Page 33 of The Wallflower Takes All

“You should have.”

“Perhaps.”

Gabriel’s quill tapped once against the desk before he caught the motion and stilled it. “That is all you have to say?”

His father crossed to the chair opposite and sat without invitation, as he had done for thirty years and evidently meant to continue doing until the grave claimed him. “What would you like me to say?”

“That you allowed sentiment to overrule prudence.”

“I did.”

Gabriel looked up.

His father regarded him mildly.

The admission annoyed him more than denial would have done. “You put this firm in a difficult position.”

“No. I put you in an irritating one. There is a difference.”

Gabriel brought his closed fist down against the desktop. “A professional man must be paid.”

His father blinked at him innocently. “Yes.”

“And if clients cannot pay?”

“Then he must decide whether he values the coin more than the conscience.”

Gabriel leaned back. “That is precisely the sort of statement that creates unpaid accounts.”

“It is also the sort of statement that prevents old men from being ashamed of themselves.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

Outside, wheels rattled over the street. Somewhere below, the clerk coughed. Gabriel turned a page because silence, like disorder, could become too familiar if permitted to linger.

His father’s gaze settled on the account book. “That is Miss Montfort’s.”

“Yes.”

“She has a fine mind.”

Gabriel disliked how quickly he answered. “She has a careful one.”

“Ah. You noticed.”

“I noticed she has been doing work no young lady should have had to do.”

His father’s expression softened, and Gabriel immediately regretted the words. Their truth did not trouble him nearly so much as what they revealed.

“She was thirteen when Montague died,” his father said quietly. “Lady Viva was never the same afterward.”

“Grief does not pay tradesmen.”

“No,” his father said. “It does teach a man what is important, however.”

Gabriel’s hand stilled on the account book. He and his father would never agree on this subject. His father had come away from loss believing tenderness must be given wherever it was needed. Gabriel had come away with another lesson entirely: that what one loved could vanish without warning, that a careless act could sit in the mind for years, and that control was the only defense a man might hope to possess.

Proper conduct. Paid accounts. Clear rules. Duties kept in order.