Page 97 of The Wallflower Takes All

“I have not said what it is.”

“You need not.”

His father’s expression remained mild, which was usually when he was most dangerous. “You are unmarried.”

“And Miss Montfort is a viscount’s daughter,” Gabriel said. “Lady Viva may like me well enough as a solicitor. She may even find me useful. But she would not want me as a son-in-law.”

His father did not answer.

“She is far too accustomed to her comforts,” Gabriel continued. “Comforts I cannot provide. Nor could I give Miss Montfort the life she knows. Ballrooms. Drawing rooms. Every connection her birth still grants her, however precariously.”

“And you believe Miss Montfort would value those things above you?”

“I believe she would try not to.” Gabriel’s voice roughened despite his efforts to keep it even. “That is precisely the danger. She would try to make do with less. She would try to make Lady Viva fit inside a life too small for her. She would tell herself affection was sufficient and call every loss a choice because she is brave enough to do it.”

His father’s gaze held his.

For a moment, neither man spoke.

They did not need to.

The shape of his mother’s name stood between them, unspoken and unmistakable.

Gabriel looked away first. “I will not ask that of Poppy.”

His father leaned back in his chair. “Very well. If you are done being her solicitor, then decide what you are to her instead. But do not pretend that abandoning the work is the same as protecting her.”

“Abandon is an unfair word,” Gabriel insisted.

“It is an accurate one.”

Gabriel’s hands tightened into fists, but he could not argue the point. The only thing that made his father’s little speeches more annoying was how often they were accurate.

“You began this,” his father said quietly. “The legal matter, the promises, the hope that someone would help her hold that house together a little longer. If you must change the terms, then change them. But see it through yourself.”

The office seemed suddenly too quiet. Outside, wheels rattled along the street. A bell rang from some distant shop. Ordinary London continued while his father dismantled one of Gabriel’s most reliable convictions with maddening composure.

“My judgment is impaired,” Gabriel said.

“You believe affection and judgment are enemies,” the elder Mr. Ashby said. “They are not. Judgment without affection may become cruelty. Affection without judgment may become indulgence. A man requires both.”

Gabriel’s gaze dropped to the notebook.

Recommend alternate solicitor.

Conclude account upon settlement of urgent matters.

Those had been the easy instructions. The neat ones. The plan prepared before he had seen Poppy’s careful little book, before he had watched her straighten tea trays when she was anxious, before he had understood the exhaustion concealed beneath her laughter.

He could find another solicitor. He could still hand over the account. But now his father’s words settled heavy in his middle.

Gabriel swallowed. “My feelings are involved.”

“I know.” His father regarded him for a long moment. “But would leaving her now serve her interests?”

Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“She has little time,” his father said. “Lord Montague has refused to delay. Lady Viva remains Lady Viva. Miss Montfort has relied upon you to review the settlement, manage the correspondence, and determine whether anything may yet be done. If you disappear because you have discovered she matters to you, what will she hear?”