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 him to smile 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 open-mouthed 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, yer 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 yer 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 verandah, 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 damning everyone else, 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.