“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.
