Page 175 of The Wallflower Takes All

But the means was not the reward.

Poppy had already given him that.

Gabriel turned toward Berkeley Square and walked even faster.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

By four o’clock, Poppy had packed the same box of books twice.

This was not efficient.

She had begun with Papa’s copy of The Tempest, only to decide it ought to travel with them rather than disappear into storage. Then she had remembered that there was, as yet, nowhere for it to travel to except the hotel, where space would be limited. She returned it to the crate, took it out again, and finally held it against her chest because Papa had loved it, and packing it away felt like admitting something she was not ready to admit.

She paused. The library sounded wrong without its books. Rooms had voices. Poppy had always known that. This room’s voice had been paper, leather, old dust, Papa’s quiet laugh, and Mama calling through the doorway to ask whether anyone had seen her fan, her pearls, or her fichu.

Now the shelves stood half bare. The remaining books looked abandoned, plainly resentful that the household had decided to leave without asking their opinion.

Near the front door, Papa’s portrait waited in its wrapping, guarded by Freddie with grave and entirely self-appointed devotion. He had already growled at one footman, barked at Algernon, and attempted to rip a tassel from a cushion intended for storage.

Mama had declared his conduct deeply loyal and only moderately destructive.

“Darling,” she had said when Poppy carried another stack of books through the hall, “do not let them pack the silver urn. We must ensure our hotel suite is anything but ordinary.”

“I am not certain it will be an entire suite, Mama.”

“It will be after I have a talk with the gentleman in charge,” Mama replied with a wink.

Poppy turned back to the packing. The whole house felt like a memory being disassembled one object at a time. And yet beneath the grief, happiness kept rising.

Gabriel had asked her to marry him.

Gabriel, who had kissed her in the stripped study with dust on her cheek and crates around them. Gabriel, who had offered not a palace, not an ancient name, not a life free from difficulty, but himself.

Mrs. Gabriel Ashby.

The thought made her smile so suddenly she had to set down The Tempest before she dropped it.

It was not the grand future she had once imagined while standing at the edge of ballrooms, calculating which gentlemen might tolerate Mama and which would flee before the second scandalous anecdote. It was not the dream of a title that would make every door open and every whisper turn polite.

It was better.

Gabriel was not a consolation prize for failing to secure a marquess. He was the man she had wanted when every practical argument told her to want someone else. And given that…perhaps she had pulled off the boldest of the wallflowers’ revolts.

The thought also made her smile.

A crash sounded overhead.

Poppy closed her eyes.

Then Jenkins appeared in the library doorway. “Miss Montfort.”

“Yes?”

“The footmen wish to know whether the smaller writing desk is to go to storage or remain until tomorrow.”

“Storage.”

“And the Italian screen?”