for?’
His secretary gave him a knowing smile.’ You haven’t spent a weekend on your own since I don’t know when.’
‘So?’ He gave her another brooding frown. ‘There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there?’
* * *
Poppy was bending over to clear table three when the door of her tearoom opened on Saturday afternoon. Even with her back to the door she knew it wasn’t one of her regulars. The tinkling chime of the bell sounded completely different. She turned around with a welcoming smile, but it faltered for a moment as she encountered an open shirt-collar and a glimpse of a tanned masculine chest at the height she’d normally expect to see someone’s face.
She tilted her head right back to meet a pair of brown eyes that were so intensely dark they looked almost black. The staggeringly handsome face with its late-in-the-day stubble seemed vaguely familiar. A movie star, perhaps? A celebrity of some sort? She flicked through her mental hard-drive but couldn’t place him. ‘Um, a table for...?’
‘One.’
A table for one? Poppy mentally rolled her eyes. He didn’t look the ‘table for one’ type. He looked the type who would have a veritable harem of adoring women trailing after him wherever he went.
Maybe he was a model, one of those men’s aftershave ones—the ones that looked all designer stubbly, masculine and bad-boy broody in those glossy magazine advertisements.
But who went to old-world tearooms on their own? That was what the coffee chain stores were for—somewhere to linger for hours over a macchiato and a muffin and mooch through a raft of the day’s papers.
Poppy’s stomach suddenly dropped in alarm. Was he a food critic? Oh, dear God! Was she about to be savaged in some nasty little culinary blog that would suddenly go viral and ruin everything for her? She was struggling to keep afloat as it was. Things had been deadly quiet since that swanky new restaurant—which she couldn’t even name or think of without wanting to throw up—opened in the next village. The down-turn in the economy meant people weren’t treating themselves to the luxury of high tea any more.
They saved their pennies and went out to dinner instead—at her ex-boyfriend’s restaurant.
Poppy studied the handsome stranger covertly as she led him to table four. ‘How about over here?’ She pulled out a chair as she tried to place the faint trace of an accent. French? Italian? A bit of both, perhaps? ‘You get a lovely view of Dalrymple Manor and the maze in the distance.’
He gave the view a cursory glance before turning back to her. Poppy felt a little shock like volts of electricity shooting through her body when that dark-as-night gaze meshed with hers. God, how gorgeous was his mouth! So masculine and firm with that sinfully sensual, fuller lower lip. Why on earth didn’t he sit down? She would have a crick in her neck for the rest of the day.
‘Is that some sort of tourist attraction?’ he asked. ‘It looks like something out of a Jane Austen novel.’
She gave him a wry look. ‘It’s the only tourist attraction, not that it’s open to the public or anything.’
‘It looks like a rather grand place.’
‘It’s a fabulous place.’ Poppy released a wistful little sigh. ‘I spent most of my childhood there.’
A dark brow arched up in a vaguely interested manner. ‘Oh really?’
‘My grandmother used to be the housekeeper for Lord Dalrymple. She started at the manor when she was fifteen and stayed until the day he died. She never once thought of getting another job. You don’t get loyalty like that any more, do you?’
‘Indeed you don’t.’
‘She passed away within six months of him.’ Poppy sighed again. ‘The doctors said it was an aneurysm, but personally I think she didn’t know what to do with herself once he’d gone.’
‘So who lives there now?’
‘No one at the moment,’ she said. ‘It’s been vacant for over a year while the probate was sorted out on Lord Dalrymple’s will. There’s a new owner but no one knows who it is or what they plan to do with the place. We’re all dreading the thought that it’s been sold to some crazy, money-hungry developer with no taste. Another part of our local history will be lost for ever under some ghastly construction called—’ she put her fingers up to signify quotation marks ‘—modern architecture.’
‘Aren’t there laws to prevent that from happening?’
‘Yes, well, some people with loads of money think they’re above the law.’ Poppy gave a disdainful, rolling flicker of her eyes. ‘The more money they have, the more power they seem to expect to wield. It makes my blood boil. Dalrymple Manor needs to be a family home again, not some sort of playboy party-palace.’
‘It looks rather a large property for the average family of today,’ he observed. ‘There must be three storeys at least.’
‘Four,’ she said. ‘Five, if you count the cellar. But it needs a family. It’s been crying out for one ever since Lord Dalrymple’s wife died in childbirth all those years ago.’
‘I take it he didn’t marry again?’
‘Clara was the love of his life and once she died that was that,’ she said. ‘He didn’t even look at another woman. You don’t get that sort of commitment these days, do you?’
‘Indeed you don’t.’
Poppy handed him a menu to bridge the little silence that had ensued. Why was she talking about loyalty and commitment to a perfect stranger? Chloe, her assistant, was right: maybe she did need to get out more. Oliver’s betrayal had made her horribly cynical. He had wooed her and then exploited her in the worst way imaginable. He hadn’t wanted her; he’d used her knowledge and expertise to set up a rival business. How gullible she had been to fall for it! She still shuddered to think about how close she had come to sleeping with him. ‘Um, we have a special cake of the day. It’s a ginger sponge with raspberry jam and cream.’
The dark-haired man ignored the menu and sat down. ‘Just coffee.’
Poppy blinked. She had forty varieties of specialty teas and he wanted coffee? ‘Oh...right. What sort? We have cappuccino, latte—’
‘Double-shot espresso. Black, no sugar.’
Would it hurt you to crack a smile? What was it with some men? And who the hell went to a tearoom to drink coffee?
There was something about him that made Poppy feel prickly and defensive. She couldn’t help feeling he was mocking her behind those dark, unreadable eyes. Was it her Edwardian dress and frilly apron? Was it her red-gold curly hair bunched up under her little mobcap? Did he think she was a little bit behind the times? That was the whole point of Poppy’s Teas—it was an old-world experience, a chance to leave the ‘rush, rush, rush’ pace of the modern world behind while you enjoyed a good old-fashioned cup of tea and home baking just like your great-great granny used to make.
‘Coming right up.’ Poppy swung away, carried her tray back to the kitchen and put it down on the counter top with a little rattle of china cups.
Chloe looked up from where she was sandwiching some melting moments with butter-cream. ‘What’s wrong? You look a little flushed.’ She narrowed her gaze to slits. ‘Don’t tell me that two-timing jerk Oliver has come in with his slutty new girlfriend just to rub salt in the wound. When I think of the way he pinched all of those wonderful recipes of yours to pass them off as his own creation I want to cut off his you-know-whats and serve them as an entrée in his totally rubbish restaurant.’
‘No.’ Poppy frowned as she unloaded the tray. ‘It’s just some guy I have a feeling I’ve seen somewhere before...’
Chloe put down her knife and tiptoed over to peek through the glass of the swing door. ‘Oh. My.