Chapter Eleven
Gabriel received Lord Montague’s answer before ten o’clock the next morning.
It contained three sentences, one smear of snuff, and no mercy whatsoever.
Gabriel read it once. Then twice. Then a third time, because foolish hope, apparently, did not confine itself to young ladies in precarious circumstances. It afflicted solicitors as well.
Mr. Ashby,
I have received your communication on behalf of Lady Montague and must decline the requested extension.
My arrangements are already made, and I shall take possession of the London house at the week’s end, as previously indicated.
I trust Lady Montague and Miss Montfort will have seen to their own arrangements by then.
Montague.
Gabriel set the letter upon his desk.
For a moment, he only looked at it.
The week’s end.
No extension. No courtesy. No time for delicacy, grace, or the sort of gradual removal a widow and her unmarried daughter ought to have been allowed as a matter of common decency.
Damn the man.
Gabriel rose, crossed two paces toward the window, then turned back before he reached it. Walking would not improve the letter. Nor would glaring at three sentences written by a pompous fool whose claim to consequence rested entirely upon title, property, and the accident of birth.
Unfortunately, law did not require decency.
Only possession.
He returned to the desk and read the letter again.
No. Still no mercy.
His father would say something about human nature being disappointing in endlessly inventive ways. Gabriel would say Lord Montague was a complete horse’s arse.
Neither remark would give Miss Montfort more time.
He reached for a clean sheet of vellum and began drafting a reply before he trusted himself to think too long about her face when she heard.
He could imagine it with unwelcome clarity.
Her smile would hold. He knew that already.
It would probably hold with dreadful perfection while her fingers tightened around whatever object was nearest. A reticule.
A letter. Freddie’s ear, though the dog would object.
She would say she had expected nothing else. She would make some quip about curtains. Then later, perhaps where no one could see her, she would close her eyes and draw one of those careful breaths he had learned to recognize.
Gabriel’s quill stopped.
No.
He was not sitting in his office imagining how Miss Montfort would absorb another blow.
He was not measuring the shape of her courage or thinking of how she smoothed it over with laughter until everyone else was comfortable.
He was not becoming the sort of man who carried a client’s disappointment inside his own chest.
He dipped the quill again.
A second appeal could be drafted. A sterner one, perhaps, though there was little point. Lord Montague had rights, and rights, once held by fools, were among the most exasperating instruments in English law.
A knock sounded at the office door.
Before Gabriel could answer, his clerk opened it and peered in. “Lord Ketterham to see you, sir.”
Gabriel’s hand tightened around the quill.
Ketterham.
What in the devil’s name was he doing here?
“Show him in,” Gabriel said.
A moment later, Lord Ketterham entered.
Gabriel did not like the look of him any better today than he had at Lady Vanover’s ball, which was unreasonable. Last night, Ketterham had danced competently, spoken plainly, and behaved with all the restraint Gabriel ought to admire.
The problem was that Miss Montfort had smiled at him.
“My lord.” Gabriel indicated the chair opposite his desk. “Please.”
Lord Ketterham sat. His attention moved briefly over the papers on the desk, then returned to Gabriel. “I will not take much of your time. I understand you are acting for Lady Montague and Miss Montfort in certain matters.”
Gabriel drew in a slow breath. “I am.”
Why had Ketterham come? The thought sharpened something unpleasant beneath his ribs. Had the baron already made an offer? Had Miss Montfort already accepted it this morning? Perhaps Ketterham had come to discuss the marriage contract Poppy had drafted with such careful foresight.
Gabriel’s hand tightened on the edge of the desk before he made himself release it.
Lord Ketterham removed his gloves and laid them across one knee. “I hope I do not overstep. I have developed an interest in Miss Montfort.”
Gabriel kept his face still. “I see.”
Interest, then. Not an offer. Not an acceptance. Not yet.
Relief moved through him before he could prevent it, sharp enough to be humiliating and entirely too private to display.
“I met her last evening,” Ketterham continued after a pause. “I found her admirable.”
Admirable.
Gabriel disliked the word in another man’s mouth. Admiration sounded too cool for Poppy Montfort. Too pale and bloodless for the woman who laughed through disaster, paid tradesmen with money she needed for herself, and made courage look like courtesy.
“Miss Montfort is admirable,” Gabriel replied.
He heard the stiffness in his own voice and disliked that too.
Lord Ketterham studied him a moment. “I had thought to pay a call upon her today. To drive with her in the park.”
Gabriel said nothing.
The park was not his province. A gentleman’s call, a drive beneath the trees, Miss Montfort’s choice of companion—none of that required a solicitor’s opinion, however violently some uncivil part of him wished to provide one.
A marriage contract would have been different. Settlements, debts, provisions for Lady Montague, protections for Miss Montfort’s future—those belonged to him. Those he could discuss. Those gave him a place to stand.
This gave him nothing but the image of Poppy seated beside Ketterham in an open carriage, her bonnet ribbons stirring in the breeze while another man learned the sound of her laugh. An image he sorely wanted to banish from his thoughts.
“I am not entirely certain what this has to do with me, my lord,” he said, shifting in his seat.
Lord Ketterham leaned forward slightly. “I hoped to understand what entanglements may attend the match, should matters proceed.”
“Entanglements,” Gabriel repeated.
“I do not ask from idle curiosity,” Ketterham assured him.
“No. I imagine not.”
The baron inclined his head. “There are rumors, naturally.”
“There are always rumors.” Gabriel’s voice was low.
“About Lady Montague in particular.” Lord Ketterham’s mouth tightened. “I do not attend much to gossip. Still, one hears things. That her household is…lively.”
Lively.
A mild word for a house containing false counts, expiring poets, unpaid tradesmen, wandering sopranos, and Lady Viva Montfort asking whether seed cake might be improved with brandy at all hours of the day and night.
“Lively,” Gabriel repeated.
“Unsettled, perhaps. Improvident. Lady Montague herself is said to be charming, but a great deal to manage.”
A great deal to manage.
Gabriel thought of Miss Montfort in the drawing room the previous day, aligning papers, moving vases, paying tradesmen, and managing nonsense. He thought of her standing next to him near the front door with her smile gone at last, saying her mother had never meant to leave so much of it to her.
But she had.
“Lady Montague is not malicious,” Gabriel said.
“No one has suggested she is.”
“She is generous.”
Ketterham lifted a brow. “That can be its own form of difficulty.”
“Yes,” Gabriel agreed. “It can.”
Lord Ketterham’s gaze held steady. “I will be plain, Mr. Ashby. I am not seeking grand passion. I have had affection once and value its memory. What I desire now is a peaceful household. Companionship. Order. A wife of sense. Miss Montfort appears to possess those virtues in admirable quantity. But I have no wish to invite permanent tumult into my home.”
Permanent tumult. That was the true concern.
Money, fortunately, was not the obstacle. Peace was.
Lord Ketterham wanted Miss Montfort’s steadiness, her competence, her pretty smile, her careful mind.
He did not want the life that had made those virtues necessary.
“You wish to know whether Lady Montague would come with her,” Gabriel said.
Lord Ketterham did not flinch. “Plainly put, yes. And whether, if she did so, I would live to regret my decision.”
Gabriel could have refused the entire subject. He should refuse, perhaps. Lady Montague’s affairs were not his to lay bare. Miss Montfort’s humiliations were not his to display so that this man might decide whether they outweighed her blue eyes and capable hands.
“The particulars of Lady Montague’s finances and household are confidential,” Gabriel said. “I am not at liberty to discuss them.”
“I would not ask you to violate confidence.”
But he had asked, very nearly.
“I do not ask for figures,” Lord Ketterham continued. “I ask for judgment. Since you have observed the family at close quarters, are the rumors exaggerated?”
There was the question Gabriel had been waiting for. Lord Ketterham wanted judgment rather than figures, and Gabriel knew precisely whose future that judgment might alter.
He could soften the answer. He could say Lady Montague’s household inspired more gossip than it deserved. He could praise Miss Montfort so forcefully that Ketterham forgot to worry about the rest.
He could preserve the call, the drive, the next step toward the practical future she so desperately needed.
The honorable course was clear.
Gabriel recognized it.
Then he thought of Ketterham’s hand at Poppy’s waist, Ketterham’s dry voice calling her capable, Ketterham weighing how much of her life he was prepared to tolerate in exchange for all she might give him.
Gabriel heard himself answer before he could make the words gentler.
“The rumors are accurate enough to matter.”
Silence settled between the two men.
Lord Ketterham’s expression did not change at once. “I see.”
Gabriel sat very still.
He had told the truth. That defense rose immediately, polished and sturdy enough for court. Lady Viva was difficult to manage. The household was unsettled. Any man who married Miss Montfort while expecting tranquility would be disappointed before long.
But beneath the clean shape of truth sat an uglier fact.
Gabriel had wanted Lord Ketterham to recoil.
He did not want Lord Ketterham to drive Miss Montfort in the park.
He did not want her seated across from this calm, sensible man, trying to convince herself that usefulness could become enough.
He did not want another man deciding whether her mother made her too much trouble to cherish.
And none of those thoughts were in any way professional.
Gabriel kept his face still.
Lord Ketterham folded his gloves with careful precision. “I appreciate your candor.”
“I would not wish any man to misunderstand what he asks of Miss Montfort.”
“Nor would I. That is precisely why I came.”
“She is not the source of the disorder,” Gabriel hastened to add.
“I do not think she is.”
Gabriel tugged at his lapel. “She is the reason it has not overtaken them entirely.”
Lord Ketterham studied him. “You hold her in high regard.”
He straightened his shoulders. “I hold competence in high regard.”
“Yes,” the baron said. “I have often said the same.”
It should have been agreement. It felt like insult.
Lord Ketterham rose. “I thank you, Mr. Ashby.”
Gabriel stood as well. “You are withdrawing your interest?”
“I am reconsidering.”
“That is a polite distinction.”
“A useful one.” Lord Ketterham reached for his hat. “Miss Montfort is a lovely young woman. More than lovely. I meant what I said about admiring her. But I require a wife to bring quiet and order to my household.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Her mother’s behavior is not her fault.”
“No. But it may still become her husband’s problem.”
The words settled between them with all the force of truth.
Gabriel despised them.
“I had intended to call upon her after this,” Lord Ketterham said. “Under the circumstances, I think it kinder not to further raise expectations.”
Kinder.
The word scraped Gabriel’s nerves.
He inclined his head because striking a peer in one’s office was generally frowned upon in his profession. “As you wish, my lord.”
Lord Ketterham bowed and left.
Gabriel remained standing after the door closed. The office seemed too quiet. On his desk lay Lord Montague’s refusal, a half-drafted reply, and the letter he had decided to send to Miss Montfort because seeing her again had become far too tempting.
He looked at the unused sheet.
No.
He could not allow a servant to hand her Lord Montague’s refusal and Ketterham’s disappearance like a pair of cold dishes. He had given Lord Ketterham the answer that had turned him away. Gabriel would not hide behind paper now.
He grabbed his hat and left for Berkeley Square before reason could advise him to stay where he belonged.