“Punishment?” Plum’s frown increased as she worried her lip.
He nodded. “You can be assured that whatever discipline you desire for them will be carried out without regard to their entreaties for leniency or compassion.”
“Discipline? You wish for me to discipline them?” she asked, her voice a little on the squeaky side.
“Of course. You were the one they injured, thus you must mete out justice. I’ve found if you don’t look them in the eye when you pronounce their punishment, it helps. None of them seem to have difficulty summoning up tears, and they can be quite effective when combined with quivering lips.”
“Tears,” Plum repeated, a throb in her voice.
Harry wanted more than ever to kiss her at the sound. Could there be a woman more perfect for him? He allowed himself to kiss the back of her hand twice before opening the door to the hall, escorting her to the bottom of the curved oak staircase. “Just don’t allow yourself to be swayed when they throw themselves at your feet and beg for mercy.” Plum made an inarticulate noise in the back of her throat as he released her hand and started toward the dining room. “I will tell Juan to remove the children’s places—”
“No!”
Harry stopped, startled by the vehemence in her objection. “No? Surely you do not wish to reward the little bu…devils by allowing them the honor of dining with us?”
Plum took a deep breath (an act he much appreciated considering the tight nature of her bodice) and clutched her hands together in mute appeal. “Please, Harry. I do so very much want us to be a family, and I thought when it was convenient, when no one is dining with us, the children could join us for dinner. My parents often let my sister and me have dinner with them, and I have many fond memories of those times. Please, please let the children join us.”
Harry frowned, about to tell her that she was mistress of the house, and as such she did not need his approval regarding who she wanted at dinner, but stopped when she came forward and took his hands in hers.
“I promise you they will be well-behaved and no trouble. I’m sure they are very sorry for their little joke on me, and I hate to see them castigated over something so silly. Please let them join us. They won’t be any bother, you’ll see.”
Harry disengaged a hand and ran his thumb over Plum’s abused lower lip, every muscle in his body, every sinew, every iota of his being urging him to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off to his bed. He closed his eyes for a moment against the temptation she presented, fighting for control, one part of his mind amazed at how strongly he was reacting to her. It must be due to the accumulated loneliness (not to mention celibacy) of the past five years. There was no other reason he could be so violently attracted to a woman he’d met just a few days before.
Evidently Plum interpreted his silence not as a struggle of his mind against his body but as a disbelief in her abilities as a mother, for she clutched his hand between hers, squeezing it as she whispered, “Please.”
He smiled, and kissed the worry right off her lips, just a short kiss, to be true, since he didn’t trust himself with anything other than the most glancing contact with those delightful, seductive berry-kissed lips, but still, it was a kiss, and his body (already aroused by the wonderfully wicked fantasies he was having about her) reacted as if he had given the signal to charge. Without further ado he marched his traitorous body to the dining room, saying over his shoulder, “As you like, Plum. If you want the children to dine with us — and I’m under no misapprehension that they will be the least bit repentant for their act, not to mention ill-behaved — then they will dine with us. I will await you in the dining room.” Seated, his bulging lap would be hidden by the lace tablecloth until such time as he regained control of himself, a time which, he mused as he paused long enough to watch her lift her skirt slightly and race up the stairs, would not probably not occur for at least six years. Possibly eighteen. With luck, never.
“Thank you, Harry,” Plum called down to him as she reached the top. “It will be wonderful, you’ll see!”
It would be a nightmare and he knew it, but he was willing to suffer anything to put that smile of joy on her face. Plum, he decided as he lunged painfully into the dining room, was the best thing that could possibly happen to his band of hellions. He just hoped they appreciated her before they drove her stark, staring mad.
CHAPTER Seven
“Is it wrong to think about torturing one’s stepchildren?”
Edna the maid eeped, and dumped the entire can of hot water on Plum’s head, rather than dribbling it in a slow stream that would allow Plum to rinse the soap out of her hair. The maid stammered and backed away from the brass tub as Plum sputtered and frantically wiped soap from her eyes. Thom, quick thinking and not the least bit surprised by Plum’s question, handed her a linen towel.
Plum thanked her and dabbed at her eyes, blinking away the sting of soap.
“I believe torture is frowned on these days, Aunt.”
Edna made her escape while Plum rinsed her hair in the water that Thom poured over her head. “I’m not actually contemplating torturing them, as you well know. I just want to know if it’s wrong to think about it. With much relish and enjoyment. Is it wrong to dwell lovingly over the various torments one wishes to inflict on the children who are trying — with no little success, I might add — to ruin one’s marriage and life, or is it a natural sequence of events given the evening just spent? Thank you, dear, I think it’s rinsed now. Did Edna leave?”
“Yes, a few moments ago. I think you’re going to have to look for a new maid — she doesn’t seem to be up to serving you.”
Plum heard the smirk in Thom’s voice rather than saw it. “Mmm.”
“As for your thoughts of torture, I think perhaps you’re overreacting a bit. It wasn’t really that bad.” Thom sat next to the small writing table, idly poking through Plum’s journals and papers.
Plum turned in the tub to look back at her niece. “Overreacting? Not that bad? Have you lost your wits?”
“I don’t believe so,” Thom answered, extracting a small red leather-bound volume from the depths of the writing desk. She looked up to smile at Plum. “Yes, the piglet was a bit much, but as there was a bull in the hall earlier in the day, you shouldn’t be surprised to find a piglet in the dining room.”
“The only piglet I wish to see in the house is one that has been roasted with an apple in its mouth,” Plum said tartly, and quickly finished her bath. She dried herself off before the cold fireplace, the heat of the day prohibiting a fire even for a bath. “The fact that they deliberately introduced a piglet into the house after I told them not to—” Plum paused long enough to bite back the harsh words she wanted to say. Ranting to Thom wasn’t the answer to the problem. Plum slipped into her worn night rail, and sat by the opened window to dry her hair. “I just wish I knew what the answer was.”
“The answer to what?” Thom asked absently, absorbed in her book.
“To the question of how I am to reach the children. They don’t mind me in the least, and Harry has made it quite clear that he expects me to take charge of them and turn them from the wild, heedless imps they are into polite ladies and gentlemen, a task that is seeming more and more monumental with each passing hour.”
“Oh, that.” Thom turned a page and hummed softly to herself.