“You read, walk, ride, spend a morning fishing or shooting, perhaps go calling on the neighbors . . . tour the local ruins, visit the shops in town . . .” Poppy paused as she saw the lack of enthusiasm on his face. “. . . Make love to your wife?”
“Done,” he said promptly.
“May we stay a fortnight?”
“Ten days.”
“Eleven?” she asked hopefully.
Harry sighed. Eleven days away from the Rutledge. In close company with his in-laws. He was tempted to argue, but he wasn’t fool enough to risk the ground he’d gained with Poppy. He’d come here with the expectation of a royal battle to get her back to London. But if Poppy would take him willingly into her bed, and then accompany him back with no fuss, it was worth a concession on his part.
Still . . . eleven days . . .
“Why not?” he muttered. “I’ll probably go mad after three days.”
“That’s all right,” Poppy said cheerfully. “No one around here would notice.”
To Mr. Jacob Valentine
The Rutledge Hotel
Embankment and Strand
London
Valentine,
I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to apprise you that Mrs. Rutledge and I have decided to remain in Hampshire until month’s end.
In my absence, carry on as usual.
Yours truly,
J.H. Rutledge
Jake looked up from the letter with jaw-slackening disbelief. Carry on as usual?
Nothing was usual about this.
“Well, what does it say?” Mrs. Pennywhistle prompted, while nearly everyone in the front office strained to hear.
“They’re not coming back until month’s end,” Jake said, dazed.
A strange, lopsided smile touched the housekeeper’s lips. “Bless my soul. She’s done it.”
“Done what?”
Before she could reply, the elderly concierge sidled up to them and asked in a discreet tone, “Mrs. Pennywhistle, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation . . . am I to understand that Mr. Rutledge is taking a holiday?”
“No, Mr. Lufton,” she said with an irrepressible grin. “He’s taking a honeymoon.”
Chapter
Twenty-three
In the following days, Harry learned a great deal about his wife and her family. The Hathaways were an extraordinary group of individuals, lively and quick-witted, with an instant collective willingness to try any ideas that came to them. They teased and laughed and squabbled and debated, but there was an innate kindness in the way they treated each other.
There was something almost magical about Ramsay House. It was a comfortable, well-run home, filled with sturdy furniture and thick carpets, and piles of books everywhere . . . but that didn’t account for the extra something. One felt it immediately after crossing the front threshold, something as intangible but life-giving as sunlight. A something that had always escaped Harry.
Gradually he came to realize that it was love.
The second day after Harry’s arrival in Hampshire, Leo toured him around the estate. They rode to visit some of the tenant farms, and Leo stopped to talk to various tenants and laborers. He exchanged informed comments with them about the weather, the soil, and the harvest, displaying a depth of knowledge that Harry would not have expected.
In London, Leo played the part of disaffected rake to perfection. In the country, however, the mask of indifference dropped. It was clear that he cared about the families who lived and worked on the Ramsay estate, and he intended to make a success of it. He had designed a clever system of irrigation that brought water along stone channels they had dug from the nearby river, relieving many of the tenants of the chore of hauling water. And he was doing his utmost to bring modern methods to local farming, including convincing his tenants to plant a new variety of hybrid wheat developed in Brighton that produced higher yields and stronger straw.
“They’re slow to accept change in these parts,” Leo told Harry ruefully. “Many of them still insist on using the sickle and scythe instead of the threshing machine.” He grinned. “I’ve told them the nineteenth century is going to be over before they ever decide to take part in it.”
It occurred to Harry that the Hathaways were making a solid success of the estate not in spite of their lack of aristocratic heritage, but because of it. No traditions or habits had been passed on to them. There had been no one to protest “but this is how we’ve always done it.” As a result, they approached estate management as both a business and a scientific undertaking, because they knew no other way to proceed.
Leo showed Harry the estate timber yard, where the backbreaking work of cutting, hauling, and ad-sizing logs was all done by hand. Massive logs were carried on shoulders or with lug hooks, creating countless opportunities for injury.
After supper that evening, Harry sketched some plans for moving timber with a system of rollers, run planks, and dollies. The system could be constructed at a relatively low expense, and it would allow for faster production and greater safety for the estate laborers. Merripen and Leo were both immediately receptive to the idea.
“It was very kind of you to draw up those schemes,” Poppy told Harry later, when they had gone to the caretaker’s house for the night. “Merripen was very appreciative.”
Harry shrugged casually, unfastening the back of her gown and helping to draw her arms from the sleeves. “I merely pointed out a few obvious improvements they could make.”
“Things that are obvious to you,” she said, “aren’t necessarily obvious to the rest of us. It was very clever of you, Harry.” Stepping out of the gown, Poppy turned to face him with a satisfied smile. “I’m very glad my family is getting the chance to know you. They’re beginning to like you. You’re being very charming, and not at all condescending, and you don’t make a fuss about things like finding a hedgehog in your chair.”
“I’m not fool enough to compete with Medusa for chair space,” he said, and she laughed. “I like your family,” he said, unhooking the front of her corset, gradually freeing her from the web of cloth and stays. “Seeing you with them helps me to understand you better.”
The corset made a soft thwack as he tossed it to the floor. Poppy stood before him in her chemise and drawers, flushing as he studied her intently.
An uncertain smile crossed her face. “What do you understand about me?”
Harry hooked a gentle finger beneath the strap of her chemise, easing it downward. “That it’s your nature to form close attachments to the people around you.” He moved his palm over the curve of her bared shoulder in a circling caress. “That you are sensitive, and devoted to those you love, and most of all . . . that you need to feel safe.” He eased the other strap of her chemise down, and felt the shivers that chased through her body. He drew her against him, his arms closing around her, and she molded to him with a sigh.
After a while, he murmured softly into the pale, fragrant curve of her neck. “I’m going to make love to you all night, Poppy. And the first time, you’re going to feel very safe. But the second time, I’m going to be a little bit wicked . . . and you’ll like that even more. And the third time—” he paused with a smile as he heard her breath catch. “The third time, I’m going to do things that will mortify you when you remember them tomorrow.” He kissed her gently. “And you’ll love that most of all.”
Poppy couldn’t quite fathom Harry’s mood, devilish yet tender as he finished undressing her. He laid her back on the mattress with her legs dangling, and stood between them as he leisurely removed his shirt. As his gaze traveled over her, she blushed and tried to cover herself with her arms.
Flashing a grin, Harry bent over her, pulling her hands away. “Love, if you only knew what pleasure it gives me to look at you . . .” He kissed her lips, teasing them open, his tongue slipping inside the warm interior of her mouth. The hair on his chest brushed over the tips of her breasts, a sweet and ceaseless stimulation that drew a moan from low in her throat.
His lips wandered along the arch of her throat to her breasts. Capturing a nipple, he stroked with his tongue, making it taut and stingingly sensitive. At the same time, his hand went to her other breast, his thumb circling and prodding the peak.
She strained upward, her body trembling and flushed. His hands drifted over her in light paths, across her stomach, lower, down to the place where a sweet erotic ache had centered. Finding the humid, delicately layered flesh, he teased her with his thumbs, opened her, making her ready for him.
Her knees drew up, and she reached for him with an incoherent sound, trying to draw him over her. Instead, he sank to his knees and gripped her hips, and she felt his mouth on her.
She quivered beneath the gentle articulation of his tongue, every intricate movement provoking, tormenting, until her eyes fluttered closed and she began to breathe in wrenching sighs. His tongue entered her and lingered for an excruciating moment. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, Harry.”
She felt him stand, heard the rustle of trousers and linens being dropped. There was hot, gentle pressure at the entrance of her body, and she made a shuddering sound of relief. He pushed inside as deeply as she could accept him, a deliciously substantial invasion. She was stretched, utterly filled, and she worked her hips against him, trying to take even more. A slow rhythm began, his body pressing hers at just the right angle, driving the pitch of feeling higher with each luscious ingress.
Her eyes flew open as the accumulated sensation rolled up to her, relentless in its strength and velocity, and she saw his sweat-misted face above hers. He was watching her, savoring her pleasure, bending to take her helpless cries into his mouth.
When the last spasms had faded, and she was as limp as a discarded stocking, Poppy found herself cradled in Harry’s arms. They reclined together on the bed, her soft limbs tangled with his harder, longer ones.
She stirred in drowsy surprise as she felt that he was still aroused. He kissed her and sat up, his hand playing in the loose fire of her hair.
Gently he guided her head to his lap. “Make it wet,” he whispered. Her mouth closed carefully over the pulsing head, slid as far down as she could, and lifted. Intrigued, she nuzzled the silken hardness, her tongue flicking out like a cat’s.
Harry turned her so that she was positioned facedown on the mattress. Hoisting her hips upward, he covered her from behind, his fingers sliding between her thighs. She felt a leap of excitement, her body responding instantly to his touch.
“Now,” he whispered into her hot ear, “I’m going to be wicked. And you’ll let me do anything, won’t you?”
“Yes, yes, yes . . .”
Harry held her with firm pressure, cupping her as he pulled her against his solid weight. She felt him move her in an insinuating rocking motion, with his aroused flesh poised at the wet cove of her body. He entered her, but just barely, and each time she rocked backward, he let her have a little more. Murmuring his name, she pushed back more strongly, trying to impale herself fully. But he only laughed softly and kept her where he wanted her, maintaining the voluptuous, metrical pitch.
He was utterly in control, appropriating her flesh with dizzying skill, letting her writhe and gasp for long minutes. Dragging the length of her hair to one side, he kissed the back of her neck, his mouth strong and gnawing. Everything he did drove her pleasure higher, and he knew it, gloried in it. Poppy felt the oncoming rush of fulfillment, her senses preparing for the hot tumble of release, and only then did he take her fully, driving hard and deep into her center.
Harry held her until she stopped trembling, her body limp with satisfaction. And then he pressed her to her back and whispered one word into her ear.
“Again.”
It was a long and searing night, filled with unthinkable intimacy. After the third time, they snuggled in the darkness with Poppy’s head on Harry’s shoulder. It was lovely to lie with someone this way, talking about anything and everything, their bodies relaxed in the aftermath of passion.
“You fascinate me in every way,” Harry whispered, his hand playing gently in her hair. “There are mysteries in your soul that will take a lifetime to uncover . . . and I want to know every one of them.”
No one had ever called her mysterious before. While Poppy didn’t think of herself that way, she rather liked it. “I’m not all that mysterious, am I?”
“Of course you are.” Smiling, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into the tender cup of her palm. “You’re a woman.”
Poppy went for a walk with Beatrix the next afternoon, while the rest of the family dispersed on various errands: Win and Amelia went to visit an ailing friend in the village, Leo and Merripen met with a prospective new tenant, and Cam had gone to a horse auction in Southampton.
Harry sat at a desk in the library with a detailed report from Jake Valentine. Relishing the peace and quiet—rare in the Hathaway household—he began to read. However, the sound of a floorboard creaking snagged his attention, and he looked toward the threshold.
Catherine Marks was standing there, book in hand, her cheeks pink. “Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I meant to return a book, but—”
“Come in,” Harry said at once, rising from his chair. “You’re not interrupting anything.”
“I’ll just be a moment.” She hurried to a bookshelf, replaced the volume, and paused to glance at him. Light from the window gleamed on her spectacles, obscuring her eyes.
“Stay in here if you like,” Harry said, feeling unaccountably awkward.
“No, thank you. It’s a lovely day, and I thought I might walk through the gardens, or—” She stopped and shrugged uncomfortably.
God, how ill at ease they were with each other. Harry contemplated her for a moment, wondering what was troubling her. He had never known what to do with her, this unwanted half sister, what place in his life he could find for her. He had never wanted to care for Catherine, and yet she had always tugged at him, worried him, perplexed him.
“May I walk with you?” he asked huskily.
She blinked in surprise. Her answer was long in coming. “If you wish.”
He went out with her to a small hedged garden, with heavy drifts of white and yellow daffodils all around. Squinting against the abundant sunshine, they walked along a graveled path.
Catherine gave him an unfathomable glance, her eyes like opals in the daylight. “I don’t know you at all, Harry.”
“You probably know me as well as anyone,” Harry said. “Except for Poppy, of course.”
“No, I don’t,” she said earnestly. “The way you’ve been this week . . . I would never have expected it of you. This affection you seem to have developed for Poppy—I find it quite astonishing.”
“It’s not an act,” he said.
“I know. I can see that you’re sincere. It’s just that before the wedding, you said it didn’t matter if Poppy’s heart belonged to Mr. Bayning, as long as—”
“As long as I had the rest of her,” Harry said, smiling in self-contempt. “I was an arrogant swine. I’m sorry, Cat.” He paused. “I understand now why you feel so protective of Poppy and Beatrix. Of all of them. They’re the closest thing to a family you’ve ever known.”
“Or you.”
An uncomfortable silence passed before Harry brought himself to admit, “Or I.”
They stopped at a bench set alongside the path, and Catherine seated herself. “Will you?” she asked, gesturing to the space beside her.
He obliged, lowering to the bench and leaning forward with his elbows braced on his knees.
They were quiet but oddly companionable, both of them wishing for some kind of affinity, not knowing quite how to achieve it.
Harry decided to start with honesty. Taking a deep breath, he said gruffly, “I’ve never been kind to you, Cat. Especially when you needed it most.”
“I would dispute that,” she said, surprising him. “You rescued me from a very unpleasant situation, and you’ve given me
the means to live handsomely without having to find employment. And you never demanded anything in return.”
“I owed that much to you.” He stared at her, taking in the rich golden glitter of her hair, the small oval of her face, the porcelain fineness of her skin. A frown pulled at his brow. Averting his gaze, he reached up to rub the back of his neck. “You look too damned much like our mother.”
“I’m sorry,” Catherine whispered.
“No, don’t be sorry. You’re beautiful, just as she was. More so. But sometimes it’s difficult to see the resemblance, and not remember . . .” He let out a taut sigh. “When I found out about you, I resented you for having had so many more years with her than I’d had. It was only later that I realized I was the fortunate one.”
A bitter smile touched her lips. “I don’t think either of us could be accused of having had an excess of good fortune, Harry.”
He responded with a humorless chuckle.
They continued to sit side by side, still and silent, close but not touching. The two of them had been raised not knowing how to give or receive love. The world had taught them lessons that would have to be unlearned. But sometimes life was unexpectedly generous, Harry mused. Poppy was proof of that.
“The Hathaways were a stroke of luck for me,” Catherine said, as if she had read his thoughts. She removed her spectacles and cleaned them with the edge of her sleeve. “Being with them these past three years . . . it’s given me hope. It has been a time of healing.”
“I’m glad of it,” Harry said gently. “You deserve that, and more.” He paused, searching for words. “Cat, I have something to ask you . . .”
“Yes?”
“Poppy wants to know more about my past. What may I tell her, if anything, about the part when I found you?”
Catherine replaced her spectacles and stared into a nearby blaze of daffodils. “Tell her everything,” she said eventually. “She can be trusted with my secrets. And yours.”
Harry nodded, silently amazed by a statement he once could never have imagined her making. “There’s one more thing I want to ask of you. A favor. I understand the reasons we can’t acknowledge each other in public. But in private, from now on, I hope you’ll do me the honor of . . . well, letting me act as your brother.”