“But,” Temple said, his hands spreading wide in confusion. “But…ladies who participate in a physical relationship often bear children.”
“I shall see to it that my wife will not be stretched upon the rack of childbirth,” Harry said carelessly, then visibly flinched when somewhere nearby a door slammed, and what sounded like a hundred elephants thundered down the hallway outside his office. “Take this down, Temple. Wanted: an honest, educated woman between the ages of thirty-five and fifty, who desires to be joined in the wedded state to a man, forty-five years of age, in good health and with sufficient means to ensure her comfort. Must desire children. Applicants may forward their particulars and references to Mr. T. Harris, Raving-by-the-Sea. Interviews will be scheduled the week following. That should do it, don’t you think? You may screen the applicants for the position, and bring me the ones who you think are suitable. I shall interview them and weed out those who won’t suit.”
“Sir…” Temple said, even more at a loss as to how to counsel his employer from such a ramshackle method of finding a wife. “I…what if…how will I know who you will find suitable?”
Harry frowned over the top of an estate ledger. “I’ve already told you what I want, man! Someone honest, intelligent, and she must like children. I would prefer it if she possessed a certain charm to her appearance, but that’s not absolutely necessary.”
Temple swallowed his objections, and asked meekly, “Where do you wish to interview the candidates for your hand? Surely not here, at Ashleigh Court?”
Harry ran his finger down a column of figures, his eyes narrowing at the proof of abuse by his late cousin’s steward. “The man should be hung, draining the estate dry like that. What did you say? Oh, no, any woman of sense would take one look at this monstrosity and run screaming in horror. Find somewhere in town, somewhere I can meet with the ladies and have a quiet conversation with them. Individually, of course. Group appointments will not do at all.”
“Of course,” Temple agreed, and staggered from the room, his mind awhirl. The only thing that cheered him up was the thought that Harry’s wife, whoever she would turn out to be, would no doubt insist on the house being cleaned from attic to cellars.
Harry was just settling down to make notes about what needed attention first on the estate, when a sudden high-pitched shriek had him out of the chair, and almost to the door before Temple appeared in the open doorway to the hall.
Harry hesitated at the sight of Temple’s weak smile. “The children…is someone hurt?”
“Peacocks,” Temple said concisely.
Harry blinked, then relaxed. “Peacocks? Oh, peacocks. Yes, they do have an ungodly scream. I thought one of the children—”
Another bloodcurdling screech cut across his words. Before Harry could draw a breath, a huge green-and-blue bird raced passed him down the hall, its once magnificent tail feathers now ragged and muddy. Hoots, yells, and assorted shouts followed the peacock as the three younger children pounded after the poor bird. Anne stopped next to the great curved staircase, threw her head back, and let forth the most hair-raising sound Harry had ever heard.
“As I was about to say, sir, it is not the peacock making the noise, it is the children.”
Harry closed the door quietly, leaning back against it as the sounds of one agitated peacock being pursued by three noisy children around and around the hall filtered through the solid door. “Write the advertisement, Temple.”
A loud avian squawk followed by the sound of something large and ceramic shattering upon the hall’s marble floor sent Harry running back into his sanctuary. “Now! For God’s sake, man, write it now!”
Plum nuzzled the soft, downy head lying against her breastbone, and breathed deeply of the milky, soapy smell, ignoring the less pleasing odor that wafted upward.
“There you are, I thought you would be in the vicarage. How has Baby been for you — oh, heaven, he’s rank!”
Mrs. Bapwhistle bustled into the tiny garden and before Plum could object, plucked the youngest Bapwhistle from her arms and handed the sweet baby over to a waiting nurse. “Clean him up, Withers. He smells as if he’d been dunked in the cesspit.”
“I would be happy to bathe—” Plum started to say, halfway rising from the shaded bench. The nurse wrinkled up her nose, and hurried off with her charge before Plum could finish her sentence.
“No, no, that won’t be at all necessary. That’s what I engage a nurse for, to do all the many unpleasant chores connected with children. Now sit down, do, and allow me to speak to you for a moment. I have something of great importance to discuss with you.”
“But…I was hoping I would be able to feed the baby—” Plum felt as if her heart had been ripped from her arms with the babe. He was so sweet, so adorable, so small and needy.
“You can feed him another time, Plum. This is important.”
Plum leaned back against the carved back of the bench, and idly plucked a leaf from the hydrangea that grew alongside, trying hard to keep the peevish tone from her voice. “You promised me I could take care of Colin while you were out paying calls, Cordelia. I think it’s unkind of you to hand him over to Nurse when you promised me I could care for him.”
“Honestly, Plum, you don’t want to be present when he’s filled his napkin. The mess that baby can make — it’s positively horrifying.” Cordelia Bapwhistle, wife of the vicar and Plum’s closest friend, raised her hand and cut off Plum’s objection. “I know, I know, you don’t find anything about dear little Colin objectionable, no more than you found anything objectionable about Constance, Connor, or Columbine, but my dear, dear friend, you must take it from one who knows — babies aren’t all sweet little bundles of delight.”
Plum’s gaze dropped from her friend’s eyes to the faded blue material over her knees. She smoothed her gown and tried not to look as if Cordelia’s words — kindly meant, to be sure — had caused her pain. “I know they aren’t perfect, Del. I’m not stupid. I have raised a child.”
Cordelia set aside the newspaper she’d been clutching and gave her friend’s hand a sympathetic pat. “I never in a million years imagined you were stupid, Plum. You’re the smartest, most giving woman I know, and you’ve done a marvelous job with Thomasine, although she wasn’t really a child when she came to you. How old was she when her uncle died?”
“Fifteen,” Plum admitted.
“You’ve done wonderfully raising her these past five years, and you know you’ll always be welcome here. The children adore you…”
The unvoiced objection pierced Plum’s heart with an arrow’s quickness. She looked up at her friend, the black eyebrows that refused all her attempts to make them arch settled into a thick slash across her brow. “But?”
Cordelia squeezed her hand. “But it’s time you had a family of your own.”
Plum raised her eyes heavenward for a moment. “Do you think I haven’t been trying to find a man who would take me? Good heavens, Del, you yourself have introduced me to every eligible bachelor in the county, and I’ve examined all of the ineligible ones. There’s not a man in all of Dorset who hasn’t heard of the scandal, and thus won’t sully his reputation by marrying me. The rest of them are either drunkards or wife-beaters or too poor to support Thom and me. And before you tell me I’m being too finicky, I assure you I’m not looking for a man of fortune — just one who has the means to support a wife and one small niece.”
Cordelia laughed. “I would never call you finicky, Plum. Some of the men you even thought about marrying…” She gave a little shudder. “But that’s neither here nor there. Look, see what old Mrs. Tavernosh heard was posted in yesterday’s paper.” She held out the newspaper for Plum to examine the small advertisement that had been circled by a blue pencil.
Plum read the paragraph, her eyebrows lifting as she looked up to meet her friend’s bright, dancing eyes. “You cannot be serious!”
“Why not? This man needs a wife, wants someone who likes children, and says he has comfortable means.”
Plum allowed her mouth to gape open, just a little, just enough for her friend to see how shocked she was. “Why not? Why not? Cordelia Bapwhistle, have you or have you not been lecturing me these last two years I’ve been husband hunting about the folly of accepting just any man?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“And are you not the very person who weekly lectures me about how women can be perfectly happy and productive without bearing a child or being a wife?”
“Yes, and I stand behind that statement. Children are not for everyone, Plum. Some women—”
“And yet you, you who regularly tells me that I should be grateful to be unencumbered and free to live my life the way I want — although I’d like to point out that poor as a church mouse and unloved by anyone but a niece who prefers the company of animals to people is not the life I wish to live—you are suggesting that I answer this ridiculous advertisement inserted by a man I know nothing about?”
“Well, of course you’d have to find out something about him, I’m not suggesting you take him sight unseen. He might not be suitable at all. The advert says you should send particulars, and you will be contacted if the man wishes to interview you.”
“Interview me!” Plum said, indignation rising at just the thought of being interviewed. She gave a ladylike snort. “As if I were a servant? I think not!”
Cordelia watched her with an eye lit from within by warmth, affection, and a good deal of humor. “There’s nothing to stop you from interviewing him, as well, you know. And really, what is an interview but time to get to know someone? You’ve done as much with the men you’ve pursued.”
A faint blush the color of a nearby rose colored Plum’s cheek as she looked away from her friend. “You make it sound as if I was desperate, hunting men the way a fox hunts its prey.”
“Plum, you know I want you to be happy. If your experience with Charles has not put you off men for life and you are sure that you want to be married and have a family, then I will do everything I can to help you.”
“My marriage with Charles did nothing to put me off all men, Del. I assume that he was the exception to the norm, and that most men would hesitate to marry a woman when they already have a wife living. And as for the family, I fear it’s too late for that. I’m forty years old. Surely most women my age have finished having children by now.”
“Ah, but you’re not most women,” Cordelia said, her smile warming Plum’s heart. “You’re Frederica Pelham, daughter of Sir Frederick Pelham, the woman of breeding if not fortune, who just so happens to also be the author of the most popular, most scandalous book of the century.”
Plum glanced around the small garden worriedly. The last thing she needed was for anyone in Ram’s Bottom to find out she was the notorious Vyvyan La Blue, author of the famed Guide to Connubial Calisthenics, a book so shocking it was banned as obscene by the government — and subsequently went into three separate printings to fulfill the demands by members of the ton.
“I did have Old Mab Shayne examine me,” Plum named the local midwife hesitantly, unwilling to get her hopes up about something that meant so much to her. “She said there was nothing wrong with my womanly parts, and she knew of several women who had children well into their mid-forties.”
“There, you see? If you really want to have a family despite me telling you just how appallingly horrible childbirth can be, then you owe it to yourself to investigate this advertisement.”