Chapter Eighteen #4
Poppy had not known a body could feel at once so spent and so keenly alive. A delicious languor had stolen through her limbs, leaving every part of her soft and unsteady. She suspected she would never again hear Gabriel Ashby’s name in quite the same way.
Freddie leapt onto the sofa directly between them.
Gabriel jerked back as the spaniel planted two paws on his chest and licked his chin with enthusiastic judgment.
Poppy jumped.
Then she began to laugh. She quickly righted her skirts, moved off Gabriel’s lap, and sat beside him.
Gabriel closed his eyes while Freddie attempted to climb his waistcoat. “I begin to understand the ducks,” he groaned.
That only made her laugh harder.
Freddie, delighted by the response, barked and settled on Poppy’s skirts, claiming victory over both propriety and romance.
For a moment, laughter saved them.
Then it faded.
Gabriel sat back. His cravat was loose. His hair was disturbed. His breathing had yet to steady. Even so, she saw the change come over him, the shutters closing, the careful, controlled solicitor returning in the place of the man who had kissed her and…touched her.
“I should not have done that,” he said, turning to her and tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. “But I cannot seem to stop myself where you are concerned.”
Poppy closed her eyes. “I fail to see why it is a problem.”
“Because I cannot—”
“You cannot what?” Anger rose in her chest, and she turned to face him, glaring at him with eyes that no doubt flashed fire. “Be the man I need instead of the man who, every time he touches me, remembers all the reasons he should not?”
“Poppy.”
“Perhaps you are right.” Her voice remained calm. That felt like its own small triumph. “Perhaps desire does not alter anything. Perhaps wanting is not enough.”
Hurt crossed his features. “I did not mean—”
“No. I know what you meant. You meant you should not have risked my trust, or my reputation, or whatever legal phrase one might use for kissing a woman senseless upon a sofa.” She rose carefully, lifting Freddie from the cushion beside her. “But that is not what I hear.”
Gabriel stood too. “What do you hear?”
“That I am something you must recover from.”
Pain slashed across his face again before he could hide it.
The sight nearly undid her. But Poppy had spent too long living inside decisions other people made around her.
Algernon deciding when she must leave her home.
Lord Ketterham deciding whether she came with too many complications.
Society deciding whether she was acceptable.
Gabriel deciding whether wanting her was a mistake.
The cottage wasn’t the life she’d dreamed of, but at least it was a decision she could claim.
She lowered Freddie to the floor, crossed to the escritoire, picked up the cottage list, and held it out.
Gabriel looked at the paper, then at her. “What is this?”
“My requirements for the cottage.”
His face tightened. “Poppy.”
“You said you would help us find a practical solution.”
“Yes, but—”
“This is the practical solution.”
“You need not decide tonight.”
“You are wrong.” She was proud of how steady she sounded.
“I cannot keep waiting for some gentleman to decide whether Mama and I are tolerable enough. Nor can I impose upon Bea and Georgie simply because they love me too well to object. The cottage may be dank. It may be small. Mama may despise it. But it will be a decision I make for myself.”
Gabriel did not take the paper.
Poppy held it steady between them. “Please. Find us a cottage in the country. The least unsuitable one you can manage. Once we arrive, I will see about finding work.”
For one moment, she saw the wound her words had caused. But for once, she refused to comfort the person who had caused her pain.
Then he took the list. His fingers closed around the paper without touching hers. His nostrils flared. “I will make inquiries,” he said.
“Thank you.” The words were perfectly polite. Poppy hated them.
She hated the cottage too. She hated the sad little future it represented, the narrow rooms, the reduced fires, the careful counting of coal. Yet beneath the hurt, beneath the embarrassment, something steadier held. She had chosen for herself.
Gabriel stood before her with his cravat still slightly askew and her list in his hand.
For one breath, she thought he would finally say the thing that might alter everything.
Instead, he bowed. “Good night, Poppy.”
Her name in his voice nearly broke the composure she had fought so hard to preserve.
Poppy lifted her chin. “Good night, Gabriel.”
He left.
The front door closed a few moments later, and the house settled back into its strange, temporary quiet.
Poppy stood alone in the drawing room with Freddie beside her, the wilted flowers upon the mantel, the papers spread across the escritoire, and the distant knowledge that Lady Lemonwood’s ballroom would still be alive with music and possibility.
She touched her fingers to her lips.
Then she straightened the papers and sat down to calculate precisely how much coal a small country cottage might require.