met with Reston. Between his height, his golden hair, and his gentleman’s manners, he was that distinctive.
Gads. What had she been thinking?
“Good morning.” Reston’s pleasant baritone sounded to her left when she’d been on the bench beside the pond for only a few minutes. “Lady Leah? Yes, it is you. We met earlier this week, I believe, along with your dear sister, Lady Emily. May I join you?”
Leah nodded and found herself once again sitting beside the compilation of muscle, charm, and masculine appeal that was Viscount Reston.
“I sent my footman off to purchase some bread for the ducks,” Leah said, her tone clipped. “We haven’t privacy for long.”
“Then I will reserve the flirtation and flattery for later. Has Hellerington called upon Wilton yet?”
“He has an appointment Friday next,” Leah said, hating the catch in her voice and the truth of her words.
Reston stretched out long, long legs, all nonchalance and polished riding boots. “Not until then? That is all the time in the world. I might be calling on your papa by then myself.”
Leah closed her eyes, the lovely day and the handsome man at such variance with the topic under discussion as to make her queasy. “My lord, I am going to ask you again to desist from this course. Hellerington is devious and determined, as is the earl. They can lock me away without a word to anybody, and Wilton has threatened as much in the past.”
“Was that before or after he killed your fiancé in cold blood?” Reston inquired, keeping his eyes trained on the ducks, his hands propped on the golden head of his walking stick.
The words, so casually uttered, sent a blast of winter through the spring day. “You know about that?”
“I know your brothers also got you to the Continent for a couple years while your father’s ire cooled,” he added. “From what I hear, the young man was of good family and had honorable intentions. There was no cause for a duel.”
“There was not, but you may take from my experience that Wilton will stoop very nearly to murder to have his way. I do not think to thwart him with impunity.”
“You’ve considered it, though.” Reston slanted her another look. “You’ve considered running away, eloping with someone else, going into service. Why haven’t you done it?”
That he’d reasoned this accurately on so little acquaintance should have made Leah uneasy. Instead, it provoked her to confidences she ought not to be sharing. “He’s promised to take out any of my misdeeds on Darius,” Leah said. “I don’t know what hold he has over Darius, though much of it is financial, but I will not be the cause of my brother’s ruination.”
Reston rubbed his chin with a hand that should have been sporting gloves. Large hands but capable of a gentle touch. “I see.”
“You’ll leave me in peace, then?”
“My intention was never to disturb your peace, but rather to preserve it.”
“That is not an answer,” Leah bit out. “My lord, you are meddling with my life and the lives of the people I care about. You have no right to do this.”
“And your papa has no right to sell you to that lecher,” Reston rejoined, his voice losing its polite veneer.
“I am his daughter,” Leah reminded him. “He has every right.”
“You have attained your majority.”
“I am an unmarried female. I cannot make contracts, cannot buy land, cannot hire or fire my own employees, cannot own a business unless left to me by my family. I have no salable skills save governessing, and any family that hired me would be subject to the earl’s displeasure.”
Blond brows twitched closer to a lordly nose. “You have thought this through.”
“He watches my pin money,” Leah went on, “so I cannot save but a few pennies on rare occasion. He keeps the jewelry given me by my mother or brothers locked away, so I cannot pawn it. My old dresses are taken from my wardrobe, and the same with my shoes, boots, and so forth.”
“You are a prisoner,” Reston concluded, temper evident in his tone.
“I am a daughter,” Leah retorted, “who has earned her father’s disfavor.”
“I am holding in my left hand two gold sovereigns,” Reston said, his tone of voice reverting to deceptive evenness. “When I assist you to rise, you will slip them into your glove.”
Leah felt tears threaten. “My lord, don’t do this. I cannot start a life on two gold sovereigns.”
“You cannot,” he agreed, shifting his walking stick to the side. “But you can hire