Harry carefully transferred the pet to Beatrix’s hands. “ ‘The fox has many tricks,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘the hedgehog only one.’ ” He smiled at Beatrix as he added, “But it’s a good one.”
“Archilochus,” Beatrix said promptly. “You read Greek poetry, Mr. Rutledge?”
“Not usually. But I make an exception for Archilochus. He knew how to make a point.”
“Father used to call him a ‘raging iambic,’ ” Poppy said, and Harry laughed.
And in that moment, Poppy made her decision.
Because even though Harry Rutledge had his flaws, he admitted them freely. And a man who could charm a hedgehog and understand jokes about ancient Greek poets was a man worth taking a risk on.
She wouldn’t be able to marry for love, but she could at least marry for hope.
“Bea,” she murmured, “might you allow us a few moments alone?”
“Certainly. Medusa would love to grub about in the next row.”
“Thank you, dear.” Poppy turned back to Harry, who was dusting his hands. “May I ask one more question?”
He looked at her alertly and spread his hands as if to show he had nothing to hide.
“Would you say that you’re a good man, Harry?”
He had to think about that. “No,” he finally said. “In the fairy tale you mentioned last night, I would probably be the villain. But it’s possible the villain would treat you far better than the prince would have.”
Poppy wondered what was wrong with her, that she should be amused rather than frightened by his confession. “Harry. You’re not supposed to court a girl by telling her you’re the villain.”
He gave her an innocent glance that didn’t deceive her in the least. “I’m trying to be honest.”
“Perhaps. But you’re also making certain that whatever anyone says about you, you’ve already admitted it. Now you’ve made all criticism of you ineffectual.”
Harry blinked as if she’d surprised him. “You think I’m that manipulative?”
She nodded.
Harry seemed stunned that she could see through him so easily. Instead of being annoyed, however, he stared at her with stark longing. “Poppy, I have to have you.”
Reaching her in two steps, he took her into his arms. Her heart thumped with sudden force, and she let her head fall back naturally as she waited for the warm pressure of his mouth. When nothing happened, however, she opened her eyes and glanced at him quizzically.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“No. I don’t want your judgment clouded.” But he brushed his lips against her forehead before he continued. “Here are your choices, as I see them. First, you could go to Hampshire in a cloud of social scorn, and content yourself with the knowledge that at least you didn’t get trapped into a loveless marriage. Or you could marry a man who wants you beyond anything, and live like a queen.” He paused. “And don’t forget the country house and carriage.”
Poppy could not contain a smile. “Bribery again.”
“I’ll throw in the castle and tiara,” Harry said ruthlessly. “Gowns, furs, a yacht—”
“Hush,” Poppy whispered, and touched his lips gently with her fingers, not knowing how else to make him stop. She took a deep breath, hardly able to believe what she was about to say. “I’ll settle for a betrothal ring. A small, simple one.”
Harry stared at her as if he were afraid to trust his own ears. “Will you?”
“Yes,” Poppy said, her voice a bit suffocated. “Yes, I will marry you.”
Chapter Twelve
This was the phrase of Poppy’s wedding day: “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
She had heard it from every member of her family, or some variation thereof, since the early hours of the morning. That was, she’d heard it from everyone except Beatrix, who thankfully didn’t share the Hathaways’ general animosity toward Harry.
In fact, Poppy had asked Beatrix why she hadn’t objected to the betrothal.
“I think it might turn out to be a good pairing,” Beatrix said.
“You do? Why?”
“A rabbit and a cat can live together peaceably. But first the rabbit has to assert itself—charge the cat a time or two—and then they become friends.”
“Thank you,” Poppy said dryly. “I’ll have to remember that. Although I daresay Harry will be surprised when I knock him over like a ninepin.”
The wedding and the reception afterward would be as large and heavily attended as humanly possible, as if Harry intended for half of London to witness the ceremony. As a result, Poppy would spend most of her wedding day amidst a sea of strangers.
She had hoped that she and Harry might become better acquainted in the three weeks of their betrothal, but she had scarcely seen him except for the two occasions when he had come to take her on a drive. And Miss Marks, who had accompanied them, had glowered so fiercely that it had embarrassed and infuriated Poppy.
The day before the wedding, her sister Win and brother-in-law Merripen had arrived. To Poppy’s relief, Win had elected to remain neutral on the controversy of the marriage. She and Poppy sat together in a richly appointed hotel suite, talking over the matter at length. And just as in the days of their childhood, Win assumed the role of peacemaker.
The light from a fringed lamp slid over Win’s blond hair in a brilliant varnish. “If you like him, Poppy,” she said gently, “if you’ve found things to esteem in him, then I’m sure I will, too.”
“I wish Amelia felt that way. And Miss Marks, too, for that matter. They’re both so . . . well, opinionated . . . that I can hardly discuss anything with either of them.”
Win smiled. “Remember, Amelia has taken care of all of us for a very long time. And it’s not easy for her to relinquish her role as our protector. But she will. Remember when Leo and I left for France, how difficult it was for her to see us off? How afraid she was for us?”
“I think she was more afraid for France.”
“Well, France survived the Hathaways,” Win said, smiling. “And you will survive becoming Harry Rutledge’s wife on the morrow. Only . . . if I may say my piece . . . ?”
“Certainly. Everyone else has.”
“The London season is like one of those Drury Lane melodramas in which marriage is always the ending. And no one ever seems to give any thought as to what happens after. But marriage isn’t the end of the story, it’s the beginning. And it demands the efforts of both partners to make a success of it. I hope Mr. Rutledge has given assurances that he will be the kind of husband that your happiness requires?”
“Well . . .” Poppy paused uncomfortably. “He told me I would live like a queen. Although that’s not quite the same thing, is it?”
“No,” Win said, her voice soft. “Be careful, dear, that you don’t end up as the queen of a lonely kingdom.”
Poppy nodded, stricken and uneasy, trying to hide it. In her gentle way, Win had offered more devastating advice than all the sharp warnings of the other Hathaways combined. “I’ll consider that,” she said, staring at the floor, at the tiny printed flowers of her dress, anywhere other than into her sister’s perceptive gaze. She twisted her betrothal ring around her finger. Although the current fashion was for diamond clusters, or colored stones, Harry had bought her a single rose-cut diamond, shaped at the top with facets that mimicked the inner spiral of a rose.
“I asked for something small and simple,” she had told Harry when he had given it to her.
“It’s simple,” he had countered.
“But not small.”
“Poppy,” he had told her with a smile, “I never do anything in a small way.”
Spying the clock ticking busily on the mantel, Poppy brought her thoughts back to the present. “I won’t change my mind, Win. I promised Harry that I would marry him, and so I shall. He has been kind to me. I would never repay him by jilting him at the altar.”
“I understand.” Win slid her hand over Poppy’s, and pressed warmly. “Poppy . . . has Amelia had a ‘certain talk’ with you yet?”
“You mean the ‘what to expect on my wedding night’ talk?”
“Yes.”
“She was planning to tell me later tonight, but I’d just as soon hear it from you.” Poppy paused. “However, having spent so much time with Beatrix, I should tell you that I know the mating habits of at least twenty-three different species.”
“Heavens,” Win said with a grin. “Perhaps you should be leading the discussion, dear.”
The fashionable, the powerful, and the wealthy usually married at St. George’s in Hanover Square, located in the middle of Mayfair. In fact, so many peers and virgins had been united in holy wedlock at St. George’s that it was unofficially and quite vulgarly known as the “London Temple of Hymen.”
A pediment with six massive columns fronted the impressive but relatively simple structure. St. George’s had been designed with a deliberate lack of ornamentation so as not to detract from the beauty of the architecture. The interior was similarly austere, with a canopied pulpit built several feet higher than the box pews. But there was a magnificent work of stained glass above the front altar, depicting the Tree of Jesse and an assortment of biblical figures.
Surveying the crowd packed inside the church, Leo wore a carefully blank expression. So far he had given away two sisters in marriage. Neither of those weddings had begun to approach this kind of grandeur and visibility. But they had far eclipsed it in genuine happiness. Amelia and Win had both been in love with the men they had chosen to marry.
It was unfashionable to marry for love, a mark of the bourgeoisie. However, it was an ideal the Hathaways had always aspired to.
This wedding had nothing to do with love.
Dressed in a black morning coat with silver trousers and a white cravat, Leo stood beside the side door of the vestry room, where ceremonial and sacred objects were kept. Altar and choir robes hung in a row along one wall. This morning the vestry doubled as a waiting room for the bride.
Catherine Marks came to stand on the other side of the doorway as if she were a fellow sentinel guarding the castle gate. Leo glanced at her covertly. She was dressed in lavender, unlike her usual drab colors. Her mousy brown hair was pulled back into such a tight chignon as to make it difficult for her to blink. The spectacles sat oddly on her nose, one of the wire earpieces crimped. It gave her the appearance of a befuddled owl.
“What are you looking at?” she asked testily.
“Your spectacles are crooked,” Leo said, trying not to smile.
She scowled. “I tried to fix them, but it only made them worse.”
“Give them to me.” Before she could object, he took them from her face and began to fiddle with the bent wire.
She spluttered in protest. “My lord, I didn’t ask you to—if you damage them—”
“How did you bend the earpiece?” Leo asked, patiently straightening the wire.
“I dropped them on the floor, and as I was searching, I stepped on them.”
“Nearsighted, are you?”
“Quite.”
Having reshaped the earpiece, Leo scrutinized the spectacles carefully. “There.” He began to give them to her and paused as he stared into her eyes, all blue, green, and gray, contained in distinct dark rims. Brilliant, warm, changeable. Like opals. Why had he never noticed them before?
Awareness chased over him, making his skin prickle as if exposed to a sudden change in temperature. She wasn’t plain at all. She was beautiful, in a fine, subtle way, like winter moonlight, or the sharp linen smell of daisies. So cool and pale . . . delicious. For a moment, Leo couldn’t move.
Marks was similarly still, locked with him in a moment of peculiar intimacy.
She snatched the spectacles from him and replaced them firmly on her nose. “This is a mistake,” she said. “You shouldn’t have let it happen.”
Struggling through layers of bemusement and stimulation, Leo gathered that she was referring to his sister’s wedding. He sent her an irritable glance. “What do you suggest I do, Marks? Send Poppy to a nunnery? She has the right to marry whomever she pleases.”
“Even if it ends in disaster?”
“It won’t end in disaster, it will end in estrangement. And I’ve told Poppy as much. But she’s bound and determined to marry him. I always thought Poppy was too sensible to make this kind of mistake.”
“She is sensible,” Marks said. “But she’s also lonely. And Rutledge took advantage of that.”
“How could she be lonely? She’s constantly surrounded by people.”
“That can be the worst loneliness of all.”
There was a disturbing note in her voice, a fragile sadness. Leo wanted to touch her . . . gather her close . . . pull her face into his neck . . . and that caused a twinge of something like panic. He had to do something, anything, to change the mood between them.
“Cheer up, Marks,” he said briskly. “I’m sure that someday you, too, will find that one special person you can torment for the rest of your life.”
He was relieved to see her familiar scowl reassert itself.
“I’ve yet to meet a man who could compete with a good strong cup of tea.”
Leo was about to reply when he heard a noise from inside the vestry where Poppy was waiting.
A man’s voice, taut with urgency.
Leo and Marks looked at each other.
“Isn’t she supposed to be alone?” Leo asked.
The companion nodded uncertainly.
“Is it Rutledge?” Leo wondered aloud.
Marks shook her head. “I just saw him outside the church.”
Without another word, Leo grasped the door handle and opened the portal, and Marks followed him inside the vestry.
Leo stopped so abruptly that the companion bumped into him from behind. His sister, clad in a high-necked white lace gown, was silhouetted against a row of black and purple robes. Poppy looked angelic, bathed in light from a narrow rectangular window, a veil cascading down her back from a neat coronet of white rosebuds.
And she was confronting Michael Bayning—who looked like a madman, his eyes wild, his clothes disheveled.
“Bayning,” Leo said, closing the door with an efficient swipe of his foot. “I wasn’t aware you’d been invited. The guests are being seated in the pews. I suggest you join them.” He paused, his voice iced with quiet warning. “Or better yet, leave altogether.”