Page 40 of The Wallflower Takes All

“I think,” he said carefully, “that Lady Vanover is correct. A ball is efficient.”

Miss Montfort stared at him for one beat. Then she laughed. “Good heavens. That is the least romantic thing anyone has ever said about a ball.”

Gabriel should not have liked the sound. “I was not aware romance was the purpose.”

“No,” she said, her smile fading. “I suppose it isn’t.”

Relief should have followed. Instead, the words settled uneasily in his chest.

She turned to go, then paused. “Oh, and Mr. Ashby?”

“Yes?”

“Lady Vanover says if you manage to secure us more time from Algernon, she will consider you one of the useful men.”

His brows lifted. “High praise?”

“From Bea? Practically a coronet.”

Then she was gone, taking all the light from the room with her.

Gabriel remained standing long after her steps faded down the hall.

On the desk, the Montfort accounts waited. His notebook lay open, the final line crossed through but still legible beneath the ink.

Conclude account upon settlement of urgent matters.

There was no hidden money. No generous heir. No tidy law to save them.

He had never spent more time—unpaid time at that—trying to find something, anything, to assist a client.

Unfortunately, the only things left were a looming date, a dim young viscount with an apparent taste for snuff, and Miss Montfort’s increasingly urgent need to marry.

Professionally speaking, Lady Vanover and Lady Pembroke’s assistance was a promising development.

So why did Gabriel hate it?

Chapter Six

Two nights later

By the time Poppy had dressed for Georgie’s dinner, Mama had lost one glove, found a different glove belonging to no one in the household, and announced that she intended to bring a man who claimed to be a count with them.

Poppy wore the new blue silk Mama had insisted upon, the one that made Poppy’s eyes look larger and more lovely than was strictly necessary. Every seam of it had been purchased on credit, which made the gown feel less like finery than a wager.

“Count Bellarosa,” Mama said from her dressing table, holding a diamond earbob to one ear and a topaz one to the other. “Or Bellarose. Possibly Bellarosi. It changes according to his mood, darling.”

“It should not change at all,” Poppy said, attempting to retrieve the diamond earbob before Mama added it to the topaz. “Names are not meant to shift with the weather.”

Mama sighed. “Well, neither are men, darling, and yet they often do. I have no idea where Mr. Fenwick went.”

Ignoring that, Poppy took the diamond earbob, set it on the dressing table, and selected its match. “You cannot bring a man no one knows to Georgie’s dinner.”

“I know him.”

“You just met him.”

“That is not the same as not knowing him. It is merely knowing him recently.”