She wriggled her fingers as the clerk dropped a ring of keys onto the desk. They landed with a clang. All worries about her status disappeared in an instant.
This is real. Those keys are mine.
“This is the front door key. That one is the rear door key; it opens up onto Pennington Street, but the London Docks requires that all business be conducted wharf-side,” said the man, pointing to various keys. He shuffled up the papers then pushed them, along with the keys, across the counter toward Poppy. “You will find the relevant title documents and letters approving you to use the facilities at the dock. There is also a formal letter from the superintendent explaining your responsibilities for use of the warehouse, including but not ending with the exclusion of storing any tobacco and explosives.”
Poppy nodded. It was nothing she hadn’t dealt with before. She pointed to the spice tender notice pinned to the wall. “Would you have a copy I could take with me, please?”
The clerk glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to face her. “I don’t think we have any left. But since the tender is due at the end of today, I don’t see why you can’t have that one.”
“Today? Oh, no,” said Poppy.
Dates and deadlines often lost their meaning at sea. A ship arrived when it arrived. She had thought it was earlier in the month, but the weather off the coast of Portugal had seen the Empress Catherine delayed.
It would take most of the morning to shift the cargo and get things in the warehouse properly set up. Her day was already spoken for several times over. And completing a tender document required time and a good deal of attention. She had just lost a valuable opportunity to get established in England.
If only we had arrived yesterday. Damn. There must be a way I can put in a bid.
“When it says end of day, I assume that means office hours?” asked Poppy.
The man shook his head. “This is the London Docks. We never close.”
Hope sparked anew. “So, I have until the end of today—I mean, midnight—to get a submission in?”
“Yes.” The expression on the clerk’s face was one of thinly veiled scorn. Poppy could just imagine what he was thinking. Foolish female attempting to take on a man’s job. She should be at home with children gathered around her skirts, not sailing the seven seas, and playing at captain.
Eager to get on with the day and her ever-growing list of tasks, Poppy pointed to the tender sign. “Could I please, have it?”
“Oh, alright,” he huffed.
While the clerk trudged over to the wall and tugged the notice down, Poppy wrapped her scarf around her neck and put on her coat. The superintendent’s office might be warm, but the breeze outside was chilly. The last thing she needed was to catch a cold.
Accepting the rolled-up tender paper, Poppy tucked it under her arm. She quickly gathered the rest of her things before dropping the keys into her coat pocket.
“Thank you,” she said.
Once outside, Poppy stopped and unfurled the notice. Three years. That was a princely contract. If she could win the tender, her future in England would be secure.
And with the money which such a business arrangement would bring she could finally have what she had always wanted.
A home to call her own.
Her gaze took in the busy western part of the docks. There were carts and people milling about the wharf. Tall sailing ships lay at anchor in every berth. The shifting cables and chains in the rigging around the mast of each boat provided a never-ending symphony of clatter and jangle.
It was music to Poppy’s ears.
If she was going to give up her days of sailing on the ocean, living in the London Docks wasn’t a bad place to start her new life. Every morning, she would be able to step out of the warehouse and take in the sight of newly arrived ships. And with them they would bring the scent of the sea.
Who said she couldn’t have her cake and eat it too?
Chapter Four
Poppy spent the better part of the morning inside the ground floor of the warehouse, sweeping cobwebs from the ceiling with a long-handled broom and brushing away the inch or so of thick black filth which she was certain covered every surface.
The windows were coated in a pale grey sticky ooze which filtered out the daylight and kept the space in a state of semi darkness. The sooner she had scrubbed and wiped the glass clean, the better.
Warehouse number fourteen had apparently been vacant for nearly two years, but Poppy had assumed someone would keep it clean in the meantime. That had been somewhat of a foolish assumption on her part. From the look of things, the previous owner had locked the front door and simply walked away, not caring about the condition of the place.
“I swear all I can taste is dust,” she muttered.
