Page 147 of The Wallflower Takes All

“Yes.”

She folded her hands before her because otherwise she might reach for him without deciding whether she should.

Gabriel looked at her for a long moment. “Poppy.” Her name came out low and roughened at the edges.

She swallowed. “You said you wanted all of me.”

His eyes flared. “I do.”

Gabriel crossed the distance slowly, each step carrying him nearer to a choice she suspected he had already made and could no longer pretend to misunderstand. He stopped near enough that Poppy could smell the clean starch of his cravat and the faint trace of rain still clinging to his coat.

“I have no title,” he said.

“I know.”

“No great estate.”

“I know that too.”

“No fortune large enough to give you Caldermere’s kind of security.”

“And Caldermere offers a marriage where I will be expected to look away while his heart belongs elsewhere.” She lifted her chin. “You said yourself…he does not deserve me.”

“He does not,” Gabriel agreed. “But I’m not certain I do either.”

He looked at her with tenderness etched in his features. Then he raised one hand and touched her cheek. The contact was so gentle it made her eyes fill with tears. “But I love you,” he said.

Poppy went very still. For one suspended moment, she could only look at him. Love. Not desire. Not duty. Not reluctant tenderness dragged into the light and renamed. Love. The word seemed to settle into every frightened, hopeful part of her at once, until she could scarcely bear the force of it.

His face tightened. “I do not want to arrange you.” He stepped nearer. “I do not want to rescue you either, though God knows I have thought of little else. You are not a parcel to be taken up by the man with the largest house. You don’t need rescuing. You have been rescuing yourself and everyone around you for years.” His voice lowered. “I want to stand beside you while you do it. And when you are weary, I want you to let me carry something.”

The ache in her chest deepened. Poppy lifted her hand and placed it against his waistcoat, feeling the fierce beat of his heart beneath her palm, all his calm and restraint undone.

“Gabriel,” she whispered.

She felt his breath move beneath her palm.

Poppy looked up at him, and for once she did not think of creditors, Algernon, Caldermere, cottages, titles, or whether anyone would judge her foolish. She thought of Gabriel’s mouth on hers beside the Serpentine. Of his hand on her breast in the drawing room. Of his lips replacing his hand, and then…

“Come upstairs with me,” she breathed.

His face changed. The restraint did not vanish. It fractured. “Poppy.”

“Do not tell me what is wise.”

His hand moved from her cheek into her hair. “No.”

“Or what I need.”

“No.”

“Or what a solicitor should do.”

A rough breath escaped him. “I am not thinking at all like a solicitor at the moment.”

“Good.”

Then he kissed her. This time, there was no careful beginning, no tentative brush, no polite fiction that either of them might step back untouched. His mouth found hers with hunger, and Poppy rose to meet it, gripping his waistcoat with all the desperation she had spent the day, the week, perhaps far longer, pretending not to feel.