Page 8 of Becoming Lady Dalton
“Do you speak from experience?” Dalton demanded.
“I do,” she replied, breathless. Viola pressed back against his hard hold on the small of her back, and after a moment, Dalton relented.
“I’ll hear you say those words to me in another context,” he whispered, a promise. A threat.
Viola laughed as if he’d told her a great joke. People nearby eyed them askance.
“No, Piers, you won’t.”
The music swelled and died. The final notes of the song had been played. Viola sketched a curtsey and left her partner standing there, brooding and alone.
5
Fool.
Piers chided himself as he struggled to breathe in the wake of Mrs. Cartwright’s departure, back stiff, hips swaying as she left him to stew in his own arrogance.
Idiot.
He chided himself again as Viola accepted the next dance from an older gentleman, one who would be considered suitable in the same narrow sense that Lady Margaret was suitable for him. With grey streaks at his temples and a deep furrow etched at the center of his brow, the admiral was precisely the sort of man a woman of Mrs. Cartwright’s awkward social position ought to consider a good match.
Admiral Saxon would be grateful for a woman with connections like Viola’s. A woman without means but strong relationships to a barony and an earldom brought with her substantial, if intangible, assets that could leverage the admiral into a significantly higher status socially. Viola was young enough to bear children, even if she was older than Piers. He knew it mattered to her, even though their age difference didn’t to him. She was also no innocent debutante who needed to be reassured of his genuine intentions before accepting so much as a kiss. Indeed, the lady had kissed him first. Though that had been months ago, when the new lady and the new earl of Briarcliff had been scandalizing all London with their unconventional behavior. Dalton couldn’t recall the last time he’d had so much fun. He could still feel the ghost of that kiss against his cheek when he closed his eyes. He did so now, reveling in the memory of her brief touch.
Disappointment stabbed through him. There had been no need for him to declare himself like a wet-behind-the-ears boy. In the midst of a dance floor, no less.
“It occurs to me I was needlessly offensive.”
Viola Cartwright’s voice over his shoulder made Piers start. An electric frisson skittered over his nerves, not unpleasant but unexpected. The contralto of her voice made him think of the sweet smoothness of brandy.
“In what way?”
“You paid me several sweet compliments while we were dancing together. I returned the favor with a sharp denial.”
“I spoke arrogantly.” It wasn’t exactly an apology, though Piers meant it as one.
“So you did.” Viola tucked her gloved hand into the crook of his arm. “Since you are clearly determined to find a new wife, I have resolved to assist you.”
“Assist me?” Piers choked. They were ambling about the ballroom which had begun to fill up with party-goers.
“Yes, with courting Lady Margaret,” Viola replied impishly.
It became clear at that moment that their slow parade had not been aimless. The young woman he scarcely recalled speaking with stood framed between two large potted plants, her dark gold hair gleaming like polished brass. For once, her eyes weren’t glued anxiously to the floor. She beamed up at her companion, a striking woman with wide eyes and plump lips wearing a copper-threaded cerise gown with blond lace at the collar, waist, and sleeves. Piers didn’t know who she was.
“What if I don’t wish to court Lady Margaret?” he asked without thinking. The only woman he wanted help with courting was Mrs. Cartwright, but she had offered him a way to spend time together.
“Why ever not? She’s very pretty, if reticent.”
“She reminds me too much of my first wife.” Piers swallowed as the familiar ache spread through the hollow of his chest.
“Oh.”
“In the sense that Lady Margaret is about the same age that my late wife was, when we courted.” The first Lady Dalton had been seventeen when he’d begun courting her. They’d been married when she turned eighteen. She’d been a mother by nineteen and dead at twenty. Little Emily had been named after her mother. Apart from the little girl, a large headstone, and a name transcribed in birth and marriage registers, Emilia Ranleigh’s life had made little mark upon this earth.
His first marriage had been a straightforward matter. Emilia had been the sister of a friend from school, if it could be said Piers had any friends from school. Her brother had been an acquaintance seeking to offload a mercurial, overly intelligent and troublesome sister upon a man who was in need of an heir to preserve the family line. Piers wouldn’t have agreed to the union unless there had been some degree of affection and interest, and there had been, for a time. It frightened him at times to think about how like Emilia their daughter was. Bright, inquisitive, and prone to emotional outbursts. Then again, she was only four years old. Everyone assured him it was part of the age.
Thomas Belden had been the one boy who was as much as an outcast as he. Edward Northcote, a year or two older, had been kind to everyone, making no exceptions. He’d been a singular person even before he disappeared into the Amazonian jungle. Otherwise, Piers had regarded his peers as an unruly pack of hyenas who had scented his weakness and closed in for the kill, then pretended that nothing untoward had happened after leaving him bloody.
Not much had changed since his boyhood. They were older, and physically, many had begun to wear the marks of fast living. They tolerated him a little better now. Piers never had a choice but to disguise how little he respected his fellow aristocrats, however.
