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‘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. God.’ She turned back to Poppy with wide eyes. ‘It’s one of the Three Rs.’
Poppy screwed up her face. ‘One of the what?’
‘The Caffarelli brothers,’ Chloe said in a hushed voice. ‘There’s three of them. Raffaele, Raoul and Remy. Rafe is the oldest. They’re French-Italian squillionaires. The seriously-silver-spoon set: private jets, fast cars and even faster women.’
Poppy gave her head a little toss as she went to the coffee machine. ‘Well, for all that money it certainly hasn’t taught him any manners. He didn’t even say please or thank you.’ She gave the knob of the machine a savage little twist. ‘Nor did he smile.’
Chloe peeked through the glass panel again. ‘Maybe you don’t have to be nice to horribly common people like us when you’re filthy rich.’
‘My gran used to say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they respect people they don’t have to respect,’ Poppy said. ‘Lord Dalrymple was a shining example of it. He treated everyone the same. It didn’t matter if they were a cleaner or a corporate king.’
Chloe came back to the melting moments and picked up her butter-cream knife. ‘I wonder what he’s doing in our little backwater village? We’re not exactly on the tourist trail these days. The new motorway took care of that.’
Poppy’s hand froze on the espresso machine. ‘It’s him.’
‘Him?’
‘He’s the new owner of Dalrymple Manor.’ Poppy ground her teeth as she faced her assistant. ‘He’s the one who wants to turf me out of my home. I knew there was something funny about that woman who came by the other day with that pushy agent. I bet he sent her to do his dirty work for him.’
‘Uh-oh...’ Chloe winced. ‘I know what this means.’
Poppy straightened her shoulders and pasted a plastic-looking smile on her face. ‘You’re right.’ She picked up the steaming double-shot espresso as she headed towards the door leading out to the tearoom. ‘This means war.’
* * *
Rafe cast an eye around the quaint tearoom. It was like stepping back in time. It gave him a sort of spooky time-warp sensation where he almost expected a First World War soldier to walk in the door with an elegantly dressed lady on his arm. The delicious smell of home baking filled the air. Fresh cottage flowers were on the dainty tables—sweet peas, forget-me-nots and columbines—and there were hand-embroidered linen napkins on each place setting. The teacups and plates were a colourful but mismatched collection of old china, no doubt sourced from antique stores all over the countryside.
It told him a lot about the owner-operator. He presumed the flame-haired beauty who had served him was Poppy Silverton. She wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting. He had pictured someone older, someone a little more hard-boiled, so to speak.
Poppy Silverton looked like she’d just stepped out of the pages of a children’s fairy-tale book. She had a riot of red-gold curls stuffed—rather unwillingly, he suspected, given the tendrils that had escaped around her face—under a maid’s mobcap; brown eyes the colour of toffee, and a rosy mouth that looked as soft and plump as red velvet cushions. Her skin was creamy and unlined, with just the tiniest sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose that looked like a dusting of nutmeg over a baked custard. She was a mix between Cinderella and Tinkerbell.
Cute—but not his type, of course.
The swing door to the kitchen opened and out she came bearing a steaming cup of coffee. She had a smile on her face that didn’t show her teeth or quite reach her eyes. ‘Your coffee, sir.’
Rafe caught a faint trace of her flowery perfume as she bent down to place his coffee on the table. He couldn’t quite place the fragrance...lily of the valley or was it freesia? ‘Thank you.’
She straightened and fixed him with a direct stare. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a piece of cake? We have other varieties, or cookies if you’re not a cake man.’
‘I don’t have a sweet tooth.’
She pursed her full mouth for a brief moment, as if she took his savoury preference as a personal slight. ‘We have sandwiches. Our ribbon ones are our specialty.’
‘The coffee is all I want.’ He picked up his cup and gave her one of his formal smiles. ‘Thank you.’
She leaned over to pick up a fallen petal from one of the columbines and he got another whiff of her intriguing scent and a rather spectacular view of her small but delightful cleavage. She had a neat, ballerina-like figure, curves in all the right places and a waist he was almost certain he could have spanned with his hands. He could sense she was hovering, delaying the moment when she would have to go back to the kitchen.
Had she guessed who he was? She hadn’t shown any sign of the instant flash of recognition he usually got. She had looked at him quizzically, as if trying to place him, when he’d first come in but he had seen confusion rather than confirmation in her gaze. It was rather comforting to think that not everyone in Britain had heard about his latest relationship disaster. He didn’t set out deliberately to hurt any of his lovers, but in this day and age a woman scorned was a woman well armed with the weapons of mass destruction more commonly known as social media.
Poppy Silverton moved over to one of the other tables and straightened the already perfectly straight napkins.
Rafe couldn’t take his eyes off her. She drew him like a magnet. She was so other-worldly, so intriguing, he felt almost spellbound.
Get a grip. You’re here to win this, not be beguiled by a woman who’s probably as streetwise as the next. Don’t let that innocent bow of a mouth or those big Bambi eyes fool you.
‘Are you usually this busy?’ he asked.
She turned and faced him again but her tight expression told him she didn’t appreciate his dry sense of humour. ‘We had a very busy morning. One of the busiest we’ve ever had. We were run off our feet. It was bedlam.... I had to make a second batch of scones.’
Rafe knew she was lying. This tiny little village was so quiet even the church mice had packed up and left for somewhere more exciting. That was why he’d wanted the manor. It was the perfect place to build a luxury hotel for the rich and famous who wanted to secure their privacy. He took a measured sip of his coffee. It was much better than he’d been expecting. ‘How long have you been running this place? I’m assuming you’re the owner?’
‘Two years.’
‘Where were you before?’
She wiped an invisible crumb from the table next to his. ‘I was sous chef at a restaurant in Soho. I decided I wanted to spend some time with my gran.’
Rafe suspected there was more to her career change than that. It would be interesting to see what his secretary managed to unearth about her. He sat back and watched her for a moment. ‘What about your parents? Do they live locally?’
Her face tightened and her shoulders went back in a bracing manner. ‘I don’t have parents. I haven’t had since I was seven years old.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Rafe knew all about growing up without parents. When he was ten, his had died in a boating accident on the French Riviera. A grandparent had reared him, but he got the feeling that Poppy Silverton’s grandmother had been nothing like his autocratic, overbearing grandfather Vittorio. ‘Do you run this place by yourself?’
‘I have another girl working for me. She’s in the kitchen.’ She gave him another rather pointed look. ‘Are you just passing through the village or are you staying locally?’
He put his cup back down in the saucer with measured precision. ‘I’m just passing through.’
‘What brings you to these parts?’
Was it his imagination or had her caramel-brown eyes just flashed at him? ‘I’m doing some research.’
‘For?’
‘For a project I’m working on.’
‘What sort of project?’
Rafe picked up his cup again and surveyed her indolently for a moment. ‘Do you give every customer the third degree as soon as they walk in the door?’
Her mouth flattened and her hands went into small fists by her sides. ‘I know why you’re here.’
He lazily arched a brow at her. ‘I came in here for coffee.’
Her eyes flashed at him; there was no mistaking it this time. They were like twin bolts of lightning at they clashed with his. ‘You did not. You came to scope out the territory. You came to size up the opposition. I know who you are.’
He gave her one of his disarming smiles, the sort of smile that had closed more business deals and opened more bedroom doors than he could count. ‘I came here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.’ He leaned back in the chair; confident he would find her price and nail this in one fell swoop. ‘How much do you want for the dower house?’
She eyeballed him. ‘It’s not for sale.’
Rafe felt a stirring of excitement in his blood. So, she was going to play hard to get, was she? He would enjoy getting her to capitulate. He thrived on challenges, the harder the better—the more satisfying.
Failure wasn’t a word he allowed in his vocabulary.
He would win this.
He gave her a sizing-up look, taking in her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. He knew what she was doing—ramping up the price to get as much as she could out of him.
So predictable.
‘How much to get you to change your mind?’
Her eyes narrowed to hairpin-thin slits as she planted her hands on the table right in front of him so firmly his fine-bone china cup rattled in its saucer. ‘Let’s get something straight right from the get-go, Mr Caffarelli: you can’t buy me.’
He took a leisurely glance at the delectable shadow between her breasts before he met her feisty gaze with his cool one. ‘You misunderstand me, Miss Silverton. I don’t want you. I just want your house.’
Her cheeks were bright red with angry defiance as she glared at him. ‘You’re not getting it.’
Rafe felt a quiver of primal, earthy lust rumble through his blood that set off a shivery sensation all the way to his groin. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had said no to him. It spoke to everything that was alpha in him. This was going to be much more fun that he’d thought.
He would not stop until he got that house, and her with it.
He rose to his feet and she jerked backwards as if he had just breathed a dragon’s tongue of fire on her. ‘But I will.’ He laid a fifty-pound note on the table between them, locking his gaze with her fiery one. ‘That’s for the coffee. Keep the change.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘GRRHH!’ POPPY SHOVED the kitchen door open so hard it crashed back against the wall. ‘I can’t believe the gall of that man. He thought he could just waltz in here, wave a big fat wad of notes under my nose and I’d sell my house to him. How...how arrogant is that?’
Chloe’s blue eyes were wider than the plates she’d been pretending to put away. ‘What the hell happened out there? I thought you were going to punch him.’
Poppy glowered at her. ‘He’s the most detestable man I’ve ever met. I will never sell my house to him. Do you hear me? Never.’
‘How much was he offering?’
Poppy scowled. ‘What’s that got to with anything? It wouldn’t matter if he offered me gazillions—I wouldn’t take it.’
‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing here?’ Chloe asked. ‘I know your house has a lot of sentimental value because of living there with your gran and all, but your circumstances have changed. She wouldn’t expect you to turn down a fortune just because of a few memories.’
‘It’s not just about the memories,’ Poppy said. ‘It’s the only home I’ve ever known. Lord Dalrymple left it to Gran and me. I can’t just sell it as if it’s a piece of furniture I don’t want.’
‘Seriously, though, what about the bills?’ Chloe asked with a worried little frown.
Poppy tried to ignore the gnawing panic that was eating away her stomach lining like caustic soda on satin. Worrying about how she was going to pay the next month’s rent on the tearoom had kept her awake for three nights in a row. Her savings had taken a hit after paying for her gran’s funeral, and she had been playing catch-up ever since. Bills kept coming through the post, one after the other. She’d had no idea owning your own home could be so expensive. And, if Oliver’s rival restaurant hadn’t impinged on things enough, one of her little rescue dogs, Pickles, had needed a cruciate ligament repair. The vet had charged her mate’s rates but it had still made a sizable dent in her bank account. ‘I’ve got things under control.’
Chloe looked doubtful. ‘I wouldn’t burn too many bridges just yet. Things have been pretty slow for spring. We only sold one Devonshire tea this morning. I’ll have to freeze the scones.’
‘No, don’t do that,’ Poppy said. ‘I’ll take them to Connie Burton. Her three boys will soon demolish them.’
‘That’s half your problem, you know,’ Chloe said. ‘You run this place like a charity instead of a business. You’re too soft-hearted.’
Poppy ground her teeth as she started rummaging in the stationery drawer. ‘I’m not accepting his charity.’ She located an envelope and stuffed the change from the coffee into it. ‘I’m handing his tip back to him as soon as I finish here.’
‘He tipped you?’
‘He insulted me.’
Chloe’s expression was incredulous. ‘By leaving you a fifty-pound note for an espresso? I reckon we could do with a few more customers like him.’
Poppy sealed the envelope as if it contained something toxic and deadly. ‘You know what? I’m not going to wait until I finish work to give this to him. I’m going to take it to him right now. Be a honey and close up for me?’
