Page 144 of The Wallflower Takes All

“A grievous omission.”

He inclined his head and stepped toward the door, discreetly giving them another moment.

Poppy helped Mama sit, then retrieved the rose cloak from the sofa and placed it around her shoulders.

Lady Viva caught her hand. “You will not marry in haste because of me.”

Poppy looked down at their joined hands. “I will decide what I must do. But you cannot run off to hotels with dubious men every time you are frightened.”

“I shall try to limit myself.”

“No, Mama.”

Lady Viva sighed. “Very well. No more dubious men in hotels.”

“Thank you.”

“And no dead archbishops.”

“That too.”

Mama nodded solemnly. “An excellent rule.”

Poppy laughed again, softer this time.

The day was not fixed. Nothing was fixed. Algernon still approached. The house would still be lost. She had no doubt missed Lord Caldermere’s call. Gabriel still had not chosen her.

But something true had finally been spoken between mother and daughter, and that felt like a door opening in a room they had both been trapped inside for years.

When Lady Viva finally stood again, she pressed both hands to her cheeks. “I must look appalling.”

Poppy laughed through the tightness in her throat. “You look as though you attempted to marry a false count in a hotel parlor.”

“How oddly specific.”

Poppy sighed. “It has been an oddly specific morning.”

Gabriel stepped through the door just then and Mama looked toward him. “Mr. Ashby, darling.”

His face was composed, but his eyes were not. “Yes, Lady Montague?”

“Would it be terribly dreary if I asked you to take us home?”

“Not at all.”

“And perhaps refrain from telling anyone about the dead archbishop?”

“I consider discretion part of my profession,” he replied.

“How fortunate. I begin to see why Poppy likes you so much.”

Poppy’s cheeks heated. “Mama.”

Lady Viva glanced between them, tear-streaked and exhausted but unmistakably herself again. “Darling, even grief has not made me blind.”

Gabriel splayed his hand toward the door. “Shall we?”

Poppy looked at him, and for a moment the hotel parlor, Mama’s tears, Bellarosa’s fraud, and all the future’s uncertainty narrowed to the steadiness in his face.