If you know what is good for you, you will leave me alone.
An uncomfortable moment of silence ensued, followed by a resigned huff.
“Right. Well, I had best not delay you any longer. I am sure you will have to make another trip to the docks once your customer discovers you didn’t bring any eggs.”
Poppy kept her eyes cast downward. Despite the strange warmth of his crisp voice, she wanted nothing more than to give this upstart a piece of her mind.
But not yet. And not here. Not in public.
To her relief, he suddenly stepped away. Light filled her vision once more.
“Thank you. Good day, sir.”
“You can look at me. I don’t bite,” he replied.
Considering his behavior toward her thus far, Poppy would beg to differ on his self-appraisal. Mister Saunders certainly had a bark that would give most people enough reason to have second thoughts about engaging with him.
Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her head. When her gaze settled on the sapphire and silver of his cravat pin, she let it linger. Inanimate objects were always a safe bet. The elegant pin was in the shape of a silver ship.
That is a beautiful piece. I expect it cost a lot of money.
“Do you think perchance that you are Lot’s wife? That if you actually look at me you might be turned into a pillar of salt?”
He was mocking her. And from the lilt of mirth in his voice, the scoundrel was enjoying himself. Poppy was determined not to play his game. “No. I just don’t make a habit of staring at strangers. The London Docks is not a safe place for women, so my employer has always pressed upon me the need to make my deliveries and then return to the shop forthwith,” she replied.
“Look at me, please,” he said.
Poppy dragged her gaze from the pin over his expertly tied cravat, all the way up to his face. She took in his firm, square jaw. Then his pale pink lips. His strong, well-formed nose. And finally, his eyes.
And that was a mistake.
She couldn’t decide whether they were the hue of a cloudless blue sky or indeed the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea. The morning light had them shifting from a dark sapphire to the brightest of blue.
“Your eyes,” she whispered.
His slow, languid blink sent a jolt of lust-filled heat racing down her spine.
Talk about being tempted by the devil.
“My mother says my eyes are Bleu de France, the royal color,” he said.
Poppy licked her lips and nodded. He could have said that his eyes were the color of mud; she really wasn’t taking much of anything in. She was imagining Francis without his fancy clothes.
“Then again, my mother says she enjoys boiled cabbage and peas, yet I have never seen them served at our dinner table,” he added.
Peas and cabbage? What?
The mundane topic of food snapped Poppy out of her sexual fantasy and back to the real world. To the reality of where she was and with whom.
Mister Francis Saunders. The barrel-and-rope bully from next door. The man who had lodged a complaint about her to the London Docks authority. And who had glared disdainfully at her as he rode past in his shiny carriage.
“I have to go. I have deliveries to make,” she said. She gave a quick nod in farewell and scurried away.
The encounter had been peculiar and most unsettling. It was rare for a male of the species to leave her in such a state of flummox. It had only happened to her once before, and she had sworn never to let it happen again.
Handsome, alluring men held too much power. A woman was sure to make life-altering mistakes if she allowed herself to come under such a man’s sway.
To her relief, he didn’t follow. If she dropped anything else, she certainly wasn’t going back for it. Nor would she wait for him to catch up.
