Temple, about to admit that he hadn’t intended on washing the drapery himself, decided that information wasn’t relevant to his employer’s happiness, and settled with a sigh into the comfortable leather chair to one side of the desk. He withdrew a memorandum notepad and pencil from his inner pocket. “Sir?”
Harry paced from the desk to the unlit fireplace. “How long have you been with me, Temple?”
“Fourteen years on Midsummer Day,” that worthy replied promptly.
“That’s just a fortnight away.”
Temple allowed that was so.
“I had married Beatrice the summer before,” Harry continued, staring into the dark emptiness of the fireplace as if his life were laid out there amid the heap of coal waiting to be lit should the warm weather turn cold.
“I believe when I came into your service that Lady Rosse was…er…in expectation of Lady India’s arrival.”
“Hmm. It’s been almost five years since Bea died.”
Temple murmured an agreement.
“Five years is a long time,” Harry said, his hazel eyes dark behind the lenses of his spectacles. “The children are running wild. God knows they don’t listen to me, and Gertie and George are hard put to keep up with the twins and McTavish, let alone Digger and India.”
Temple’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. He had a suspicion of just where the conversation was going, but was clueless to envision what role the marquis felt he could serve in such a delicate matter.
Harry took a deep breath, rubbed his nose, then turned and stalked back to the deep green leather chair behind the desk. He sat and waved his hand toward the paper in Temple’s hand. “I’ve decided the children need the attention of a woman. I want you to help me find one.”
“A governess?”
Harry’s lips thinned. “No. After Miss Reynauld died in the fire…no. The children must have time to recover from that horror. The woman I speak of”—he glanced over at the miniature that sat in prominence on the corner of his desk—“will be my marchioness. The children need a mother, and I…”
“Need a wife?” Temple said gently as Harry’s voice trailed off. Despite his best intentions not to allow himself to become emotionally involved in his employer’s life — emotions so often made one uncomfortable and untidy — he had, over the years, developed quite a fondness for Harry and his brood of five hellions. He was well aware that Harry had an affection for his wife that might not have been an all-consuming love, but was strong enough to keep him bound in grief for several years after her death in childbirth.
“Yes,” Harry said with a sigh, slouching back into the comfortable embrace of the chair. “I came late to the married state, but must admit that I found it an enjoyable one, Temple. You might not think it possible for someone who is hounded night and day by his rampaging herd of children, but I find myself lonely of late. For a woman. A wife,” he corrected quickly, a faint frown creasing his brow. “I have determined that the answer to this natural desire for a companion, and the need for someone to take the children in hand, is a wife. With that thought in mind, I would like you to take down an advertisement I wish you to run in the nearest local newspaper. What is the name of it? The Dolphin’s Derriere Daily?”
“The Ram’s Bottom Gazette, sir, so named because the journal originates in the town of Ram’s Bottom, which is, I believe, located some eight miles to the west. I must confess, however, as to being a bit confused by your determination to place an advertisement for a woman to claim the position of marchioness. I had always assumed that a gentleman of your consequence looked to other members of your society for such a candidate, rather than placing an advertisement in an organ given over to discussions that are primarily agricultural in nature.”
Harry waved away that suggestion. “I’ve thought about that, but I have no wish to go into town until I have to.”
“But surely you must have friends, acquaintances who know of eligible women of your own class—”
“No.” Harry leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the corner of his desk. “I’ve looked over all my friends’ relatives, none of them will suit. Most of them are too young, and the ones who aren’t just want me for the title.”
Temple was at a loss. “But, sir, the woman will be your marchioness, the mother of your yet unborn children—”
Harry’s feet came down with a thump as he sat up and glared at his secretary. “No more children! I’m not going through that again. I won’t sacrifice another woman on that altar.” He rubbed his nose once more and re-propped his feet. “I don’t have time to hunt for a wife through conventional means. I mean to acquire one before anyone in the neighborhood knows who I am, before the grasping title-seekers get me in their sights. Cousin Gerard dying suddenly and leaving me this place offers me the perfect opportunity to find a woman who will need a husband as much as I need a wife. I want an honest woman, one gently born and educated, but not necessarily of great family — a solid country gentlewoman, that’s what’s needed. She must like children, and wish to…er…participate in a physical relationship with me.”
“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.