Chapter 5

"Yes, Mr. Rutledge."

Mr. Rutledge?

Poppy felt her heart stop. She looked back at the stranger. Deviltry glittered in his green eyes. He seemed to relish her open astonishment.

Harry Rutledge . . . the mysterious and reclusive owner of the hotel. Who was nothing at all as she had imagined him to be.

Bewildered and mortified, Poppy turned from him. She crossed the threshold and heard the door close, the latch clicking smoothly shut. How wicked he was, to have amused himself at her expense! She consoled herself with the knowledge that she would never see him again.

And she went down the hallway with the housemaid . . . never suspecting that the course of her entire life had just changed.

Harry went to stare at the fire in the hearth.

"Poppy Hathaway," he whispered as if it were a magical incantation.