Page 174 of The Wallflower Takes All

Poppy had chosen him in a stripped study among crates and dust. Chosen his ordinary name. His careful practice. His promise of prudence. Chosen him without Alderbury Court, without an old title, without any large fortune to speak of.

The knowledge steadied him more than the title unsettled him.

He would not tell himself he could now give Poppy a home and call that the end of the matter, reducing her heart to a question of property. He had made that mistake enough times. They would choose a home together. A place with light. A garden where Freddie might terrorize insects instead of upholstery. Rooms for Lady Viva—near enough to be loved, arranged enough to prevent philosophers with lonely hats from becoming permanent residents. Perhaps even a ballroom where Poppy might dance because she wished to, whenever she liked.

Still, the irony remained. He’d gone through all her documentation this past week with a fine-tooth comb looking for a miracle. But the miracle wasn’t in her legal documents. It was in his.

Gabriel looked at the papers again. The relief that swept through him was nearly sharp enough to hurt.

Mr. Wetherby had continued speaking. “There will, of course, be immediate obligations. The household at Alderbury Court must be notified. The Grosvenor Square residence is staffed but requires instruction. There are tenants, accounts, settlements?—”

“I must go,” Gabriel said, standing.

Wetherby stopped. “Your Grace?”

Gabriel nearly objected to the address. The words rose by habit.

Then he imagined Poppy hearing them for the first time.

Her eyes widening. Her mouth struggling not to laugh. Lady Viva declaring the whole thing marvelously convenient. Freddie attempting to eat ducal correspondence the moment it arrived.

The impulse to object faded.

“I must tell Miss Montfort,” Gabriel said.

His father looked at him, and warmth returned to his face. “Yes. Go.”

“There are details?—”

“I shall stay and discover how many roofs you have acquired,” Father said.

Despite himself, Gabriel smiled.

Mr. Wetherby looked faintly alarmed. “There are quite a few.”

Gabriel turned back to his father, one question burning on his tongue. He lowered his voice. “She would have liked Poppy, wouldn’t she?”

His father’s expression softened fully. “Oh yes,” he said. “Very much.”

The answer struck deep. Gabriel wished suddenly, fiercely, that his mother had lived long enough to meet the woman who had overturned his careful life and somehow given every complication within it purpose. He wished she could have seen Poppy laugh. Seen her argue. Seen her face loss and still summon courage with ink on her fingers and fear concealed beneath wit.

He suspected his mother would have recognized Poppy as a kindred spirit: a lady born to rank who had fallen, inconveniently and entirely, in love with a solicitor.

Gabriel nodded to Mr. Wetherby, gripped his father’s shoulder once, and left the office.

Outside, London carried on with its usual composure. Carriages rattled past. A boy shouted news at the corner. Gentlemen crossed the street with umbrellas angled against a fine mist. Clerks hurried beneath dark coats. A flower seller adjusted her basket and called to a lady beneath a striped awning.

It was still ordinary London, still the same street beneath the same gray afternoon, though the world no longer felt the same within him.

Because now Gabriel walked through it as the Duke of Alderbury.

He quickened his pace. Poppy was still at the Montfort house, packing the remnants of her old life into trunks. Before he’d left, they had decided she and Lady Viva would stay at a hotel until the wedding could be arranged by special license. Now Gabriel suspected such a license would be easier to obtain.

Poppy would be safe. Truly safe. Lady Viva would have rooms enough to be as extravagant as she pleased. And Gabriel, who had spent his life trusting paper, law, and restraint, had somehow become the answer to a problem no solicitor could have solved.

He had wished for some way to protect her. He had wished to put himself between Poppy and every practical hurt surrounding her. To make Algernon irrelevant. To give her a home no one could take. To ensure she never again had to convert fear into lists because no one else stood ready to help carry the weight.

Now the means had arrived, late and astonishing, and made an aristocrat of him.