Page 22 of Becoming Lady Dalton
Viola had expected a moreimpressive presence than the modest edifice housing the Runners. It was best termed run-down, but truthfully, it bordered on squalid. Effluence from London’s teeming streets nearly obscured the front step. A rat in the gutter regarded her with beady, unimpressed eyes. With mounting despair for her fine Cordoba leather boots, new from the cobbler, Viola hiked her skirts halfway to her knees and picked her way up the step to safety.
Inside, the reek of filth gave way to the scent of leather, ink, and wet wool.
“Who’re you here for, ma’am?” asked a harried clerk.
“Mr. Reed.”
“He’s with a client. Interrogation. You can wait with the others.” The young clerk jerked his head at the line of people overflowing a row of wooden chairs. There was a woman with a babe who wouldn’t stop squalling. Beside her, a cit in a suit with an eye-watering amount of cologne scowled at a stack of papers. He didn’t offer her a seat, and Viola didn’t feel the need to ask for it. For a quarter hour she cooled her heels. In the pocket of her gown, she fingered the ten gold coins the butler had begrudgingly parceled out.
All she wanted was information. Surely, it would be enough.
“Mrs. Cunningham?”
Viola startled at the false name she’d given. The clerk stared at her as if he knew damn well it wasn’t her true name.
“Yes, I am Mrs. Ca—Cunningham.”
Her lying skills were not exactly top-notch. Untruth didn’t come easily to her.
“He’s finished with interrogation. You may see him in his office. I don’t mind saying this is no place for ladies.”
Being no lady, Viola was well accustomed to the habits of men who felt no need to defer to the softer sex. It would not have surprised her to find a lot of reeking louts staging literal pissing contests out a window while catcalling passing women.
Instead, she found a tired-looking Reed wrapping his knuckles in plain white cloth.
“Mrs. Cunningham, is it? Come in. I hope you don’t mind the sight of—” Reed glanced up and took in the sight of her face. “Blood. What brings you here today, Mrs. Cartwright? Or are we sticking with Cunningham for the moment?”
“The latter, if you please, Mr. Reed. Do you need help, sir?”
Blood dripped onto the wood floor. Stains from what Viola guessed were a hundred such moments splattered out from beneath the desk. Reed paused in his work then glanced up. He scanned her with a hard look and returned to his injured hands.
Wordlessly she removed her gloves, dipped a cloth in a bottle of witch hazel perched precariously on the corner of the desk—Viola knew it from the scent—and applied it to his big, scarred hands. Reed hissed.
“It’s best to clean it before you bandage it. A salve helps it heal faster, if you have one.” She tried to keep her tone neutral, but it was pungent with the implication that men who engaged in fisticuffs ought to keep such supplies close by.
“Do you moonlight as a healer, woman?” Reed demanded gruffly.
“When one has lived in rural seclusion for most of her adult life, she learns not to let wounds fester,” Viola replied crisply, tying the bandage a fraction tighter than necessary. Blood stained a spot, but the leakage had stopped. “Doctors are hard to come by.”
As she had learned when her infant daughter had fallen ill, and Samuel had declined to let her take the pony and cart into Upper Cotwarren in search of medical help. It had been a long time since Viola had consciously entertained memories of the babe, though the feel of her hot little body wracked with fever pressed against her breast sometimes burned like a phantom.
“I’d guess you didn’t come here to patch up an old Bow Street dog,” Reed said after a moment. He flexed his fingers in the white linen cuff and nodded as if satisfied.
“I’ve come about my husband.”
“Mr. Cunningham?” Reed speared her with a sardonic glare, and Viola’s soul shriveled as she tried not to wither.
“You know I mean Mr. Cartwright. I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.” Did she need to spell her reasons out? For an investigator, Reed didn’t appear to be a very curious man.
“Discretion costs money, madam,” he replied gruffly.
She lifted her chin. “I have money.”
Reed chuckled, almost too low to hear. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck. The devil himself would’ve laughed like this.
“I know you do.” Reed stood up. “What’s more, you have pretty boy Dalton eating out of your hand.”
“He’s not a boy.” Viola’s throat worked. It was one thing for her to tease Piers for being younger than her. It was another thing entirely for this corrupt street brawler to impugn Dalton’s age. It wasn’t as if he had any control over how many years he’d lived on this earth.
