Page 21 of The Wallflower Takes All

That was the awful thing. He was not making light of it. He was taking her predicament seriously, perhaps more seriously than anyone had taken her in years.

Poppy looked down at Freddie, who had begun licking the toe of her slipper with great devotion.

Marriage. Yes. It was the only reasonable answer. And she was not entirely without allies.

She had Bea and Georgie.

The thought steadied her so unexpectedly that she sat a little straighter. Their friendship had begun in a retiring room at a ball, the three of them hiding from lecherous fiancés, infuriating suitors, and scandalous mothers. They had called themselves The Wallflowers’ Revolt, half jest and half oath.

Georgie had escaped her unwanted marriage to a hideous, elderly marquess. And ended up married to an entirely different man altogether.

Bea had gone to war against her father’s political protégé and ended up married to the man she’d once skewered with her caricatures.

And Poppy?—

Poppy had laughed. Smoothed. Managed. Apologized. Tidied. Pretended.

Perhaps now it was her turn.

Not to run from marriage…but to find one.

The thought was so humbling, so practical, so unlike the grand rebellions of her friends, that she almost laughed. Yet if anyone would understand the strange courage required to choose a thing because one must, surely it would be Bea and Georgie.

She would go to them. She would ask for help.

This time it would be her revolt. Even if it seemed more like a surrender. Either way, it would be her first line of defense against the impossible.

“Thank you,” she said to Mr. Ashby, and the words came out quieter than she intended.

The solicitor inclined his head. Then he seemed to remember himself, reached for the letter, and folded it with precise care. “I shall write Lord Montague. I will request a delay. I will also review every relevant document again before I give you my final opinion.”

Poppy pressed her lips together. “But you do not expect your opinion to change.”

“No.”

There was that candor again.

She nodded. Freddie nudged her slipper. She stood, because sitting any longer felt perilous. “Then I must go see to things. I have friends who might help me secure a match.”

Mr. Ashby rose as well. “Today?”

“Yes.”

“You need not decide everything immediately.”

Poppy looked at him, and the laugh that left her held a spark of her usual brightness. “Mr. Ashby, I live in a house where my mother may invite seven strangers to stay at any given moment. If I do not decide things today, tomorrow there may be acrobats in the pantry.”

He considered that, frowning. “Are there often acrobats?”

“Not often.” A pause. “Not never.”

This time, he did smile. It was brief, controlled, and deeply inconvenient. It altered his face just enough to make her wonder what he would look like if he smiled without permission. Or laughed. Or lost control entirely.

Another unhelpful thought.

Outside the study, Mama’s laughter rose again, bright and extravagant, followed by Mr. Loxley calling, “I forgive the sun, but only barely.”

Mr. Ashby glanced toward the door. There was no mockery in his expression, which was almost worse. Mockery she knew how to survive. Pity she could deflect. But this grave attention, this listening quality, made her feel unnervingly close to being understood.