Page 39 of The Wallflower Takes All

Then the brightness faltered.

She turned slightly away from him, closed her eyes, and drew one careful breath. It was only one breath, so small a movement that another man might have missed it. But Gabriel saw the way her shoulders lifted, the way her gloved fingers pressed briefly against the back of the chair, and the way she gathered herself before facing him again.

Something in his chest tightened.

It was not pity, because he knew pity, and pity looked down. This was something else, far more inconvenient—the instinct to step closer and take the weight from her hands before she noticed she had dropped it.

He remained where he was.

“They have offered to help,” she said.

“That is good,” he managed.

“Yes.” She smiled, but the edges of her mouth trembled. “Lady Pembroke means to give a dinner. And Lady Vanover a ball. She believes a ball is efficient.” She paused before adding, “What do you think?”

Gabriel did not immediately answer.

Why did she care what he thought?

The question came to his mind so sharply that it felt almost accusatory. He was her solicitor, and she had no business treating his opinion as though it carried any weight beyond deeds, debts, and legal correspondence.

Then the answer arrived, unwelcome and obvious.

There was no other sensible adult in her household to ask.

Lady Viva floated from calamity to calamity on laughter and silk. The late viscount was a portrait on a wall. His own father had been indulgent, perhaps kind, but he had not forced the truth upon them early enough.

Had Miss Montfort asked him questions in this same careful way?

Had she looked across the desk at his father, waiting for guidance, because there had been no one else to give it?

The thought settled badly.

“A dinner and a ball,” Gabriel said at last, because she was still waiting.

“Yes.”

“With eligible gentlemen invited for the purpose of courtship?”

Color touched her cheeks. “When you put it like that, it sounds dreadful.”

“It sounds direct.”

“That is not better.”

“No,” he admitted. “Perhaps not.”

Her gaze searched his face. “You disapprove.”

“No.”

“You have a very disapproving silence.”

The hint of a smile touched his lips. “So you have informed me.”

Her smile returned, smaller this time. “Then you approve?”

He looked at her—the wind-touched curls, the hope she did not quite trust, the bravery she wore as though it cost nothing—and thought of every man in London who might see only red hair, blue eyes, and a pretty solution to his own ambitions.