Happiness came easily to Poppy, and for the next few days, she floated through her duties and chores with a bubbling sense of contentment in her heart. Nick had been so strong when he’d lifted her out of the flower bed. His smile had been so warm and jovial. The fact that he cared enough to offer to buy her new shoes had her sighing and staring off into space with visions of him tying the new shoes himself. Down on one knee. Perhaps with a ring. She didn’t even need a ring, all she needed was Nick.

A sudden clatter and smash yanked her out of her daydreams, and she jumped when she realized the bowl she’d been mixing potpourri for Miss Victoria’s room in was lying smashed at her feet.

“Look at that, you daft girl,” Mrs. Harmon said, shaking her head and marching over, broom and dustpan already in hand. “You need to keep your head out of the clouds and on your work or more than a bowl will be broken.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Harmon. I’m so sorry.” Heat flooded her face as she bent to pick up the larger pieces of broken crockery, along with handfuls of dry flowers.

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Harmon sighed. “I’ve known you long enough not to give you any of the good bowls to work with. That one probably had it coming anyhow.”

“It was probably crafted in the era of Napoleon and Wellington.”

Poppy gasped at the voice that had made the comment, leaping to her feet—and kicking a large shard of the bowl halfway across the room, where one of the kitchen maids tripped over it. “You’re back,” she squealed, leaping over the mess she’d made to throw her arms around Ginny.

“We’re back.” Ginny hugged her in return, laughing along with her.

“Did you have a good time?” Poppy asked, breathless with joy. “What was Brighton like? Was it as exciting as I’ve always been told it is? Did you and Harry bathe in the sea? Did you eat ice cream? Did you see the Pavilion?”

Ginny laughed, resting her hands on Poppy’s shoulders to keep her from bouncing. “We did eat ice cream and see the Pavilion. It’s too cold to swim right now. And although we got out some, we spent most of our time indoors.” Her eyes sparkled.

Poppy giggled, pressing a hand to her mouth. She might have been a flighty rabbit, but coming from such a large family, she knew exactly what Ginny and Harry had been up to. Her thoughts flew instantly back to Nick, to the way his arms had felt around her, the heat of his body so close to hers, and the softness of his lips when he talked to her. Her fantasy of him tying her shoes switched to one of him stroking his hands slowly up her legs, over her knees, along her thighs….

“We’d better clean up this mess,” Ginny laughed. “The smell of lavender is overwhelming.”

“Oh.” Poppy twisted to look at the pile of dried flowers and broken crockery on the floor. “Yes, we’d better.”

She and Ginny moved back to the mess. Mrs. Harmon had left the broom and dustpan for them, so together they were able to make quick work of the disaster.

“We can save most of these flowers, if we pick the pottery out,” Ginny said as they moved the mess to the table. “I’ll help, and you can tell me all about what I missed while we were gone.”

“You missed so much,” Poppy gasped, grabbing Ginny’s arm. “Mr. Snyder and Mrs. Wilson have been talking about who from Dunsford House is coming here and who from here is going to London, Lady Mariah is having all new uniforms sewn for us all, and Nick has been absolutely lovely.”

Ginny’s eyes were already bright and interested, but her smile grew when Poppy mentioned Nick. “Lovely, is he?”

“Very lovely.” Poppy leaned in closer to her and whispered, “I think he really likes me. Although I don’t know how or why.”

“Because you’re sweet and charming,” Ginny answered. “Everybody loves you.”

“Not everybody.” Poppy smirked and peeked over her shoulder to where Mrs. Harmon was muttering to herself as she kneaded bread dough.

“Mrs. Harmon adores you,” Ginny went on. “But she’ll never let on.”

“Well, regardless,” Poppy sighed. “Nick has been lovely.”

“So I hear.”

“And, well, the other day, I was talking to Lady Mariah and Miss Victoria about how I don’t think I’m truly cut out to be a maid—”

“You said that to them?” Ginny’s brow flew up.

“Yes?” Poppy suddenly questioned whether she should have said anything to her betters at all. “I told them that what I really wanted to be was a wife and mother.”

“I can see that.” Ginny’s shock melted into a smile, and she continued picking through the flowers and pottery. “Did you mention Nick?”

“I might have.” Poppy blushed and glanced down. “But it isn’t my place to go asking a man to marry me. It should be the other way around, shouldn’t it?”

“Well,” Ginny began slowly. “Yes. Technically. Although I’m beginning to think there’s no harm in being honest about your feelings.” She gave Poppy a pointed look that said more than words could.

“True. I wouldn’t want to be like you and Harry. Not that there’s anything wrong with the way things turned out between the two of you,” she rushed to finish.

Ginny laughed, joy lighting her expression. “Everything turned out perfectly.”

“That’s what I want too.”

“Then perhaps you should look for ways to make your dreams a reality.”

“You know, I think I will,” Poppy said with a nod.

The flowers and shards were sorted as much as they were going to be, and when Poppy got up to fetch another bowl, Ginny stood as well. “I need to get a few things from my old room and move them over to the stables. But I’ll be around later to talk, if you’d like.”

“I’d love that,” Poppy said.

The smile remained on her face as Ginny left the kitchen. She continued with her work, wondering if she would ever have the nerve to ask a man to marry her, to ask Nick to marry her.

“Mrs. Harmon,” she asked after several minutes of contemplation, mixing the potpourri absentmindedly with her hands. “Do you think that it’s ever right for a woman to pursue a man?”

Mrs. Harmon snorted and shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s not in the natural order of things. Men are the ones who must make the advances, and it’s up to women to wait and accept when they come along.”

Poppy blinked and turned fully to her. “You’ve never been married, have you? I mean, the ‘Mrs.’ is just part of your title, right?”

Of all things, Mrs. Harmon’s cheeks pinked as Poppy asked the question. “No, I was never married.”

“But did you ever have a beau?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Poppy grinned. If the answer were truly no, Mrs. Harmon wouldn’t have snapped. “The thing is,” she went on, “I think I would be much better suited to life as a wife and mother instead of life as a maid.”

Mrs. Harmon laughed out loud at that. “Yes, my dear, you would,” she said, still chuckling. She stopped, blinked, then turned to Poppy. “Oh, so you’re wondering if you should go out and find yourself a man to marry instead of waiting for one to stumble along and sweep you up, are you?”

“Well, yes,” Poppy answered with a modest blush, focusing on her work. Not that she could remember what she was doing with a bowl full of dried flowers. Did she even have anything to put the potpourri in?

“Then I take back what I said.” Mrs. Harmon marched over to where Poppy stood, opening the cupboard above her and taking out a pair of glass potpourri jars with ornate lids. “You should go find yourself a man as soon as possible. And when you’ve found him, snatch him up and get him to give you a house and a bunch of babies to look after. But tell him to make sure there’s nothing breakable within arm’s reach.”

“Mrs. Harmon,” Poppy laughed. “I’m not that clumsy…am I?”

Mrs. Harmon huffed and sent her a wary look before returning to her bread.

Poppy was still in a sunny mood, though, in spite of Mrs. Harmon’s teasing. If someone who knew her as well as Mrs. Harmon thought she should pursue Nick, then it was almost a given that she should. She thought about how she would go about approaching Nick on the subject of marriage as she divided the potpourri between the jars and screwed the lids on. She imagined ways she could propose as she carried the jars up to Miss Victoria’s and Lady Mariah’s rooms. She practiced sweet words and supplications as she returned downstairs and washed up for lunch. By the time she found a seat at the servant’s table, along with most of the rest of the staff, she was determined to plead her case with Nick as soon as possible.

Until he walked into the servant’s hall and sat a few seats down from her at the long table. He smiled broadly at her and even winked as he reached for a bowl and the ladle for the large pot of stew in the center of the table. Poppy grinned and blushed back, but her tongue was suddenly stuck to the roof of her mouth.

“I’ll be going until Christmas,” Christopher, the new head footman, was in the middle of saying as plates and bowls clinked, silverware tinged, and half a dozen arms reached across the table for bread or cheese or water. “Mr. Snyder isn’t too pleased,” he went on in a lower voice, glancing around to see if the butler was nearby. But only the understaff was present for the meal. “But Mr. Egbert reckons he has a lot he could teach me.”

“You’ve been in contact with Mr. Egbert?” Kitty, one of the newer Starcross maids asked.

“Lord Peter has been in touch with him,” Christopher went on. “And he called me up to his office the other day to say I’d be going to London for a few months.”

A ripple went around the table. “Did he say who else is going or who is coming here?” Clive, one of the footmen who had been at Starcross for years but who had turned down a promotion, asked.

“Not in so many words,” Christopher reported, gesturing with his spoon. “Since there has been more of a turn-over in footmen, I got the idea that more of us will be shuffling around, but he did mention something about one of the maids coming back.”

“Not Jane,” Clive said, his eyes wide and his expression serious. “Please, anyone but Jane.”

Poppy fervently wished that she wouldn’t come back either. Two years ago, she had schemed, along with Lord William, to make Millie Llewellyn’s life miserable when she’d first arrived. And wretched as it made Poppy feel, she’d gone along with Jane’s plans, been her friend, even. She was ashamed to her very core about her behavior now, but she’d been young and foolish and trusted the wrong people. She was grateful that Ginny had taken her under her wing after Jane left, setting her straight and helping her to see who was worthy of being a friend and who was not.

“I heard Mrs. Wilson saying something the other day about Mavis,” Dot, the tiny scullery maid piped up from the end of the table.

“Mavis?” Clive tilted his head to the side. He blinked, then nodded. “Yeah, she’s all right. She can come back.”

“I bet you’ll love that, eh, Nick?” Mrs. Harmon said as she swept into the room with a steaming pot of turnips and set it on the table.

Nick seemed suddenly anxious. He glanced to Poppy, something woeful in his eyes, then twisted to smile at Mrs. Harmon. “Sure. It’ll be grand.”

Mrs. Harmon nodded and marched back out of the room again.

“I suppose that would be grand,” Poppy said, her smile growing wider. Mavis was Nick’s sister, after all. Poppy didn’t know much about her, only that she’d been mentioned once or twice as the person who was closest to Nick. Only a few people who still worked at Starcross remembered her. She’d moved to the London house before Poppy was hired. Rumor had it she was pretty and lively. Poppy wondered if she had Nick’s dark, mysterious coloring or if she favored someone else in the family.

It wasn’t until a longer sort of silence reigned at the table that Poppy realized Nick was watching her. He wore a peculiar look as well.

“You will be happy about it, won’t you?” she asked.

Nick couldn’t have been more surprised by Poppy’s question if someone had kicked the bench out from under him and he’d crashed to the floor. He hadn’t realized Poppy had known about Mavis in the first place, and here she was, telling him it would be grand for him to have her back?

His mind couldn’t wrap itself around the concept. He was certain to the very core of his being that Poppy loved him, or at least carried a torch for him. How could she possibly be happy about his fiancée returning?

“Well…I…yes, I suppose I will be happy?” he said, completely unsure on every level.

Mavis was a youthful mistake. She was the irritating itch on his back that he couldn’t reach. In a way, she was his mother’s idea. His mum and Mavis’s had been friends since they were girls, and they’d plotted for the two of them to end up together from the time they were in their cradles. Mavis was beautiful, and after the heartbreak and misery his mum went through when his father died, Nick had had no problem cozying up to her. He’d enjoyed it on some levels, but his heart had never been involved. He’d made promises to Mavis for his mum’s sake, promises that he’d been ambivalent about until Poppy came along. The fact that Mavis had left to work in London instead of marrying him immediately hadn’t bothered him four years ago. He’d been in no hurry to stand up in the church with her.

And when Poppy came along, he’d started wishing and hoping she’d stay in London forever. But she was coming back. And Poppy was…glad?

The meal went on, with Clive telling the others about the footmen he knew in London and how he imagined they would fit into the way things worked at Starcross. He was in the middle of talking about the differences in managing style between Mr. Snyder and Mr. Egbert when Poppy asked Nick, “Do you think you’d like to be married?”

Nick nearly choked on his stew. The rest of the table was split between the conversation about London and a fast-paced, high-pitched discussion between Kitty and another new maid, Henrietta, about the upcoming harvest festival, so no one but Nick heard the question.

“Um…I suppose,” he said, bristling with discomfort. How could she ask something so sensitive, something that he was sure would ultimately make her miserable, with such a cheerful expression? Perhaps some of the unkind things he’d heard about Poppy over the years were true and she really was touched in the head.

But no, he knew she wasn’t. He knew she was the gentlest, sweetest soul imaginable.

“I think I’d like to be married,” she said in a rush, cheeks pink, unable to meet his eyes. “I think I’d make a wonderful wife and mother. After working with Mrs. Harmon for years, I’m a very good cook. And I’m sure I wouldn’t break things if they belonged to me.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” he said, because it seemed like the right thing to say. His mind roiled, though. Poppy would make the perfect wife and mother, but to do so would mean she was someone else’s wife and the mother of someone else’s children. He wasn’t sure he could stomach the thought.

“What do you think the best part of marriage will be?” she asked, glancing to him again with stars in her eyes.

He stared at her, the piece of bread he’d picked up frozen in mid-air. The look she gave him said she was thinking of him and only him when thinking of married life. But she’d just said he would be happy to have Mavis back. When he thought about the things he’d like about being married to Mavis, nothing came to mind. Not a single thing. Not even her face, really. He only saw her a few times a year, when she’d come home for holidays and their families got together.

When he thought about the best parts of marriage to Poppy, however, the entire world came to mind. Quiet evenings in winter, sitting by the fire with her, delicious meals served for him and for their friends in the garden house where he lived, and especially the way she would feel under him in bed, the passionate sounds he knew she would make and the salty-sweet taste of her skin.

“I don’t know,” he answered when he realized he was taking too long to say something. It was true. He didn’t have the slightest clue, both in terms of what marriage would be like or what was going on in Poppy’s head.

“I should like to keep house,” Poppy went on, her gaze taking on a distant, joyful look. “And raise children. Although I’m not sure if I could keep a house tidy and look after half a dozen babies.”

“Half a dozen?” Nick’s voice cracked. He could so easily fit himself into that glorious picture, see himself dandling little girls with Poppy’s smile on his knees or teaching his sons the secrets of the earth as they grew older, the way his father had taught him. But the thought that those children would belong to some other man killed the last of his appetite. He put the piece of bread down.

Poppy seemed to draw herself back from her thoughts and focus on him again, a sweet flush painting her cheeks. “If that’s not too many,” she said.

“It’s not too many,” he said. For her sake, he smiled. Whatever would make her happiest was the right thing to happen. It would be a crime for Poppy to remain unmarried forever, even if he couldn’t be her husband.

If only he could. If only his former self hadn’t been so rash, or his mum hadn’t needed the ray of happiness that him marrying Mavis according to her wishes would give her.

A new possibility tickled him. If Mavis returned and decided to break things off with him, everything would be different. He wouldn’t be the one breaking his mother’s already broken heart then. And his mum would love Poppy, once she met her.

“You never know what the future will hold,” he said, his smile genuine again.

“You never know,” Poppy repeated.

They shared a smile across the table. It was precious to him, meaningful. It filled his heart with hope, even though a whisper of doubt continued to plague him. He knew what he wanted, and if he played his cards right, there was a chance he could get it.