Katie MacAlister - The Trouble With Harry

“Yes, but—”

Harry gave her his best annoyed father look, the one he kept in reserve for emergencies. India, an intelligent little whelp, knew that she hadn’t a leg to stand on, and after uttering a word he would take up with her another time, and stomping her foot perilously close to his bare toes, she huffed off. Harry lost no time in zipping back into the bedchamber, and resuming the activities that had twice been so grievously interrupted. He didn’t even give Plum time to say anything other than a startled, “Harry!” before he was engaged in a tactile exploration of her wonderfully warm, wet mouth.

“India says you’re getting the gray mare for her. You said you’d get me a horse as soon as we were settled! I’m an earl, she’s just a lady. I should have the next horse.”

Harry pulled back until his lips just brushed Plum’s as he spoke. “That’s my oldest son, Digger, Lord Marston. Ignore him and he’ll go away.”

He tried to possess her lips again, but she slipped out of his arms. “Digger?”

“It’s short for Diggory. You’re Plum. India said you were scrawny and you touched her hair. She doesn’t like to be touched. She’s a girl,” Digger said, as if that explained it all.

Harry fought back the desire to throttle his son and heir — he had other sons, as he had pointed out to Digger on many occasions — and prepared to explain the situation to his wife.

She was looking at Digger with pursed lips, a look she transferred to him. “Another son. Exactly how many children do you have, my lord?”

He winced at the “my lord.” Her tone had gone from warm and arousing, to cold and suspicious in the matter of a few seconds.

“Er…at last count I had—”

The door to the hallway was slammed open, Anne and Andrew rolling through the doorway in an angry assortment of elbows, knees, and feet.

“It’s mine! It has the blue top, that’s mine! Yours is the one with the yellow top!” Andrew jerked a small wooden boat out of Anne’s hands.

She got to her knees and punched her twin in his belly. “Stupid! Mine is the blue one, yours is yellow!”

“—five children.”

“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—”