The Infamous Duchess

by Sophie Barnes

  “Yes.” Viola recalled every detail. “The majority was set aside for the hospital. The rest was willed directly to me, to spend as I saw fit.”

  “The rest?” Steadford asked.

  Viola nodded. “My husband left his entire fortune to me—a total of twenty-three thousand pounds, of which eighteen thousand was spent on the hospital; acquiring the building, renovating it, buying equipment and hiring staff. He left nothing to anyone else.”

  The solicitor looked stumped while Mr. Lowell . . .

  To Viola’s surprise, he looked as though he’d already been made aware of this fact. By Robert, no doubt.

  “If you’ll forgive me for saying so, Your Grace,” Mr. Steadford muttered, “I begin to comprehend Tremaine’s desire to fight you.”

  “Ordinarily, I would happily give him the money he feels entitled to.” She didn’t know if they believed her, but it was the truth. She didn’t need much for herself to get by on. “The problem is I’ve spent almost all of it.”

  “On the hospital?”

  This question came from Mr. Lowell, and Viola couldn’t help but scoff. “Well, it certainly wasn’t wasted on an extravagant lifestyle.” He knit his brow, as did Mr. Steadford. Viola sighed. “A small part of it went toward the house I purchased for myself. It’s not very grand, in case you’re wondering, but it’s good enough for me.”

  “Seems like it may have been an unnecessary expense,” Mr. Steadford said. “Why not remain at Tremaine House?”

  “Because I did not wish to.” Irritated by the line of questioning, Viola stared straight back at Mr. Steadford. “The money was mine to do with as I pleased.”

  “Yes,” Mr. Steadford agreed. “But I still need all the facts. For example, if you had been turned out of Tremaine House upon your husband’s death, I might have been able to use that to our advantage.”

  “It wouldn’t change anything. I will be painted a fortune huntress by Tremaine no matter what, so even if he had turned me out, I doubt I’d get much sympathy from anyone.”

  “You would from me,” Mr. Lowell said without even blinking.

  His unwavering support undid a knot behind her breastbone. It mattered that he saw her for who she was instead of the scheming opportunist Society had turned her into.

  “As nice as that may be,” Mr. Steadford said, bringing Viola’s focus back to the subject at hand, “it is not very helpful.” He leaned forward ever so slightly and pierced her with his sharp blue eyes. “Tell me, what was your husband’s state of mind like in the days leading up to his death?”

  Viola’s thoughts started tumbling through her head, collapsing like a house of cards blown over by a puff of air. As much as she wished it, she could not run from the truth. Not when it was one of Robert’s strongest arguments against her.

  “Viola?” Mr. Lowell prompted.

  She met his gaze, silently wishing they could leave the subject alone. Peter didn’t deserve to have his kindness repaid by her divulging such information. He deserved to be remembered for the intelligent man he’d once been.

  “Your Grace,” Mr. Steadford said, snapping his notebook shut. “In order to win, Mr. Hayes’s best course of action will be to prove that you took advantage of an ailing man who didn’t have all of his wits about him. So I ask you again, was your husband in perfect mental health?”

  “There were episodes,” Viola confessed, and then hastily added, “but nothing unusual, considering his age.”

  “He was how old?” Mr. Lowell quietly asked.

  Viola dropped her gaze and fidgeted with the skirt of her gown. “Seventy.”

  “Right,” Mr. Steadford muttered. “And who was his physician after your father’s passing?”

  Viola swallowed. This conversation was going from bad to worse. “Mr. Blaire,” she said, speaking as if from outside her own body. She felt as though she was falling into a bottomless well from which she’d never find a way out.

  “I’ll need to take his professional assessment into consideration,” Mr. Steadford said.

  That brought Viola’s attention back to the solicitor’s face. “No.” She shifted in her seat. “Mr. Blaire was the first physician I hired when I opened the hospital, but I was forced to press charges against him last year for negligence and the endangering of others. He has spent eight months in prison and is not due for release for another six weeks.”

  “Very well,” Mr. Steadford conceded. “What about the solicitor who drew up your husband’s will? Perhaps he can offer some insight.”

  “His name was Mr. Porter, but I’m afraid he’s no longer alive,” Viola muttered.

  Mr. Steadford nodded but made no further comment about Mr. Porter’s passing. Instead he said, “I take it the will was altered the day before your husband died? Right after you were married?” Viola nodded. “In that case I may be able to argue that Mr. Porter would not have facilitated this unless he was certain your husband knew exactly what he was doing.”

  He made a note and raised his gaze to Viola’s once more. “Since he is dead, however, I’ll have to make do with witness accounts from your late husband’s servants.”

  Viola bit her lip. “You should know that I let almost all of them go in order to save on the expense of keeping Tremaine House running. Only the butler and housekeeper remained.”

  Mr. Steadford’s brow puckered with concern. “I get the sense that this case is becoming increasingly difficult by the second.”

  “I am sure I could locate a few of them,” Viola hastened to say. “Mrs. Starling, the cook, went to work for Baron Hawthorne, so questioning her will be easy.”

  “And did Mrs. Starling interact with your husband on a regular basis? Enough for her to be able to vouch for his ability to make rational decisions at the time when he chose to marry you?”

  “Not really.”

  Mr. Steadford held his position for a second and then leaned back against his seat. “In that case, it would be useful if you can think of something we might be able to use against Tremaine. Anything at all that would encourage a judge to sympathize with you rather than him.”

  “If I may,” Mr. Lowell said with a quick glance at her before focusing more directly on Mr. Steadford, “I would suggest looking into Tremaine’s behavior. While I will agree that people can change and that he might be different now that he’s older, he developed a quick temper during our time together at Cambridge.” He paused briefly before quietly adding, “I suspect he once beat a demimondaine after she failed to please him.”

  Viola gasped. “Surely not.”

  “Do you have any evidence of this?” Mr. Steadford asked. “A reliable witness, perhaps?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then I’m afraid we cannot use it. Especially since some would argue that the woman probably got what she deserved.”

  Viola frowned. “That’s rather harsh. I’m sure she chose her profession out of desperation, but even if she didn’t, a man has no right to hit a woman for any reason and if he did so, then—”

  “Yes. I agree with you,” Mr. Steadford told her soothingly, “but it doesn’t change the facts. Society will favor a duke over a harlot any day of the week, no matter what, and even if they didn’t, the lack of proof makes it difficult to argue. Tremaine will simply deny it.”

  Feeling defeated before the case had barely begun, Viola swallowed and managed an absent nod. “Of course. I will try to think of something else that may be of use.”

  “Good.” Mr. Steadford eyed his pocket watch again. “In the meantime, we should probably head over to Tremaine House for our meeting there. Perhaps our path to victory will be clearer after we hear what the duke has to say.”

  “Are you absolutely certain you still want to get involved with this?” Steadford asked Henry while Viola exchanged a few words with one of the physicians they passed on their way toward the hospital’s front door.

  “I think I have to,” Henry said with a quick glance in Viola’s direction. Her attention was completely focus
ed on the man with whom she was speaking, instilling a strange combination of envy and admiration in the pit of his stomach. Shaking it off, he told Steadford, “Florian has dedicated his career and an ample amount of his recently acquired fortune to this hospital. If he were here, he would offer the duchess his unwavering support.” Henry would not share the additional fact that he wanted to hold on tight to every excuse he could find to spend time with Viola. Not only because he needed a wife and he thought her to be the best option, but because he liked her and cared about her well-being. She mattered to him more and more with each passing second, which meant he could not stand idly by and watch her lose everything she held dear.

  Steadford’s gaze sharpened. “Do you know how much he has invested?”

  “No.” Henry felt his brow pucker beneath a curious frown. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because there could be something there that we ought to investigate further.”

  Steadford had no chance to elaborate because Viola joined them at that exact second. The way her lips tilted the moment her eyes met his made Henry suck in a breath. Hell, involving himself in Viola’s affairs and offering to help had just as much to do with his clandestine courtship of her as it did with the duty he felt toward safeguarding Florian’s interests. More so, if he was being perfectly honest.

  “Allow me to assist you,” he said when they reached his carriage. Her hand settled neatly in his palm, sending a frisson of energy straight up his arm. Heat arced through him, jolting his heart and leaving him momentarily out of sorts.

  Behind him, Steadford cleared his throat, and when Henry turned to glance at him, he realized that the barrister saw straight through him, his one eyebrow raised with mocking censure.

  “What?” Henry asked in challenge.

  Steadford studied him for a second, then leaned a bit closer and said, “Be careful, Lowell. She doesn’t strike me as the sort of woman who wants a man to come to her rescue.”

  Bristling, Henry merely responded with a curt nod before climbing up into the carriage and dropping down onto the bench across from Viola. She was the very embodiment of true independence, living in her own house, running her own business and going about her own routine. Convincing her to give that up for a husband with legal authority over her would not be easy. And yet, the more time Henry spent in her company and the more he got to know her, the more certain he was that she was the woman he wanted to marry.

  Caught up in the challenge he faced, he drummed his fingers restlessly against his thigh. What he’d felt before as he’d handed her up into the carriage went both ways. He was certain of it, considering the numerous times she’d blushed in his presence and the trouble she’d taken with her hair today. It couldn’t be for Steadford’s benefit or for Robert’s, which had to mean she’d thought of him when she’d chosen to style it so prettily.

  Giving her a swift examination, he admired the loose strands of hair curling almost seductively next to her temples. He wanted to run them between his fingers. He also wanted to run the pad of his thumb across the bridge of her nose and trace the freckles cascading onto her cheeks. He wanted to do a lot of things. Most of which she wouldn’t allow just yet.

  But there was almost something reassuring about that—about knowing that when he finally kissed her, it would be because he’d truly earned it.

  Because if there was one thing he could say with certainty, it was that Viola Cartwright was not the sort of woman to take kissing lightly. When he kissed her, it would mean something to her, which meant that he would mean something to her. And that piece of knowledge was like a comforting balm surrounding his heart.

  It did not, however, help in the slightest when Henry entered Robert’s study fifteen minutes later and informed him that he would be helping her.

  “I never expected you to be my Brutus, Lowell,” Robert said with an unmistakable note of contempt. “It surprises me to discover that our friendship means so little to you that you would knowingly support that”—he swiped a hand in Viola’s direction—“lying charlatan in her effort to steal what is rightfully mine, when you ought to be backing me up.”

  “I regret you see it that way,” Henry replied, affecting the calmest tone he could muster. “In truth, this has nothing to do with our friendship or my acquaintanceship with Her Grace. It relates to the fact that I believe you are in the wrong.”

  “Shall we sit?” Mr. Hayes interjected as if Robert did not look as though he might have an apoplectic fit. A vein pulsed dangerously next to his left eye and his jaw was clenched as if holding back a torrent of expletives. It reminded Henry of how easy it was to enrage him and made him wonder for the first time if Robert’s account of his wife’s passing was accurate. It sounded more like a fabricated tale than fact.

  He managed a curt nod and gestured toward the available chairs. “Please.”

  Henry waited for Viola to sit and then claimed the seat directly beside her. “Just remember,” he whispered while leaning slightly toward her, “there is an end to this. It will not last forever.”

  Her eyes, filled with worry, met his. “Thank you, Mr. Lowell. I will try not to forget that.”

  Looking down at her hands neatly folded in her lap, he wished he could cover them with his own and offer additional reassurance. But to do so would not be appropriate or helpful since it would reveal the true reason for his involvement to Robert. And since Henry still didn’t know the specifics regarding Viola’s history with him, he preferred not to agitate the situation any further.

  “Let us first address the purpose of my client’s legal action against Her Grace, the Duchess of Tremaine, so there is no confusion,” Hayes said. He regarded Viola with an assessing look as if sizing her up. “She was the daughter of the late duke’s physician, a young woman fifty-one years her husband’s junior and without the sort of pedigree one might expect from a duchess.” He droned on, outlining all the facts in the most monotonous way possible, before asking, “What seventy-year-old gentleman would not happily encourage the attentions of a young, energetic woman? And when one considers the benefits marriage will give a man, I daresay the former duke might have been too tempted to resist.”

  Before Henry could leap to Viola’s defense, she was on her feet, forcing the men to rise as well. Henry desperately wanted to soothe her but wasn’t sure how to do so without pulling her into his arms.

  “Viola,” he tried, but she seemed not to hear him.

  Her entire focus was on Hayes, who stood like a pillar of supreme stubbornness, with no hint of offering any apology for what he’d just said. “You overstep,” she finally managed, her voice trembling just enough to convey how upsetting Hayes’s words had been.

  She raised her chin and then stepped toward Robert. “How can you imply that I married your father for selfish reasons?” She leaned back, and suddenly there was only deep sorrow clinging to her slender form. “You’ve known me most of my life. You know the sort of person I am and that I would never do such a thing.” Her voice lowered and she quietly murmured, so softly Henry had to strain in order to hear, “Considering what was once between us—”

  “There was nothing,” Robert hissed, and Viola retreated, sinking back onto her seat in painful defeat.

  Henry’s heart struggled to keep on beating. Considering what was once between us. The words kept playing in his mind, taunting him until his muscles grew tight and he realized he was clutching the armrest so hard his knuckles had whitened. It was a whole new experience, this unpleasant wave of possessiveness coursing through him. He’d never felt like this on account of any other woman before, and he decided he did not like it in the least. He also didn’t care for the ease with which Robert had reduced Viola to a shadow of the woman she’d been one minute earlier. Or how the many questions and concerns now flooding his brain prevented him from offering her the comfort she surely needed.

  “Since Tremaine hired me, I have taken the liberty of doing some research,” Hayes said, as if everyone was getting along sple
ndidly. “It appears you are also funding a new project.” He peered at Viola, whose face had turned ashen.

  “No,” she breathed.

  “Are you saying that I am mistaken?”

  She blinked, shook her head, inhaled deeply. “No, but . . . the rejuvenation center is a joint project between myself and the Duke of Redding. You cannot go after that.”

  “We can if you’ve used a portion of your inheritance on it. Or is Redding the sole proprietor?”

  “We’re partners,” she said, as if struggling to speak. “He owns the majority but—”

  “You’ve made a handsome contribution.”

  “Well yes. I could not in good conscience allow him to—”

  “And the rest of the funds?” Hayes asked, interrupting her once again.

  Henry bristled. The man’s rudeness was becoming intolerable.

  “I’ve some left.”

  Hayes stared at her. “We’ll need to determine how much.”

  “Do you mean to strip her of all her belongings?” Henry asked Hayes in anger.

  “I am merely looking out for my client’s best interests,” Hayes said in a manner indicative of great ambition. All he cared about was winning, no matter who got hurt in the process.

  “And the coin you are bound to receive if you win,” Henry argued, with every intention of bringing the man’s despicable character into focus.

  “To support our case,” Hayes said as if Henry hadn’t spoken, “I present the medical journals of the late duke’s physician, Mr. Blaire.” He picked up one of five leather-bound books stacked on Robert’s desk and flipped it open. “This entry, for instance, dated November 1817, months prior to the duke’s death, reads: ‘His Grace shows increased signs of memory loss. When I mentioned the picture I showed him last week, he failed to recall the color of the flowers or that the sea could be glimpsed in the background.’”

  “That can be easily dismissed,” Steadford said, speaking up for the very first time. “You would have to prove that the duke paid enough attention to that particular picture to register such detail. And besides,” he added, “Blaire is currently serving time for medical misconduct. I doubt his opinion will be well received in court.”