Page 161 of The Wallflower Takes All

The price was plain enough. A courteous husband whose heart belonged elsewhere, and a marriage built upon mutual convenience rather than love.

Gabriel offered something altogether different.

Love.

She didn’t doubt that.

But he still believed that loving him required her to surrender too much. He would spend their marriage trying to repay sacrifices she did not regret making, forever fearing he had taken more from her than he deserved. He loved her with his whole heart, yet still could not quite trust her to choose him with hers.

Then there was the cottage.

The smallest future of the three. Mama. Freddie. A roof they could afford, quiet mornings, honest work, and the satisfaction of knowing no gentleman had determined her course. She suspected she could build a respectable life there.

Whether she could build a happy one was another question entirely.

Poppy folded Caldermere’s note slowly.

Gabriel’s gaze held hers. “What does he want?”

Her voice remained calm. “An answer.”

“When?”

“This afternoon.”

The clock upon the mantel had just begun striking noon.

Gabriel’s jaw worked once. “I would like to tell you to refuse him.”

Poppy’s breath caught.

“I would like,” he continued, voice low, “to take that note from your hand, toss it into the fire, and say no man who offers you a place in only the public portion of his life deserves even an hour of your consideration.”

She stared at him.

He looked down at the floor, then back at her. “But I made you a poor offer last night because I confused honor with love. I will not repeat the mistake by turning my jealousy into a command.”

Her hand tightened around Caldermere’s note.

“So I will say only this,” Gabriel continued. “I dread your answer. I dread it more than I have dreaded anything in years. And I will respect it.”

Poppy felt the words move through her, tender and painful and devastatingly honest.

The world seemed to narrow to the note in her hand, the man before her, and the boxes already packed for the cottage.

By this afternoon, she must decide whether to bind herself to Lord Caldermere, trust Gabriel despite all that still stood between them, or leave London altogether and make a quiet life for herself, Mama, and Freddie in the country.

But perhaps the choice was not truly between two gentlemen and a cottage.

Perhaps it was between merely surviving and allowing herself to hope for something larger. The cottage promised independence. Caldermere promised security. Gabriel offered neither with certainty.

He offered love.

Poppy looked down at the note in her hand.

For the first time in her life, the safest path no longer seemed the wisest one. And she had only a few hours left to discover whether she possessed the courage to choose it.

Chapter Twenty-Five