Trouble With Harry by Katie MacAlister Read Free Book Online Page B

home that doesn’t leak whenever it rains, or allow the cold in during the winter?”
    Thom smiled and divided up the last of her soup between the cats’ bowls and the goat’s bucket. “It will be a strain, but I will suffer in silence as best I can.”
    Plum laughed again, and in a moment of pure whimsy, threw out her arms and spun around in a circle. “A family, Thom! At last, at very long last, I’m going to have a husband and children of my own! Life just cannot get any better!”

Four
    Plum sat stunned to the point of silence as a maidservant combed out her long black hair. The thought of it rattled around in her mind like a pea in an empty bowl. She had a maidservant, someone who would comb her hair whenever she so desired. Her husband had provided her the maidservant. She had a husband and a maidservant. And a room of her own. Her eyes looked away from the up-and-down motion of the comb as it slid through her hair, and gazed again with wonder at the reflection of the room behind her, a lovely soft rose-colored room that smelled faintly of fresh paint, with a huge fireplace, a fainting couch, and a bed with rose and dark red bed curtains.
    The maid’s hand flashed white in the mirror.
    â€œNo one has combed my hair for me since I was twenty.”
    â€œIs that so, my lady?”
    That was another thing, she was a lady. Not that she had behaved in any other manner, for no matter how poor she had been, Plum had ever acted as a lady should—with the regrettable, if extremely satisfying, exception of the pot and Mr. Snaffle’s cods—but now, as her husband of five hours had informed her earlier, she was also a lady in title. Lady Rosse, to be exact. Harry turned out to be a marquis in disguise; therefore, she was a marchioness.
    A fraudulent marchioness, her guilty conscience whispered.
    â€œNo. It is too much. I just cannot take it all in,” Plum protested to her reflection. “The husband and the maid and the rose-colored room, yes, that I am willing to accept, nay embrace wholeheartedly with a great deal of happiness and pleasure if not outright ecstasy, but the rest of it, I just cannot absorb. It will have to wait for another time, a time when I can think about it without wanting to scream.”
    Edna the maid carefully set down the silver comb and stepped slowly away from Plum. “Why would you be wanting to scream, my lady?”
    There they were again, those two words. My lady . She had deceived a marquis, led him to believe she was a poor but honest woman. Well, truly, she was poor but honest, honest with the exception of neglecting to tell him about one minor little fact… Plum moaned softly and leaned forward until her forehead rested in her hands. “Edna, would you happen to know if it’s a hanging offense to deceive a marquis?”
    â€œErm…” Edna backed toward the door. “Will you be needing anything else, my lady?”
    Plum tilted her chin up and spread her fingers so she could see the maid in the mirror. “Yes, please. Would you mind terribly not calling me my lady ? It makes me a bit uncomfortable, not as uncomfortable as I deserve, to be sure, but uncomfortable enough that I flinch, and one can only do so much flinching before one starts to twitch, and it’s a short path from twitching to utter and complete madness. Do you understand?”
    â€œEep,” said Edna, and with eyes as big as saucers, she slipped out the door, closing it softly behind her.
    â€œWell, now you’ve done it,” Plum told her reflection, “you’ve frightened your maid. She probably thinks you are already mad. She’s probably right. Stupid, stupid Plum. What am I going to do? How am I ever going to tell Harry—a marquis, for heaven’s sake, he’s almost royalty—the truth about me?” Plum looked away to the door connecting her bedchamber to her husband’s, giving it a righteous