Flawless (19 page)

The fragrant morning air sluiced across his damp skin until every pore prickled to attention. Water dripped from the tips of his hair, sprinkling along his forehead and down under the plush collar of his robe. He grabbed the towel and indulged in a deep scrub down to his scalp. Adam had already left for his morning rounds. Behind-the-stairs espionage, they’d dubbed it.

Feeling restless and aroused, Miles padded the short distance to his bedroom window. The burden of the business was a terrifying responsibility. But the misery of living so near to Viv and not having her—that was eating him
alive. His skin pulled away from his body when they stood together, aching to be nearer. The anticipation was rendering him less than human, an animal trapped in a box and left out in full sun. Suffocating.

Down below, she stepped into view. Sunlight transformed her into a golden angel. Rich, buttery skin and, dear Lord, a figure that promised both the bliss of heaven and the wicked sins of hell. Miles appreciated the shape women’s fashions produced, with plumped breasts, tiny waists, and padded bustles. All very artful. But he’d strip her bare at the merest nod of permission, indulging in the curves God, not a dressmaker, had bestowed.

Everything would change after they made love. He would purge her from his system and be done with the wanting that crept toward mania. To hear her begging and gasping for his every sensual attention would be just the balm to his wounded pride. Then, money in hand, they could part ways. His younger brother, Thomas, already had three strong sons. Their noble line would continue.

So Miles would be free. Free to . . .

Bloody hell, he hardly knew anymore.

Viv was his wife. But he could’ve no more barged into her room, demanding her surrender, than he could jump off the edge of a building with the expectation of flight.

Artless thief—she’d stolen some part of him, something careless and vital and assured. Soon he would take it back.

A knock sounded at the door. Miles quickly made himself decent and found Chloe standing in the corridor. “Yes?”

“Good morning, my lord.” She knotted her hands at her
waist but managed to keep her voice even. “My lady has asked, if you are amenable, that you break your fast with her.”

Surprise kept him mute. Surely it must be some game. She would try to wiggle her way out from the terms of their arrangement. She would argue, or even worse, don a patently false smile that hid everything but her disappointment in him.

Or maybe she just wanted to share breakfast.

This is about trust, isn’t it, Viv?

Time to put that to the test.

“My lady, Louise says breakfast
is ready.”

Weeks of familiar chores had set Chloe right as roses. And although neither would admit as much, she and Adam spent their spare hours together. They both had a fondness for history that left Viv scratching her head and smiling. She envied their easy conversations and furtive glances. They were new and tentative, yet happy—no matter that their cautious romance blossomed in the most unlikely soil.

But her maid’s happiness didn’t temper Viv’s nerves. “And what of my . . . invitation?”

Loneliness had soaked into her like water into a sponge. Never had she felt more isolated, not even during those first few months after arriving at her father’s house—a place of new language, new faces, new expectations. She’d cried herself to sleep every night, until Catrin had taken to singing her lullabies and Alex read to her from a book of mythology far too big for his ten-year-old hands.

Now she was too weary to cry, haunted by the fear that she’d brought all of this on herself. Blaming Miles had become less gratifying than it once was.

Chloe smiled shyly. “His Lordship accepted your invitation, my lady. He’s waiting in the sunroom.”

Nothing outrageous, and certainly nothing to justify her pulse’s sudden jump. Just an ordinary breakfast. After all, they had business matters to discuss. But it felt like a leap of faith rewarded. Maybe regular conversation would help her shed the ache she carried like stones in her heart.

“Thank you, Chloe.”

After passing one last glance over the garden, she turned toward the house.

She found Miles in the airy sunroom, his gold-tinted head bent over a broadsheet. His breakfast of toast, dried fruit, and cheese went untouched. At irregular intervals he used a pencil nub to scratch something onto the curling pages of a ledger. Why hadn’t she ever realized that he was left-handed? Noticing that detail would be like awakening beside him and studying whorls of dark hair across his chest—fascinating, strangely sinful, and almost more intimate than she could bear.

Watching him became her privilege as a nervous heat radiated from her belly. He made a quiet noise of disapproval and propped his chin on his fist. The pose was reminiscent of a schoolboy fitfully working over his sums. But as he pressed tense fingers against his temples, he was a man again—a man working to the limits of his endurance. Did he have a headache? So soon in the day?

Her throat tightened and her thighs felt as flimsy and weak as meringue. As far as Viv could discern, he’d stuck by his promise to forego his standard complement of vices. Upon returning from his visits to the Kimberley Club, he was always sober. Adam had let it slip to Chloe that Miles never gambled. And he slept every night in the room across from hers.

Not that she dared challenge him on the subject of vices again, not after the last time. Their kiss had ripped her apart. The idea of upholding her end of their bargain left her shaking, nervous, and tingling with an anticipation made of both dread and pleasure.

Who are you? And how long will you stay?

He was Miles, Viscount Bancroft. Whatever his current fascination with Kimberley, he wouldn’t be captivated for long. The alternative, that he’d made a serious commitment to the mine’s success,
for her
, was terrifying—a far greater leap than simply sharing breakfast.

“Viv?”

She blinked and his face came into focus. Sunlight from the eastern windows streamed over his shoulders, lighting him from behind and casting the details of his aristocratic features in shadow. But his chocolate-dark gaze missed nothing. A knowing smile eased across his mouth.
That
was Miles, all insolence and expectation.

Then it was gone. He finished with his paper, folded it into a haphazard pile of wrinkles, and set the ledger aside.

“Come sit,” he said, all business. “We have much to discuss.”

Viv took a seat and Chloe bustled in with a fresh pot of tea. She offered a reassuring smile but hastened away as quickly as possible.

“You frighten her, I think,” Viv said. She poured tea for them both, then assembled a plate for her repast.

“Do I frighten you?”

“Hardly.”

“Uh-huh.” He spiked a piece of cheese with a small fork, devilishness sparkling across his expression.

Walking everywhere—that odd, ungentlemanly habit he’d cultivated—had honed his physique. His tan had darkened. Shaving seemed to slip his mind for days at a time. Every night, he arrived home with his ascot askew. Viv had lost track of the times she wondered what it would be like to help him undress at the end of such trying hours, to remove that silk and bare his throat to the fading evening. He would taste of salt and dust. His quiet, throaty moan would be an invitation to feast.

She took a hasty sip of tea.

“Careful there, Viv.”

Rimmed with lashes far darker than his sun-touched hair, Miles’s keen brown eyes laughed in return, making her blush for such foolishness—and because her thoughts weren’t foolish at all. Far from it.

Yet he would end any given encounter with a single word from her lips. He always ensured that she was equally culpable in their trysts. That she hadn’t stopped him on so many occasions forced her breath to quicken. He thought it was liberation—unleashing a matched passion. But she couldn’t
possibly match his passion if he remained unable to give her security.

“I have some interesting news,” he said.

Viv used the excuse of swallowing another sip of tea to collect her thoughts. “Oh?”

“Yesterday afternoon, I walked Mr. Kato to the Hole and presented him to the heads of our mining customers. He will provide security for couriers delivering and retrieving diamond shipments from the brokerage. But with the common harassment of Africans, no matter their employers, I needed to impress my will upon them personally.”

“Did it work?”

“We’ll see, but I have no intention of letting them determine our policies.”

“I feel better knowing that men of our own choosing are on the payroll.”

He smiled, dark eyes dazzling in the morning sun. “Precisely. Which brings me to my news. Mr. Ike Penberthy has yet to secure adequate employment. The recent slump in prices means the mines aren’t hiring as many skilled workers. Even if they could use a man who knows rocks and the like, they won’t foot the cost.”

“So it’s not just us.” She sighed and pushed her toast away. “Everyone will suffer if pricing trends continue.”

Miles nodded soberly. “I wanted to ask how the books look to you.”

He always took her estimations seriously. They
were
partners, fully and devotedly—at least with regard to the business. Was that so terrible? Why spoil it with dreams of
more, the kind that teased her as she slept? The backs of his hands were dusted with a light spray of fine, dark hair. She wanted to fold her own hand over his and stroke that hair with her thumb, just to see if it was as soft as she imagined. Another lonely pang tightened in her chest.

“Viv?”

“Oh, the books. Yes. Anything in particular?”

“I don’t know if we have means enough to offer him employment, or even a job for him to do. And I don’t want it to seem so menial as to be insulting.”

The tightness in his voice revealed a level of sympathy Viv hadn’t thought him capable of mustering. He
felt
for Ike Penberthy, a clever man with pride and a family to support—a man he never would’ve noticed had they remained in London.

Impulsively Viv squeezed his hand, giving into the temptation to touch. Nothing more. But how could she not? She understood his sympathy and was moved by it. “We have enough. And with his experience, we’re likely to benefit immeasurably.”

Miles flicked his eyes—eyes that burned amber in the morning sunlight—toward their clasped hands. He frowned as if trying to recall the last time she’d touched him voluntarily. She couldn’t remember either. He disengaged and cleared his throat.

Viv looked away. She was feeling too addled and off- center to make sense of her disappointment.

“I’d like to pay his wife a visit to make sure they’re coping,” she said. “Perhaps their baby even arrived by now.”

“Not alone, please. Take Adam or Mr. Kato.”

The grave timbre of his voice made her uncomfortable. Any reminder as to the dangers of their new home had that effect, stealing the security wrapped around her in their sunlit nook. It was all outside, those hazards and filth. But if Alice Penberthy could stand it, fighting for the sake of her boys and her new babe, the least Viv could do was visit.

“I promise,” she said.

“Good. Then tell me. Where do we stand? Exactly?”

She couldn’t help but sit a little straighter, as she always had when her father valued her abilities and judgment. But with Miles, she could not deny an undercurrent of deeper need. His obvious respect for her mind gave her the smallest hope that one day he would respect all of her wishes.

Unfortunately, she could not give him news to complement the warmth in her chest.

“We are utterly at the whim of the market. Even our best plans could be felled by one good strike outside of the normal rate of excavation. The market would be saturated with new stones and prices would crash. Last year, floods took out two mines and production halted for months. What if they had been our clients? Such extremes would send us beyond the reach of even the most generous creditor.” She sighed heavily. “We lack stability. The whole business is built on speculation.”

“Sounds more like poker every day. It’s a matter of who flinches—and who lets that fear be seen. What of the carbons Smets mentioned?”

“From all I’ve read, they’re nothing more than slag.” After
finishing her toast with raspberry jam, she tapped his ledger. “And this?”

“These are the going prices for all of our supplies. Everything is extortionary. The shareholders have set out our operating budget, and I’m not sure it will be enough to see us through the year.” He shoved the papers aside as if the very sight turned his stomach. “Your father should’ve acquired a dry goods company. The best money will be found in the ability to supply those hopeful souls who keep digging.”

He sank back into his seat and closed his eyes, hands laced at the top of his head. He looked weary.
And he’s a viscount
, Viv reminded herself—a man whose sole pursuits had been, until recently, those of a hedonistic variety.

“What is it?”

The grin he wore made fun of his own failings. “My brain is not built for all of these numbers.”

“But you’re doing wonderfully.” To her surprise, the words came without hesitation or flattery.

He had lovely eyebrows, dark and thick yet perfectly shaped. They dipped in a curious frown. “You’re in earnest.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice tight. “I am.”

“Good. Then I know you aren’t humoring me when I ask about the books.”

Now it was Viv’s turn to frown. She always assumed him simply too . . . fickle. What interest would the Viscount Bancroft truly have in figures and accounts payable? But never once had she doubted his capacity. Even during the worst discord of their marriage, he had always been an avid reader and a quick wit.

“Not humoring, my lord,” she whispered. “Admiring.”

Miles moved slowly—slowly enough to let her back away—but Viv welcomed his palm at her nape and the inexorable way he brought their mouths together. Feeling amicable and open, she accepted his kiss. Not a punishment or a dare. Just satisfaction that they were in this venture together. All of it.