“Am I?” she asked miserably. “You know society better than anyone, husband. You said you could hush up the scandal of my marriage to Charles, and you were right. Can you say the same thing about the scandal that will be born should the world know that the marchioness Rosse is the author of a book as notorious as The Guide to Connubial Calisthenics?”
Harry paused in his pace, resuming it with a little less vigor, his eyes dark behind the lenses of his spectacles. “I don’t see why anyone should care if you wrote the blasted book if I don’t. And I don’t. Why should such information do us or the children any damage?”
“Now who’s exaggerating?” Plum asked, her throat growing tight with unshed tears. “You know that there is no way a scandal to end all scandals could be avoided if the truth were made public. A marchioness simply cannot be the author of such a book without receiving censure. Oh, Harry…” Plum’s bravado dissolved as her heart crumpled. Her worst nightmare had come true, and it was all of her own making. Self-pity warred with guilt. The guilt won. “I should never have married you, but you were so nice, and I was desperate, but now look what it’s come to—”
Harry took Plum’s hands and pulled her to her feet, allowing her to sob into his shoulder. He pressed his lips to her forehead, a caress so sweet that it made Plum cry that much harder. She wept for several minutes, aware every second just how much she owed the man who gently stroked her back and murmured soothing words in her ears.
“Tears solve nothing, my love,” Harry said softly when she stopped weeping and started sniffling.
“I know, but sometimes they make you feel better. Unfortunately, all I feel now is stuffed up.” She hiccupped, wiping her eyes on his cravat before looking up to him. “Harry, one of the things I wanted in a husband was someone who had no secrets from me, and yet I went into this marriage keeping secrets of my own. I’m very sorry about that. You deserve better. I know you don’t blame me for this, but I also know that we wouldn’t be in this situation now if it wasn’t for me, and for that I humbly apologize.”
“This isn’t your fault, sweetheart. None of it is. You did nothing wrong. To tell you the truth, I’m proud of you.”
“Proud?” She goggled at him, a tiny goggle to be true, but still a goggle. He was proud of her? For what? “How can you be proud of me? I’ve done nothing to be proud of, quite the contrary!”
“I beg to differ, you’ve done much to be proud of. You survived a bigamous marriage that might have warped lesser women.”
Plum sniffled again, her heart still heavy. “I didn’t have much choice.”
“You wrote a book that has brought pleasure to hundreds of people.”
“A book so notorious that no bookstore would admit to carrying it.” Plum took the handkerchief Harry offered and delicately blew her nose.
He tipped her chin up, smiling down at her with love shining in his beautiful eyes. “You married me.”
“Any woman with a shred of common sense would have done that,” Plum replied, warmed by the look despite the knowledge of what she was going to have to do.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “You accepted my five little hellions into your heart despite their best attempts to drive you mad.”
“Well,” she said with a little smile, “I will admit that might have taken a tiny little morsel of courage, but they are good children. Most of the time. Sometimes. Underneath, where it counts, they’re good. Even India has come around, and I thought she’d never warm up to me, although I admit, allowing her to wear her hair up and that pair of pearl earrings I bought for her birthday might have something to do with the thaw in her affections.”
“She simply realized her good fortune in having such a wonderful stepmother. Not many women would stop running from the little monsters long enough to see their better qualities,” Harry said dryly, then pulled her closer, his hands warm on her backside as he teased her lips with his own. “What amazes me the most is that despite everything, you love me.”
She melted completely against him, unable to hold out under the heat of his passion. “I would have to be witless not to, you’re eminently lovable.”
“I am,” Harry agreed, swinging her up in his arms. “I am so lovable, you should worship me in tangible methods that will leave me exhausted, but sated. Would you mind opening the door?”
Plum turned the latch. “Harry? Where are we going? I thought we were going to discuss Charles, and what to do with him?”
“We are. We will. Later. Right now I must address the issue of a wife who keeps secrets from her husband.” Harry climbed the two flights of stairs without the least sign of strain.
Plum, for a moment concerned by what Harry said, realized by the heated gaze that seared her that he was truly not angry with her for not telling him everything before they married. “There simply couldn’t be a more perfect man than you,” she sighed, tugging at his cravat, freeing the tanned column of his neck from its snowy hold.
“No, there couldn’t,” Harry said shamelessly, the twinkle in his eye warming her almost as much as the stark, burning desire she saw there. He pushed open the door to his bedchamber, kicking the door shut behind him. “Which is why I feel you should worship me. Daily. Hourly, even. I am a god amongst men, wife, and I expect you to treat me as such. Let us discuss the form this worship will take.”
“Well,” Plum said as he allowed her to slid down his body until she was standing. His fingers danced along the back of her gown, slipping free button after button. Plum shivered with anticipation as her gown parted. “I thought that first I might make a sacrifice.”
“A sacrifice?” Harry cocked an eyebrow at her. She gently took the spectacles off, followed by his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt. “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about—”
“Acolyte Worshiping the High Priest,” Plum said, her hands dancing along the fastening to his breeches.
Harry sucked in his breath, looked wild for a moment as she reached within his breeches to wrap both hands around the hard length of his arousal. “You said that was the one connubial calisthenic that had not been taught to you. You said that was the one you had thought up all yourself, the one you had never put into practice, the pinnacle of all the calisthenics, the one you were saving for a very, very special occasion.”
“This is such an occasion,” she said, smiling because he was panting. Her smile deepened when he shuddered, prying her hands off him with a look that warned her he was close to losing control. He jerked her gown off, not even pausing to admire her lovely new frothy shift before he removed it, too. She kicked off her shoes. “My stockings?”
He eyed her, a deliciously wicked glint to his eyes. “We will leave them. You are, after all, a deliciously naughty acolyte. You will have to be punished later.”
“Oooh,” Plum said, giving up the last of her guilt. She loved him, and knew he loved her. She would do whatever she had to do to make sure that nothing tarnished that love. She took a deep breath, then immediately lost it when Harry’s warm mouth closed over her breast. His mouth was hot as it kissed a path around her soft flesh, teasing an already aching nipple with both tongue and teeth. Her fingers bit hard into his shoulders as she tried to keep her legs from giving way under her. “What sort of punishment are you speaking of? Will it involve your hand and my bare…um…sit-upon?”
“It might. Or it might involve two feathers, and the leather cuffs,” Harry said as he pulled her close to him, fitting the soft curves of her flesh exactly against his hard planes as if they were designed specifically for one another.
She breathed in the wonderful scent of his lemon soap, allowing her head to fall to his shoulder as she pressed her lips to the pulse point in his throat. “And what sort of form would you like the ritual purifi cation of spirit to take, oh mighty High Priest?”