Page 11 of The Wallflower Takes All

Miss Montfort turned abruptly and set the ledgers on the desk. “Here. This is the household account for the last year. This one is tradesmen. This one is older debts. This one is…” She paused, touching the cover of a thinner book. “This one is mine.”

“Yours?” He furrowed his brow.

“My attempts to make sense of the others,” she explained, tracing a finger along the top of the book.

He reached for it.

Her palm came down atop the cover. “It is not official.”

“Few useful things are,” he told her.

That earned him another look. Less embarrassed this time. More searching.

Then she withdrew her hand.

Gabriel picked up the book and opened it.

He expected girlish confusion. Wishful arithmetic. Rounded figures, perhaps. Optimistic totals.

He did not find them.

He found columns. Careful columns. Dates, names, amounts owed, amounts paid, amounts delayed, sums negotiated downward, promises made to tradesmen, notations about which creditors pressed hardest and which might be soothed with partial payments. Here and there, in neat, slanting script, Miss Montfort had written small reminders to herself.

Ask Jenkins whether coal bill includes overcharge.

Do not let Mama see March total.

Mr. Vale will wait if paid before Michaelmas.

No more credit at milliner.

Try again with wine merchant.

* * *

The final note sat alone in the margin of one page.

Find money somewhere.

* * *

Gabriel stared at it longer than he should have.

Miss Montfort, perhaps misreading his silence, folded her hands at her waist. “I know it is not how your father would have done it.”

“No,” he said.

Her chin lifted a fraction. “But I have done my best.”

He looked up. There it was again. That careful brightness. The smile held like a shield, polished and ready, though he could now see the slight trembling beneath it.

“Yes,” he said, more quietly than he intended. “I can see that.”

Her expression changed. It wasn’t much, just a slight parting of her lips, a faint shift in her eyes. Praise, he realized, startled her.

No. Not praise…being heard.

He looked back down at the ledger again.