It took a great deal of willpower not to glare at her nemesis as the distance between them quickly narrowed. Poppy repeatedly tore her gaze away, doing her utmost to focus on the brickwork of the first row of warehouses.
Don’t stare. Don’t look at him. Just keep walking.
Much as she fought against herself, the lure of the approaching gentleman was too much. Her eyes kept darting back and forth from the wall to Francis Saunders and then away again.
Stop it. Just don’t.
When her gaze drifted back to him once more, it lingered, taking in his tall, elegant form. His broad shoulders. Expertly tailored jacket. His gruff chin.
She didn’t notice the small bag slip from her fingers until it was too late. Poppy let out a gasp as the eggs landed with a terrible splat on the stone roadway. “Oh, deuce,” she muttered.
The angry Viking hastened his steps, bearing down on her at a rapid rate. Poppy staggered back.
To her surprise, he didn’t glare at her. She had fully expected him to shoo her away, the same as he had done the previous night. Instead, he bent and picked up the bag of broken eggs. He took one look at the package and its now dripping contents and winced. “I don’t think any of your eggs survived the fall.”
“No, it doesn’t appear so,” replied Poppy. She held out her hand. “Here, let me take the bag. You don’t want to get egg on your fine clothes.”
He hesitated for a moment as their gazes met. A quizzical look crossed his face as he narrowed his eyes at her. Francis Saunders was clearly trying to recall where he had seen her before.
They were alone in the road. A prick of fear reached out and touched Poppy. She wasn’t quite ready to take him on, just yet. Not until she was certain of his motives.
Please don’t let him remember.
She could only hope he hadn’t got that good a look at her face in the dark. Sucking up her courage, Poppy stepped forward and gently took the bag of broken eggs from out of Francis’s hand. “Thank you.”
All she wanted to do was keep walking, reach the safety of her home, and lock the front door behind her. “Good day to you, sir,” she said.
Her heart raced at a furious pace, beating hard in her chest as she continued on her way. She didn’t dare look back.
This is ridiculous. You have torn strips off the crew of your ship when they didn’t lash the sails down properly, and yet you can’t face the spoilt brat from next door.
“Miss!” came a cry from behind.
Poppy kept walking. There were still a good eighty yards or so between her and sanctuary. The crunch of boots on the road behind her had her gritting her teeth and hastening her steps.
Poppy pressed on. As the footsteps grew louder, her demise appeared certain. He must have remembered where he had seen her.
There was a whoosh of air and Poppy’s world turned to black as a body crossed in front of her and came to a sudden stop. She staggered to a halt, but not fast enough to avoid hitting the mass which now blocked her way. “Oof!” she cried.
A pair of large hands settled on her shoulders, steadying her. “Don’t be in such in a hurry, young lady. You forgot this.”
Francis Saunders drew back, and a blinking Poppy caught sight of the bag of butter in his hand. In her haste to get away, she had dropped yet another item of her shopping.
She took a short, shallow breath, and reached for the bag. “Once again, sir, thank you.”
Her gaze remained glued to her old cloth bag. To the fibers which laced together to make the fabric. To the faded markings on the side which had once read Cal Corderet.
The bag had come from the wax chandler’s shop in Tarragona, Spain, where she had spent time in a nunnery while her father was at sea. Unsure of what to do with the strange English girl, the head nun had regularly sent Poppy into town to buy the prayer candles.
As much as those memories were filled with pain and bitterness, she still preferred them to the task of meeting the gaze of the large man who now stood before her. A man who didn’t appear in any hurry to move away.
She had the bag of butter. Francis Saunders had returned her things. There was no need for him to linger.
Poppy cleared her throat. “Once again, thank you, sir. I won’t delay you any further.”
“Where do I know you from?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nowhere. I am just delivering some supplies to one of the ships. I work in the grocers’ shop on Pennington Street. There is a chance that we might have passed one another by at some other time.”
