Chapter Nine
Gabriel scarcely slept, which was both irritating and inefficient. By morning, he had formed a profound dislike for bonnet ribbons.
Ribbons, in general, were harmless things. They tied hats, trimmed gowns, and occasionally held papers together when string could not be located. They did not trouble rational men. They did not hover in the memory like a test one had failed by passing too near temptation.
Miss Montfort’s ribbon, however, had proved singularly destructive.
He had kissed her.
A restrained kiss, yes. A brush against her cheek, close enough to her mouth to haunt him through the small hours.
A gentleman determined to defend himself might argue that he had stopped before the true abandonment of sense.
Gabriel had spent the entire night attempting that defense and finding it shabby.
He had touched her because he wanted to. He had kissed her because restraint had failed. Freddie’s bark had merely prevented failure from becoming disaster.
Gabriel stood in his office the next morning, marriage contract in hand, and instructed himself to be grateful for canine interruptions.
It did not work.
He could still see Miss Montfort in the dim foyer, the open door at his back, her face tilted toward his. He could still feel the slight brush of ribbon against his glove and the reckless, astonishing certainty that if he kissed her once, one kiss would not be nearly enough.
Which was precisely why he must think of the matter no more.
His duty was clear. He would deliver the reviewed marriage contract. He would advise Miss Montfort about terms, protections, debts, and whatever provisions might be secured on Lady Viva’s behalf. He would continue to seek time from Lord Montague. He would do what could reasonably be done.
And he would help Miss Montfort marry another man.
A titled man.
A wealthy man.
A man whose life could absorb Lady Viva, Freddie, unpaid tradesmen, poets of unreliable mortality, and Poppy Montfort’s brave, impossible smile.
It would not be Gabriel.
He had been raised to understand his place in the world.
Solicitors did not marry noblemen’s daughters, even impoverished ones with scandalous mothers.
His own plan for marriage had always been sensible.
Establish the practice, expand the client list, pay off the last lingering debts his father had ignored in the name of compassion, and, perhaps when he was thirty, marry a woman suited to his life. He had two more years.
She would be a professional man’s daughter, perhaps. Someone steady. Someone who understood economy, punctuality, and the soothing virtues of a quiet breakfast.
Someone who did not make him want to forget quiet breakfasts had ever existed.
Gabriel took his hat, tucked the marriage contract beneath his arm, and left before his thoughts could grow any less useful.
The Montfort front door stood open when he arrived, which was rarely a promising sign.
Inside the foyer, Freddie raced in a triumphant circle with a folded sheet of paper in his mouth while Jenkins pursued him with dignified despair.
“Freddie,” Jenkins called.
The spaniel skidded around the hall table.
“Freddie,” Jenkins repeated, with a severity that had no visible effect.
Gabriel set down his hat and the papers, waited until the puppy made another loop, then stepped neatly into his path.
Freddie attempted to swerve.
He failed.
Gabriel caught him beneath the forelegs and lifted him. The dog wriggled, paper clenched between his teeth, eyes bright with surprise.
“You have been apprehended,” Gabriel informed him.
Freddie growled around the paper.
“Your objection is noted.”
Jenkins accepted the dog with visible relief. “Thank you, sir.”
Gabriel extracted the page. It was not a bill, a legal notice, or a letter from Lord Montague.
It was a…poem?
Dearest Viva, should this frail heart surrender
Before the moon has lost her silver splendor—
Gabriel stopped. Mr. Loxley, no doubt. “Has his condition worsened?”
Jenkins looked at the poem. “It appears to fluctuate according to the availability of an audience.”
Gabriel shook his head. “Remarkable.”
A laugh came from the drawing room doorway.
Gabriel looked up.
Miss Montfort stood there in a pale-yellow morning gown, one hand resting lightly against the doorframe. Her bright curls had begun slipping from their pins, and a faint smudge of ink marked the side of one finger. She looked tired. She also looked amused.
The sight affected him in a manner no tired young lady in a morning gown ought to affect any solicitor alive.
“Good morning, Mr. Ashby,” she said.
The public formality told him she remembered precisely how the previous evening had ended.
So did he. “Miss Montfort.”
Her gaze dipped to the packet on the entryway table. “You have brought the contract.”
“Yes.”
She sighed. “Not that I have a prospect for signing it. But shall we discuss it in the drawing room?”
At that moment, a woman’s voice cried out from the drawing room, a note so piercing it sent Freddie barking in alarm.
Miss Montfort winced. “That is the soprano. I should explain.”
“I am developing a habit of wishing you would not need to,” Gabriel replied.
Her lips twitched. “That is very nearly kind, Mr. Ashby.”
Gabriel knew he should have given her the documents and left. He had become far too preoccupied with her mouth. Instead, he found himself grabbing the papers and following her into the drawing room.
The room looked as if a small riot had occurred.
Two tradesmen stood near the mantel, one clutching his hat, the other maintaining civility by the thinnest possible thread.
Lady Stone reclined on a sofa, awake but no more useful for it.
The woman Gabriel surmised was the soprano stood near the pianoforte with one hand pressed to her throat, looking personally betrayed by her vocal cords.
A gentleman Gabriel could not identify occupied a chair by the window and appeared to be asleep.
Upon the central sofa lay Mr. Loxley. The poet had one hand arranged over his heart, the other trailing toward the carpet, and his dark hair spread upon a cushion in a manner that suggested a corpse determined to be admired.
“Mr. Ashby, Poppy,” Lady Viva called from near the hearth. “Darlings, you may want to go to the study.”
“For what purpose?” Gabriel asked.
“Mr. Loxley’s death appears imminent,” Lady Viva informed him.
Mr. Loxley opened one eye. “Possibly.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Mr. Loxley. “Still?”
The poet blinked.
Miss Montfort made a sound that was very nearly a laugh.
Gabriel turned.
She had pressed her lips together, but humor lit her eyes.
This laughter was different from the bright, defensive sort she used to survive difficult rooms. It was real and irrepressible, and for one moment, despite the odd assembly surrounding them, she looked almost restored by the ridiculousness of it all.
Gabriel wanted to make her laugh again. The impulse unsettled him. He turned back to Mr. Loxley. “You appear remarkably durable.”
Mr. Loxley sighed. “Tragedy has always nourished me.”
“Cake nourishes him better,” Lady Viva said. “Sweetie, tell Cook to send up the rest of the seed cake. If Mr. Loxley is to expire, he should do it fortified.”
“I may not expire,” Mr. Loxley said, cracking open one eyelid.
“But you also may,” Miss Montfort said, laughter still trembling around the words.
“A man may recline without mortal consequence,” Mr. Loxley announced.
“In most households, perhaps,” Gabriel said dryly.
Miss Montfort looked at him, and this time she laughed. It was not much. A few soft, helpless notes. But it went through him with more force than it should have done.
Gabriel frowned. He was not here to make Miss Montfort laugh. He was here to deliver a marriage contract that would help her marry another man.
Gabriel adjusted his grip on the papers.
Miss Montfort recovered herself and turned to the tradesmen. “Mr. Vale, Mr. Greaves, I have not forgotten either of you.”
The taller tradesman shifted. “Begging your pardon, miss, but it has been several weeks.”
“I know.” Her voice gentled. “And I am sorry for it. Mr. Greaves, I can give you something on account today. Mr. Vale, I must ask until Friday.”
“Friday,” Mr. Vale repeated, with the dreary patience born of hearing Friday promised often and paid seldom.
“This Friday,” Miss Montfort continued. “Not Friday as a philosophical concept.”
Gabriel lowered his gaze. He was not certain whether he was hiding amusement or admiration. Perhaps both.
Miss Montfort moved to a small writing table in the corner and began sorting coins from a purse. Three piles. No, four. Household, tradesmen, servants, and what appeared to be nothing at all.
Gabriel watched her fingers hesitate over the smallest pile.
Then, with a barely perceptible tightening of her mouth, she moved one coin from that pile to the tradesman’s portion.
Something in him resisted the motion.
It was foolish. The coin was not his. The debt was not his. The household was not his affair beyond the limits of his professional duties.
Still, he saw what she had done.
She had paid someone else with money meant for herself.
Lady Viva saw none of it. She had turned to the soprano and was earnestly asking whether her health was improved by singing in Italian. Mr. Loxley had pulled himself up now that cake had been mentioned.
Freddie, having devoured a biscuit, slipped beneath the writing table and emerged with a folded glove in his mouth.
“Freddie,” Miss Montfort said without looking up.
The puppy froze.
“That is not yours.”
Freddie sat.
“You cannot keep it merely because you have sat politely.”
Freddie dropped the glove, then rested his paw upon it.
“I am sorry, but touching it does not make it yours,” Miss Montfort added.
Gabriel stepped forward, retrieved the glove, and held it out.
Miss Montfort looked up.
For a moment, her fingers brushed his. This time there was no glove between them.