“None, except I have not interviewed you, sir.”
He blinked in surprise. She wanted to interview him? None of the other women had. How delightfully refreshing of her! He had the sudden warm satisfaction of knowing that he would not easily be able to second-guess Plum. “Ah. Yes. Of course. You wish to know about me.”
“Yes, sir, I do,” she answered, and lifted her chin a little higher.
He liked that chin a great deal. He applauded her high spirits, and began to think with pleasure upon his future with her as he quickly rattled off the important particulars about himself. “My name is Harry…Haversham. I live here in Raving, out toward the north spit. Do you know it?”
She shook her head.
“Good. That is…er…it’s of no account. I’m forty-five years of age…” He paused, narrowing his eyes as he looked carefully at her face. “If you will not be offended by me asking, how old are you?”
“I…I…” Plum looked nonplussed for a moment, then that adorable chin rose again. “I’m forty, sir.”
He did smile then, a pleased smile, a happy smile. Really, she was perfect for the position. Intelligent, liked children, wasn’t too young and silly, and heaven knew he desired her in a more fundamental manner. Every time she lifted her chin, he wanted to kiss her. “Excellent. As I said, I’m forty-five and in reasonably good health, possess means that leave me comfortable, and don’t have any excessive vices that I’m aware of. Do you have any questions? No? Very well. I shall leave Temple to take down your information, and will obtain a special license tomorrow so that we may be married the following day.” He touched his riding crop to his hat in salute, and was about to ride away when it suddenly occurred to him to ask a final question. “Er…what village are you from?”
Plum looked a bit stunned around the eyes, but other than a momentary pause, gave him no indication that he had just rushed her through a proposal. “Ram’s Bottom, sir.”
Harry’s eyes widened as he glanced down at her muddy hem. “You walked eight miles?”
The chin rose again, just as he knew it would. He smiled to himself, more than satisfied with his choice. This woman would not leave him bored after a few days, as all the others threatened to do.
“Yes, I did. I find walking quite beneficial to the constitution.”
“And so it is, however, sixteen miles in one day is a bit more benefit than anyone could need, even someone who is in your”—he allowed his gaze to caress her curves for just a moment, not long enough to be offensive, but enough to let the lady know he found her attractive—“fit condition. Temple?”
“Yes, sir. I will arrange for Miss Pelham to be taken home.”
Harry beamed at her, bid her a good day, and put his heels to Thor, riding home with a whistle on his lips, satisfaction in his heart, and a throb in his breeches that predicted a very happy future.
Plum entered the dark cottage as the hired carriage rattled down the lane, more than a little dazed by the happenings of the day. She was betrothed! To a gentleman she had known for all of five minutes, a very handsome man, a man who had laugh lines around his eyes, and an unruly lock of sandy hair that hung over his forehead. A man who either had some infirmity of the lower limbs that prohibited him from dismounting, or…Plum giggled as she lit the candles around the small room. Once when she and Charles were having tea at her old nurse’s cottage, he had been unwilling to leave at the end of the visit. He told her later that he had been musing upon the pleasure of their most recent connubial calisthenics, and had to remain seated until several minutes later when he had himself in control. The way Harry had draped his coat over his lap was reminiscent of Charles playing with her shawl in such a manner as to conceal his groin.
“If he was in a similar situation because of me,” she told the cat Maple as she lit the fire and prepared to warm up the potato soup remaining from the day before, “I shall be very pleased, very pleased indeed, for it indicates that he is interested in bedchamber sports. Heaven knows I am.”
“I am as well, despite the fact that you won’t let me read your book,” a voice said behind her.
Plum shrieked and dropped the soup ladle, clutching her heart as she spun around.
Thom was seated on the floor in a dark corner, a bowl of milk and several pieces of straw beside her. “Which is silly, when you think about it, for how am I ever to learn the joys of such activities if you won’t let me read about them?”
“You swear you won’t ever marry, so such knowledge is of no use to you. What are you doing there sitting in the corner in the dark?” Plum, having reassured herself that her heart was not going to leap out of her chest, returned to warming the soup.
“Feeding mice. Their mother was taken by one of the cats that live in the shed. I’ve found that they’ll drink milk easily enough if I use a piece of straw.” Plum gave a resigned sigh at the newest inhabitants of their little cottage, and hunted for the stale heel of bread she remembered seeing. “As for the other, I do not intend ever to marry — at least none of the gentlemen you think are so suitable. They’re nothing but idle fribbles, bent on wenching their way through their lives. But I should like to see your book nonetheless. After all, one does not have to be married to perform calisthenics, connubial or otherwise.”
Plum’s cheeks heated as she turned to glare at her niece. “No, one doesn’t, as I know well, but issues of morality aside, to do otherwise is to put yourself in a position of disadvantage. Women have little enough control over their lives, and even less power against men. Marriage at least offers some protection.”
Thom shrugged and bent over the clutch of tiny pink bodies squirming in her lap. Plum found the heel of bread, tapped it on the counter, winced at the solid thunk, then sighed and tossed it into the goat’s bucket.
“Is that why you went to meet with Mr. Harris? For protection?”
“No,” Plum answered, and bent down to look in the one small cupboard that served as their pantry. Surely there were a few greens left from last week? A bit of suet their neighbor had given them? A handful of dried beans? “I met with the gentleman — his name is Haversham, and have accepted his offer of marriage — because I wished to be married again and have a family, and he seemed a pleasant man. Wasn’t there a rind of cheese?”
Thom ducked her head, and carefully allowed milk from the tip of the straw to drip into the little pink mouth of the baby mouse.
Plum straightened up, dusting off her hands. “I see. I don’t suppose you ate it?”
Thom’s shoulder twitched.
“No, I can see you didn’t.” Plum sat on the rickety chair, thought seriously about crying, but decided that laughter was probably the only thing that would save her sanity. She allowed the — only slightly hysterical — giggles to build up inside her, her lips twitching as she asked, “Did you give the cheese to a mouse? A rat? An orphaned vole?”
Thom peeked at her from under her lashes, an affecting look Plum had never been able to master since her eyelashes, like her brows, were thick and seemed to have a mind of their own. “There was this adorable little monkey—”
“Thomasine Laurel Fraser!” Plum gasped in between unladylike snorts of laughter. “To give away your meager luncheon is bad enough, but to make up a falsehood of such magnitude is going too far.”
“It’s not a falsehood, there really was a monkey. He was with a very old man, so bent and frail he looked as if he would be blown over by a strong wind. He was very charming, however, and told me his name was Palmerston, and his monkey was named Manny. They both looked in such a poor way, I gave him a bit of cheese, and a few other things that I thought you wouldn’t mind…”