the missile, which hit the wall behind her.
"Oh! You piggy, piggy, pig-pig!" She scooped up a spoonful of potatoes, and before Plum could stop her, fired it at her brother. The other children squealed their delight as Digger, intent on reloading his own weapon, was struck dead in the face. He roared a battle cry, and suddenly the air was full of flying potatoes. They seemed to come from everywhere, striking everyone and everything-the footmen, the walls, the children, even Thom was plastered before Harry, bellowing a warning so loud it made the windows rattle, stopped the starchy artillery attack.
"YOU WILL STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!" he yelled, and when the combatants, panting with the exertions of their recent warfare, stood in various positions of attack around the table, he looked at each one of them, snarling, "You are excused from the table until such time as you can eat like civilized human beings, not animals."
"Piggy," India muttered at Digger, a blob of potatoes clinging to the side of her head.
"Am not!" he hissed, wiping the potatoes from his chest.
"Not... one ... more ... word," Harry roared. "Out! All of you! And I don't want to see any of you again tonight, do I make myself clear?"
Five subdued, potato-coated children nodded, and trickled out of the room. Plum watched them leave with a heavy heart. Her initial reaction was to ask Harry just how his children had been raised to have such terrible manners, but she quickly provided herself with an answer-the little dears had no mother to guide them. She just prayed Harry wasn't so disappointed in her lack of parenting skills that he could not see how much better she could make all of their lives.
Harry sat back down, pulling his spectacles off to remove the blob of potatoes smeared across one lens. Plum stared at her plate as a sobbing Juan was led from the room by Ben, a variety of potent epithets and curses regarding devil-spawned children clearly audible in-between the sobs.
Temple looked around the room, his distaste evident. Thom's face was placid, but Plum could see the merriment dancing in her eyes. Thom picked up her plate, and with a little bob to Harry, excused herself. "I think I'll have my dinner in the nursery this once, if you don't mind. I'm sure the children could do with someone keeping an eye on them."
Harry flinched at her words. Plum, torn between the nearly overwhelming desire to cry and the urge to reassure Harry that he would not be subjected to another such scene (although she was at a loss as to how she was to guarantee any such thing), nodded at Thom and waved one of the footmen awa
y from wiping potatoes from the window. "William, would you please ask Cook to send supper up to the nursery?"
"They don't deserve supper," Harry said, still obviously a bit snappish about the children, which, considering he was wearing a boutonniere of mashed potatoes garnished with French beans, was understandable.
Plum waved her hand at the footman to do as she ordered, and turned back to apologize to Harry. "I'm sorry," she said at the exact instance he looked up, and said the same words to her.
"I believe I will finish my dinner in the servant's hall," Temple said quietly, and removed himself from the dining room.
The remaining footman followed Temple after receiving Harry's scowl. Plum's spirits sank as her husband threw his potato-riddled napkin down, and rose to stalk down the length of the long table.
"Truly, Harry, the children were just-"
"Abominable, yes, I'm well aware of your assessment of their behavior. It is in complete harmony with mine. Um ... you have a bit of potato in your hair. If you would allow me ..."
Plum sat still while he dabbed at her head with her napkin. She was a mass of indecision, wanting to tell him the children's behavior at dinner was her fault, and yet admitting to herself that his label was more or less correct. The key, she decided after they spent the remainder of dinner in silence, was to show him not how badly behaved the children were, but how much she could do for them.
"Which brings me back to the problem at hand," Plum said, shaking off the memories of the disastrous dinner as she combed her now potato-free hair before the soft, fragrant breeze of the open window. As thick as her hair was, it took forever to dry. She particularly wanted it dry soon, since the look Harry had given her after dinner boded very well for her plans to engage in many, many connubial calisthenics before the week was out, and everyone knew that damp hair had no place in the marriage bed.
"How to make the children mind you?" Thom asked, still pouring over the book sitting before her. Plum craned her neck to see what it was that Thom found so fascinating, then jumped up and gasped, "Thomasine! What are you doing with that?"
Thom put a finger on a page to mark her spot, and looked up. "Reading. It's very informative. How did you come up with the idea of Hunter Loosing an Arrow into a Mossy Crevice? I would think that something like that would hurt, should the gentleman's aim be off."
Plum marched over to her niece and snatched the book from her hands, stuffing it into the back of the writing bureau and slamming the lid shut. "Charles was very inventive and his aim was never off. That is all I am going to say on the subject."
Thom grinned. Plum shook a finger at that grin. "I've told you before that you're not to read the Guide until you are married!"
"I have no plans to ever marry. I shall be a doting aunt to your children. And Harry's, too, if he'll let me. I rather like them."
"So do I, but that's neither here nor there. And you're changing the subject-that book is not suitable reading for you, and that's that."
Thom tipped her head and looked Plum over as she returned to her chair before the window and resumed drying her hair. "Are you ashamed that you wrote it?"
"Of course I'm not ashamed ... not in the sense you mean, I'm not. There is nothing in there that is coarse or distasteful, it's simply instruction of an intimate nature, a celebration if you will of the physical union between a husband and wife."
"Then why did you hide the book away in the bureau? Why don't you set it out so people can see it and know you are the author?"
A look of horror crawled across Plum's face. Her stomach balled up into a tiny little lead weight with the thought of just how their lives would be ruined should the identity of Vyvyan La Blue be made public. "Dear God in heaven, that would be the end."
"Oh, surely you exaggerate," Thom said.
Plum shook her head, horrific visions dancing in her head of ostracization a million times worse than what she'd experienced. "The last scandal took the life of your beloved mother, Thom. This one would ... oh, it would destroy us all! You, Harry, the children ... everyone would be tainted, everyone would be shunned."
"Pooh. People wouldn't be so cruel over such a silly thing."
"Silly?" Plum stared at her niece, desperate to make her understand lest the girl inadvertently give away her secret. Before there was just Thom and herself to worry about, but now she had six more souls to protect. "Silly? Thom, I was silly once, when I was your age. Silly and naive to believe Charles was being truthful and honest when he married me. I suffered for that silliness, as did my family, most particularly your mother. Because of that silliness, I will have to spend the rest of my life in the country, which I don't mind, I prefer country life, and thankfully Harry seems disinclined to go into town or polite society, but the fact remains that I cannot go anywhere people know me, or know of my past."
Thom made an annoyed sound. "I don't believe any of your acquaintances would still remember that old farrago. Yes, the people in Ram's Bottom were rude to you about it, but they aren't society, and that's who you're worried about. You told me yourself that the ton isn't happy unless it has a new scandal to chew over each week."
"They might need a new scandal each week, but they also have exceptionally long memories. Truthfully, Thom, that scandal would pale in comparison to the one that would be generated should the ton become aware that the author of the most infamous book yet published was none other than the Marchioness Rosse. Society might titter and gossip behind their hands about a woman who was foolish enough to marry Charles, but they would cut dead everyone who was related-by birth or circumstance-to the author of the Guide."
Thom shrugged. "I know Mama felt differently, but I don't mind being shunned."
"I know you don't, a fact I am profoundly grateful for, one which has me begging for forgiveness every night in my prayers, but your feet trod a different path than most people's. You are not a well-respected and well-liked man who has committed no sin but marrying a woman with a secret; you are not an innocent child with your life spread before you, a life that will be cruelly ruined, with no hope of ever taking your rightful place in the society to which you were born."
Thom held up her hands, and gave a little laugh. "I surrender. I bow to your superior knowledge of society. But surely you have no need to hide the Guide from Harry? Oh, don't get your hackles up, I'm not suggesting that you tell him you wrote it- not that I think he would mind, he seems a very fair-minded man-but there's no reason you couldn't show him the book and try out one or two of the more interesting exercises. I was thinking that Heron Alighting Upon a Still Pond looked rather fascinating."
"Heron Alighting -" A slow smile curved Plum's lips as she recalled just what was involved in that particular calisthenic. "Oh, yes, that would be... ahem. Thank you, Thom. I will take your advice under consideration. Now, you'd best be off to your own bed. Will you be available tomorrow to take the children on a nature walk with me?"
"A nature walk?" Thom strolled toward the door, pausing when she reached it to cock an eyebrow at her aunt. "Why would you want to take the children on a nature walk?"
"They have a surfeit of energy. I thought a long walk where they will be free to run and romp to their heart's content will benefit them, and serve to show them that good behavior will be rewarded."
"Clever puss," Thom said with a grin, then shook her head with rue. "I hate to miss that, but Puck told me the farrier is to come tomorrow, and I wish to watch him. You don't mind if I miss your nature walk, do you?"
"Puck?"
"One of Harry's stable boys. The one with the red hair and freckles."
"Ah. No, I don't mind." Plum had a moment of misgiving thinking of herself alone with the children, but that was quickly squelched. She had triumphed over much worse things, how hard could it be to take five children on a walk through the countryside?
Thom bid her a goodnight. Plum stood by the open window, slowly combing her hair, thinking about the many challenges that faced her, not the least of which was th
e upcoming evening. Harry believed her to be a shy bride, not a virgin, but virginal, unlearned, and inexperienced. While it was true she had only six weeks of Charles's attention before the marriage was discovered and he was sent abroad by his family, they were very instructive weeks. Thus it would be necessary for her to not take the initiative, nor to attempt anything beyond Leda and the Swan. "Which is a shame, because Thom is absolutely right, Heron Alighting Upon a Still Pond is extremely fascinating, particularly when the heron in question has legs as long as Harry's."
Plum didn't have long to muse upon her sorrows before her husband burst into her room with a hurried knock at her door. He stopped just beyond the doorway and gazed at Plum, curled up in a chair reading a book (not the Guide). His eyes were dark behind his spectacles, but the heat within them was visible to her even across the room. Plum was filled with a responding warmth, her body reacting to that gaze by preparing itself for him. Beneath the soft linen of her night rail, her nipples hardened, her breasts waking themselves up out of a dormant sleep, becoming immediately both extremely sensitive and heavy, as if they needed hands-Harry's hands-holding them up. Her stomach was filled with the same tumbling butterflies that made their appearance the night before, her thighs ached to wrap themselves around him, and her womanly parts were holding a celebration and offered an invitation to Harry to attend the festivities.
"Erm ... Plum? You're not going to throw me out again, are you? You've forgiven me?" Harry looked so adorable, so hesitant, so ... manly what with his bare feet and ankles, and that little bit of chest that showed at the top of his gold dressing gown, not to mention the enticing bulge in the region of his groin that practically had Plum licking her lips.
I must be innocent, I must be innocent, she told herself, and fought a short-lived battle to keep from leaping up and ripping the dressing gown from his body. Her hands tightened on the arms of the chair with the effort. She cleared her throat and tried to speak, but her words came out hoarse. She cleared her throat again, then offered Harry what she prayed looked like a shy, innocent, maidenly smile, and not the smile of a woman who was anticipating the close examination and practical application of his body against hers. "Of course I'm not angry with you, and no, I will not ask you to leave my bedchamber again. That was very ill done of me, Harry, and I apologize again for my actions. In fact-" She paused and chewed her lip. Should she take the chance of angering him and tell him about Charles? With each day of acquaintance with him she was becoming more and more confident of him, just as her burden weighed more heavily on her soul, but with that confidence came reluctance to harm their budding relationship. Perhaps if she waited until later, after they had a chance to know one another, after he knew just how much of a help she could be in his life, perhaps then would be the time to bare her own secrets.