Page 40 of Becoming Lady Dalton
“Not you, too.” Evendaw sighed.
Piers waited.
“You’re the fourth man my sister has run off this season. First Jennings. Then Warwick and Upton. Now you, Dalton. I’ve no hope for Margaret. Truly. You wouldn’t believe how she clamored to be allowed to come out, though I wanted to wait for another year.”
“Maybe you should try letting her enjoy herself,” Piers suggested gently. “She’s only seventeen once. In a few years, the London whirl will get old and settling down will become a more appealing option. Let her decide when she wants to marry.”
Evendaw crooked his eyebrow at him. “I see you’ve never had a sister out.”
Piers thought of Gwen and said nothing. Evendaw appeared to catch himself.
“I’m sorry, chap. I forgot you had a sister tucked away in the countryside. Younger, correct?”
“Gwendolyn is her name. Her health prevents her from participating in town life.” She wanted to, though.
“Rotten luck, your family has.” Evendaw slumped back in his chair and waved for another glass. “Still, I can’t help but be a wee bit pleased you’re not sweet on my sister. I rather like her alive.”
The flash of raw pain at Evendaw’s careless insult was dull. He’d heard variations on this for years. But for once, Piers had an instant response.
“It’s not so much Lady Margaret I object to as it is the prospect of you for a brother-in-law.”
Piers clapped his sputtering, supposed friend on the shoulder, and departed.
21
Viola hidher fear behind a stiff mask of cheer. Samuel had been here for weeks, recuperating from his journey from the countryside before he located her. A few more hours in this awful place wouldn’t hurt him any further. Twice, the innkeeper had called for a doctor to treat his cough. The forty-two pounds she’d raised paid the lodging arrears and doctor fees, which left them back where they had started—penniless.
“Ask your grandmother. She kin afford it,” Samuel croaked between coughs. He ought to be under constant care. She oughtn’t be here. Close proximity to her ill husband risked contagion, and worse, put Matthew at risk.
“My grandmother is not your next sheep to fleece,” Viola replied sharply. “You’ve done enough damage.”
Samuel took her rebuke better than he’d ever done in the past. Instead of slapping her across the face, he glared and studied the bedclothes. Paying his debts had won her a measure of good grace, it seemed. “It was never my intent to cheat anyone. Every time I took on a debt, it was for a legitimate opportunity.”
“Including the time you borrowed forty guineas from the mill owner, with a promise of doubling his money after the spring shearing?” she asked sharply. The poor lambs had nearly starved to death on their tiny farmstead that spring, and one by one they had capitulated to the harsh winter. Samuel had bought more animals than they could care for and saved none of the investment to feed them. Thus, they had lost everything, including the miller’s favor.
Even the farm had been dubiously his. Samuel had claimed the land, then paid a registration fee, only to find there was an owner listed on the patch of rocky land after all. The courts had eventually decided in Sam’s favor, but it had required expensive legal advice to resolve the matter. While her husband spent days and weeks in town fighting battles of his own making, Viola had worked her fingers to the bone to coax enough grain and vegetables out of the stony earth to keep them from suffering the same fate as their sheep.
“I’ve never met another man with such cursed luck,” he complained and burst into another fit of coughing. Viola pressed her shawl over her mouth and nose.
“Poor planning had much to do with it,” she retorted when he’d finished. “Now, if you’re to get well, you can’t stay in this pit.”
“There’s no getting well,” Samuel replied testily, but she heard the fear in his voice.
“Especially not if you don’t try.”
Viola moved away as he burst into another fit of coughing. A guilty hope welled up from a dark place inside her. All she had to do was wait, and she would be a widow in truth. It wouldn’t be long.
What kind of awful woman was she, to think this way? Guilt gnawed her very bones.
Yet, how could she tell her grandmother that she’d lied about being a widow and in the same breath ask for money to support her unwanted husband with a long history of cheating people, through his final days? How could she protect Matthew from wanting to see his father and possibly falling ill himself?
Viola swallowed back tears. She would find a way through this. She always did. The immediate priority was to get Samuel into a comfortable, hidden place. She needed money, and she had few places to turn. Asking her grandmother was not a possibility. Her sister … perhaps. It was worth a try. At least, she could move him into the town house.
Piers.
Her heart murmured his name. If he were here, she would collapse into his arms and absorb his strength like dry fields after a rain. But Dalton wasn’t hers, and he would never be. He needed an heir. Even if she wanted another child, which she didn’t, seeing Samuel again reminded Viola about how awful the process of childbearing had been. The thought made her breath catch. It meant that even when she became a widow in truth, there was no hope of a liaison with Piers. The right thing to do was to let him go. It had been so much easier to do that when there had still been the twinkling star of hope that they could find a way past the impasse, for a while. Now, a couple of kisses were the only memories she’d ever have of him. It would be utterly selfish of her to lead him on.
Samuel began coughing again, and Viola had no more time for regret. She found his ragged satchel and began to pack her husband’s tattered clothing.
