“Is it? Your wife must not love you very much if she doesn’t wish to protect you. That, however, is neither here nor there, nor is my relationship with my husband. The fact is that I need Charles de Spenser quieted, and I cannot do it myself. I do not wish to be known to be involved, and as I am with child, and—”
“You bloody well aren’t! I made sure you aren’t!”
Plum clutched the pistol tighter as the man stepped out of the shadows. There was something familiar about that bellow. “Harry?”
Her husband stormed out of the shadows toward her, a furious look on his face. It was Harry. Here! But why? And how? “Harry what are you doing here? You haven’t taken up murdering as a pastime, and you were afraid to tell me?”
“No, you foolish woman,” he snarled, grabbing her by her arms and giving her a little shake. “What do you mean you’re with child? You can’t be, I pulled out almost every single time.”
“Yes, almost every time,” she said, trying to get over the shock of seeing Harry where she expected a hardened criminal. “But there were two times you didn’t, and…oh! That doesn’t matter right now, what does matter is that you’ve tricked me!”
Harry’s eyes glittered dangerously behind his spectacles. “Tricked you? How have I tricked you? You’ve tricked me! You deliberately impregnated yourself when I wasn’t looking!”
Plum poked him in the chest. Hard. “That would be a very neat trick indeed! You were not only looking, you were moaning. And thrusting. And…and…sweating! And doing all those other moaning-thrusting-sweating-type things you do when you spill your seed, so don’t you dare tell me you weren’t aware of what was going on…argh! You did it again! You distracted me! Well, I won’t allow it. You, my Lord Rosse, tricked me into thinking you were a murderer, which is a very cruel thing to do to a wife, very cruel indeed. I shan’t forget this evening for a long, long time.”
“Neither will I,” Harry roared at her.
“Good!” Plum yelled back. “Just what is your connection with Thom’s burglar Nick?”
Harry swore and released her arms, stomping off a few steps, running his hand through his hair as he spun around to face her. “He’s Noble’s son, and my godson, if you insist on knowing. He’s not a burglar, he’s a social reformer. As for your pregnancy, I will not lose you, do you understand? I will not lose you! I lost one wife to childbirth, but I refuse to lose another. No. I won’t have it, I absolutely will not have it! You’ll swear to me right here and now that you won’t die!”
Plum, who had been teetering between anger that her husband had tricked her, and tears due to his reaction to her wonderful news, swung firmly into the puddly camp, her anger evaporating as she realized what was driving his fury. He was concerned about her health. He wasn’t angry because she was such a poor mother, he was worried that she would die. She gave a tiny little sniff and swallowed back a large lump of tears, her voice soft and warm with understanding. “Harry, not every woman dies in childbirth. Your first wife bore five children without problem. Gertie told me she died of a fever. She didn’t think it had anything to do with McTavish’s birth at all.”
“She was weakened by the birth, that’s why she caught the fever.” Harry placed his hand on her forehead. “There, you see? It’s already begun. You feel warm. Too warm. You’re obviously gravely ill.”
She laughed and pulled the hand down so she could press her lips against it. “I’m not gravely ill, I’m warm because it’s a warm evening, and I was flushed with anger, but truly, I feel fine. Well, no, that’s not strictly the truth, I’m sick every morning, and my breasts are sore, and I seem to be discomforted in a most unmentionable place, and no matter how much roughage I eat…well, that’s not important. Other than those unmentionable things, I feel wonderful. I want you to be happy about this baby. I had a midwife look at me, you know. She said I wasn’t too old to bear a child, and that everything was as it should be, so really, there is nothing to worry about.”
Harry allowed her soft words and warm touch to ease his anger. He really had no choice; the situation was one that he was powerless against. There was another, however. He hugged her closely for a moment, sending a silent prayer that she not be taken from him. Just as she lifted her lips to his, he pushed her gently away. “What the devil do you mean by coming out here alone meeting with a murderer? You could have been killed or worse!”
“I can’t imagine what you think is worse than being killed,” Plum said with a distinctly annoyed look to her face. “But I assure you that I did take steps to guarantee my protection.”
“Oh, really? And just what might those steps be?” No doubt she left a melodramatic letter on his pillow, as ladies in gothic novels always did.
She pointed a very real, very un-melodramatic pistol at him. “It might not kill someone outright, but I imagine it would give anyone intent on harming me pause for thought. Now, would you mind telling me please why you are here in place of the murderer I arranged to meet me?”
Harry fought the urge to shake his wife, yell at her, kiss her, make violent love to her, yell at her some more…he took a deep breath, and with great control, took the pistol out of her hand, noting as he did so that it was not only loaded, but primed. He closed his mind to the horrors of what might have happened to her carrying a pistol that could go off at any moment, and with a firm but gentle hand, spun her around and marched her back toward the road. “The question at hand is not why am I here, it’s why you would attempt to hire a man to kill someone who drowned six months ago. It is Charles de Spenser you wanted killed, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but as I told you, I didn’t really want him killed. Thom misunderstood me. Why was Nick pretending to be a burglar when he wasn’t?”
“He’s heavily into reform work that requires him to blend into low-class surroundings. When Thom saw him the other night, he was returning from a raid he instigated on a working man’s brothel. He slipped into the Willots’ house with the intention of changing into his dress blacks there. Now you answer my question.”
“You haven’t asked one.” Plum stopped and turned toward him, her face pale, her dark eyes huge and filled with dread. “Oh, Harry, Charles isn’t dead. It’s all so horrible — he said he was insensible after a boating accident and everyone thought he was dead, but he isn’t. He’s back, and I didn’t want to add to your burdens, truly I didn’t. I see now why you were asking me those questions when I thought you were the murderer, and even though it will take a long time for me to forgive you tricking me like that, it is the truth that I never once doubted you could take care of Charles if I asked you to, only your way of taking care of him would be challenging him to a duel, and you just can’t do that. Not only might you be harmed, but it wouldn’t stop Charles from telling what he knew, and then we’d all be ruined.”
Harry, who was indeed planning that very action, put a temporary halt to his thoughts of firing a bullet through the man who was torturing Plum just long enough to admit she had a point. “Regardless of the steps I will take to revenge the dishonor he did you, I have sworn to you time and again that nothing about your marriage to de Spenser can hurt us—”
“This isn’t about that,” Plum wailed, turning and walking toward the carriage.
“It isn’t?” Harry stared after her for a moment, then caught her arm, turning her so her face was illuminated by the gas lamp on the street. “Then why the devil do you want the man killed? Did he offend you by some other means? Is he the man who met you in the park, the one Juan said you slapped?”