Page 108 of The Wallflower Takes All

She might have very little to offer, but she would not promise money she could not pay, permit Mama to order silk hangings for a temporary salon, or allow creditors to knock at another door while Poppy smiled and asked for one more sennight.

A cottage was not the future she had imagined. It was not a particularly appealing present.

But it was possible.

And, at the moment, possible was as high as hope dared reach.

Poppy drew another sheet toward her and began calculating what remained of Mama’s jointure after a reduced household, one servant (Jenkins, of course), coal, food, and a small allowance for emergencies. The sum was discouraging but not impossible. They might manage several months if Mama could be persuaded that champagne, plum cakes, and elaborate suppers belonged to a former life.

That would be the greater difficulty.

Freddie snored softly beneath the chair.

Poppy leaned back and pressed her fingers to the ache between her brows.

Somewhere across London, Lady Lemonwood’s ballroom would be blazing with candles. Young ladies would be fastening gloves, accepting partners, laughing behind fans. Gentlemen would be crossing polished floors to ask for dances, and perhaps one of them might have crossed toward Poppy if Lady Lemonwood had permitted her through the door.

Another evening gone.

Another opportunity slipping away while Algernon moved steadily nearer with his snuff cabinet, his beetle-colored upholstery, and his legal right to claim the house.

Four days.

Poppy pressed her fingers flat against the paper until the thought steadied.

She had survived ten years of uncertainty. She could survive four more days. She could find a cottage, reduce the household, pack Mama’s gowns, rescue the more valuable books, help Jenkins to accept a post elsewhere if he wished it, and arrange her life into something smaller but manageable.

A person could live in a cottage. People did it every day. Some even wrote poems about the experience, although Poppy suspected the poets had never attempted it with Lady Viva.

Choosing the cottage was not defeat. In fact, it was the only way to stop waiting for a gentleman to decide whether she and Mama were tolerable enough to rescue. Poppy had already had quite enough of that.

The front knocker sounded.

Freddie lifted his head, barked once, and scrambled from beneath the chair with so much haste that he struck his shoulder against the leg of the escritoire.

“Freddie,” Poppy called. “Poise.”

The puppy ignored her and galloped toward the hall.

Poppy set aside the quill and rose. She expected Jenkins to turn away a caller or accept another parcel of flowers from Lord Crampton, who remained convinced Mama possessed a hidden fortune and regarded enormous arrangements of roses as a sound investment strategy.

Instead, Jenkins appeared in the drawing room doorway.

“Mr. Ashby, miss.”

Poppy’s heart flipped.

She had not seen Gabriel since Hyde Park, though little more than a day had passed. It had been long enough for her to replay every touch with mortifying clarity and short enough that she could still remember the precise pressure of his hand at her waist.

But he had told her he intended to turn over her and Mama’s affairs to his father. Had he merely come to tell her he’d done so?

“Which Mr. Ashby?” she asked cautiously.

“Mr. Gabriel Ashby, miss,” Jenkins intoned.

She released a little pent-up breath. “Show him in.”

Jenkins stepped aside.