Page 76 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“You do,” said Dot Cain, still a little bored, still very impatient.
“She just … sneaked up on me. One day, it was a bit of fun, and the next I was writing to my mother for advice, all right? This is humiliating!”
“Is it?” she asked, her expression changing a little, her head tilting as she pushed away from the wall.
“Yes, it bloody well is!” he snapped back.
And then she smiled. She smiled and started to laugh.
“Oh,” she said, touching her lips. “Oh, good.”
Abe felt his own jaw go slack, felt the gathering of his own eyebrows bunching together like the front line on a battlefield. “It hasn’t been sudden. Or inexplicable,” he insisted, even though it seemed like this entire conversation had already ended without his consent. “It’s been going on all damn spring.”
She nodded, sighing in a relieved, happy sort of way. “If you say so.”
“I do say so!” he called, scrambling after her as she turned to walk away. “I say sovehemently!”
“Oh, Abe.” She sighed as he fell in line beside her. “I do like you.”
He sought out Millie amongst the clatter, wanting to immediately march over to her and tattle. She was talking to Silas now, her eyes sparkling a little as she nodded and laughed, a glinting remnant of golden wine flashing in the glass she held in her hand. It knocked all the air directly out of his lungs.
She turned to him just for a moment, a flick of her eyes across the room, and Abe felt something in his chest fold in on itself like a bloody concertina.
Well,he thought,shit.
Meanwhile, it was Cresson who ended up ambling beside him, sighing at his own contribution to this mess, his own wine glass half empty. He looked at Abe, at the look on his face as he stared across the room at this woman he wanted to marry, and Cresson blinked three times.
“You’re kind of an idiot,” he said to Abe. “Aren’t you?”
“Aye,” Abe confessed.
Cresson snorted. “I’m not sure if that’s reassuring or deeply terrifying,” he said. “Considering how much I used to look up to you.”
“The hell do you mean, used to?” Abe snapped, but Cresson was already gone.
CHAPTER 29
Millie dragged her feet all the way to Bloomsbury.
There was something deeply humbling about going home again, regardless of the reasons for it. She wondered if married people felt this way when they had Christmas with one set of the parents or the other.
She wondered how her mother had felt tellinghermother that she was going to marry Ezekiel Yardley, a barrister, not a peer.
Knowing her own grandmama, Millie suspected that the reaction had been something dry and painful, like“At least someone wants to marry you, Lacey.”
And she winced, because at the very depths of her soul, Millie was concerned that maybe everyone was thinking the same thing about her and Abe.
Abe, who could have had any woman he wanted.
She’d never say that to him, of course. Not because she was afraid he’d agree. Quite the opposite. He’d act as though shewas so daft and delusional that even attempting to validate or explain further would only be a massive waste of time.
He looked at her like she was still a fresh, young debutante. He looked at her like she was the epitome of beauty.
And, she thought, warmth spreading through her chest, she knew that he would never be convinced that either thing wasn’t fundamentally, objectively true.
He had wanted to come with her, of course. He’d gotten all blustery and insistent over how he thought such a scene should play out with handshakes and cigars and blessings, but when Millie had pointed out to him that they’d already done quite a few things out of order, he’d simply grinned at her in that sparkling, uniquely Abe way, kissed her hand, and told her to say the word when it would be his turn with her parents.
She approached the house like a guest, uncertain if she should rap on the door or simply walk inside.What an odd thing, she thought. What a very odd, very unwelcome thing.
