Page 23 of Becoming Lady Dalton
Reed just looked at her and shook his head as if he saw everything, all right.
Self-conscious, Viola plunged into her pitch. “Mr. Reed, I understand you work for whoever can pay your fees. All I am asking you to do is to tell me what you find out about my husband. I wasn’t lying when I said I believed him dead.”
“I know you weren’t, Mrs. Cunningham.” Reed didn’t leer at her and mock her terrible false name. He just looked tired again, as if the weight of the world pressed upon his shoulders. “All right,” he continued after a moment. “For a twenty quid retainer plus expenses, I’ll pass you information as we come across it. For fifty quid, I’ll make discreet enquiries so you can be certain as to your husband’s fate. For a hundred, if he’s alive, I’ll see he never darkens your door again.”
Viola gasped. The room was airless, the walls oppressively close, like a coffin.
“You mean murder,” she whispered.
Reed raised his bandaged fists. “Not necessarily.”
Viola paced the tiny room. Three taps of good boot leather on worn wood to the window, a faint swish of silk and wool, then three steps back to the door. Again, she made the journey.
“If Samuel found me now, he has me right where he wants me. I had no idea he knew about my grandmother when he offered marriage. I didn’t realize he intended to capitalize upon the connection to guilt her into supporting him. Then again, why would any honest man of middle age marry a child?”
“Why would a child marry a man?” Reed asked laconically.
Viola speared Reed with a glare of pure outrage. “I had no other choice. My options were starving in the streets or marrying a near stranger. My younger sister went mute after we lost our parents. I was fortunate to find an asylum to take her on charity. I suppose I could’ve walked the streets or joined a brothel, but of the available options, marriage looked like the best one.”
Reed raised his hands. “Peace. I’ve no respect for men who prey on young girls or boys.”
“Boys?” This was new to her. Viola cocked her head. But from the stricken expression that flicked over Reed’s face, she had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answers if she asked, so she let the question pass. For now.
“You married at fifteen,” prompted the Runner.
“Yes. Samuel wanted me to write to my grandmother and beg her to take us in, but I refused, even though he beat me. I refused when I was with child, and he threatened to turn me out. I refused when our son was born, and we were on the verge of starvation after a poor crop.” Viola neatly elided the existence of her daughter. She shared her daughter with no one. Even Samuel never dared to speak her name.
Except Piers. Viola shook the memory away of how easily she’d spoken of her dead daughter. It had been Emily’s influence, probably.
Viola took a deep, shuddering breath and continued. “I refused when he took on debts we couldn’t repay, and he was imprisoned. Especially then. I wasn’t about to ask for help from a woman I had never met.”
“I understand.” Reed raised his hands, palms out. “You declined every time your husband asked. But there must’ve been a change last summer, or you wouldn’t have come to London with your sister.”
“True.” Viola had never expected to have to explain herself. The words did not come easily. “When I believed my name could no longer be used to extort money from my estranged relatives, I decided it was safe to approach Baroness Landor. It wasn’t as if we had much choice by that point. Pride has its limits. I was not going to watch my son starve to death any more than I was going to allow my husband to swindle my grandmother out of her money.”
“What a self-sacrificing little lamb you are, Mrs. Cunningham.” Reed lit a pipe of tobacco.
Viola stopped her pacing and waited in silence.
“So, no murder,” he said after a few puffs.
“No beatings, either.”
Reed regarded her laconically. “You want to know whether your husband is alive, and if so, where he can be located.”
“Correct.”
“Twenty pounds to start.”
Viola swallowed. “I … ah… Is there room for negotiation?”
Reed threw back his head and laughed. Viola felt small and helpless, unworldly and—most especially—unwise. She ran her thumb over the ridges of the heavy coins in her pockets.
“Pay what you can now. Get the rest next week. The Woolrytes want their thief found. I keep the twenty quid whether or not I find anything. It’s the way it’s done, Mrs. Cunningham.”
This time, Reed said her moniker with a distinct sneer. Odious man. Viola slapped all ten coins onto the scarred and cluttered surface of his desk.
“Done.”
