Page 3 of Becoming Lady Dalton
Miss Townsend, bless her uptight soul, was going to have his head for spoiling Emily when they returned home. His nursemaid possessed all the charm of a pincushion. To be fair, he’d been looking for the opposite of temptation when Emilia, the first Lady Dalton had passed a few months before Emily’s first birthday. But if he’d known they’d still be rubbing along this awkwardly nearly four years later, Piers might have selected a candidate with conversational skills beyondplease, sirandyes, sir.
Piers wiped a smear of jam from Emily’s round cheeks. Never mind the child’s governess. Viola was the perfect woman to become the next Viscountess Dalton. All Piers had to do was win Mrs. Cartwright’s heart without losing his own. Simple, really. She was a lighthearted, practical soul. Viola would understand the benefits of a match for herself and for young Matthew, and he could bask in her presence for as long as they both walked the earth. Which, in his experience, was likely to be a great deal shorter than his preference. Their treat finished, he helped his daughter back into her winter wear and led Emily to the coach waiting nearby.
Tears for Piers.Fever boy.Don’t get close you’ll catch his curse, lie in a casket pulled by the hearse.
Memories of the nonsensical, mocking chants caused him to catch his toe on a cobblestone and stumble forward. Even now, half a lifetime later, those childhood taunts could slice through him with savage cruelty.
Those men had grown up to become his peers—literally. Many of the boys who’d tortured him at school were now ostensibly his friends. Piers trusted the lot of London’s most esteemed aristocrats about as much as he did the average cutpurse on the street, though. Let your guard down, and either was liable to stab you between the ribs. He pitied Viola, trying to navigate this viper’s nest of social intrigue and obscure obligations. Confound it if he could understand how she enjoyed London so much. But she did.
“I’ll catch you, Papa!” Emily squealed. Instead, she leapt onto his arm and swung her feet up. Piers narrowly avoided colliding with a passing clerk who cast him a baleful glare.
“Not helpful, Miss Emily,” he chided gently.
“I’m Lady Emily, Papa. Miss Townsend says. I’m still hungry. Can I have another cake?”
“It’s ‘may I’ have another cake, dear heart, and the answer is no. Come along. Up into the carriage with you.” Piers boosted his tiny, wiggling companion into the seat and tucked a blanket around her legs. But by the time the driver set the horses into motion she’d kicked it off to kneel on the seat and peer out the window.
“Are we going to the museum?”
Piers wondered how Miss Townsend endured the daily onslaught of childish chatter. About a year ago, his daughter had fairly erupted into an ongoing volcano of words. The only time Emily was quiet was when she was asleep. Otherwise, she was a fount of alternating demands, whining, and not-quite-formed questions about the fascinating world she had set her mind to discovering.
“Not today, dear. Papa is going out this evening.” He’d promised Emily a trip to the British Museum but hadn’t yet made the time. At four, she was still a bit young to be in public.
“Nooo. I want you to put me to bed.” Her glossy lower lip protruded stubbornly.
Piers didn’t try to hide his smile. Whenever Miss Townsend had her afternoon off, he read a story to his daughter and often fell asleep in the process. Restless little Emily liked to kick him in the ribs until he awoke in the dark, confused and fully dressed. “I’ll give you a kiss before I leave, darling, as I always do.”
“If you buy me a blue dress, too, my doll and I can come with you. We all dance.” Emily clapped her little hands together. There was a jam stain on her mitten. The coach hit a sharp bump, and she nearly toppled off the seat. Piers caught his daughter easily and tucked her into place beside him. It would be a long ride back to Dalton’s town lodgings.
“You shall have your turn in good time, Emily. Now, settle down next to me while I tell you a story.”
“Is it about a princess?”
“Do you want it to be?” he asked, wracking his brains for a semblance of a story.
“Yes. Or a fairy.”
“How about a fairy princess?” he offered.
“Yes!” Emily shouted. Piers placed one finger over his lips, and she quieted for a moment.
“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful fairy princess who was cast out of her kingdom and cursed to wander the mortal universe,” he began. The curve of Emily’s dark lashes rested against her pale, round cheek for a long moment.
“Is she like the woman you talked to?” Emily punctuated her question with a great yawn.
“Whom?” Piers asked, though he knew the answer. Viola. Mrs. Cartwright.
“The woman touching the fabric with her gloves on.”
“Exactly like her, darling. In fact," he bent and stage-whispered, "I think it may have been her.”
Emily’s eyes popped wide open. Piers sighed. It was too much to hope she might nap, wasn’t it?
“Why was she gone away?” his daughter asked with another yawn. She managed to knee him in the ribs. Piers grunted. His daughter had a hell of a pair of legs. The thought of the potential for trouble in fifteen years or so did not comfort him. Another decided point in Viola’s favor—she would know how to guide a headstrong young woman through the gauntlet that was a girl’s coming out. The mere thought of an evening at Almack’s sent a chill coursing through Piers’ body.
“The lady had been cursed with a spell by an evil wizard,” he said after a beat.
“What was her name?”
