Page 107 of The Wallflower Takes All

There was nothing safe in the laughter. Nothing had been solved. Friday still waited. Algernon still approached. The house still trembled on the edge of ruin.

But for one bright, impossible instant, ruin had to wait its turn.

Chapter Eighteen

Lady Lemonwood’s ball began at nine o’clock.

The musicians would begin at ten. Supper would be served at midnight. Half the unmarried gentlemen in London were expected to attend, along with several widowed peers, two newly arrived heirs, and one marquess whom Bea considered “promising in nearly every respect.”

Poppy would not meet any of them.

Lady Lemonwood had refused to invite her.

Not merely Mama, whose presence might reasonably alarm a hostess with fragile furniture and a dislike of scenes. Poppy herself was unwelcome, even under Lady Vanover’s protection. Apparently, the Montfort name now carried the threat of disturbance whether Mama was present or not.

Poppy had read Bea’s note three times and smiled through each reading. Then she had folded it, placed it beneath a paperweight, and found something useful to do.

The useful thing, at present, was a list.

She sat at the small escritoire in the drawing room with a sheet of paper before her, a quill in one hand, and Freddie asleep beneath her chair with his nose pressed to her slipper. She wore an old ivory muslin gown, neatly mended at one sleeve, with a pink ribbon at the waist because she refused to surrender entirely to melancholy.

The house had gone strangely quiet. Mama was dining with Lady Stone, Lord Crampton, and a gentleman who claimed to communicate with departed relations by observing candle flames.

Jenkins had objected to the outing with little success. Poppy had chosen not to object. Mama was unlikely to sign anything at Lady Stone’s table.

Probably.

And Poppy could hardly ask Gabriel to accompany her mother to dinner now. Not after he had made it clear that he intended to remove himself from their affairs as soon as another solicitor could be found.

For once, the prospect of an empty house had seemed less alarming than welcome.

So Poppy had stayed behind while Society danced beneath Lady Lemonwood’s chandeliers and had begun making plans for exile.

She dipped her quill into the ink and considered the heading.

Requirements for a country cottage.

Beneath it, she had already written:

Two bedchambers.

A roof unlikely to admit rain in quantity.

A kitchen.

A salon large enough for Mama to declare inadequate.

A garden in which Freddie might pursue insects instead of ducks.

A village near enough for provisions and far enough away that Mama could not readily acquire a poet.

Poppy added one more line.

A landlord willing to accept modest payment without investigating too closely.

She looked at the words.

Then crossed out modest and wrote reliable.