Page 88 of The Wallflower Takes All

She nodded once. “That Lord Ketterham did not deserve me?”

“Yes. It was not my place.”

“No,” she said softly. “It was not.”

Gabriel looked at her.

The faint breeze stirred the ribbons of her bonnet. A curl had loosened at her temple. He remembered the ribbon beneath her chin and the breathless second in which he had nearly abandoned every sensible resolution he possessed.

She held his gaze. “Why did you say it?” she asked.

He should have answered carefully.

Because Lord Ketterham’s intentions were inadequate. Because she required a husband willing to accept the obligations accompanying the match. Because candor had always been Gabriel’s habit.

All were true enough to be defensible. None was honest enough to satisfy her.

“Because I could not bear it,” he said.

Her fingers stilled against her skirt. “Could not bear what?”

“The thought of you marrying a man who would take the easiest portions of you and resent the rest.”

Poppy stared at him, her eyes growing wider.

Gabriel had begun now. There was no graceful retreat.

“You are not merely useful,” he said. “You are not a sensible addition to someone’s household or a pretty face across a dining table. You are not a calculation to be balanced against your mother’s improvidence. Any man who asks you to marry him should understand your worth before he asks. He should value your loyalty, your wit, your courage, and the innate kindness that makes you apologize for disasters you did not create.”

Her eyes had gone bright with unshed tears. “And Mama?” she asked.

Gabriel drew a slow breath. “He should understand that Lady Montague is part of the bargain. He should know she will invite fraudulent counts to dinner, encourage poets to expire upon his furniture, and call him sweetie until he loses the will to object.”

Poppy’s mouth trembled. “And Freddie?” she asked.

Gabriel looked down at the puppy, who had begun investigating his boot with unbridled enthusiasm. “He will have to tolerate the dog as well.”

“Even with ducks?”

“Especially with ducks.”

Her laugh was soft, but it faded quickly. She searched his face with an openness that made him feel exposed in a way no courtroom, negotiation, or professional error ever had.

“You have given this a great deal of thought,” she said.

Gabriel knew the ground beneath him had become unsteady... He continued regardless. “I have spent several days considering your circumstances.”

“As my solicitor.”

“Yes, and?—”

She waited. The two words sat between them, insufficient and unfinished.

“And?” she repeated, biting her lip.

Gabriel’s restraint frayed. The wind lifted one ribbon of her bonnet and laid it briefly against her cheek. Gabriel wanted to touch it—wanted to touch her.

The impulse had been with him the previous night, in the drawing room that morning, and every time she smiled through something that ought to have made her weep.