Page 2 of The Wallflower Takes All

Lady Stone appeared to consider this. “Also possible.”

Poppy handed the countess’s abandoned empty glass to a passing footman. “Tell Madame Perue I shall find her earbob. Tell the wine merchant’s man he may wait another quarter hour. And under no circumstances is anyone to bring Mama champagne.”

Jenkins’s expression flickered. “Her ladyship said if we refused, she would send Tommy with a note to the wine merchant.”

Poppy looked toward the ceiling.

Some daughters were called upon to pour tea, play the pianoforte, and soothe an occasional maternal indisposition. Poppy spent her days preventing Lady Viva from ordering champagne for breakfast, mortgaging what remained of the silver, and inviting unsuitable people to reside indefinitely under their roof.

The fact that Poppy had once imagined herself a romantic girl with dreams of courtship and elegant balls seemed, at this point, almost comical.

“Very well,” she said. “Bring her coffee instead and put it in a champagne flute. She may not notice.”

Jenkins gave a solemn nod, suggesting this was not the strangest instruction he had received that week, and withdrew.

Poppy turned just in time to see Freddie emerge from beneath the table and spit out a piece of deviled egg onto the hem of her gown.

Naturally.

She scooped him up before he could commit another offense against upholstery and tucked him beneath her arm. He smelled faintly of butter, dust, and puppyish triumph.

“I hope you are enjoying yourself,” she told him.

Freddie licked her wrist. That, unfortunately, was answer enough.

She crossed the foyer, stepping around a stack of hatboxes, a sleeping hound dog that did not belong to them, and Mr. Loxley, the melancholy poet Mama had met at a musicale, who was sprawled on a chaise.

“Miss Montfort,” he said faintly, without opening his eyes, “the morning has wounded me.”

“Then I recommend drawing the curtains.”

“I suffer best in natural light,” Mr. Loxley insisted.

Poppy kept walking. The front salon doors stood open. Inside, Mama presided over the room like a queen of some disreputable little kingdom, draped in lilac silk, a bright red curl fallen artfully over one eye, a teacup in one hand and, Lord help her, a champagne flute in the other.

Poppy narrowed her gaze. Where did she get that? So much for coffee in a flute.

Around Lady Viva lounged several houseguests in varying states of leisure, none of whom Poppy could be certain had ever been invited in the ordinary sense of the word.

Lady Viva looked up and brightened. “Poppy, darling. There you are. Tell Mr. Fenwick he is wrong. A person absolutely can live on champagne and anchovy toast if she is committed enough.”

Poppy lifted a brow. “I refuse to encourage this discussion.”

Lady Stone raised her champagne flute. “I should be delighted to assist with the research.”

Mr. Fenwick, who had a dazed expression and a rumpled cravat, had wandered in by accident three days ago and had not yet found the door. He gave her a small, desperate bow.

Poppy scowled at him.

Mama waved a dismissive hand. “You are dreadful company before noon, sweetie.”

“I am dreadful company after noon also, as you very well know,” Poppy informed her.

This earned a delighted laugh from the room, which was irritating, because she had not intended to be amusing.

Lady Viva extended her cup. “Jenkins is tyrannizing me.”

“No,” Poppy said. “Jenkins is attempting to preserve what remains of our household’s dignity.”