Page 75 of The Wallflower Takes All

“No. I imagine not.”

The baron inclined his head. “There are rumors, naturally.”

“There are always rumors.” Gabriel’s voice was low.

“About Lady Montague in particular.” Lord Ketterham’s mouth tightened. “I do not attend much to gossip. Still, one hears things. That her household is…lively.”

Lively.

A mild word for a house containing false counts, expiring poets, unpaid tradesmen, wandering sopranos, and Lady Viva Montfort asking whether seed cake might be improved with brandy at all hours of the day and night.

“Lively,” Gabriel repeated.

“Unsettled, perhaps. Improvident. Lady Montague herself is said to be charming, but a great deal to manage.”

A great deal to manage.

Gabriel thought of Miss Montfort in the drawing room the previous day, aligning papers, moving vases, paying tradesmen, and managing nonsense. He thought of her standing next to him near the front door with her smile gone at last, saying her mother had never meant to leave so much of it to her.

But she had.

“Lady Montague is not malicious,” Gabriel said.

“No one has suggested she is.”

“She is generous.”

Ketterham lifted a brow. “That can be its own form of difficulty.”

“Yes,” Gabriel agreed. “It can.”

Lord Ketterham’s gaze held steady. “I will be plain, Mr. Ashby. I am not seeking grand passion. I have had affection once and value its memory. What I desire now is a peaceful household. Companionship. Order. A wife of sense. Miss Montfort appears to possess those virtues in admirable quantity. But I have no wish to invite permanent tumult into my home.”

Permanent tumult. That was the true concern.

Money, fortunately, was not the obstacle. Peace was.

Lord Ketterham wanted Miss Montfort’s steadiness, her competence, her pretty smile, her careful mind.

He did not want the life that had made those virtues necessary.

“You wish to know whether Lady Montague would come with her,” Gabriel said.

Lord Ketterham did not flinch. “Plainly put, yes. And whether, if she did so, I would live to regret my decision.”

Gabriel could have refused the entire subject. He should refuse, perhaps. Lady Montague’s affairs were not his to lay bare. Miss Montfort’s humiliations were not his to display so that this man might decide whether they outweighed her blue eyes and capable hands.

“The particulars of Lady Montague’s finances and household are confidential,” Gabriel said. “I am not at liberty to discuss them.”

“I would not ask you to violate confidence.”

But he had asked, very nearly.

“I do not ask for figures,” Lord Ketterham continued. “I ask for judgment. Since you have observed the family at close quarters, are the rumors exaggerated?”

There was the question Gabriel had been waiting for. Lord Ketterham wanted judgment rather than figures, and Gabriel knew precisely whose future that judgment might alter.

He could soften the answer. He could say Lady Montague’s household inspired more gossip than it deserved. He could praise Miss Montfort so forcefully that Ketterham forgot to worry about the rest.