Page 98 of The Wallflower Takes All
Gabriel did not answer.
He knew.
Poppy would hear what Lord Ketterham had already implied.
Too much trouble.
Too much disorder.
Too much to take on.
His father’s voice gentled. “You have a job to complete. And perhaps a few things to admit to yourself before you decide what is truly honorable.”
Gabriel turned his head toward the window, his frustration mounting with each second. “Every answer available to her is greater than I am.”
“Is that so?” His father narrowed his eyes. “What do you believe she needs?”
Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest. “A title. A fortune. A secure home. A place in Society that cannot be laughed away because her mother invites fraudulent counts to dinner.”
“All useful things.”
“She needs them.”
“Perhaps.”
“And I do not have them.”
“Not all of them, no.”
His father’s agreement was quiet, but it still struck hard.
Gabriel glanced back at him. “What would you have me do?”
“Look at it differently.”
Gabriel scrubbed a hand through his hair. “At what?”
“At the problem, of course.”
Gabriel clenched his jaw.
“Assist her,” Father said simply.
Assist her? What the devil was that supposed to mean? He’d been trying to assist her and had done nothing but confuse the matter. She needed to marry a peer.
Is that what Father meant? Assist Poppy in marrying another man.
It was the honorable thing. The useful thing. The thing a man did when he had nothing adequate to offer and no right to let his own desire narrow a woman’s future.
His father studied him. “Do not tell yourself sacrifice is wise merely because it hurts. Pain is not proof of wisdom.”
Gabriel gave him a hard look. “Have you spent your retirement preparing speeches?”
“I have spent my retirement enjoying the opportunity to deliver them without charge.”
“Well, that explains the arrears.”
His father’s face broke into a wide smile. “Ah, excellent.”
