Page 112 of The Wallflower Takes All

His fingers closed around hers.

The first steps were awkward because there was no space suited to dancing between the sofa, escritoire, two small tables, and Freddie, who had decided the exercise required his supervision. Gabriel counted under his breath, and Poppy followed, laughing when Freddie darted between them and nearly sent them into the pianoforte.

“Freddie,” Gabriel said, “your participation is not required.”

Freddie wagged his tail and tried again.

“He loves dancing,” Poppy said.

Gabriel’s mouth curved. “He loves obstruction.”

They turned again, smaller this time. Poppy knew these steps. And she’d even performed them in this very room. Her father had taught her before she was old enough to attend balls, allowing her to stand upon his shoes while Mama laughed from a chair by the fire.

For years after Papa died, Poppy had avoided that memory. It hurt too much—the sure hold of his hands, the smell of tobacco and soap, the way he had counted softly and told her she must never apologize for taking up space in a ballroom.

Tonight, with Gabriel’s hand firm at her back and the empty house around them, the memory returned without quite hurting.

“My father taught me to dance like this,” she said.

Gabriel’s steps slowed. “Here?”

“In this room. I stood on his shoes when I was little and tried very hard not to trip him.”

Gabriel’s eyes twinkled. “Did you?”

“Constantly. He claimed it was excellent training for Society.”

Gabriel’s gaze held hers. “He sounds kind.”

“He was.” The words came softly. “Careless in some ways. Too hopeful in others. But kind.”

Gabriel nodded, his expression softening with recognition. Loving someone did not make the consequences of their flaws disappear. And parents were not perfect. “My mother used to sing when she thought no one heard,” he said after a moment.

Poppy looked up. “How old were you? When she?—?”

“I was nine,” he said. “She had been Lady Anne before she married my father,” he added. “The title always sounded oddly distant to me. Far too proper. She rarely used the name. I think she preferred being simply Mrs. Ashby, where affection mattered more than precedence.”

Poppy nodded.

He stared past her shoulder, his gaze gone distant. “When my mother married my father, she gave up more than a title. She left friends who had known her since childhood and a life already arranged for her. Some remained loyal. Some drifted away. She did not speak of it often, yet I was old enough to see that affection does not prevent a cost.”

Poppy’s breath caught.

Gabriel looked down at their joined hands. “A man ought not ask a woman to alter her whole life unless he has considered every part of what he asks her to leave.”

The quiet weight of the words settled between them. He had not said her name. He had not needed to.

But Poppy had known him long enough by now to hear what lay beneath one fear and what belonged to another. What he had just confessed was about marriage, sacrifice, and the cost a woman paid. The rigid order by which he governed himself had similar roots.

“You told me that you thought if you could keep everything in its proper place, the house would hold together,” Poppy reminded him softly.

A faint smile touched his mouth and vanished. “Partly.” He was silent for a moment. “The week my mother died, my father took me into town on an errand. I stole a barley sweet from a confectioner’s jar.”

Poppy blinked. “You?”

“I was young and wanted it. At that age, wanting seemed sufficient reason.” His thumb shifted once against her hand. “Later, my mother asked why my fingers were sticky, and I lied to her. By morning, she was worse. By the next day, the house had gone quiet, and I spent years persuaded that carelessness invited punishment.”

“Oh, Gabriel.”