“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.”
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 fi rst!”
“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.