Page 35 of Becoming Lady Dalton
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“Viola.”
The sound of her name growled in a hoarse rasp brought Viola to an abrupt halt.
“Samuel,” she replied evenly. The bustling world around her fell away as if it had been a dream. Viola had walked scarcely three blocks before he’d lunged out of a doorway. He must have followed her from Bow Street.
Her husband was so changed, she wouldn’t have recognized the speaker at all if not for the menace in his tone. She hadn’t heard her name spoken in that loathing hiss for a year now. Not since the final time she’d made the long journey to see him in debtors' prison. Viola watched him, warily entranced, as if waiting for a cobra to strike.
“You’ve come up in the world,” he commented, dragging his rheumy eyes up and down her body. Viola flinched. Memories of his hands on her body sent a shudder through her.
“I suppose you’re here to put an end to it,” Viola snapped. “Come to pick my soul clean of hope, dear husband?”
He would tear her away from this life she’d quickly come to love. Viola swallowed. More than fine linens or silk gowns or wool stockings or plentiful, delicious food, the greatest luxury of her life was freedom. For the first time in her life, Viola had the right to choose how she passed her days, unencumbered by her parents’ or Sam’s mistakes, responsible only for her own and Matthew’s. To decide when and how and whether she loved another person, or when to let go. Everything she held dearest had crumbled instantly with the arrival of this black-eyed vulture who called her his wife.
“No. I want you to acknowledge your rightful husband,” he said.
Rightful husband.How could it be true, when everything about their marriage had been so wrong? Yet it was.
“Publicly,” Samuel added. “I want to sleep on fine linens and sip tea with two lumps of sugar.”
The busy street came to life again as Viola shook her head. “I will leave this place first,” she said loudly.
“You will stay, girl.” Samuel’s threat ended in a sharp, painful-sounding cough. “You’ll do as you’re told, for once. It may have been eight years since we’ve lain together, since Matthew’s birth, but you’ll honor me for the rest of my days on earth and make me comfortable. I don’t expect it to be long.”
“Nine years,” Viola corrected hoarsely. “It’s been nine years, Sam. You were in the gaol for six, and I visited you every month for all that time.”
The street before her blurred as tears flooded her eyes. Viola’s chest was tight with hot regret.
Piers.
A kiss had been too much license to grant him. Her lips were not hers to command. At fifteen, she had promised until death do us part, never imagining that she would be manacled to this fate.
“Nine years, then. Nine years of lonely abandonment, Viola.” Sam stumbled closer. The stink of his breath forced Viola to jerk her head away. She glimpsed the way his mouth caved in and realized he’d lost several teeth since she’d last seen him.
“I thought you would come home after you were released,” she whispered, resisting the urge to cover her mouth and tamp down the stench of a body decaying from the inside out.
“I did. You were gone. Sold my property right out from under me.”
“When they said you were ill, I let them take the farm in repayment for the debts. You were in a fever, but you were the one who signed the papers. It never produced much of a living anyway.” Viola jerked away. It was a testament to Samuel’s weakness that he let go easily.
“Lies! You took what’s mine and sold me out, you thieving witch.”
He lunged forward, gripped her neck, and shook her. Viola was tall and strong for a woman, but she was still no match for a large man’s determination—even a sick one. Still, disease had weakened him enough that this time, she was able to pry herself out of his grasp.
“Never touch me like that again, Sam,” she growled. This was the part of her that Piers and the baroness could never see. The cornered animal, terrified and fighting for survival. No lady lessons could overcome the base instinct to free herself from this trap.
“I’ll touch you any way I want,” he panted, coughing into his sleeve. When he took his hand away, spots of blood flecked his cheek and filthy jacket. Dried blood, Viola saw with a jolt. “Get me money. I need a soft place to rest and heal. Bring it to me tonight.” He gave her the name of a place in St. Giles. Viola shivered at the name of the slum. She couldn’t let him stay there. Her husband was dying, and she was not a monster.
“How much do you need?” Viola demanded. More money. Despair curled around her heart like a cancer. In the moment, it was easy to understand her grandmother’s objections to supporting indigent relatives, hounded to pay more than she could necessarily afford by people with the smallest claim on her. There was no way Viola could turn to her grandmother again. At least she could rest confident in her opposition to letting him contact the baroness for all those years. Her grandmother didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of Sam’s exploitation.
“For tonight?” Sam asked.
“To go away forever,” she countered.
Sam laughed until his cough choked him off. “There is no amount of money in the world that can buy me off, Viola my girl. I’ll heal and make you my wife in truth again, whether you like it or not. I’ll have the life that was meant to be mine all along. But we’ll start with fifty pounds by this evening. I’ll come to your house if you won’t come to my lodgings.”
But Viola saw the terror in his eyes. He was gone as abruptly as he’d come, shuffling away until he blended into the busy streetscape. One more sorry case in a city filled with stories sadder than his, or hers.
