How in heaven’s name, when all she had ever wanted was someone to share affection and intimacy with, had she ended up with a man who was capable of neither? All Harry wanted was the use of her body, and the illusion of a marriage.
Well, she had much more to give than that. And he would have to take all of her or nothing.
In the evening, Harry came to the apartments to have dinner with Poppy. He informed her that, after the meal was concluded, he was going to meet with visitors in their apartment library room.
“A meeting with whom?” Poppy asked.
“Someone from the War Office. Sir Gerald Hubert.”
“May I ask what it is about?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
Staring into his inscrutable features, Poppy felt a chill of unease. “Am I to play hostess?” she asked.
“That won’t be necessary.”
The evening was cold and wet, rain striking in heavy sheets against the roof and windows, and washing the filth from the streets in muddy streams. The stilted dinner concluded, and a pair of maids cleared away the dishes and brought tea.
Stirring a spoonful of sugar into the dark liquid, Poppy stared at Harry thoughtfully. “What rank is Sir Gerald?”
“Assistant adjutant general.”
“What is he in charge of?”
“Financial administration, personnel management, provost services. He’s pushing for reforms to increase the army’s strength. Badly needed reforms, in light of the tensions between the Russians and the Turks.”
“If a war starts, will Britain be drawn into it?”
“Almost certainly. But it’s possible that diplomacy will resolve the issue before it comes to war.”
“Possible but not likely?”
Harry smiled cynically. “War is always more profitable than diplomacy.”
Poppy sipped her tea. “My brother-in-law Cam told me that you improved the design of the standard army rifle. And now the War Office is indebted to you.”
Harry shook his head to indicate that it had been nothing. “I scratched out a few ideas when the subject came up at a supper party.”
“Obviously the ideas turned out to be very effective,” Poppy said. “As most of your ideas are.”
Harry turned a glass of port idly in his hands. His gaze lifted to hers. “Are you trying to ask something, Poppy?”
“I don’t know. Yes. It seems likely that Sir Gerald will want to discuss weaponry with you, won’t he?”
“Undoubtedly. He is bringing Mr. Edward Kinloch, who owns an arms manufactory.” Seeing her expression, Harry gave her a quizzical glance. “You don’t approve?”
“I think a brain as clever as yours should be put to better use than coming up with more efficient ways to kill people.”
Before Harry could reply, there came a knock at the door, and the visitors were announced.
Harry stood and helped Poppy rise from her chair, and she went with him to welcome his guests.
Sir Gerald was a large and stocky man, his florid face supported by a scaffolding of thick white whiskers. He wore a silver gray military coat trimmed with regimental buttons. The scent of tobacco smoke and heavy cologne wafted from him with each movement.
“An honor, Mrs. Rutledge,” he said with a bow. “I see the reports of your beauty are not at all exaggerated.”
Poppy forced a smile. “Thank you, Sir Gerald.”
Harry, standing beside her, introduced the other man. “Mr. Edward Kinloch.”
Kinloch bowed impatiently. Clearly, meeting Harry Rutledge’s wife was an unwelcome distraction. He wanted to get about the business at hand. Everything about him, the narrow, dark suit of clothes, the ungenerous tightness of his smile, the guarded eyes, even the flat hair subjugated by a gleaming layer of pomade, spoke of rigid containment. “Madam.”
“Welcome, gentlemen,” Poppy murmured. “I will leave you to your discussion. May I send for refreshments?”
“Why, thank you—” Sir Gerald began, but Kinloch interrupted.
“That is very gracious of you, Mrs. Rutledge, but it won’t be necessary.”
Sir Gerald’s jowls drooped in disappointment.
“Very well,” Poppy said pleasantly. “I will take my leave. I bid you good evening.”
Harry showed the visitors to his library, while Poppy stared after them. She didn’t like her husband’s visitors, and she especially didn’t like the subject they intended to discuss. Most of all, she loathed the idea of her husband’s diabolical cleverness being applied to improve the art of war.
Retreating to Harry’s bedroom, Poppy tried to read, but her mind kept returning to the conversation that was taking place in the library. Finally, she gave up the attempt and set the book aside.
She argued silently with herself. Eavesdropping was wrong. But really, in the spectrum of sin, how bad was it? What if one eavesdropped for a good reason? What if there was a beneficial result of the eavesdropping, such as preventing another person from making a mistake? Furthermore, wasn’t it her duty as Harry’s wife to be his helpmate whenever possible?
Yes, he might need her advice. And certainly the best way to be helpful was to find out what he was discussing with his guests.
Poppy tiptoed across the apartment to the library door, which had been left slightly ajar. Keeping herself tucked out of sight, she listened.
“. . . you can feel the recoil power in the kick of the gun against your shoulder,” Harry was saying in a matter-of-fact tone. “There might be a way to turn that to practical effect, using the recoil to draw in another bullet. Or better yet, I could devise a metallic casing that contains powder, bullet, and primer all in one. The recoil force would automatically eject the casing and draw in another, so the weapon could fire repeatedly. And it would have far more power and precision than any firearm yet developed.”
His statements were met with silence. Poppy guessed that Kinloch and Sir Gerald, like herself, were struggling to take in what Harry had just described.
“My God,” Kinloch finally said, sounding breathless. “That is so far beyond anything we . . . that is leaps ahead of what I’m currently manufacturing . . .”
“Can it be done?” Sir Gerald asked tersely. “Because if so, it would give us an advantage over every army in the world.”
“Until they copy it,” Harry said dryly.
“However,” Sir Gerald continued, “in the time it would take them to reproduce our technology, we will have expanded the Empire . . . consolidated it so firmly . . . that our supremacy would be unchallenged.”
“It wouldn’t go unchallenged for long. As Benjamin Franklin once said, empire is like a great cake—most easily diminished around the edges.”
“What do Americans know about empire building?” Sir Gerald asked with a scornful snort.
“I should remind you,” Harry murmured, “that I’m American by birth.”
Another silence.
“With whom do your loyalties lie?” Sir Gerald asked.
“With no country in particular,” Harry replied. “Does that pose a problem?”
“Not if you’ll give us the rights to the weapon design. And license it exclusively to Kinloch.”
“Rutledge,” came Kinloch’s hard, eager voice, “how long would it take for you to develop these ideas and create a prototype?”
“I have no idea.” Harry sounded amused by the other men’s fervor. “When I have spare time, I’ll work on it. But I can’t promise you—”
“Spare time?” Now Kinloch was indignant. “A fortune rests on this, not to mention the future of the Empire. By God, if I had your abilities, I wouldn’t rest until I had brought this idea to fruition!”
Poppy felt ill as she heard the na*ed greed in his voice. Kinloch wanted profits. Sir Gerald wanted power.
And if Harry obliged them . . .
She couldn’t bear to listen any longer. As the men continued to talk, she slipped away silently.
Chapter Eighteen
After bidding farewell to Sir Gerald and Edward Kinloch, Harry turned and set his back against the inside door of his apartments. The prospect of designing the new gun and integrated bullet casings would ordinarily have been an interesting challenge.
At present, however, it was nothing but an annoying distraction. There was only one problem he was interested in solving, and it had nothing to do with mechanical wizardry.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Harry went to his bedroom in search of a nightshirt. Although he usually slept naked, it would hardly be comfortable to do so on the settee. The prospect of spending another night there caused him to question his own sanity. He was faced with the choice of sleeping in a comfortable bed with his enticing wife, or alone on a narrow piece of furniture . . . and he was going to opt for the latter?
His wife regarded him from the bed, her gaze accusatory. “I can’t believe you’re even considering it,” she said without preamble.
It took his distracted brain a moment to comprehend that she was not referring to their sleeping arrangements, but the meeting he’d just concluded. Had he not been so weary, Harry might have thought to advise his wife that now was not the night to pick an argument.
“How much did you hear?” he asked calmly, turning to rummage in one of the dresser drawers.
“Enough to understand that you may design a new kind of weapon for them. And if so, you would be responsible for so much carnage and suffering—”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Harry tugged off his necktie and coat, tossing them to the floor instead of laying them neatly on a chair. “The soldiers carrying the guns would be responsible for it. And the politicians and military men who sent them out there.”
“Don’t be disingenuous, Harry. If you didn’t invent the weapons, no one would have them in the first place.”
Giving up the search for the nightshirt, Harry untied his shoes and cast them on the heap of his discarded clothing. “Do you think people will ever stop developing new ways to kill each other? If I don’t do this, someone else will.”
“Then let someone else. Don’t let it be your legacy.”
Their gazes met, clashing. For God’s sake, he wanted to beg her, don’t push me tonight. The effort to carry on a coherent conversation was draining away what little self-restraint he had left.
“You know that I’m right,” Poppy persisted, flinging back the covers and hopping out of bed to confront him. “You know how I feel about guns. Doesn’t that matter to you at all?”
Harry could see the outline of her body in the thin white nightgown. He could even see the tips of her breasts, rosy and firm in the chill of the room. Right and wrong . . . no, he didn’t give a damn about useless moralizing. But if it would soften her toward him, if it would cause her to yield even a little of herself, he would tell Sir Gerald and the entire British government to go swive themselves. And somewhere in the depths of his soul, a fracture began as he experienced something entirely new . . . the desire to please another person.
Yielding to the feeling before he even knew what it was, he opened his mouth to tell Poppy that she could have her way. He would send word to the War Office tomorrow that the deal was off.
Before he could get out a word, however, Poppy said quietly. “If you keep your promise to Sir Gerald, I’m going to leave you.”
Harry wasn’t aware of reaching out for her, only that she was in his grip, and that she was gasping. “That’s not a choice for you,” he managed to say.
“You can’t make me stay if I don’t want to,” she said. “And I won’t compromise on this, Harry. You will do as I ask, or I will leave.”
All hell broke loose inside him. Leave him, would she?
Not in this life, or the next.
She thought him a monster . . . well, he would prove her right. He would be everything she thought him and worse. He jerked her against him, hot blood teeming in his groin as he felt the cambric slide over her firm, smooth body. Grasping her braid in his hand, he pulled the ribbon loose. His mouth went to the curve of her neck and shoulder, and the scents of soap and perfume and female skin inundated his senses.
“Before I make a decision,” he said in a guttural tone, “I think I’ll have a sample of what I might be forgoing.”
Her hands came up to his shoulders as if to push him away.
But she wasn’t struggling. She was holding onto him.
Harry had never been so aroused, desperate beyond pride. He held her, absorbing the feel of her with his whole body. Her hair was loose, fiery silk sliding over his arms. He took handfuls of it, lifted the soft locks to his face. She smelled like roses, the intoxicating residue of perfumed soap or bath oil. He hunted for more of the scent, drawing it in with deep breaths.
Tugging the front of her nightgown open, Harry sent tiny cloth-covered buttons pattering to the carpet. Poppy quivered but offered no resistance as he tugged the garment to her waist, letting the sleeves trap her arms. His hand went to one of her breasts, their shapes lush and beautiful in the muted light. He touched her with the backs of his fingers, drifting down until one of the pink buds was caught lightly between his knuckles. He pulled, just a little. At the feel of the gentle tug, Poppy gasped and bit her lip.
Guiding Poppy backward, Harry stopped when her h*ps bumped against the edge of the mattress. “Lie down,” he said, his voice rougher than he had intended. He helped her to lie back, supporting her with his arms, easing her to the bed. Bending over her flushed body, he savored all that rose-scented skin, wooing her with kisses . . . slow traveling kisses, wet and artful and fiendishly patient kisses. He licked his way to the tip of one breast and captured the taut point, flicking with his tongue. Poppy moaned, her body drawing into a helpless arch as he suckled her for long minutes.
Easing the muslin gown away from her, Harry dropped it to the floor. He stared at her with equal parts hunger and reverence. She was unspeakably beautiful, reclining in sweet abandon before him . . . lost, aroused, uncertain. Her gaze was distant, as if she were trying to encompass too many sensations at once.
Harry tore off the rest of his clothing and lowered himself over her. “Touch me,” he was mortified to hear himself rasp . . . something he had never asked of anyone before.
Slowly her arms lifted, one hand sliding around his neck. Her fingers laced through the shorter locks that curled slightly against his nape. The tentative caress drew a groan of pleasure from him. He lay beside her, easing a hand between her thighs.
Accustomed as he was to fine, intricate things, to delicate mechanisms, Harry was sensitive to every subtle response of her body. He discovered where and how she most liked to be stroked, what aroused her. What made her wet. Following the moisture, he slipped a finger inside, and she accepted it easily. When he tried to add another, however, she flinched and instinctively reached down to push his hand away. Withdrawing, he caressed her with a gentle palm, coaxing her to relax.