Page 18 of The Wallflower Takes All

“Mama.”

At the sharper note in Poppy’s voice, Lady Viva opened both eyes. For a moment, pain moved across her face. It was gone nearly as soon as it appeared.

“Oh, do not look at me like that, sweetie,” she said, too lightly. “Algernon has been threatening to arrive since Easter. Men with new titles are always threatening to arrive. It is how they introduce themselves.”

Poppy shook the letter. “According to this, he will be here in ten days.”

“Yes, well. Algernon has always been fond of sounding decisive. It disguises how little he understands.”

“He expects us to leave.”

“Darling, people expect things all the time. I once expected to adore Portugal and was quite disappointed.”

Poppy folded the letter with hands that were not quite steady. “This is not Portugal.”

“No,” Mama agreed. “Portugal had dreadful roads and far too much sunshine.”

Poppy pressed the letter to her middle, trying to hold herself together by force.

Lady Viva watched her and, for an instant, the room between them altered. Mama’s expression softened, her painted mouth parting on the edge of something true. Something motherly. Something that acknowledged the floor had opened beneath them.

Then Lady Stone snorted beneath the fan, Mr. Loxley groaned from the corridor that he could feel the end approaching, and Mama looked away.

“Poppy,” she said, more gently, “give the letter to Mr. Ashby. That is what solicitors are for, is it not? To make wretched things less vexing.”

Poppy glanced toward the study. Mr. Ashby had not made anything less vexing yet. But perhaps sharpness had its uses. She left the salon without trusting herself to answer.

The study door stood partly open. Mr. Ashby remained behind the desk with his coat still buttoned, his posture straight, and half the Montfort misery arranged before him in careful piles. Freddie lay beneath the desk gnawing what appeared to be the corner of an old calling card. The puppy had evidently decided Mr. Ashby’s severity improved the room.

Mr. Ashby looked up the moment she appeared. “Miss Montfort?”

She stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

His gaze dropped to the letter in her hand. “Another bill?” he asked.

“No.” She moved toward the desk. “Worse, I think.”

He rose at once.

Poppy hated that. There was nothing rude in it, of course. His courtesy was perfectly polite, and that was precisely the trouble. It made her feel suddenly fragile, and she could not afford to feel fragile in front of this man.

She held out the letter. “It is from Algernon Montfort.”

Mr. Ashby’s expression changed. “The heir.”

“The new Viscount Montague,” she said. “Yes.”

Mr. Ashby took the letter and read it in silence.

Poppy watched his face because she could not bear to watch his hands. His hands were capable and well-shaped, and this was no time to notice such things. Unfortunately, not looking at them did not make her forget them. She had seen the long fingers holding Algernon’s letter, the clean strength in them, the steadiness, and her mind had chosen, most unhelpfully, to imagine what such hands might feel like if they were not holding paper at all, but doing something far more intimate.

She swallowed and shook her head. That thought was entirely unhelpful.

His face, at least, offered very little. She guessed at his reactions as he read. A faint narrowing of the eyes at “neglect.” A pause at “vacate.” Another at “marriageable age.”

He read the letter twice. Then he laid it on the desk.

“Well?” Poppy asked.