Trouble With Harry (20 page)

Charles sputtered over the incident until Plum snapped at him. “Stop acting like such an infant, you brought that upon yourself. Now, please do me the kindness of stating your goal without harassing me further—”

“I can assure you that I have no intention of harassing you,” Charles said, his muddy brown eyes alight with anger. He rubbed his cheek, his lips thinned. “Indeed my thoughts of you have been of quite the opposite variety, especially upon my arrival in Paris last month, when a very interesting tome was placed into my hands, a tome concerning acts of great intimacy that seemed oddly familiar.”

Ah, now they were arriving to the meat of the discussion. Plum said nothing but raised her brow in imitation of Harry's best quizzical look.

“I find myself—naturally, it is embarrassing to have to admit this—in a particularly unpleasant situation of having my funds tied up.”

Plum almost laughed aloud, a sigh of relief on her lips. Money—that's all Charles wanted, just money. Both the laughter and sigh dried up as she realized that she had no money whatsoever.

“As it would appear that the book you so cleverly penned using our experiences together as man and wife—”

“Illegally man and wife, although you hadn't bothered to tell me that until it was too late,” Plum couldn't help but add.

“—as the sole basis of this, I'm told, very popular book, I cannot help but think that you might be willing to show gratitude and appreciation in a pecuniary sense to one who made the book possible, as it were.”

“Gratitude,” Plum sputtered, outraged almost to speechlessness. “Appreciation? For ruining me?”

“Appreciation for me giving you the means to raise yourself from such an ignoble end to the lofty heights of a marchioness.”

“
The
Guide
had nothing to do with Harry marrying me—”

Charles bowed to an acquaintance, lifting his hat politely before turning back to Plum. “If you do not lower your voice, my dear Plum, you will find that the silence I suspect you so desperately seek will be of no use.”

Plum took a deep breath, reminding herself that she had Harry and the children to think of. She couldn't punch Charles in the nose as he so rightly deserved. “I owe you nothing, Charles, no appreciation, no gratitude.”

“Alas,” he answered, giving her an odious smile. “I had feared you might adopt such a regrettable attitude. Might I take a moment to remind you of the peculiar situation you find yourself in? From what I gleaned last night at the ball, you have been married to Rosse but a very short time, and no one—other than myself—seems to be aware of the fact that the Marchioness Rosse and the bawdy Vyvyan La Blue are one and the same. I doubt if even your honorable husband is aware of that fact.”

Plum wanted to deny it, but knew he would see through her lies. She did the best she could to salvage the situation. “Harry knows about you. I told him everything.”

“Which is why I am taking great pains to avoid that gentleman. From what I hear, he would not be above calling me out, and as you are no doubt aware, my dear, I am a lover, not a fighter.”

Plum's stomach roiled at the slimy tone in his voice, but she clenched her hands together in fists to keep from striking out at him. “How much do you want?”

Charles smiled. “I think the sum of five thousand will suit me. For now.”

“Five thousand!” Plum gaped at him, her mind boggling at such an amount. “I don't have five thousand pounds!”

“No? I would have thought that the proceeds of
The
Guide
to
Connubial
Calisthenics
were ample enough to allow you to share a small portion with the man to whom you owe all.”

“I haven't had money from that for years, and I most certainly don't owe you any of it. As for the figure you named, it is ridiculous. I simply do not have that sort of money.”

“Ah, but your husband does.” Charles leaned toward her. She recoiled. “I checked on that last night, too. Rosse is one of the richer marquises gracing our fair isle. I am sure that if you put your mind to it, you will come up with some excuse to acquire the money. I understand many ladies have gambling debts for much more.”

Plum all but spat fury at him, grinding her teeth together and digging her nails into her palms to keep from flying at him. “I am not a gambler,” she finally said, admittedly in a strangled voice.

Charles shrugged. “I will leave the inventive excuses to you, my dear. I have every confidence that you will not wish to ruin both your recent marriage and your husband's reputation should word of your literary pursuits be made public.”

“You're despicable,” Plum couldn't help but say. “I thought you were odious twenty years ago, but you're a vile, disgusting creature now. You make me sick.”

Charles laughed and captured her hand, pressing his lips to the back of her hand as he made a show of bowing over it despite a growl of objection from Juan. “Do you know, I had not wished to return to England, but now I'm quite looking forward to the future. I anticipate much reward for my past efforts. And speaking of that, do let me know if you are planning a future book.” His gaze raked her in a brazen manner. “I would be very pleased to guide you to further knowledge of connubial exercises.”

He stepped back before Plum could slap him again (although what she had in mind was more of a fist punched into his stomach), walking back toward his horse as if he hadn't a care in the world. Juan was at her side in an instant, his jaw set in an aggressive manner as he glared after Charles.

“That one is the stink most foul. He did not bother you again, beauteous lady?”

“Not in the way you mean, no.”

“Are we to go after the
diablitos
?” he asked, nodding in the direction Thom and the children had disappeared.

Plum hesitated between following them and returning home to be sick into the nearest receptacle—a result of her discussion with Charles, not of the babe she carried beneath her heart.

“No, I think not,” she said slowly. “Thom will have no difficulty managing the children—heaven knows they seem to mind her better than me. I think instead I will go home…”

An idea flared to life within her brain. “No,” she corrected as Juan turned toward home. She pointed to the right, toward Piccadilly Street. “I've changed my mind—I wish to go to Old Bond Street. Would you see if a hack is available for hire? It's a bit of a walk, and I want to visit Hookham's Library and be home before the children return. I have a great deal of thinking to do, a very great deal, and most of it is unpleasant.”

Juan said nothing, but set off to find her a hired carriage.

Charles was going to have to be disposed of, that's all there was to it. She shied away from the actual word
murder
but that was the path her thoughts were leading. If she had just herself to think of, she wouldn't even contemplate such a thing, but there was Harry and the children now. Charles would have to be eliminated.

“I just hope Hookham's has a book on how to murder someone without being caught,” she sighed as she walked after Juan.

***

“Good Lord, they're drowning! Save them! SAVE THEM!”

Nicholas Britton, the eldest son—albeit illegitimately—of the Earl of Weston, paused in the act of handing a prostitute two shiny new guineas, glancing over toward the artificial lake known as the Serpentine. The prostitute, worried that she wouldn't get her money, snatched the coins from his hand before scurrying off. Nick paid her no attention as he started toward the lake, his gray eyes narrowing as he watched a familiar young woman with short, curly dark hair rip her shoes from her feet and prepare to dive into the water. Beyond her, a handful of children were shrieking and thrashing in the water, surrounded by a variety of toy boats. Without a thought to anything but the need to save the children, Nick raced toward the water, throwing himself into it without even pausing to remove his boots.

“Save them!” Thom yelled, pointing at the children. Hampered by her skirts, she was having a hard time reaching them.

“Stay calm,” he yelled, long powerful strokes bringing him to the children. “I have you, don't worry. Just stay calm, and I'll get you out.” He grasped the nearest child around the waist, only to have the child—a boy of some eight or nine years—kick him in the shin and bite his hand.

“Save them, they're drowning!” Thom yelled again.

“I'm trying,” Nick snarled, wrestling with the boy as he reached out to a girl who splashed by him. “Stop struggling, I have you! You're safe!”

“Not the children,” Thom yelled, swooping down on one of the boats that floated toward her. “They can swim. The mice, save the mice! They're drowning!”

“Mice?” Nick asked, looking at a blue-and-green painted boat that bobbed up and down near him. Sure enough, clinging desperately to the mast was a little white mouse. The child in his arms kicked him in the kidneys, squirming out of his grasp. It was at that point that Nick realized two important things—first, the water was only waist deep; second, that he had risked life and limb to save a mouse.

Well, to be truthful, the life and limb part was an exaggeration, but it was an exaggeration that Nick felt allowed given the circumstances.

“Mice?” he bellowed to Thom, who had corralled a second boat and was rescuing its rodent inhabitant. “I jumped into the water fully clothed to rescue
mice
?”

“No one asked you to,” Thom said indignantly. Nick tried very hard not to notice the effect of water on light gauze, but it would have taken a saint not to appreciate the lovely lines of Thom's body, and Nick was no saint.

“I distinctly heard you say, ‘Save them, they're drowning.' If that isn't asking me to save them—”

“Them being the mice,” Thom interrupted, reaching for a third boat. The children, having had their dip, scrambled to shore where they called out advice and suggestions for gathering up the remaining boats.

Nick fished a sodden mouse out of the nearest boat, tossing the boat to shore where it was pounced on by two wet children who argued over its ownership. “I didn't know you were screaming about the mice, I thought you meant the children were drowning. It was a logical mistake, considering the evidence.”

“Well?” Thom asked, three drenched mice sitting on her shoulder. She pointed to one last boat, which had floated well out into the middle of the lake.

“Well what?” he asked, knowing exactly what she wanted.

“Aren't you going to get it? The boat could sink at any time.”

“I am not a mouse rescuer,” Nick said with great dignity, or as great a dignity as one could have standing in a pond fully clothed while clutching a squirming white mouse.

“No, you're a burglar, but even burglars can have high morals—at least about some things. You're not going to be responsible for that poor innocent mouse's death, are you?”

“Why not? I don't see it doing anything to save my life.”

Thom gave him a look that would have blistered a lesser man.

Nick splashed his way over to her, admiring against his will how delightfully the damp gown clung to the curve of her hip and the high roundness of her breasts. He thrust the mouse at her, gave her a look that he hoped was stern and unyielding and didn't in the least show the fact that he was fast becoming utterly besotted by her, and swam out to return the remaining boat and its passenger safely to shore.

“There, you see? You do have some good in you after all,” Thom greeted him as he sloshed his way to the grassy banks, taking the mouse and boat from him. “I knew you couldn't be all bad. Digger! Just look at Rupert! He almost drowned!”

“
He
almost drowned,” Nick muttered, shaking the water from his boots.

“Rupert can't swim,” Thom said, kissing the mouse on its little wet head. “I assumed since you jumped into the lake that you could. I think, however, they have suffered as much as anyone could expect from mice. I shall have to let them go.”

“That would probably be best for all concerned,” Nick said somewhat sourly as he attempted to wring the water from his jacket.

She released the mice to the freedom of a nearby shrub, then looked up and gave him a smile so dazzling, he promptly forgot his grievances against her. “That was very brave of you, jumping into the lake. Quite dashing, in fact. I was very impressed.”

“You were?” he beamed at her.

“Very much so. Burglars, after all, usually operate on dry land. You did splendidly in the water. I'm sorry you got wet,” she said, eyeing his chest, “but I doubt if it will do anything but benefit your clothing.”

Nick looked down at the grubby outfit he wore when he was incognito, and thought briefly of telling her just who he was and why he had been sneaking into the house the previous evening, but decided that silence on the subject was probably the wisest course. He bowed and plucked a weed from his shoulder, offering it as if it was the rarest hothouse rose. “I endeavor always to be of service.”

She accepted the weed with a giggle, quickly rounding up the children and dismissing the footman after a glance at Nick.

“Your brothers and sisters are a little…lively, aren't they?” Nick asked, falling in beside Thom as she herded the chattering children away from the lake. The oldest boy looked familiar, but Nick couldn't quite place his freckled face.

“Oh, they're not my brothers and sisters. I don't have any. These are my aunt's new children. They belong to her husband.”

“Ah,” Nick said. “And who would that be?”

Thom pursed her lips as she thought about his question. He had the worst desire to kiss her, an urge he knew that he had no right to act on, certainly not while she thought him a burglar. “I shouldn't tell you, but if I don't, you might burgle Harry's house by mistake, so I suppose it would be smarter to tell you.”