Page 7 of The Wallflower Takes All

By morning, the house had gone hushed. By the next day, there were whispered consultations, closed doors, the bitter smell of physic, his father’s face drawn white around the mouth. Then black crepe. Then silence. Then the terrible understanding that his mother’s last lesson to him had been about truth, and he had failed it.

No adult had blamed him. No one had connected a stolen sweet to a fever.

But a boy’s mind did not require evidence to pass sentence. Somewhere inside him, fault and loss had fused. Carelessness invited catastrophe. A lapse in duty could be answered by punishment beyond bearing. So, Gabriel had made himself exact. Careful. Correct. If he did the proper thing every time, if he mastered every figure, every rule, every obligation, perhaps disaster could be kept at bay.

Rules held still. Figures added up. Duty, properly governed, did not vanish in a fever.

The Montfort household, however, seemed determined to test every one of those convictions.

Behind Miss Montfort, from an unseen room, a woman’s voice called, “Poppy, darling, if it is not the flower merchant, ask whether he has brought champagne.”

Miss Montfort shut her eyes for the briefest moment.

When she opened them, the expression on her face was composed, pleasant, and false enough to insult them both.

“Mr. Ashby,” she said, with a curtsy that almost succeeded in being graceful, save for the puppy choosing that instant to thrust his snout beneath the hem of her gown. “Forgive me. We were not expecting you quite so early.”

Gabriel glanced at the longcase clock near the stairs. “I believe we agreed upon half past ten.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Exactly. That is what I meant. We were not expecting half past ten to arrive so early.”

The butler, Jenkins, stared straight ahead, his posture immaculate and his thoughts plainly elsewhere.

Gabriel removed his hat. “I see.”

Miss Montfort’s smile sharpened. “I rather doubt that. You look like someone who always knows what time it is.”

He looked at her then, properly, though he ought not to have.

There was humor in her eyes, and discomposure, and something more carefully hidden beneath both. Fatigue, perhaps. Worry. The sort of tension that lived in the corners of the mouth and behind the shoulders, despite every effort to stand prettily.

His father’s voice, unwelcome and precise, arrived in Gabriel’s memory.

Too much to bear for one so young.

Gabriel stiffened inwardly. That was how it began, was it not? One noticed a tremor in a voice, a tiredness behind a smile, a young woman trying to hold up a collapsing household with nothing but charm and stubbornness, and suddenly one had become his father—tossing away rules in favor of feelings.

No.

Gabriel felt the danger of it with unwelcome clarity. Miss Montfort faced him with brisk, embarrassed courage while trying to brace an entire house with her shoulders and call it courtesy. A weaker man would admire that and mistake admiration for obligation. A lonely one would want to help her simply because she needed help.

Gabriel intended to avoid both traps.

“Miss Montfort,” he said, “I am here to review the accounts, not to inspect the household.”

“Fortunate,” she replied, “as the household is not at its best.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is it often at its best?”

The question escaped before he could prevent it.

But instead of taking offense, the corner of Miss Montfort’s lips twitched. “We have been unable to determine that. It changes far too quickly.”

He should not smile. But he very nearly did.

From the salon came the same woman’s voice again. “Poppy! If Mr. Ashby has arrived, tell him I am in mourning.”

Miss Montfort turned her head to the side. “Mama, you are not in mourning. Papa died ten years ago.”