Page 37 of Becoming Lady Dalton
Piers choked down another sip of wine before abandoning the stuff on a white-covered table.
“I suppose I’d best go make Baroness Landor’s win official.” He paused. “Once it’s done, will you leave with me? I find the entertainment this evening less than worthy of the moniker.”
Viola’s smirk faded. “I cannot, Lord Dalton. Let us not speak of what will never be. I wish us to be friends, nothing more.”
Piers observed the strain etched into Viola’s lovely features. What was the woman hiding? He bent slightly to whisper in her ear. Miss Lowry, standing near the Kilpatrick sisters, caught sight of him and watched out of the corner of her eye. Assessing. Piers ignored her.
“I know your feelings for me are more than friendly. I have tasted your passion, and you know full well I return your ardor. I cannot content myself with another woman. I shall wait until the day you say yes if it takes a year, if it takes ten years. I shall have you for my Lady Dalton, or I shall have no lady at all.”
Viola’s blue eyes bored into his. “Then the Ranleigh line shall end with you, my lord. I will not hate you for looking elsewhere, even if Lady Margaret is not the woman to capture your imagination. I beg you, come to terms with my answer and find another woman.”
“Would that make you happy?” Piers demanded. He pulled back. Miss Lowry’s gaze followed them. One of the Kilpatrick sisters slanted her chin at the precise angle that said she was paying more attention than truly necessary. Piers shifted his weight, trying to block his conversation with Viola from view, only to discover Lady Gracie glaring at him with one raised eyebrow over Evendaw’s shoulder.
“No. Yes. Of course. Your happiness is what I seek to preserve. It would be selfish in the extreme for me to give you what you want, Piers.” Tears glistened in Viola’s eyes.
Stalwart, cheerful Viola crying in the middle of an afternoon party? Cold foreboding turned Piers’ limbs leaden. Whatever weighed on Viola’s mind, something was very wrong.
“Let’s leave, now. This is too much to discuss under scrutiny.” Piers tried to take her arm, but she reared back hard enough to bump the table behind them.
“No,” Viola declared, shaking off his brief touch on her arm. “Thank you for your concern, Lord Dalton. I assure you I am quite well. If you’ll excuse me.”
Piers would have followed her, but Evendaw interceded.
“My sister wishes to speak with you,” the man said. “In private.”
Helplessness was not a feeling Piers coped with well under any circumstances. He gritted his teeth and turned away from Viola’s retreating back, clad in violet and bronze-striped silk. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an artful arrangement of fat curls. Piers wanted to drag them down around her pale shoulders and kiss away her sadness. Wouldn’t that cause a scene?
Instead, he followed Evendaw to a private corner where Lady Margaret awaited him. “My brother didn’t put you up to courting me, did he?” she demanded, her pert nose wrinkling. “I hate it when he does that.”
“Does what?” Piers asked with as much false innocence as he could muster. Unconsciously, he’d flattered himself with the notion that Evendaw had selected him, personally, as a prospective match for his sister. Now, he saw this wasn’t the case.
“When he tries to convince men he knows socially to court me. I don’t mind an introduction, or a dance or two. My brother means well. But each time he lights on a new beau, he pushes the match until I feel forced to make a decision. It’s as if my family can’t wait to get me out of the house permanently!” she complained with a stamp of her foot that reminded Piers of his daughter in the middle of a tantrum. “All I want to do is enjoy my first season without the topic of marriage cropping up every time I dance a waltz.” Judging from the angry stripe of red spreading across each cheek, the young woman had been holding in her feelings for a considerable time.
“I assure you, Lady Margaret, I have no intention of asking you to marry me,” Piers supplied with what he hoped passed for gallantry. He sought Viola and found her ensconced with her grandmother and Lady Gracie, presumably informing the latter of her new debt. A trace of a forced smile curled her pretty lips up at the corners.
“You don’t?” she demanded, blanching. Her eyes widened. “Are your intentions less than honorable, Lord Dalton?”
Piers bit his lower lip to suppress a grimace. “No,” he ground out.
Lady Margaret laughed. It was the first time he could recall hearing her express genuine amusement. How irritating to find it directed at him.
“I knew it!” she declared between gasps of breath. “You’re in love with Mrs. Cartwright, aren’t you?”
In that moment, Piers deeply regretted his involvement in this entire ridiculous scheme. He ought to let Viola go. But a lifetime with a frivolous, casually cruel feather-wit like Margaret would drive Piers mad—if he could bring himself to accept that fate, if watching Viola marry another man didn’t do it first.
Why not him?
“Of course not,” he blurted, distracted by the direction of his thoughts.
Lady Margaret’s eyes went wide. “I vow never to marry until a man looks at me the way you are staring at that coat tree,” she declared in a whisper.
“As though you aren’t there?” Piers asked acidly.
“As though I’m the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. I want to marry for love too.”
“I had gathered as much,” Piers replied acerbically. “I assume this means you are not in love with me, and I therefore don’t need to worry about breaking your heart by failing to propose.”
Lady Margaret pursed her lips and blew dismissively. “Not remotely, Lord Dalton. Though, I admit, I’ve learned to tolerate you over the past week. I appreciate you haven’t attempted to corner me with a kiss, or been too forward. No, it’s Miss Lowry I am concerned about.”
