“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 tread 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 good night. Plum stood by the open window, slowly combing her hair, thinking about the many challenges that faced her, not the least of which was the 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 had 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.
“In fact what?” he asked, moving closer now, holding out his hands for her to take. He pulled her to her feet, straight into his arms, his body moving seductively against hers as a smile played around his rugged, manly lips—lips that drove all thoughts out of Plum’s mind but what pleasure they brought her.
“In fact I should like very much for you to make love to me,” she whispered, forgetting to be shy and innocent in her desire for him. A flicker of surprise flashed across Harry’s face before he bent and scooped her up in his arms, turning to carry her into his room. Plum had little time to admire the dark blue colors of his curtains and matching chairs before he deposited her on the middle of his bed, stripping off her night rail before she even had a chance to gasp.
She lay exposed to his gaze, every last blessed inch of her, and although she knew she should be embarrassed by her nudity, the way his eyes were eating her, she wasn’t. All the tingling and pools of heat within her were stirred to a new level of intensity by the pleasure she saw reflected in his eyes. She rolled onto her side into a more artful position, and gave Harry a blatant come-hither smile.
“You look uncomfortably hot in that dressing gown, husband. Don’t you think you should shed it and come to bed?”
“What?” Harry’s voice was just as hoarse as Plum’s had been, something that made her smile to herself as she patted the bed beside her.
“Take it off, Harry. I wish to see you, too.”
Harry’s eyes went practically black as he struggled to relieve himself of the hold his dressing gown had on him. His fingers seemed to have difficulty with the buttons. After fighting them for a few seconds, he snarled and ripped the garment off, throwing himself down beside her, his hands reaching for her.
“No,” Plum said, pushing his hands away.
“No?” Harry choked. “No? What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no, I wish to look at you first.” Plum sat on her heels and looked at the vast array of Harry before her. He was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous, better than she imagined. His legs were long and well muscled, not at all scrawny, as Charles’s had been. His belly had just the slightest hint of a softness
to it, a sign of his age, no doubt, but a sign that pleased Plum immensely. Charles had been thin and bony, and she had always been partial to large men—not fat, but comfortable to touch. Harry’s little hint of a belly was the perfect balance to the rest of his hard, muscled self. Her eyes skittered up his lightly haired chest—a chest that was heaving, she was pleased to note—across the broad width of his shoulders.
“What is it about a man’s chest?” she mused aloud as she took in the last uncovered bits of him, two strong arms with long, blunt-tipped fingers, a strong neck, and oh yes, the part she had been trying to ignore, the part of him that stood up and saluted her with a cheery wave.
“I was wondering just the exact same thing about your chest,” Harry said, his hands twitching on the blue-and-gold counterpane. “Am I allowed to touch you yet?”
“Not yet. Soon. But not yet.”
Harry groaned, and started to protest when Plum took him into her hands. His hips arched upward, the groan strangling in his throat.
“You’re very aroused. I like that about you. You’re also a bit longer than I expected, but I trust that won’t be the cause of any difficulty.”
Harry gasped in great quantities of air and clutched the counterpane with both hands. “I trust not.”
She explored the hard, hot length of velvety soft flesh that moved like silk over steel, enjoying the way his eyes rolled up in his head. Sweat broke out on his brow as his chest heaved, desperately attempting to bring enough air into his lungs. Plum allowed her hands to roam, to touch and tease the surrounding skin, then leaned over and nipped at his adorable little belly.
His stomach tightened as he yelped her name. Plum just grinned at him and kissed a path upward even as her hand slid lower. He smelled so good, like lemon soap and aroused male and something else, something a little spicy, something uniquely Harry.
“You have a very nice chest,” she whispered as his light dusting of chest hair tickled her nose. She wanted more than anything to take his adorable little nipples into her mouth, teasing them with teeth and tongue until he pleaded for mercy, but she remembered in time that she was supposed to be innocent of such knowledge, and contented herself with pressing a kiss to each nipple before nibbling a path up his neck and around to his ear.
Harry shuddered and groaned again, his body quivering nonstop, sweat bedewing his chest as Plum nibbled his earlobe. She paused and frowned at the gold wire tucked behind his ear. “Do you need your spectacles?”
“Only to see.”
“Oh.” She plucked them gently from his face, setting them on the table next to the bed before returning to his ear, laving the outer edge of it with her tongue as she said softly, “Your turn.”
She was on her back before the second word left her mouth, Harry braced above her, squinting ever so slightly in order to bring her into focus. Her legs moved restlessly against his, the pressure inside of her increased until it was spiked with pain, a pleasurable pain of emptiness that needed to be filled, a pain that only he could ease. His mouth hovered over her breasts, his hot breath steaming her flesh, her back arching of its own accord as his mouth—so hot, it would surely scorch her skin—burned a brand down her breastbone. Her hands slid up the muscles of his arms, her fingers catching in his hair as he kissed a trail of fire over to one heavy, aching breast, a breast that hungered for him, a breast that cried out for him, a breast that demanded that he take it into his mouth right at that very moment or else it would die. “Harry!” she shrieked as his mouth suddenly veered south, burning kisses pressed below her breast.
“What?” he mumbled into her soft flesh, his tongue flickering out to taste her. Plum’s back arched even more as she tried to pull his head up to where her breast clamored for it.
“If you don’t stop teasing me right this very second, my breast is going to explode, and then I’ll have only one, and that will make me lopsided!”
His hair brushed against her sensitive nipple, sending streaks of pain and pleasure through Plum. He grinned at her, then nibbled a featherlight circle around her nipple. “What do you want me to do, Plum? Perhaps this?”
He rubbed his cheek, slightly abrasive from his evening’s growth of whiskers, against the side of her breast. Her legs moved against him as she twisted, trying to position her breast against his mouth. He pulled back, frustrating her attempt.
“Harry!”
“Or perhaps…” He licked with long, sweeping strokes of his tongue around the perimeter of her breast, tracing along the point where her chest ended and her breast began. “You want this?”
“HARRY!” she demanded, past being able to form her need into words. She tugged at his head again, not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to make him pay attention.
“Ah, I begin to see. You want me to do this…” His mouth closed over the aching tip, his mouth hot and wet as he suckled her. Plum bucked beneath him as his teeth scraped gently over her flesh, the fires within her now a roaring inferno that swept her from toes to crown.
“I’m burning up,” she cried, reveling in her fiery death. “You’re going to kill me!”
“Sweetheart, I haven’t even begun to make you burn,” Harry swore against her breast, and just as Plum was sending heartfelt prayers to her maker to allow her to survive her husband’s attention, her world fell apart.
***
“Harry?” Plum blinked, wondering why he had left her, why his warm, delicious, hard body had pulled away from hers, then she realized that the pounding of her heart, so loud in her ears as to deafen her to everything but its frantic beat, was really a pounding on the door. “Harry?”
He snatched up his dressing gown, pulling the bed curtains closed to shield her from view. Plum, still trying to gather her wits, finally realized that someone was at the door. She slid over and peeked through the bed curtains.
“—and Mama tried barley water, but he won’t keep that down as well. ’Tis the truth, it’s coming out of both ends. Mama thought you’d want to know.”
“Now?” Harry asked, his voice tight and rough about the edges. Plum understood completely—she felt like a bowstring pulled tight, trembling on the edge of release. “He had to be sick now? It couldn’t have waited until later, it has to be now?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t think he planned this, not as sick as the poor little lamb is.”
Harry banged his forehead on the door frame a couple of times. Plum winced in sympathy. It had to have hurt. “Now?”
Plum reached through the curtains and snared her night rail, pulling it on before leaving the bed. “Who is ill?” she asked him.
He stopped abusing his forehead and set the candle he’d snatched up onto a tall bureau. “McTavish has some sort of a stomach complaint.”
“Mama thinks it’s more than that, ma’am,” George said, the golden hair tumbling down from under an old-fashioned nightcap tangled in the ties of her night rail as she wrung her hands in worry.
“Mama?” Plum asked, confused.
“Gertie is George’s mother,” Harry said as he slid his feet into a pair of blue velvet slippers. “Go back to bed, love. I’ll see to McTavish. I’m sure it’s just the usual complaint. Too many green apples, most likely.”
Plum toyed for a second with the thought of doing what Harry suggested, but only for a second. “I’ll come with you.” When Harry paused in the doorway to cast her a questioning glance, she added, “I’m his mother now. He needs me.”
“Yes,” Harry agreed, much to her surprise…and delight. “He does need you.”
She brushed past him, following George up the dark stairs to the nursery, not at all aware that Harry finished his sentence with a soft, “And so do I.”
Eight
“How is he this morning?” Temple asked.
Harry staggered a few feet before the words sank into his sleep-deprived brain. “Better. Kept some broth down. Sle
eping now. Thom’s with him. Sent Plum to bed.”
Temple took the liberty of guiding his employer to the nearest chair, onto which Harry collapsed with a grateful sigh. “You should get some rest too, sir. It’s been three days, and I doubt if you’ve had more than an hour or two of sleep at night.”
Harry made an attempt to push his spectacles up, noticed his hand was trembling with fatigue, and lowered it again. “Couldn’t leave the poor little lad. Doctor said he almost bought it. Said we came damn close to losing him. Plum was beside herself.”
Temple signaled to a footman to bring a decanter and glass to the hall table next to where Harry was sitting. “Surely she didn’t blame herself for the incident? I thought that Doctor Trewitt said McTavish had ingested something poisonous, like toxic berries or a bit of plant?”
Harry leaned his head back against the oak paneling and closed his eyes. There was so much for him to do, so much he needed to see to, but the last few days had drained him of all energy or desire to do anything but sleep for a week. “Plum had some foolish idea that it was the upset at dinner the other night that made him ill.”
“That is foolish. McTavish is made of sterner stuff.”
“Mmm.” Harry tried to focus his mind on the things he needed to do, but they kept slipping from his mental grasp, as if they were made of quicksilver. “Now that McTavish is out of danger, I must attend to those tasks that are awaiting my attention, tasks like unearthing the information Lord Briceland requested. And then there is putting the estate to rights—Plum can’t do it all herself.”
Harry was so still that Temple thought for a moment that he had fallen asleep, but the groan Harry uttered informed him otherwise. His words, however, were noticeably slurred, spoken slowly as if the mere act of speaking was almost beyond him. “I’ve been blessed, Temple, twice in my life. The first was when I wed Beatrice, the second was when I found Plum. I’d have lost Tavvy without her ceaseless care. She wouldn’t let him go, she just wouldn’t let him…”