A sudden frown diminished the lust…joy running amok inside him. She nibbled her strawberry-ripe lower lip. “About that—”
He couldn’t resist. He had to taste her lips just one more time. Her breath caught and held as he plunged into her sweet mouth, feeling himself harden even more as she moved against him, sliding her fingers into his hair, tasting him as he tasted her. She was heaven, she was bliss, she was—
“There you are. What are you doing in here? Gertie says I can’t wear my hair up until I’m fifteen, but I think—oh.”
Harry could have cried, he could have sat right down on the floor and cried. He tore his lips from Plum’s, smugly satisfied by the misted passion in her eyes, then released her so he could glare at his daughter. She wasn’t supposed to be here. He had her down for an introduction to Plum tomorrow at tea.
India was examining his new wife, her brows drawn together, her hands on her hips in a pose that was very much like Beatrice’s whenever she had been displeased with him. “Is that her, then?”
He frowned. McTavish might not know better, but India certainly did. “Plum, this young woman who has apparently lost her manners is India, my daughter.”
“A daughter.” Plum blinked a couple of times, but didn’t demand an immediate annulment, something Harry was profoundly thankful for. “You have a daughter. Named India. What an unusual name. Good evening, India. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
He could have kissed Plum, he was so grateful. She didn’t rail at him, she didn’t accuse him of not being truthful about the children, she just cast him a curious glance and went forward to give India one of those polite little hugs that women who don’t know one another well give each other. Yes, she deserved to be kissed, and he was just the man to see the job done.
“You’re Plum?” India asked, her eyes meeting Harry’s in surprised horror as Plum hugged her.
Kissing his wife was his duty, after all.
Plum stepped back and divided a bright, sunny smile between India and him. “Yes, I’m Plum. Your father didn’t…er…that is, I hadn’t expected to meet you tonight, but I’m so glad you came in to say hello.”
Kissing her would tell her just how much he approved of and appreciated her.
“We must have a good long chat in the morning. I know some very fetching hairstyles that I’m sure will make you even prettier than you already are.”
Oftentimes, kissing led to other, more full-bodied experiences.
“My niece, Thom, will want to meet you, as well. Thom has curly hair, like yours. I’m sure she’ll have some advice as to the best way to wear it.”
Plum liked kissing him; therefore, he would be selfish to keep such a pleasure from her. Cruel, even. Harry was not a cruel man. He might not be madly in love with Plum, but he liked her, and he wanted her happy and sated. Particularly sated. Although happy was good, too.
“Papa?” India said, her eyes huge as Plum lifted her braid and wrapped it in a coronet on the top of her head, prattling all the while about hair-related subjects that were so dear to the female heart.
“Yes,” Harry said, agreeing to whatever it would take to get India out of the room and Plum into his bed.
“Yes?” India dipped away from Plum, unwinding her braid and giving his wife an outraged look.
“Yes.” He glanced at Plum. Both of her deliciously straight brows were raised in mute surprise. Evidently yes wasn’t the answer she expected him to give. “No,” he corrected himself. Plum’s eyebrows lowered to their normal straight line. He smiled at her, pleased he got the answer right.
“Papa!” India gasped as Harry grabbed her arm. He opened the door to the hallway, and still smiling at Plum, tugged his daughter out. “Papa, you didn’t even hear—”
“We had an agreement, didn’t we?” Harry whispered, leaning close to India’s ear. “You agreed not to disturb me tonight for anything short of death, dismemberment, or the apocalypse, and in return I will buy you the Hamilton’s gray mare with white stockings. That was our agreement. I have your signed statement, which I do not hesitate to point out is binding in any court of law.”
“Yes, but—”
Harry gave her his best annoyed father look, the one he kept in reserve for emergencies. India, an intelligent little whelp, knew that she hadn’t a leg to stand on, and after uttering a word he would take up with her another time, and stomping her foot perilously close to his bare toes, she huffed off. Harry lost no time in zipping back into the bedchamber and resuming the activities that had twice been so grievously interrupted. He didn’t even give Plum time to say anything other than a startled, “Harry!” before he was engaged in a tactile exploration of her wonderfully warm, wet mouth.
“India says you’re getting the gray mare for her. You said you’d get me a horse as soon as we were settled! I’m an earl, she’s just a lady. I should have the next horse.”
Harry pulled back until his lips just brushed Plum’s as he spoke. “That’s my oldest son, Digger, Lord Marston. Ignore him and he’ll go away.”
He tried to possess her lips again, but she slipped out of his arms. “Digger?”
“It’s short for Diggory. You’re Plum. India said you were scrawny and you touched her hair. She doesn’t like to be touched. She’s a girl,” Digger said, as if that explained it all.
Harry fought back the desire to throttle his son and heir—he had other sons, as he had pointed out to Digger on many occasions—and prepared to explain the situation to his wife.
She was looking at Digger with pursed lips, a look she transferred to him. “Another son. Exactly how many children do you have, my lord?”
He winced at the “my lord.” Her tone had gone from warm and arousing, to cold and suspicious in the matter of a few seconds.
“Er…at last count I had—”
The door to the hallway was slammed open, Anne and Andrew rolling through the doorway in an angry assortment of elbows, knees, and feet.
“It’s mine! It has the blue top, that’s mine! Yours is the one with the yellow top!” Andrew jerked a small wooden boat out of Anne’s hands.
She got to her knees and punched her twin in his belly. “Stupid! Mine is the blue one, yours is yellow!”
“—five children.”
“Five?”
“MINE!” Andrew kicked out with both of his legs, one of which clipped Anne on the jaw. She yelped and dived onto him, her fists and feet flying.
“That’s Anne and Andrew. They’re twins,” Digger said helpfully.
“Yes, that’s correct, just the five children,” Harry said with a weak smile at Plum.
The twins barreled into the dressing table, knocking over various bottles and pots of feminine unguents and scents that Temple had purchased upon Harry’s order. A box of powder exploded as the table went flying, filling the air with a rose-scented cloud while twin sapphire blue bottles holding extremely expensive scents crashed onto the floor, spilling their contents onto the rose and damask rug. Various small pots scattered, disgorging their contents as well. Anne and Andrew began to cough, having gulped in rose powder-laden air. Andrew pulled Anne’s hair. She bit his hand. Digger sauntered over to Plum and told her he didn’t think she was scrawny at all, she just needed a bit of fattening up.
Harry closed his eyes for a second, praying that when he opened them again, he would be alone with his wife. That failing, he prayed he’d come up with a good enough explanation to keep her from walking out on him.
The sound of glass breaking stirred him into action. “Out!” he bellowed, grabbing the back of Andrew’s nightgown in one hand, the back of Anne’s with another, pulling them apart, and sending them with none too gentle pushes toward the door.
“Out!” he roared again, pointing at the door as he glared at Digger. “And take the twins with you.”
“I still want a horse,” Digger
said, but at least he managed to get the twins, still fighting, out the door so Harry could slam it shut. He also locked it. Without glancing at Plum, he hauled the fainting couch over to the door, just to be sure they couldn’t get in.
“Five,” Plum said when he finally turned to face her.
All his words of explanation, all his entreaties for her understanding melted before the one cocked eyebrow and the arms crossed over her delicious chest. His hopes of a wondrous, erotic night spent exploring the ways of marital harmony withered into dust and blew out the window on a faint waft of rose powder.
He rallied a feeble smile and tried very hard not to cry. “Yes, well, five always has been my lucky number.”
Five
Plum awoke to the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched. She opened her eyes. She was being watched. Circled around the bottom of her bed, five pairs of eyes stared steadily at her as she pushed her heavy hair out of her eyes and propped herself up on her elbow. The youngest of Harry’s sons, the boy oddly named McTavish, squirmed out from under India’s restraining hand and jumped onto the bed next to Plum.
“You’re awake now, aren’t you? India said I wasn’t to wake you up, but your eyes are open now so you’re awake. I want a kitten. I have a dead rat. Would you like to see it?”
“No, thank you, McTavish. I try to maintain a strict policy of entertaining no dead rats before breakfast. It’s not easy, but life is nothing if not a challenge. What are you all doing in here?”
“Waiting for you to wake up,” Digger said.
“Why aren’t you sleeping with Papa?” India asked, her lips tight with suspicion. “Gertie said the reason Papa wanted to get married was so he wouldn’t get lonely in bed. You’re supposed to keep him from being lonely. Gertie said so. Why aren’t you?”
Plum closed her eyes for a few seconds before sitting up and facing the bright faces watching her so carefully. “To be honest, I don’t feel up to a detailed explanation of my intimate relationship with your father, but as you are obviously concerned about his happiness, I can reassure you that although the situation last night was not one conducive to…er…keeping him from being lonely, I have every intention of seeing to that task tonight. Will that suffice?”
“I want a kitten. You said I could have one this morning.”
“Our real mother slept in the same bed as Papa,” India said accusingly.
“I don’t want a new mama,” Anne said, then disappeared as she dropped to the floor. Peering over the side of the bed, Plum could see Anne’s legs where they stuck out from under the bed.
“I want a mama, I want a mama,” McTavish chanted, bouncing up and down on the bed in time with his words. “I want a kitten, I want a kitten.”
“That’s mine!” Andrew said and immediately jumped his twin as she emerged with a pretty blue and pink chamber pot. “I saw it first!”
“Our real mother took care of Papa. She wouldn’t let him be lonely.”
“A kitten, a kitten! I want a kitten!”
“It is not, I saw it first! It’s mine. You have to find your own.”
“Our real mother made sure Papa was dressed warmly when he went out in the cold, and took a draught whenever he was sick.”
“Mine, Annie!”
“Papa never was sick,” Digger told his sister. She glared at him, her arms tight across her chest, her nostrils flaring in that particularly effective way young women of three and ten had of expressing their contempt.
“He would have taken a draught if he was sick. Mama would have made him.”
Digger gave way before such reasoning. He nodded. “Yes, he would have.”
“Kitten, kitten, kitten, kitten.”
Plum, starting to get a headache from all of McTavish’s bouncing, clutched him to her chest. “I appreciate the fact that none of you wish to have a new mother—”
“I want a new mama,” McTavish told her shoulder, squirming to get free. Plum loosened her grip just enough so he could sit next to her and play with the long, inky tendrils of hair that curled around him.
“Thank you, McTavish, I appreciate that.”
“I want one, too,” Digger said unexpectedly. “And so do the twins, don’t you?”
Andrew, in the process of wresting the chamber pot—thankfully unused—from his sister’s grip, didn’t look up as he nodded. “Yes.”
“No, you don’t, I want one,” Anne snarled as she stomped on her brother’s foot, crowing in triumph when he yelped and released the chamber pot.
“I thought she said otherwise?” Plum asked as Anne raced out of the room, her prize hugged to her chest. Andrew was directly on her heels, yelling at her that she was a thief to take his pretty pot.
“Oh, that’s just the twins. They never agree on anything,” Digger said, then started for the door. “Come on, Tavvy, George said she heard that one of the bulls’ tails fell off during the night. If we’re fast, maybe we can find it before the stable boys do.”
“I want a bull tail!” McTavish said as he scrambled across the top of Plum to follow after his brother. “I want a kitten and a bull tail.”
Plum blinked at India, who was still frowning at her. “Is it like this every morning, or are you all being unusually bizarre on my behalf?”
India unfolded her arms and marched toward the door. “My real mother didn’t have black hair. My real mother was pretty, and blonde like me, and she didn’t touch me when I didn’t want to be touched.”
Plum sat back against the headboard as the door slammed behind India, blowing out a breath she hadn’t realize she had been holding. “You wanted children, well now you have them. Only, what am I do to with five grown children? Babies I could handle, but children children…hoo!”
The room held no answer for her. Since she didn’t want to frighten her maid by asking her any more rhetorical questions, she washed in the water that had been left for her, and with the practice of one who has long tended to herself, slipped into the nicest gown she owned. She was just braiding her hair when there was a knock at her door.
“India said you were awake. I thought I would see how you enjoyed your first night of marital bliss.” Thom entered the room, her arched eyebrow (Plum had gnashed her teeth many times at the lovely natural arch in Thom’s eyebrows) and coy smile an indicator of what sort of an answer she expected.
“I slept quite well, thank you, although not due to any activities that you are perilously close to smirking about. And while we’re on that subject, I will remind you again that unmarried young ladies of good family do not allude to matters that are unsuitable.”
Thom blew her a kiss and opened the door. “You’re so adorable when you’re prudish. Since you are obviously hale and hearty, I will see you later. I’m going to investigate Harry’s stables. He appears to have excellent taste in horses…”
Before Plum could do anything more than sputter, “Prudish! I’ve never been prudish a day in my life!” Thom was gone. Plum gave her hair a final pat, spent three minutes wishing she had a nice gown in which to greet her new husband, and set off to begin her life as wife and mother.
“Good morning, er…” Plum hesitated in the great hall, unable to recall the butler’s name. Her introductions to the staff the previous night had been so quickly conducted, she had nothing more than an impression of a heavy Spanish accent, sultry, flashing black eyes, and extremely white teeth against dark skin.
“I am Juan Immanuel Savage Tortugula Diaz de Arasanto, and you are my oh, so very, very lady.”
“Very, very lady?” Plum extracted her hand from where the handsome Spaniard was bending over it.
“Yes, you are so very.” Juan the butler waggled his eyebrows at her in what she assumed was meant to be a seductive manner.
She fought back the desire to giggle at him, and instead asked, “Yes, well, Arasanto, have you seen his lordship this mor
ning?”
“One.”
“You saw him at one this morning?”
He gave her a very polished leer. “No, Juan. It is my name. You may call me Juan rather than Arasanto. It is preferred, yes?”
Plum took a deep breath and reminded herself that no matter how much she might like to either burst into hysterical laughter or scream, neither were actions suitable to a new marchioness. “I see. Very well, Juan, do you know where my husband is?”
He shrugged and pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward a narrow, dark passage. “Harry is probably hiding in his office.”
“Harry?” Plum asked, a little surprised by a servant addressing his master by his first name.
“He asks me to call him that because he calls me Juan, eh?”
“Oh. I see. Yes, well…um…thank you.” Plum started toward the passage, but found her way blocked by the amorous Spaniard.
“You would like for me to show you around the house first, eh? I have many things of interest to show you.” His eyebrows waggled at her again.
Plum knew she should be offended or angry with such blatant flirting by a servant, but she found herself oddly amused by Juan. He was so sure of his charm, so obvious about his innuendoes, she couldn’t help but smile. “Thank you, but I will have my husband—your employer—show me around the house. I’m sure he, too, has many interesting things to show me.”
“He is old, that one. I am young and how it’s said, virile.”
“He’s not that old.” Plum laughed. “And considering he has five children, I would hazard that his virility is not in doubt.”
Juan shuddered and crossed himself. “Santa Maria, those ones are spawned by the devil himself.”
“Oh, come now, they’re a bit high-spirited, but they aren’t really that bad.” Plum sidled around Juan while he was busy rolling his eyes. “A little untamed, perhaps, but that is no doubt due to having been without a mother for the last few years. I quite like them.”
Juan grabbed her hand as she moved past him, bowing over it again, brushing his lips against her knuckles before Plum yanked her hand back. “It is because you have not been here with them that you think they are the angels. They are not. And now, most very lady, I will return to my duties. You are mistress here now, you will want to speak to me later about my duties, yes? I will await your pleasure in the pantry of butlers.” His black, liquid eyes sent her a message that was unmistakable. Plum’s lips twitched as she struggled to keep from giggling. She hurried down the dark passage, wondering how on earth Harry had come to employ such a bold butler, when his words sank in.