Tempt Me at Twilight (The Hathaways #3)(75)

Poppy looked at her through tear-hazed eyes. “Then why are you telling me this?”

“Because even though I’ve always believed that Harry is incapable of love, I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never been sure about anything regarding Harry.”

“Miss Marks—” Poppy began, and checked herself. “Catherine. What is the association between you and he? How is it that you know all this about him?”

A curious series of expressions crossed Catherine’s face . . . anxiety, sorrow, pleading. She began to tremble visibly, until the ferret in her lap awoke and hiccupped.

As the silence drew out, Poppy threw a questioning glance at Amelia, who gave her a subtle nod as if to say, Be patient.

Catherine removed her spectacles and polished the perspiration-misted edges of the lenses. Her entire face had gone damp with nervousness, the fine skin gleaming with the luster of a pearl. “A few years after Nicolette came to England with her paramour,” she said, “she had another child. A daughter.”

Poppy was left to make the connection on her own. She found herself pressing her knuckles gently against her mouth. “You?” she eventually managed to get out.

Catherine lifted her face, the spectacles still in her hand. A poetic, fine-boned face, but there was something direct and decisive in the lovely symmetry of her features. Yes, there was something of Harry in that face. And a quality in her reserve that spoke of deep-trammeled emotions.

“Why have you never mentioned it?” Poppy asked, bewildered. “Why hasn’t my husband? Why is your existence a secret?”

“It’s for my protection. I took a new name. No one can ever know why.”

There was much more Poppy wanted to ask, but it seemed Catherine Marks had reached the limits of her tolerance. Murmuring another apology beneath her breath, and another, she stood and set the sleepy ferret onto the rug. Snatching up her discarded shoe, she left the room. Dodger shook himself awake and followed her instantly.

Left alone with her sister, Poppy contemplated the little pile of tarts on the nearby table. A long silence passed.

“Tea?” she heard Amelia ask.

Poppy responded with a distracted nod.

After the tea was poured, they both reached for tarts, using their fingers to cradle the heavy strips of pastry, biting carefully. Tart lemon, sugar syrup, the pie crust velvety and crumbly. It was one of the tastes of their childhood. Poppy washed it down with a sip of hot milky tea.

“Things that remind me of our parents,” Poppy said absently, “and that lovely cottage in Primrose Place . . . they always make me feel better. Like eating these tarts. And flower-print curtains. And reading Aesop’s fables.”

“The smell of Apothecary’s Roses,” Amelia reminisced. “Watching the rain fall from the thatched eaves. And remember when Leo caught fireflies in jars, and we tried to use them as candlelight for supper?”

Poppy smiled. “I remember never being able to find the cake pan, because Beatrix was forever making it into a bed for her pets.”

Amelia gave an unladylike snort of laughter. “What about the time one of the chickens was so frightened by the neighbor’s dog, it lost all its feathers? And Bea got Mother to knit a little sweater for it.”

Poppy spluttered in her tea. “I was mortified. Everyone in the village came to see our bald chicken strutting around in a sweater.”

“As far as I know,” Amelia said with a grin, “Leo’s never eaten poultry since. He says he can’t have something for dinner if there’s a chance it once wore clothes.”

Poppy sighed. “I never realized how wonderful our childhood was. I wanted us to be ordinary, so people wouldn’t refer to us as ‘those peculiar Hathaways.” She licked a tacky spot of syrup from a fingertip, and glanced ruefully at Amelia. “We’re never going to be ordinary, are we?”

“No, dear. Although, I must confess, I’ve never fully understood your desire for an ordinary life. To me, the word implies dullness.”

“To me, it means safety. Knowing what to expect. There have been so many terrible surprises for us, Amelia . . . Mother and Father dying, and the scarlet fever, and the house burning . . .”

“And you believe you would have been safe with Mr. Bayning?” Amelia asked gently.

“I thought so.” Poppy shook her head in bemusement. “I was so certain that I would be content with him. But in retrospect, I can’t help thinking . . . Michael didn’t fight for me, did he? Harry said something to him on the morning of our wedding, right in front of me . . . ‘She was yours, if you’d wanted her, but I wanted her more.’ And even though I hated what Harry had done . . . part of me liked it that Harry didn’t think of me as being beneath him.”

Drawing her feet up onto the settee, Amelia regarded her with fond concern. “I suppose you know already that the family can’t let you go back with Harry until we’re satisfied that he will be kind to you.”

“But he has been,” Poppy said. And she told Amelia about the day when she had sprained her ankle, and Harry had taken care of her. “He was thoughtful and gentle and . . . well, loving. And if that was a glimpse of who Harry really is, I . . .” She stopped and traced the edge of her teacup, staring intently into the empty bowl of it. “Leo said something to me on the way here, that I had to decide whether or not to forgive Harry for the way our marriage started. I think I must, Amelia. For my own sake as well as Harry’s.”