“Which way is your mother’s chamber?” he asked, gritting his teeth. “I have a little present I want to leave her.”
“Our mother is dead,” the girl said, giving him a suspicious glare. “Does Papa know you’re here? He said we’re not supposed to talk with any strangers. We don’t know you. What sort of a present?”
“I’m not a stranger. I know your stepmother,” he said, taking a step toward her, unable to keep a leer from his lips as his eyes wandered over the lithe shape concealed by the voluminous nightgown. He pulled the letter from his pocket and showed it to them. “You see? It’s just a simple little note for Plum. You look like an intelligent little poppet, why don’t you tell me which room is hers, and I’ll leave this for her as a surprise. Won’t that be nice?”
“Pet Harry!” a small child of about five demanded as he popped up in front of Charles holding up a scrawny grey kitten.
“Er…no, thank you. I don’t have time for kittens.” Much as he’d like to stay and approach the girl, he was growing increasingly more nervous as each second passed. He bared his teeth again. “If you show me which bedchamber is Plum’s, I will give you a shiny new penny.”
“What’s in that, then?” Marston asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he nodded toward the letter.
It was hard going hanging onto his smile, but he did. “Something that will interest Plum. Do you like sweets? I will give you sweets if you show me where Plum’s bedchamber is.”
“You’ve ruined Papa’s surprise,” a young girl said, pushing by the elder one. A boy followed her, a twin by the look of him. How many blasted children did Rosse have?
“Eh…” Charles said, trying to think of some way to bribe the little bastards. He was swiftly running out of time — any moment a servant could happen upon them.
“Now, listen, all of you, this is surprise for Plum, so you mustn’t say anything about it. I’ll just slip it into her chamber and leave, so no one will know I was here—”
“I don’t like you,” a younger girl interrupted him. His hand itched to slap the complacent look off her face.
Her twin nodded. “And we like Plum.”
“I wager he’s the man Papa’s been talking about,” Marston said. “You know, the bad one.”
“Andy, you and Anne go fetch the rope,” the eldest girl said, picking up a vase as she started toward him.
“I’ll get the flint and tinderbox,” Marston said, his eyes lighting up with unholy glee.
“Now, just one moment,” Charles said, slowly backing away. A coward by nature, he never thought mere children could be threatening, but judging by the hell-spawned looks in their eyes, these weren’t normal children.
From below he heard approaching voices. Desperately, he grabbed the youngest boy and shook him, hissing into his face, “Show me where Plum’s room is this very minute!”
Charles’s last coherent thought before he fell down the stairs was that he would never again be taken in by childish innocence. In a flash they had gone from innocuous, if annoying, innocent children into five murderous terrors bent on his destruction. The youngest boy threw the kitten at his face, scratching his cheek just as another one of the monsters kicked him. A third bit his hand, while the eldest boy and girl shoved him backward until he lost his balance and tumbled down the stairs.
Snarling, furious, and in no little amount of pain, Charles half-fell, half-limped down the remaining flight of stairs, followed by the shrieks and screams of the children as they ran after him. He shoved aside a startled footman who appeared at the bottom of the stairs, flinging the front door open and throwing himself out it, trailing curses and promises of revenge behind him.
Fortunately for his abused body, neither the children nor the footman pursued him. The children stood on the front steps and hurled taunts at him as he limped across the small green that graced the square, but he ignored them, pausing in the shadow of tree to wipe the blood from his cheek.
“They’ll pay, they’ll all pay,” he swore as he gingerly felt around the bite on his hand. The door to Rosse’s house closed with a loud bang. He shook his fist at it. “I’ll see them groveling and begging for mercy before the week is out. She thinks she’s smarter than me, she thinks she can outwit me, well I’ll show her! I’ll have her on her knees before I’m through with her. With all of them! They’ll all feel the weight of my wrath.”
“Having a spot of trouble, are you?” A voice emerged from behind him, deep into the shadow of a nearby rhododendron. “It looks as if you had a less than pleasant send-off.”
Charles spun around, almost jumping from his skin at the man’s voice. His own voice shook as he tried to brazen his way out of the situation. “What? Who…who are you, sir? Come forward where I can see you!”
“I am a friend, I assure you,” the voice said. A shadow flickered, then resolved itself into the figure of a man of middle height and age. “Someone who thinks we might be of mutual help to one another. I sense you have a grievance against Lady Rosse. Perhaps we might have a little chat, you and I, and you can explain the nature of your grievance.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Charles asked, relaxing at the sight of the man’s bland, placid face. Although the stranger wasn’t a gentleman, as he was, his voice was relatively educated and not that of a thug.
“I thought you might want to bend a sympathetic ear to your tale of woe.”
Not likely. Charles wasn’t about to share the ripe goose that was sure to be his. Plum owed him, and he would collect his reward. “I don’t know you, do I? What the devil do you mean accosting me in this fashion? Who are you?”
“I told you,” the man said, smiling. “I’m a friend.”
“You’re no friend of mine,” Charles said with a haughty sniff, straightening his waistcoat.
“Is it not said that my enemy’s enemies must be my friends? I believe we have a shared interest in the Rosse family. Yours, I gather, is to seek revenge on Lady Rosse, while mine…”
“Yes?” Charles said, only moderately interested in the man. He had no time to waste in idle gossip. He had to return home so he could best plan out the next step in his revenge.
“Mine is to see them all destroyed.”
Charles’s head snapped up at that. He eyed the mysterious man for a moment, considering whether or not he might make use of the man, then gestured graciously. “I find that you interest me strangely. Shall we take a little stroll?”
“Indeed we shall,” the man said, smiling again. “Indeed we shall.”
“I’m quite able to walk, Harry.”
“No you’re not. You’re not doing a blessed thing until you’re safely delivered of the babe. Not one single thing, do you understand me? Not one. I shall beat you mercilessly if you attempt even the littlest act.”
Plum kissed Harry’s ear as he carried her up the steps to their home. “But some exercises are beneficial for ladies in my condition.”
“No,” Harry said abruptly, kicking the door until Ben the footman opened it. “No walks, no riding, no driving through the park, nothing. You are to remain off your feet at all time. Exercise of any form is entirely out of the question. I might allow you to lay in a chaise and read if you promise not to exert yourself while you do so.”
“My lord, if I might have a word with you?”
“Not even calisthenics?” Plum whispered in his ear, ignoring the footman trying to get Harry’s attention. Her teeth grazed his earlobe. “Say, perhaps, ones that might be done from the comfort and safety of one’s bed?”