Page 64 of All is Fair in Love
Contracts. Damn, I had forgotten about those.
“Delivery for Captain Basden. Is he about or can someone else sign for this?” asked the boy.
Poppy snapped out of her lust haze and sighed. “I am Captain Basden. I can sign for the delivery.” She held out her hand and the delivery boy passed her his notebook and a pencil. She scribbled her name in the required space, then handed them back, taking the satchel in exchange.
The boy lingered on the threshold for a moment before an embarrassed Poppy, reached for her jacket pockets. They came up empty.
“Just a minute,” she said, turning to go back inside. Francis met her; he was on his way out. “I have to go; I have a ship at dock which needs my inspection. Thank you for the tea cake and coffee, Poppy.”
“Thank you for the Dutch oven,” she replied.
Disappointment stabbed at her heart. By the time she returned to the front door, payment for the delivery boy in hand, Francis was gone.
After closing the door of the warehouse, Poppy went back to the table. She pushed the freshly arrived satchel out of the way, resumed her seat, and reached for another of the tea cakes. Within minutes, there were none left.
Her stomach was full, but her heart was sad and empty.
Chapter Thirty
What was bright, shiny, and utterly under his skin? Answer: Poppy Basden.
A matter of a week ago, Francis had been ready to go to war with his neighbor. Now he was sharing coffee and burnt cakes with her. He had also bought her a gift.
Those facts would rightly have been enough to concentrate a man’s thoughts, but he had gone one step further. He had touched her. And while his fingers had brushed over her skin, his mind had been filled with all manner of heated longing.
When had a stray cake crumb on a woman’s mouth been so sexually provocative? Even now, a full day later, it was all Francis could think of, and it clearly muddled his mind.
He had spent yesterday afternoon in the hot and stinking hull of a ship sorting through barrels of black molasses. The task would normally have had him in a foul mood by the time he’d finished. Instead, he’d barely noticed the acrid air and heat. His thoughts had been concentrated on Poppy and how close he had come to kissing her.
If the courier hadn’t knocked at the door, he would have claimed her mouth with his. Taken those soft pale pink lips of hers and kissed her senseless. It would have been heavenly.
The morning saw him in a more sober mood.
He had touched Poppy. Crossed clear boundaries that society put up for very good reasons—to protect vulnerable females from predatory males. He had taken advantage of the situation, and lord knew what would have happened if they had remained alone.
It was fused into his brain. You never touched a woman without asking first. And if she agreed to let you put your hands on her person, you only proceeded in the full understanding that you might well have to offer for the lady’s hand in marriage.
After a breakfast where he barely touched his food, Francis aimlessly wandered the upper floors of his family home. When he made no sign of heading to the office, the Saunders family butler sent word to the mews that the town carriage could be unhitched from the horses.
After dragging a book down from one of the shelves in the library, Francis slumped into a chair and attempted to read. The words on the page didn’t register in his brain; his eyes merely danced across them. Finally, he snapped the book shut and set it on a nearby side table.
He leaned forward, hands clasped together, head hung while he stared at the carpet.
What am I going to do?
The problem with Poppy Basden wasn’t so much that he had taken advantage of their friendship. It was that he couldn’t find it in himself to regret any of it. She was a warm summer’s day in his winter of discontent. He craved the sunshine she had brought into his life.
He should have been ashamed of himself. Especially after having lured her with that gift. She’d probably felt obliged to let him touch her face. To have his fingers linger on her skin.
“Damn. That is not how I want things to be between us, or the grounds on which our relationship could be based,” he muttered.
His own words pulled Francis up sharp.
He had been trying to frame his connection with Poppy as being purely a business one. At a stretch, a convivial friendship between neighbors. Nothing more.
Who was he trying to fool? Himself? Not likely. So, what was he to do?
Poppy Basden hadn’t ever been in his well-ordered and set-in-stone plans. But it was becoming apparent even to him, that everything she did caused a major ripple in his life.
