Page 17 of All is Fair in Love
To her surprise, he took a deep breath and made what appeared to be an effort to shake off the effects of his hangover. “Let me get some tools from the ship.”
He disappeared out the door, returning a few minutes later with a crowbar. Two crewmen trailed slowly into the office in his wake.
Poppy kept out of the way while the men set to the partition with tools and hands. They might well be suffering from the night before, but these men were well versed in being dragged from their hammocks in the middle of a stormy night at sea. Compared to having to go up on deck and haul rope, the job of clearing away a wooden wall inside a dry warehouse presented little challenge.
The panel broke free from the wall with a satisfying crack. As Jonathan and the crewmen lifted it free, a cobweb-covered fireplace was revealed. Poppy clapped her hands with glee. Images of a piece of roast beef turning slowing in front of a well-stoked fire immediately sprang to her mind. This was more than she had hoped for. Why anyone would cover up a fireplace was beyond her.
“We will take this panel upstairs and put it somewhere out of the way. It looks a useful piece of wood, so we should keep it,” said Jonathan.
He might have been a source of continued frustration for Poppy, but she had to hand it to him. Jonathan did have the occasional moment when he could be useful. Her resentment toward him thawed just a touch.
While the partition was carried upstairs, Poppy grabbed a broom and set to the maze of cobwebs with unrestrained enthusiasm. Quickly sweeping to and fro, she had years of intricate spider weaving cleared away in a matter of minutes. By the time the men returned downstairs, she had worked up quite a sweat.
“You didn’t waste any time,” observed Jonathan.
Poppy had waited long years for this day. For when she had her own front door. Her own table. And now . . . She blinked back tears. “I have somewhere I can really cook. To create.”
The two crewmen exchanged an odd look. They clearly didn’t understand why this was such a momentous occasion. Or why the captain of the Empress Catherine was in tears. Poppy rarely showed emotion while on the high seas. Keeping her boat and crew safe meant having their respect. Weeping women didn’t command ships.
They will never understand.
How could they? Only Poppy had experienced her life. No one else had suffered the exact same empty, motherless childhood. Been left at strange ports by a father who headed out to sea for months at a time.
She forced back her tears, afraid of what would happen if she let them have free rein.
“Could I ask one more favor of you before you all head back to the boat?” she asked in a tremulous voice
“Does it come with a coin or two?” replied Jonathan.
“Yes.”
He had done his good deed for the day. Anything else that she required was going to cost Poppy a spot of drinking money. But for this request, she was prepared to pay.
“I would like to bring my mattress off the Empress Catherine. I am going to sleep here in the warehouse from tonight.”
She had thought to wait, but with the sudden discovery of the fireplace, Poppy wanted nothing more than to be able to rest in front of the light from a fire’s golden flame.
Jonathan nodded at the men. “You heard the captain. Let’s go and get the mattress. After that, we can go and get a bacon roll and a tankard of ale for our breakfast.”
He held out his hand, and Poppy dropped several coins into his palm.
As Jonathan and the men disappeared out the front door, she turned and faced the fireplace. Not even his demand for money could dampen her mood this morning. She had somewhere she could bake.
Thoughts of hosting lady guests for tea and cake filled her mind. Lace tablecloths and polite conversation would be the order of the day. It didn’t matter that Poppy hadn’t any female friends in London, nor that her temporary home was a dockside warehouse. All that was important was the hope that one day she would be accepted as a member of English society.
“Now, what shall I make first?”
Chapter Eleven
“I’m sorry, Mister Saunders, but the contracts are all legally binding. The transfer of occupancy is valid. There is nothing I can do to change it.”
Francis did his best to steadily hold the gaze of the grey-haired superintendent of London Docks. Sitting in the man’s office always reminded him of being sent to the head of house when he was at school. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience when he was younger, and this wasn’t much better.
But at least he knew his knuckles were not going to be rapped with a heavy cane at the end of the conversation. That was a small blessing.
Francis took a slow deep breath, doing his best not to shift about in his seat. He would have shaken his head, but Charles was a personal friend of the superintendent of the London Docks. Any outward signs of disappointment on his part would surely get back to his father.
The contract was valid; he was stuck with his new neighbor. But it still didn’t answer the question of why he hadn’t been offered the lease. His overtures to the owner had been rejected without reply. He’d made a misstep somewhere but for the life of him, Francis couldn’t comprehend when or where.
