Trouble With Harry (11 page)

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.”

“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. Sleeping 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…”

“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.”