Page 58 of His Scandalous Viscountess
“Duly noted. I apologize if I distressed you, but we have learned quite a lot this evening.” She glanced back at Wolf, who stood stiff and unsmiling.
“Indeed, we have learned that your sister could always turn to burglary if her fortune was lost,” Wolf said, as he moved closer to her. “We also learned that Lucifer seems to have an affinity for Julia.”
She could not have missed the note of anger—or was it jealousy?—that laced his words. “An affinity forinformationperhaps. I was merely a source.”
He stilled and looked at her, questions in his eyes. “Information?”
“Yes.” She rolled her eyes at the overbearing man beside her and turned back toward her sister to watch the dark-haired, sharp-eyed man hovering next to Ros. “He was more than a little curious aboutyou, Lord Flintshire.”
Flint blinked as his mouth opened slightly, as though he wished to say something, but nothing came out.
Shooting a pointed look at Wolf, Julia continued on. “Thatwas how I paid for the information on Wallthorpe.”
“It was?” Relief danced in Wolf’s gaze, which only sparked her fury.
She rounded on him, her body alive with outrage. “Just so. But clearly you had it in your mind that I had tendered someotherform of payment.”
He winced. “Not tendered, but I would not have doubted that Lucifer would have asked. I assumed you would say no and offer him money instead. My fear was that you would overpay for information I had already acquired.”
She wasn’t sure she entirely believed him, but chose not to pursue the matter further—at least for the moment. Turning back to the still-shocked Flint, Julia asked him the question they all were mulling over internally. “Do you have any notion as to why he might’ve been asking about you?”
“I am at a loss. I’ve never even set foot in his establishment. Maybe he is planning to…” Flint let his thought trail off, but something seemed to be rattling about in his head.
Ros placed a soft hand on his arm. “What could it be? What might he be planning?”
Flint startled as he looked at Ros’ delicate features. Her big green eyes glittered with concern as she looked up at him. Something in his gaze shifted and shuttered in a way Julia had not noticed before, and it clearly caused her sister no end of distress.
Ros pulled her hand from his arm, took a step away from him, and refocused her gaze on Julia. “Yes, well, what did you learn of Wallthorpe?”
Finding it difficult to move on from the unspoken byplay, Julia tried to set her concern for her sister aside and gather her thoughts.
Wolf stepped into the breach. “Wallthorpe is in dire financial straits. In fact, he may be penniless.”
Julia filled them in from there. “It seems he has been gambling heavily, and the bank is about to foreclose on his family seat, which he put up as collateral for a loan to fund a shipping venture. The ship sank, and everything was lost.”
Flint’s upper lip curled in disgust. “So the man is desperate, and his only way out of hock is to marry.”
“Yes, he is the worst kind of fortune hunter. Add to that his long-held fixation with Julia, who now has a significant portion of what was his father’s money. And the only way to access those funds is to marry her.”
Wolf’s brow creased to the point that Julia worried it might turn into a permanent furrow.
She sighed. It was becoming more and more evident that the only way to thwart her stepson was to either give away her fortune, or to marry someone. What worried her was that she couldn’t be certain that giving the money away would solve the problem entirely. The man seemed inordinately focused on her, to the point he’d pursued her sister as leverage. If she were being forthcoming, she would acknowledge that he’d always seemed overly interested in her, even when she’d been a young debutante. Her stomach churned.
Wolf looked at her, concerned determination lurking in his dark gaze. “Jules, perhaps we should speak in private?”
“I see no reason to hide the nature of this discussion. Ros and Flint are both adults, and they’re aware of the situation I find myself in.”
For a moment, she was certain she would cast up her accounts, but then she looked at Wolf and allowed flashes of their time together to comfort her. The way he touched her, the pleasure he shared with her, and the way he looked at her all comforted her. Even now, the softness in his gaze made her heart stutter.
He drew a breath and jerked down on his vest. “Very well, Jules.” He stepped over to the chair nearest the door and produced a folio she’d not seen before. Then he pulled a sheet from the book and held it out to her. “You should read this.”
Warily, she walked over and took the document. The words on the page ran together until she adjusted to the handwriting, but then they jumped off the page. Reading the letter from her dead husband to his son took mere moments, and then she had to reread it.
All the blood drained from her face. “He’ll never stop, will he?”
Ros rushed to her side. “What are you talking about?”
Julia waved the correspondence in the air. “Wallthorpe. He’s been obsessed with me for years. It’s his fault his father married me.”
