Page 3 of The Wallflower Takes All

Lady Viva sighed. “A household should be lived in, darling, not preserved like a pickled fish.”

“Hear, hear,” Lady Stone murmured, though she appeared to have forgotten what they were applauding.

Poppy opened her mouth, then closed it again. There was never any point. Mama could turn recklessness into wit so deftly that half the room forgot there was anything harmful in it.

That was the problem, in fact. Mama was charming. Glorious. Dazzling, even. Society scolded her while secretly hoping she would do something outrageous enough to enliven the week.

And Poppy?—

Poppy paid the bills.

Or tried to.

For years, dear, patient Mr. Ashby, Mama’s solicitor, had helped her do precisely that. He knew Mama. He knew which tradesmen would wait, which guests would never leave unless tactically starved into movement, which awkward situations required legal intervention, and which debts Poppy had hidden beneath the blotter because she could not bear to see them in daylight.

Mr. Ashby had never laughed when Poppy brought him ledgers with trembling hands and asked whether they were ruined this time. He had only adjusted his spectacles and said, “Not today, Miss Montfort, if I can help it.”

And now Mr. Ashby had retired.

Retired.

The very word felt like betrayal.

This morning his replacement was due to arrive, and Poppy had spent the last hour in a state of such dread she could scarcely breathe.

His replacement would know none of it. He would walk into this madhouse, see the wine, the guests, the dogs, the disorder, and know at once that Poppy Montfort—a twenty-three-year-old woman who had smiled her way through every disaster of the past decade—was barely holding the whole thing together with sealing wax and prayer.

“Mama,” she said, lowering her voice as she approached. “Please tell me you have not invited anyone else to stay.”

Lady Viva blinked at her with large innocent eyes no one in England—or on the Continent, for that matter—should ever trust. “One or two.”

Poppy briefly closed her eyes. Her mother’s sums were never correct. “How many is one or two?”

“Six.”

Poppy blinked.

Mama brightened. “Possibly seven, if Celeste returns from Bath. But Celeste hardly counts, because she always brings her own maid.”

Poppy released a slow breath. “You have invited seven more people into this house?”

Lady Viva waved her hand again. “They were in need.”

“We are in need.” Poppy nearly stamped her foot.

As usual, Mama looked faintly bored by arithmetic. “Oh, sweetie, need is so unfashionable when discussed plainly.”

Poppy pressed two fingers to the point between her brows. “Where are you proposing to put them?”

“Beds may be shared, darling.”

“They may not.”

“Then sofas may be used.”

“Mama.”

“What? I have slept on sofas all across Europe. Some of them were quite accommodating.”