Chapter Ten #2
Poppy allowed herself a little hope, though she kept a firm hand on it after what had happened with Lord Rillington. Hope, she had learned, must be portioned like sugar in a household with bills.
Soon, Lord Ketterham offered Poppy his arm and asked whether she would care to take a turn about the room. She accepted, grateful for motion and the useful privacy of a crowded ballroom.
They spoke of the Season, the press of the room, and the verity of calling any gathering this size small. Lord Ketterham proved dry rather than sparkling, but Poppy liked dry. Dry did not promise to write operas, die on sofas, or invest one’s mother in foreign ventures.
After several minutes, Lord Ketterham looked toward the dancers. “May I have the honor?”
Poppy glanced once at Bea, whose face did not change but whose entire posture seemed to shout yes.
“I should be pleased,” Poppy said.
Lord Ketterham led her to the floor.
He danced competently, with more diligence than grace.
Some men moved with effortless confidence, every step carrying the ease of birthright rather than instruction.
Lord Ketterham counted the figures under his breath once, caught himself, and gave her a look of such earnest apology that Poppy nearly laughed.
“I am better at figures,” he said.
“Then we may have something in common.” Also, sensible.
“So I was told. Lady Vanover described you as capable.”
Poppy’s breath caught.
Capable.
So that was tonight’s word? It should have pleased her.
Bea had meant it as praise; Lord Ketterham clearly meant it as praise.
Yet it struck Poppy with the peculiar ache of being measured for usefulness.
A capable woman could manage children, accounts, servants, households, and difficult relations.
She got the distinct impression that was precisely what Lord Ketterham was looking for.
Not far away, Mr. Ashby had stopped speaking to Lord Vanover.
He did not say anything. He did not need to. The look in his eyes told her enough. He had heard the word, and somehow, impossibly, seemed to understand why it had hurt her.
The next turn carried her away before she had to answer Lord Ketterham. When the dance returned them to one another, he said, “I admire a practical turn of mind.”
“Do you?” How romantic.
“Very much. I have little patience for foolishness. Marriage is for the procreation of children…to secure the line.”
Poppy ought to have recoiled from the plainness of it. Instead, she appreciated being spared the trouble of pretending this was anything other than what it was: a practical arrangement, not a lover’s vow. “You make marriage sound like a position.”
“In part, it is.”
She forced a smile. “Most gentlemen would not say so while dancing with a lady.”
“I am not romantic by temperament, Miss Montfort,” he continued. “I do not say that as a boast. Merely a fact. But I am not unkind. I value companionship, competence, and good sense. I should prefer a marriage in which both parties know what they are offering and what they require.”
Poppy looked at him. What are you offering? What do you require?
The questions were blunt enough to bruise her heart and practical enough to steady her mind.
If practical was what Lord Ketterham wanted, then practical was what he would receive. “I require security,” she said before she could lose courage. “For myself. And some provision for my mother.”
Lord Ketterham’s gaze moved, briefly, toward Lady Viva.
Poppy braced herself.
Mama was laughing again, her head tipped back, one hand on Lord Crampton’s sleeve. Lord Crampton looked captivated. Or greedy. Sometimes, with men of a certain age, the two were difficult to distinguish.
“Lady Montague is lively,” Ketterham said.
“That is one word for it,” Poppy allowed.
“I have known worse qualities in a mother-in-law.”
Poppy looked back at him quickly.
He did not look horrified. He looked amused, faintly wary, and far too sensible to be deceived by denials.
“You are not alarmed?” she asked.
“I am often alarmed. I have learned not to show it in public.”
Well. That made her laugh.
His expression eased at the sound, and Poppy felt another small shift inside her. Mr. Ashby unsettled her in ways she had no wish to examine. Lord Ketterham, by contrast, suggested something quieter, steadier, like a door opening upon a well-kept room.
Perhaps that was enough.
Perhaps that was what a sensible marriage was. A well-kept room. Paid accounts. Known expectations. No borrowed time. No note from Algernon Montfort arriving to tear the floor from beneath her.
A home. Not love, perhaps. But safety. And if safety did not make one’s heart race, perhaps that was because racing hearts were not always reliable organs.
The dance ended. Lord Ketterham bowed over her hand. “I have been too direct,” he said.
“Perhaps.”
His brows rose.
Poppy smiled faintly. “But not unkind.”
“I am relieved by the distinction. And I shall be direct again and ask whether I may call tomorrow.”
Poppy’s pulse beat hard once. “Yes,” she said. “You may.”
“And if you are willing, perhaps I might take you driving in the park. With whatever companion you prefer, of course.”
Poppy looked past him toward Bea and Georgie. Bea’s face was triumphant. Georgie’s eyes shone with careful, cautious joy.
Poppy turned back to Lord Ketterham. “I would like that,” she said.
He bowed again. “Then tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
He escorted her back to her friends, spoke briefly with Lord Vanover, then was claimed by an older lady Poppy did not know.
The moment he was out of hearing, Bea seized Poppy’s arm. “Well?”
“He is a possibility,” Poppy said.
Georgie exhaled. “Possibility is excellent.”
“Possibility is practically romantic under the circumstances,” Bea said.
“He asked to call tomorrow,” Poppy admitted. “And to drive with me in the park.”
Georgie eyes lit. “Poppy!”
“I know.” Poppy’s own smile trembled. “I know.”
Bea’s grip tightened. “This is good.”
It was good.
It had to be good.
Lord Ketterham was titled, wealthy, respectable, and practical. He had asked to call. He offered exactly the sort of future Poppy had claimed to want: honesty, competence, mutual advantage, and a household where the roof remained securely over one’s head.
Then she found Mr. Ashby across the room.
He stood beside Lord Vanover, grave and still, one hand closed around a glass he had made no attempt to drink. His attention did not accuse her. That would have been easier. It seemed to ask whether Lord Ketterham had seen the woman beneath all that usefulness.
Poppy excused herself from Bea and Georgie under the pretense of wanting lemonade.
Mr. Ashby met her near the edge of the ballroom before she reached the refreshment table.
“Lord Ketterham asked to call,” she said.
“So I understand.”
“That is good.”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“You sound unconvinced.”
His mouth tightened. “I am attempting to sound professional.”
“At a ball?”
“I find the habit difficult to discard.”
That nearly made her smile.
“He is a respectable man,” Mr. Ashby said.
“Yes.”
“Financially sound,” Mr. Ashby added.
“Yes.”
“Plain-spoken.”
“Quite,” Poppy agreed.
Mr. Ashby looked past her toward Lord Ketterham, then back to Poppy. “Be certain he is plain-spoken about the right things.”
Her fingers tightened around her glass. “Meaning?”
“A man may admire your competence and still fail to value what it has cost you.”
Poppy’s breath caught.
Mr. Ashby’s voice lowered. “You are more than the household you manage, Miss Montfort. If he is wise, he will understand that before he asks anything of you.”
The words should have comforted her.
Instead, they made everything far more difficult.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, at a loss for anything better to say.
He bowed, the movement correct enough to belong to a stranger. “I hope he proves worthy of the call.”
So did Poppy. That was the trouble.
It should have filled her mind entirely.
For several minutes, it did.
She danced once more with another gentleman, spoke to Lord Vanover about nothing she could later recall, accepted another glass of lemonade, and watched Mama evade Lord Crampton’s increasingly hopeful remarks with the skill of decades spent charming men she had no intention of encouraging.
All the while, one thought should have repeated in Poppy’s mind.
Lord Ketterham will call tomorrow.
Instead, as the music swelled and the candlelight shimmered across the ballroom, Poppy found her hand lifting to the spot at her throat where Mr. Ashby had touched her.
Everything had changed: the gown, the room, the gentleman now promised to call. Still, beneath the pink satin, beneath the careful smile, beneath the cautious hope that Lord Ketterham might be the answer she had been hoping for, her skin remembered where Mr. Ashby’s mouth had met her cheek.
Worse, she remembered how desperately she had wanted him to turn his head and kiss her properly. To forget the open door, the waiting carriage, the whole watching world, and put his mouth to hers as if restraint had never stood a chance.