Page 86 of All is Fair in Love
They most certainly wouldn’t have come crashing into the warehouse full of wrath.
She sighed. Francis cared about her. When he wasn’t angry with her, he respected Poppy. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have held back on their physical connection. And he most certainly wouldn’t have invited her to supper with his family.
I don’t know how to deal with someone who cares. A man who wants to protect me.
She didn’t know much, but she knew that you didn’t push those sorts of people away. That you didn’t keep secrets from them.
And you most certainly didn’t turn tail as soon as they had left your home, then race back out into a storm and offer a ship’s crew an extra coin if they came right then and made your ship ready to leave port at first light. Only a coward did that.
I am Poppy Basden, and I am a coward. A ship-owning, North Sea-sailing coward.
A shudder ran through the Empress Catherine, and Poppy snapped out of her thoughts. She had been too busy thinking of Francis and had missed the obvious signs of shallow water. Only a raw, barely blooded captain would have made such a fundamental error.
“Bloody hell, we will be smelling the ground if we don’t pull away. Another hand on the wheel,” she bellowed.
One of the crewmen raced to stand alongside her at the wheel. Her long, sodden skirts made it almost impossible to stand. The sailor grabbed hold and turned the wheel as Poppy helped to feed it up. The ship lurched to the right, and a second shudder rippled through the deck.
“She’s coming ’round,” he cried.
A wave crashed over the side of the ship, and Poppy’s already unsteady feet were swept out from under her. She went down, her face repeatedly smashed by the bottom spokes as the wheel kept spinning.
Pain tore through her head, blinding her vision. Her sailor’s vocabulary got a full workout as she struggled to her knees. Saltwater swirled around her skirts. She was drenched.
Wincing thought the agony, Poppy made herself a promise. This really was the last time she would captain a ship. Her heart and soul were no longer that of a sailor, and her body couldn’t handle any more punishment. She would be a damned fool not to walk away.
Next time, she might not be so fortunate.
“Turn her around. Let’s head back to London.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Late Christmas Eve.
* * *
Francis sent the staff of Saunders Shipping home early, wishing them all a merry Christmas and handing each man their five-pound annual bonus. Good clerical staff were hard to come by, and Charles had always stressed the need to show an appreciation for their efforts. Nothing said it better than a generous bonus at the end of the year.
With the office now empty, Francis packed away the ledgers and tidied the desks. It wasn’t something he normally did, but anything that kept him busy was welcome. He had politely declined Will and Hattie’s offer to join them for the midnight mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He wasn’t good company for anyone at the moment.
It had been almost three days since he had last seen Poppy—since their fight. Worry as to where she had gone sat constantly in the forefront of his mind. If he could just see her again, apologize for the way he had spoken to her and throw himself on her mercy.
I have to find a way forward with you. Where are you?
He continued to check the dockside on an almost hourly basis, searching for any sign of the Empress Catherine, but the ship was nowhere to be seen.
“This is her home; she wouldn’t have left London just because we had an argument.”
Poppy had made it clear that she was putting down roots, making plans to stay. She had to return.
Please come back.
After finishing up, Francis took a stroll outside. The early evening air helped to clear some of the fog in his brain.
This was a year where he had seen all of his siblings meet their respective soul mates. Will, Eve, and Caroline were all happily wed to good people.
But Francis had somehow managed to convince himself that he was immune to such a thing. That love simply wouldn’t happen to him.
And yet love had found him. He was bound tight with its bonds of longing. Of wishful regret.
