Lost to the Desert Warrior

by Sarah Morgan

  ‘Gold-digger,’ Rafe muttered.

  ‘Who? The grandmother?’

  He shoved his chair back and got to his feet. ‘I want you to find out everything you can about this woman Polly. I want her—’

  ‘Poppy. Her name is Poppy.’

  Rafe rolled his eyes and continued. ‘Poppy, then. I want her background, her boyfriends—even her bra size. Leave no stone unturned. I want it on my desk first thing Monday morning.’

  Margaret’s neatly pencilled eyebrows lifted but the rest of her expression remained in ‘obedient secretary’ mode. ‘I’ll get working on it right away.’

  Rafe paced the floor as his secretary gathered a stack of documents to be filed from his desk. Maybe he should head down and have a little snoop around the village himself. He’d only seen the manor and the surrounding area from the photos James had emailed him. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little reconnaissance trip of his own to size up the enemy, so to speak.

  He snatched up his keys. ‘I’m heading out of town for the weekend. Anything urgent, call me, otherwise I’ll see you on Monday.’

  ‘Who’s the lucky girl this time?’ Margaret gathered the bundle of paperwork against her chest. ‘Is it still the Californian bikini-model or is she yesterday’s news?’

  He shrugged on his jacket. ‘This may surprise you, but I’m planning to spend this weekend on my own.’ He stopped pulling down his left shirt cuff to glower at her. ‘What’s that look 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, unread
able 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?’