Page 17 of Becoming Lady Dalton
“We had no money,” Viola replied vehemently.
“Ah. But you do now, don’t you?” Reed’s placid features shifted into firm, and Viola shook her head as though she could ward off his meaning.
“No. My grandmother has a dower’s portion and this townhouse. My sister—”
“Is recently married to an earl. Don’t tell me there’s no money, Mrs. Cartwright. I know full well you’ve opened lines of credit at four shops. A dressmaker’s, a carpenter’s, a draper’s, and a haberdasher.”
“To furnish my sister and the earl’s new townhome and purchase a few items necessary for my son’s education.” Viola’s voice came out too loud. “Not because I am spending money on my own behalf,” she hissed.
“The haberdasher?” Reed cocked one menacing eyebrow. Judging from the furrows above, this was a practiced trick. Viola’s jaw tightened so hard she missed a response. True, the haberdasher was her own expense, paid for out of the nominal pin money her grandmother supplied. She liked to think she spent it well. It had never occurred to her that making a few personal purchases under her sister’s account would cause this kind of trouble.
“A few pounds would hardly go amiss, then. You understand the point of my questioning, Mrs. Cartwright?”
“Yes. You believe I stole the jewels to fund my extravagant new lifestyle.” It was obvious.
“I do not, personally. However, you can understand why these details attracted the notice of my colleagues.” Reed placed his hands behind his back and paced three steps in one direction, then back.
“Of course. Perfectly reasonable. If you’re asking as to why I hadn’t repaid the relatively small debts, it’s because I haven’t explained the details of my situation to my family in great detail. They don’t know,” Viola confessed calmly. She hadn’t lied, exactly, and certainly not intentionally. When Samuel hadn’t returned to her from prison, and after Viola had lost the farm, she had assumed he was dead. There could be no other explanation. He was not a man to give up what was his easily—be that a farm, a woman, or a son. Samuel had a habit of helping himself to the fruits of others’ labors, including the wasteland on which he’d built their wood-frame farmhouse. He’d never truly owned the land, only claimed it from an unknown owner. Then he’d spent years fighting to prove his claim in court, leaving the matter no less ambiguous but saddling them with more debt than he could ever repay.
“Where is your husband, Mrs. Cartwright?” demanded Reed, moving away from the window to stare her in the eye.
Viola was not easily intimidated, but real fear gripped her now, not the shock of sudden terror that had coursed through her earlier. Reed threatened everything she had struggled for these past months. Everything she had sacrificed to save her sister and son. She’d known discovery was a possibility, but now that it had arrived, she was calm.
“Dead, I expect.”
“You expect, or you know?” Reed clarified. “Is the widow story an act, or is it true?”
“I don’t know with certainty,” she replied through clenched teeth. “Samuel was ill in prison with a cough that wouldn’t heal. Consumption. When it was clear he’d die without help, I agreed to let the magistrate take the farm in satisfaction of his debts. Sam threw me out of his cell when I made him sign the papers, but I waited to see him released. He never came out. I presumed he was dead.”
“Presumed,” Reed echoed.
“Yes.” Viola seethed. “I did inquire after my husband’s whereabouts, Mr. Reed. They said he’d fallen in the street from weakness upon his release. The warden thought he’d crawled into the bushes to die. I never found his body, though I looked. If he’d lived, Sam would’ve come for me. After all, he had nowhere else to go.” A shard of sadness pierced her fear as she thought of Matthew. She must protect her son from humiliation. Footsteps echoed softly in the hallway.
Piers.Her heart whispered his name like a prayer. As though she’d conjured him, there was a knock at the door. The maid curtseyed.
“Lord Dalton to see you, madam.”
Viola’s muscles tensed and then relaxed in a shivery pulse. Piers could help her, if she trusted him to. But that also meant telling him the truth.
She might not be a widow after all.
“Send him in,” Viola replied in the strongest voice she could muster. “Mr. Reed and I are finished speaking.”
Reed’s gaze glanced off hers. His thick jaw tightened in annoyance. Viola knew the look of a man who didn’t appreciate being dismissed by a woman. Irritation draped about Reed like a shroud. Nonetheless, he departed with heavy footfalls. They were replaced by the confident step of Piers Ranleigh, Lord Dalton.
The heat of his gaze rested on her, thawing her numb limbs. Viola waited until Reed was well out of hearing range. He thumped down the stairway. The second stair from the top squeaked under his weight. There was a second, fainter shriek as the maid descended a beat behind.
“About this morning,” he began, then stopped in his tracks.
“Shh.” Viola stared out the window at the road below until the sight of the handsome man retreating from her grandmother’s home let her relax fractionally. “What about this morning?” she demanded, turning on Piers.
“Is Admiral Saxon courting you? In truth?”
“He’d like to be,” Viola responded with all the insouciance she could muster. How could she focus on trivialities, when her entire world had just toppled off its axis?
Piers didn’t look happy with her response.
“Are you entertaining his suit?” he asked after a long moment.
