Page 22 of The Wallflower Takes All

“Mr. Ashby,” she said, because she needed the conversation returned to firmer ground, “do you think me foolish for wanting to remain in Society? To not immediately choose to move to the countryside?”

“No.”

She had expected hesitation. There was none.

“You answered quite quickly.”

“Because the answer is plain.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Wanting security is not foolish. Wanting to remain in the world you were born into, rather than being cast from it because men arranged property to favor other men, is not foolish.”

Poppy’s throat tightened. For one wild moment, she wished he had been less kind. No, not kind. Kindness was soft. This was something steadier. He had not made her problem prettier. He had not said there, there. He had not suggested it would all come right because saying so cost nothing.

He had simply looked at the truth and refused to make her feel foolish for being frightened by it.

She disliked him a little for that. It was much easier to resent a man when he was pompous or trite.

But then Mama called from the salon, “Poppy, sweetie, if you are still with the handsome solicitor, ask whether legal men approve of widows marrying dashing foreigners!”

Poppy closed her eyes.

Mr. Ashby made a sound that might have been a cough.

“No,” Poppy called back. “They do not.”

“You did not ask him!”

“I guessed.”

“Quite oppressive, darling!”

Poppy opened her eyes and found Mr. Ashby watching her, not with amusement exactly, though there was some of that, but with a look that made her feel both steadier and less steady at once.

“I should go,” she said again.

“Yes,” he replied.

Neither moved.

Then Freddie barked, Mr. Loxley loudly declared that his pulse was becoming faint, and from somewhere overhead came the crash of what sounded very much like a porcelain basin meeting its end. The Frenchwoman, perhaps.

Poppy lifted her chin, gathered Algernon’s letter from the desk, and gave Mr. Ashby her brightest smile. It felt less false than usual. “Wish me luck, Mr. Ashby.”

He pressed his lips together. “In what endeavor?”

“With the titled gentlemen of England, of course.”

His expression changed. It was only a little. But she saw it.

“Good luck, Miss Montfort,” he said.

Poppy turned and left the study before she could do something useless, such as wonder whether he meant it.

By the time she reached the stairs, she had already begun composing a mental note to Bea in her mind.

Dear Bea,