He’d handled it badly. For days after his intimate encounter with Poppy, Nick was convinced that he’d handled the whole thing badly. As soon as she’d rushed from the greenhouse, he’d cursed himself for pushing her away. He loved her. That should be all that mattered. He would find a way to get out of his engagement to Mavis, and everything would be as it should be.

One day later, he was berating himself for kissing Poppy. He’d made a promise to Mavis and to his mother, and even though it wasn’t one he wanted to live up to, it wasn’t right to disregard it so cavalierly. Kissing should have waited until he was able to talk things through with Mavis. But Poppy had looked so incredibly sweet with her hair done up in curls, and the joy in her eyes had been irresistible. Her body had fit so perfectly against his. She smelled so sweet, like cinnamon. He’d needed to kiss her, needed to taste her.

He needed her still, days later, as he pulled weeds in the French garden. The exertion kept his muscles busy and stopped the drive to find Poppy, throw her over his shoulder, and take her to his bed so that he could show her that she was the only woman for him. Every day that passed made it harder for him to resist throwing caution to the wind to do what he wanted rather than what his conscience told him was right.

“You can’t go on this way forever,” Harry said with a grin that went beyond teasing as the two of them enjoyed an afternoon cup of tea behind the stable. “Sooner or later, either your conscience is going to win or your cock will.”

Nick glared at him. “My heart, you mean.”

Harry shrugged, doing a piss-poor job of hiding his amusement at the situation. “All right. If that’s what you insist. Funny, but I always though the heart was located higher up in the body.” He nodded to Nick’s trousers.

“It is,” Nick growled, even though he had existed in a half-aroused state of impatience for days.

“Whatever you say,” Harry chuckled. “But you can’t convince me that’s a trowel in your pocket.”

Nick muttered a string of expletives that had Harry laughing even harder. He wanted to throw his tea in his friend’s face, but it wouldn’t have made him feel better. At the rate he was going, the only thing that was going to put him out of his misery was a solution to the situation, one way or another.

“Maybe I should just be a bastard and throw Mavis over,” he sighed at last. “Maybe it doesn’t matter if I break Mum’s heart and crush the plans she’s had with her best friend since she was in the schoolroom.”

Harry shook his head, a shade more serious. He finished his tea, stood, and clapped Nick on the shoulder. “You’re not the type, mate. You’re a good man, too much so sometimes. You’ll do what’s right.”

“And what’s right is….” He let the question hang.

Harry laughed. “How the hell should I know? Either way, something will have to give.”

Almost as if Harry had cued the next scene in a stage farce, the rattle of a carriage coming up the drive and into the kitchen courtyard snagged their attention. The London staff was due to arrive that afternoon, and unless Nick was mistaken, the moment had come.

He wasn’t ready.

“I need to find Poppy,” he said, standing and pouring the dregs of his tea in the grass. He handed the cup to Harry. “I need to explain one last time before this whole thing comes to a head.”

“Do you really?” Harry questioned.

He was too late. Nick was already striding around the corner of the stable and marching into the courtyard. Poppy had been avoiding him for days, and he couldn’t say he blamed her, really. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but he was sure he had. He needed to find her to make one last attempt to reassure her that if things didn’t go the way they wanted them to, it wasn’t her fault. It was all his own stupidity.

His heart thudded against his ribs at the sight of Poppy standing at the far end of the courtyard as the largest carriage Lord Peter owned rolled to a stop. Poppy saw him, and her expression flooded with anxiety. Nick smiled, hoping he could reassure her. Harry’s nephew, Jimmy, jumped down from the back of the baggage-laden carriage and scrambled to open one of the doors. A flurry of chatter and movement followed as the London servants disembarked, but Nick barely registered any of it. He saw only Poppy, thought only of reaching her to explain.

He was halfway across the courtyard when a loud cry of “Nick!” snapped his focus on Poppy. He froze mid-step, and turned to see Mavis alighting from the carriage.

She was every bit as pretty as the last time he had seen her. Her blonde hair was caught up in a loose bun at the back of her head instead of covered by a mobcap, but then, all of the London servants were wearing plain clothes instead of uniforms or livery. The cut of Mavis’s dress flattered her slender figure, accentuating her curves. Her sensual lips curled into a smile as she spotted him, and her green eyes sparkled. But as lovely as she was, Nick felt nothing.

He turned back to Poppy, only to find that her face had fallen. She was staring straight at Mavis with a look of sad resignation. It was like an arrow in Nick’s heart. Mavis was a beauty, but Poppy was so much more than a pretty face.

He pushed himself into motion again, focusing on Poppy alone.

“Nick,” Mavis called again. “Oh, Nick, I’m so happy to see you again at last.”

She rushed toward him, cutting him off before he could close the distance between him and Poppy. Without warning, she threw herself into his arms, and Nick was forced to catch her to keep them both from spilling to the cobblestones.

“Mavis,” he said.

He didn’t have a chance to say more. Bold as brass, she kissed him. Her arms snaked around his neck and she leaned so heavily into him that he had to brace himself to keep from being knocked over. He was too surprised by her enthusiasm to kiss her back, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her mouth moved over his as she made a loud, sighing sound.

As soon as he could, Nick pulled away from her, but she wouldn’t let him go, and he couldn’t tug his arms free from her waist without her falling. He glanced toward the house in time to see Poppy burst into tears, hide her face in her hands, and run inside.

“I’ve missed you so much, Nick. It’s been torture to be apart from you for so long,” Mavis said in a rush of emotion. She glanced toward the house, and Nick could have sworn that her eyes narrowed at the sight of Poppy, but she went on. “I dream of you every night, what it would be like to hold you in my arms again. I haven’t been able to sleep these last few days, knowing we are so close to being together at last. I’ve been waiting for you, Nick. I’ve been burning for you.” She lowered her voice for her last sentence. The purr in it was unmistakable.

Nick dragged his eyes away from the door Poppy had disappeared into at last to stare at Mavis. Her eyes flashed with lust, and one of her hands moved from his shoulder to his chest, threatening to go lower.

“It’s nice to see you too, Mavis,” he said, polite but distant.

If she noticed he wasn’t returning her heat, she didn’t let on. “I bet you haven’t been able to sleep these last few nights either,” she went on. “I know how restless you get in bed.” She bit her lip, glancing up at him with a suggestive flutter of her eyelashes.

“Um, sure.” He glanced to the kitchen door again, praying Poppy couldn’t see Mavis’s display. Every hope he had that Mavis would have grown cold in the four years she’d been away, that she’d set him free so that he could be with Poppy, faded.

Mavis followed his gaze. “Who is she?” she asked. She was trying so hard not to seem interested in Poppy that it was obvious her mind was racing to know who Poppy was. Even to Nick, and he didn’t consider himself an expert on the secret language of women.

“That’s Poppy,” he said. “She came on as a kitchen maid after you left.”

“A kitchen maid?” Mavis wrinkled her nose. “Really, Nick. You should know better than to let trash like that look longingly at you.”

Anger flared through Nick as though Mavis had fired a gun. He pushed away from her at last, just as her hand trailed down to the waist of his trousers. “Poppy is a good, sweet girl. She worked her way up from the kitchen to be an upstairs maid, and now she serves as Miss Victoria’s lady’s maid when she’s needed.”

Mavis lowered her eyes, and her cheeks went pink, but whether she was ashamed of herself or plotting something, Nick couldn’t tell. When she glanced up at him, there was a certain amount of regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nick. I shouldn’t have made assumptions. If this Poppy is a friend of yours, then she’s a friend of mine. Can you forgive me?” She rested a hand on his chest once more, and her eyes seemed to grow larger, rounder.

Nick clenched his jaw, feeling as though parts of him were being torn from the inside out. He didn’t want to trust Mavis’s sudden good nature about the whole thing, but then, he had no reason to doubt her. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone if he automatically assumed the worst about Mavis simply because he wanted out of their engagement. She had always been headstrong and forward, and she had always spoke without thinking.

Just like he had proposed without thinking. Once, they had been a good match.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said, letting out the breath he’d been holding. He went so far as to bend forward and kiss her lightly and quickly on the lips. He would have kissed his sister the same way. Well, perhaps not on the lips.

Mavis laughed. “That’s not the kind of welcome I would have expected from my fiancé.” She rested her arms on his shoulders once more and leaned into him. “I would have thought you’d be much more ardent.”

She tilted her face up to his, relaxing her lips in an invitation to kiss her more passionately. She even closed her eyes as if expecting it. Nick frowned. The last time they’d met, at her family’s house at Easter, she hadn’t been this overt with him. She hadn’t kissed him at all or even tried to. It could have been because her parents and siblings had been present, but all the same, it felt odd.

Because it was what she expected, he kissed her. But he didn’t linger or make it anything more than it should be. In fact, he deliberately tried to be cold. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do to settle in at Starcross Castle again,” he said, taking a half step back.

“Yes, there’s so much to do.” Whether she was disappointed or not, her smile remained bright. Her hands lingered on his chest, playing with his buttons. “I’ll take my trunk up to my room, but I don’t know if I should unpack or not, seeing as I’ll be moving into the garden house soon, there doesn’t seem to be much point.”

“Soon?” An uncomfortable prickle formed in Nick’s gut.

“Yes, of course.” She smiled up at him. “We’re to be married, after all.”

“About that,” Nick began, unable to shake the feeling that the conversation wasn’t going to go the way he wanted it to.

“I’ve got everything all set,” Mavis went on, smiling brightly again. “I’ve already had the vicar back at our home parish start reading the bans.”

“You’ve done what?” The prickle burst into an acidic pinch. Nick took a large step back, gaping at Mavis.

“We’ve been engaged for years,” Mavis said, blinking as though she didn’t understand his reticence. “Mama told Rev. Chambers to start reading the bans last week. They’ve already been read once, so in a fortnight we can be married.”

“A fortnight?” His voice was hoarse, and he ran a hand through his hair.

“I would have arranged everything sooner if I could.” Mavis swayed into him, closing her arms around him in a hug. “I can’t wait to be your wife, Nick. I’d marry you tomorrow if I could.”

“Yes, but….”

There was no way to end the sentence. Everything Nick had hoped would happen with Mavis’s return lay shattered at his feet. There was no way he could back out of things now, not with Mavis as eager as she was. To do so would make him the biggest cad Cornwall had ever seen. It would ruin his mum. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring shame to Mavis that way, he couldn’t disappoint his family that way, and he wouldn’t expose everyone at Starcross Castle to the gossip his backing out would bring. It was starting to look as though he were well and truly trapped.

“All right,” he sighed, letting her go. “Take your trunk up to your room, and we’ll talk about everything else later.”

She let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh, kissed Nick once more, then turn and ran back to the carriage, where everyone’s trunks were being unloaded. Nick ran a hand through his hair as he watched her, feeling as though he’d just been told someone had died. One of the footmen from London glanced over at him and shook his head with a smirk.

Nick blinked, then he frowned. What was a look like that for?

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. Harry strode up to him and slapped him on the back. “That was quite the homecoming,” he said.

Nick turned his frown on Harry. “I’m not in a mood to have you joking about the tangle of my love life.”

There was nothing more to say, so he turned and strode off, heading back to the gardens.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Harry said, catching up to him. “Only that it looked like Mavis was happy to see you.”

Harry was still smiling when Nick turned to him, but that smile faded. “You saw how she is,” Nick said. “She definitely still wants to marry me. And what am I supposed to do about that?”

“Sit her down and have a long talk about how it won’t work?” Harry suggested.

Nick clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Did she look like she would be receptive to that? And how do you think our families would react? Her mum and mine have pretty much named all of our babies already.”

“So explain to them too.”

Nick sighed. “It isn’t going to work. Everyone wants this marriage but me.”

“And Poppy,” Harry reminded him.

“And Poppy,” Nick repeated, his heart breaking as he said the words. His shoulders dropped, and he rubbed a hand over his face. Disappointing Poppy, breaking her heart, would be the hardest part of the whole catastrophe.

“I still think you should talk to Mavis,” Harry went on. “Tell her how you feel about Poppy.”

“And what good would that do?” Nick stopped, snapping to face Harry. “Other than infuriating Mavis.”

“No woman wants to marry a man who’s in love with someone else,” Harry reasoned. “If you tell her the truth, she might just understand and let you go.”

“And our mothers?”

“Wouldn’t want their children married to people they don’t love,” Harry finished for him.

Nick crossed his arms and scowled. It seemed so reasonable when Harry put it that way, but the heart was fickle, especially a woman’s heart. The last thing he wanted was for every woman in his life to hate him, but it looked like he wouldn’t be able to avoid it.

“I’ll think about it,” he said at last, thumping Harry on the shoulder, then walking on.

“You do that,” Harry called after him.

Nick was grateful that his friend was giving him the space to mull over the problem on his own. As things stood, he didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.