Starcross Dreams

by Merry Farmer

At long last, she glanced up at him and let out a breath. “I just don’t want you doing anything you would regret later based on a passing fancy and a flirtation.”

  “It’s not a passing fancy, Mum, or a flirtation. I’ve known Poppy for years now, and I’ve loved her all this time.”

  His mother hummed and sipped her tea. “Perhaps you and Mavis could postpone your wedding for a few weeks. You could even wait until Christmas. Maybe if you spent some time together, you’d discover that you love her after all.”

  Nick let out a sigh of relief, though not for the reason his mum might think. If she was willing to put things off, she could be willing to see that he was right in time. She would also have a chance to get to know Poppy in a better light…and perhaps to see how peevish and sharp Mavis had become.

  “All right, Mum. I’ll talk to Mavis as soon as I’m able and tell her we’re postponing the wedding.”

  His mother smiled. That was all the reward he needed. He smiled back. There was a way through the muddle, a way to have Poppy after all, and he wouldn’t stop until he found it.

  Chapter 9

  Somehow Poppy managed to drag herself through the next few days, although her heart was so weighed down with misery that she could barely focus on work from one moment to the next. Miss Victoria seemed to sense something was wrong and went easy on her, but Mavis wasn’t so kind. Every time they met in the downstairs halls, she would corner Poppy with a glare and clenched fists.

  “He’s mine,” she hissed. “Stay away from him.”

  Poppy didn’t respond. She kept her eyes down and wriggled free, rushing to do her work with tears stinging in her eyes.

  But the hardest moment came on Sunday afternoon, when she returned to her family’s home in Mousehole. Jack Fisher was there to have dinner with the family.

  “Jack was just telling me that he’s saved up the money to buy his own boat,” Poppy’s mother told her, eyes bright with promise.

  “Is that so?” Poppy did her best to smile as the story of her life unraveled in front of her, like a spool of ribbon that had been dropped and rolled away.

  Jack was reasonably handsome, with kind eyes in his weathered face. He was young, but the sea and hard work had left their marks. “Aye,” he answered. “A man with his own boat is a man who can make something of himself.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Poppy answered, knowing where the conversation was headed.

  “He’s a man who can provide for a family of his own.”

  And there it was. Poppy smiled, trying not to break into tears. Nick was lost to her forever. The sensible thing to do was to make everyone happy by marrying Jack. Painful as it was, she knew she would do it. Just as Nick would marry Mavis to please his mother and everyone else who wanted the two of them together. At least Jack would be kind to her.

  She left her family’s house early, taking the train back to Starcross Castle. It was a grey day, and the servants’ hall was bustling as everyone enjoyed their day off indoors. Poppy marched right past the large common room and fled up the stairs. She hadn’t made any promises to Jack, and he hadn’t asked for any before she left, but the understanding had been there. Which meant that there was no point in delaying.

  As soon as she reached her room, she let out a tight sob and headed straight for her bed, pulling her worn suitcase out from under it. She didn’t own much, and the uniforms she wore belonged to Starcross, not to her, so it wouldn’t take long to pack. She could be back in Mousehole that night.

  “What’s going on in here?” Ginny startled Poppy in the middle of her packing. She stepped into the room, her eyes wide and scolding, and crossed her arms.

  Poppy sent her a mournful, guilty look and continued folding petticoats. “I’m going home,” she admitted, barely more than a whisper.

  “Because some little harpy thinks she can convince Nick not to love you?”

  Poppy didn’t meet Ginny’s eyes. The scolding in her voice was bad enough. “Nick would never go against his mother’s wishes,” she mumbled. “And Jack Fisher wants to marry me.”

  Ginny shook her head. “I don’t know who this Jack Fisher is, but he doesn’t love you the way Nick does.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Poppy swallowed to keep herself from sobbing. “He’s a good man, and he’s about to buy his own boat. He’ll be a good provider. I’ll have a roof over my head and children to keep me busy.”

  “But you don’t love him.” It wasn’t a question. “You won’t be happy.”

  “I lost my chance for happiness,” Poppy said. Her arms felt like lead weights, and as she dropped a petticoat into her suitcase, she sank to sit on the bed.

  Ginny rushed to sit next to her, looping her arm around Poppy’s back. “This can’t be the way things end,” she said. “I refuse to sit by and watch true love be thwarted by greed and stupidity.”

  Poppy shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do about it. I tried everything, and I mean everything, to win him.” The look she sent Ginny was both miserable and guilty.

  Ginny raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say more. She rubbed Poppy’s back. “Well, don’t make any rash decisions. Why don’t we go downstairs and have a cup of tea and think our way out of this?”

  “I couldn’t.” The very thought of going anywhere near Mavis and the rest of the servants turned her stomach. “Mavis is probably down there and—”

  “She’s not,” Ginny said.

  It was a tiny consolation. “She’s not?”

  “No.” Ginny shook her head. “I’ve no idea where she’s gone, but she’s not downstairs right now. So wash your face and come downstairs to have a bit of tea with me. Mrs. Harmon made lemon biscuits.”

  The promise of lemon biscuits lifted Poppy’s spirits enough to propel her to stand. She dragged herself to the washbasin under her window and splashed water on her hot face, drying it on the threadbare towel handing from the washstand. Then she let Ginny take her hand and lead her back downstairs.

  Mavis wasn’t in the servant’s hall, but plenty of other people were. The footmen had a game of cards going at one end of the long table, and two of the new Starcross maids were sewing at the other end and watching the men with stars in their eyes. Poppy remembered how charmed she’d been by Nick when she first came to Starcross. She probably wore a bright-eyed, pink-cheeked look as she watched Nick those first few months. It hurt that she would never feel so young or innocent again.

  “Here you go, love.” Ginny fixed her a cup of tea from the service in the middle of the table, gesturing for her to sit in the middle of the bench on one side. There was no way their conversation could be entirely private, but at least they were far enough away from the groups at either end of the table to be readily overheard. “Now, tell me all about it.”

  “There’s not much to tell that you don’t already know,” Poppy sighed, sipping her tea. Ginny had put two lumps of sugar in it, just the way she liked it. The sweetness and Ginny’s friendship were a balm to her sore heart. “Jack needs a wife, and…and I need a husband.”

  Ginny shook her head, sipped her tea, then said, “The only husband you need is Nick.”

  One of the London footmen peeked sideways at them for a moment before focusing on his game and playing a card. Poppy lowered her voice and leaned in closer to Ginny so that he didn’t overhear.

  “I might need a husband. Sooner rather than later,” she whispered.

  Ginny frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Heat flooded Poppy’s face. “When I said I did everything I could to win Nick, I mean everything.” She couldn’t look Ginny in the eyes as she confessed, “If things were timed badly, I might need a husband as soon as possible to preserve my honor.”

  “Oh.” Ginny sat straighter. She blinked rapidly, and a smile spread across her face. “You didn’t.”

  Poppy nodded, her eyes going watery. “And it was wonderful.”

  She couldn’t have said more. Her throat closed up, and the misery of the whole thing threatened to
pull her under again.

  Ginny rested her hand over Poppy’s. “You don’t have to make any decisions right away,” she said. “You might not have anything to worry about.”

  Poppy sighed. “Even if I don’t, I couldn’t bear to stay here once Nick and Mavis marry.” The London footman peeked in their direction again. Poppy scolded herself for being too loud. “I might as well get on with my life, such as it is.”

  Ginny made a sympathetic sound and squeezed Poppy’s hands. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know this must be awful for you. I still think there has to be a way to stop Nick from making such a horrible mistake.”

  Poppy shook her head. “It’s what his mother wants, and Mavis’s mother too. They’ve planned it for ages.”

  “Does Mavis know Nick is in love with you?” Ginny asked.

  “Yes.” Poppy hid the sudden burst of shame at the memory of her and Nick’s mother walking in on them by sipping her tea.

  “Oh dear. What’s that look for?” Ginny asked.

  There didn’t seem to be any point in keeping secrets. “She walked in on us.” Poppy took another sip of tea, then put the cup down and slumped her shoulders. “We’d just…finished, and Mavis walked in. With Nick’s mother.”

  “Good gracious.” Ginny pressed a hand to her face, blushing. Poppy could only hope she was blushing in sympathy and not because she though Poppy was a tart.

  Poppy nodded. “It’s not like there was any other explanation for why we were—” She glanced around quickly, unable to shake the feeling that everyone in the room was listening to her, even though she was quiet and they were chattering away. “—on the bed,” she finished. “We’d just finished.”

  “I see.” Ginny put her hands on the table and cleared her throat. “Well. And she didn’t throw him over? Even after seeing the two of you like that?”

  “No.” Poppy frowned. “She was furious. She said that Nick belonged to her, and how dare he be with me.”

  “That doesn’t seem right.” Ginny chewed her bottom lip and fingered the handle of her teacup. “If it were me, I would have smacked him and washed my hands of the bastard for good. Not that Nick is a bastard, mind you.”

  “Mavis is possessive, I guess.” Poppy shrugged.

  The London footman snorted. Both Poppy and Ginny turned to him. As if he’d realized he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t listening anymore, he set down his cards and turned to them.

  “Do you have something to add?” Ginny asked with all the ferocity of a mother bear protecting her cub.

  “Only that it’s rich, isn’t it?” the footman said.

  “What is?” Ginny asked.

  “Mavis getting jealous of her bloke fooling around with another woman. Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Poppy,” he added with a deferential nod.

  “What do you mean?” Ginny asked on, her voice rising.

  The rest of the footmen paused their card game to watch the exchange, which meant the maids at the other end of the table were paying close attention now too. The room had gone eerily quiet.

  “Well,” the London footman went on, his cheeks flushing. “It’s just that we all know what a tease Mavis is.”

  Alarm curled so tightly around Poppy’s heart that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

  “You’re going to have to do a better job of explaining than that, young man,” Ginny said for her, anger building in her eyes.

  The London footman swiveled on the bench to face them fully. He looked a bit embarrassed as he said, “Any of us from Town could tell you what Mavis is like.”

  “What’s she like?” Poppy asked, breathless with panic.

  The London footman gave her a sheepish smile. “She likes her men, does Mavis.”

  “Tommy Mercer, you’d better be a whole lot more explicit than that or I’ll bash you over the head with this teapot,” Ginny said, clutching its handle.

  Tommy laughed nervously and held up his hands. “All right, all right. Mavis likes her gentleman callers, if you know what I mean. Barely a Saturday night would pass when she wasn’t stepping out with some bloke she met on the Strand or at the market. Sometimes she’d keep the bloke around for a while, and sometimes it’d be a different gent every night. She managed to bag toffs too, not just working-class blokes.”

  “You don’t say.” Ginny clenched her jaw, her eyes wide with fury.

  “It’s true,” one of the other London footmen added.

  “It is,” Mary, one of the maids from London said from the far side of the table. “She was walking out with one man in particular last month.”

  “Is that the married bloke?” the other London footman asked.

  “That’s him,” Mary said with a sense of foreboding. “The doctor with an office on Harley Street and a kid at Eton. You should have heard the way she went on about him. In detail.” Mary’s face went bright pink, and she looked down at her sewing as if too embarrassed to go on.

  “I thought so,” Tommy said. He nodded, staring into the distance for a moment, before taking in a breath and turning back to Ginny and Poppy. “Anyhow, we all figured she jumped on the chance to come back to Cornwall the way she did ’cuz she was in trouble, if you know what I mean.”

  Poppy gasped, clutching the edge of the table.

  “We all knew she’d been engaged to Nick for a while,” Mary said. “It made sense that if she’d had a little too much fun with the gents, if you know what I mean, that she’d try to cover it up by marrying him right quick. If I’d’ve known there was another side to that story out here, that you loved him and all, I’d’ve said something sooner.” She sent Poppy an apologetic look.

  Ginny let out a curse that made Poppy jump out of her seat and set the footmen to giggling. “We’re not going to let that trollop get away with this,” she said, taking Poppy’s hand and standing. “I don’t care what Nick’s mother wants, there’s no way he will marry Mavis when he knows the truth. Come on.”

  Ginny and Poppy stepped over the bench and started toward the door, but Tommy stopped them. “Oy, if you’re planning on bringing things to a head, you’d better be quick.”

  “What do you mean?” Ginny asked.

  “Mavis and Nick headed out to Porthleven after church. Mavis said something about the bans having been read for the third time in her home parish and getting on with things.”

  “No,” Poppy gasped. She turned to Ginny. “She wouldn’t. Nick wouldn’t.”

  Ginny looked back at her with a look of grave concern. “Poppy, can you ride?”

  Poppy blinked, not sure what riding had to do with anything. “Yes.”

  Ginny nodded, then flew out of the servant’s hall with her, down the kitchen hall and out into the courtyard. “I’d be willing to bet that they took the train to get to Porthleven. If we ride and head straight there, we might be able to reach them before it’s too late.”

  Chapter 10

  Nick spent the entire journey to Porthleven in a foul mood. He barely spoke to Mavis on the train, even though they shared a seat. He kept his arms crossed and his mouth pressed firmly shut, staring out the window. He didn’t like the smug smile that wouldn’t leave Mavis’s face, or the way she was acting as though everything were fine between them.

  He’d taken his mother’s suggestion and asked Mavis to postpone thoughts of the two of them marrying the day after the catastrophic scene in his bedroom. Mavis had brushed the topic away, telling him she forgave him for his indiscretions. Then she’d tried to corner him in the greenhouse and unfasten his trousers. It’d taken firm words and a lucky escape from her clutches to stop her from molesting him, but at least his body hadn’t reacted the way it had out in the meadow.

  He didn’t think he’d be able to be more than reluctantly aroused by any woman again after Poppy. Being with her was the most remarkable experience of his life. No woman had ever fired his blood, or engaged his heart in the act of love-making, the way Poppy had. The emotions that had coursed through him as he thrust into her were beyond any he’d expe
rienced before. He’d come harder than he ever had, and was left more satisfied than he could have imagined. If not for Mavis—and his mother—he would have cradled Poppy against him, enjoying the drowsy glow, then taken her again to prolong the feeling.

  But things hadn’t worked out the way they should have. The mess he’d created years ago was still in his lap, as knotty as ever. Mavis had barely heard his request to put things off, and now they were on a train together, going to visit their families. With any luck, as soon as they reached the station in Porthleven, he could say his goodbyes to Mavis and head off to his mother’s house.

  “We’re here,” Mavis said the second the train’s whistle sounded to signal the approaching station. “I’m so excited.”

  “Why?” Nick frowned as he stood, heading to the end of the aisle.

  “Because this is a big day,” Mavis said. Her color was high, and her eyes shone with excitement.

  “It’s Sunday,” Nick said. “We’re going home to have dinner with our families. It could happen any given Sunday.”

  “Yes, but this one is special.” She reached for Nick’s hand. He tried to move so that she couldn’t grasp it, but the train jerked to a stop at that moment, and she fell into him. Her arms went around him, and she giggled. “Whoops.”

  She stayed where she was, gazing up at him, her fingertips digging into his sides, as the other passengers disembarked. He finally had to clear his throat and pry her free before turning away and heading to the train’s door, then down onto the platform. He took a moment to orient himself, then marched toward the stationhouse and the boundary that exited to the road.

  “Where are you going?” Mavis called after him, scurrying to catch up. She tried to catch his hand when she reached him, but he avoided her.

  “I’m going to my mum’s house,” he said, stepping out onto the carriage-lined street. Porthleven wasn’t a city, but it was a sizeable enough town that he had to watch for traffic.

  “She’s at the church.” Mavis tugged his arm to keep him from walking off.