Page 10 of The Wallflower Takes All
The household chaos flowed toward her from every direction, and she seemed to meet it all with soft hands, quick wit, and the bright composure required to carry a tray full of crystal over cracked ice.
His father had seen this. Of course he had.
He’d seen it and had stayed.
That, precisely, was the trouble.
“If it is convenient,” Gabriel said, “I should like to begin my review of the ledgers.”
Miss Montfort turned back to him. “Yes. Of course. They are in the study.” After a beat, she added, “Most of them.”
Gabriel frowned. “Most?”
“The important ones.” Another beat. “Probably.”
Lady Viva laughed. “Poppy keeps everything, sweetie. Scraps of paper, bills, letters, bits of ribbon. She is like a dragon with a tidy hoard.”
“I am not a dragon,” Miss Montfort said, scowling.
“No, darling. Dragons breathe fire. You merely breathe disappointment when someone moves your inkstand.”
Gabriel looked at Miss Montfort’s face and saw, for the first time, a flash of real weariness before she tucked it away. “Shall we?” she said brightly.
Too brightly.
Gabriel inclined his head. “Lead the way.”
The study sat at the back of the house and bore the scars of several competing purposes. It had once been a gentleman’s room, the late viscount’s, no doubt. The bones of it remained: dark shelves, a heavy desk, a globe in the corner, worn leather chairs, and a mantelpiece bearing a portrait of a light-haired gentleman with kind eyes and a laughing mouth.
But the room had been invaded.
Bills rested in neat stacks atop the desk. Fabric samples sat in a basket near the hearth. A broken fan lay beside sealing wax, a ribbon, two invitations, a dog-eared book of poems, three quills, and what appeared to be a child’s toy doll.
Miss Montfort moved quickly to the desk, shifting the ribbon aside, righting an ink pot, straightening a pile of papers that did not require straightening.
Gabriel noticed.
She noticed him noticing. “I know where everything is,” she said.
“I did not say otherwise.”
“You looked as if you were thinking it.”
“I assure you, Miss Montfort, I usually take greater pains to conceal my thoughts.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” She opened a drawer and withdrew a set of ledgers bound in cracked brown leather. “You have a very expressive disapproving silence.”
He looked at her.
She froze, then gave a quick laugh. “Forgive me. That was rude.”
“It was accurate,” he allowed.
Her eyes widened, and this time he did smile, though it was small and barely there.
Still, it felt like a lapse.
She stared at him for just long enough that he became aware of his own mouth, a development no reasonable gentleman could defend. And yet the awareness moved through him in a slow, gathering heat. Gabriel prided himself on measured silence, and he had never been so conscious of what his mouth might do if left unsupervised.
