Flawless (25 page)

“A workhouse implies destitution and charity,” she said. “The widows of Kimberley have lost husbands in the Hole
or to illness, but as with any woman of proper morals, they want to maintain their dignity. Honest work ensures that, while the Auxiliary will provide a safe haven for them and their children.”

“I suppose the alternatives would be much worse,” Mrs. Goode said with a sniff. “And the jails are already so crowded as it is, what with the renegade blacks and union whips.”

Viv sipped her tonic water. “I would hardly call spending six hours in town without a work permit cause enough for the term ‘renegade.’”

Lady Galeworth joined their conversation, her face a map of disapproving wrinkles and parchment-thin skin. “Don’t mind Lady Bancroft, Frances. If she wishes to occupy her time with those riffraff from the shantytown, so be it.”

Viv’s smile was in sound working order. “I suppose the alternative is running a business. And we couldn’t have that, now could we?”

Content to end talk of the subject with that rejoinder, she maintained a steady stream of acceptable chatter and gossip. But her patience was sorely lacking. Thoughts of the business kept her sociable, while thoughts of Miles made her fretful and eager to seek him out. At last she could no longer stand preening among the perfumed, bejeweled queens of the colony. Viv strolled the parlor and examined the fine array of paintings adorning cream flocked walls.

Neil Elden met her while she stood before a particularly nice Dutch landscape. Was it by Bruegel, or just an exquisite copy? In Kimberley she never could be sure.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“Quite.”

He smiled as if he understood exactly what that brief reply signified, but he didn’t contradict. Neil’s full lower lip balanced the neat blond whiskers of his mustache, and a light application of pomade slicked his hair. He looked quite dashing in his eveningwear, but he still wore it with the puffed stance of a man showing off his latest treasure. Her father had behaved that way with particularly fond acquisitions, from prime hunting dogs to pocket watches. Perhaps that was the biggest distinction between new money and old—boasting versus taking for granted.

Viv did neither. What did that make her?

“I wish to ask you a question regarding Christie Brokerage.”

She lifted her brows. “Oh?”

“Is it true that your husband will begin trading in carbons before the close of the year?”

This was new. She assumed Miles’s interest in carbons had been to humor Ike Penberthy. But to trade them? The brokerage had never attempted it. What money could be squeezed from such useless stones?

“I’ve distanced myself from the tasks of the brokerage,” she said coolly, with no intention of giving away her secrets. “Society in Kimberley has proven rewarding enough.”

“And your good works.”

“Exactly. If you wish to know more about the direction of the business, please ask His Lordship.” She felt strangely uneasy in what had previously been charming company. “Out of curiosity, Mr. Elden, why would trading in carbons
concern the Lion’s Head Mine? Wouldn’t a stable bottom line benefit everyone involved?”

His mustache twitched around a quick smile. “My lady, the purveyors of high-quality gemstones should not deal in such low materials. The prestige of the house would be reduced. It smacks of a certain financial desperation. And you wouldn’t want suppliers to doubt the viability of their chosen brokerage.”

Viv’s mouth had gone dry. If there had been a more politely delivered threat, she’d never been party to it. Across weeks of tea and conversation, he had always been perfectly cordial. She had taken to assuming he shared the same entrepreneurial spirit as had her father, but perhaps that did not guarantee Sir William’s more generous, honorable qualities.

When the majordomo announced seating for supper, Neil offered his arm. Viv glanced at Miles, but he was busy allowing two bankers to run off at the mouth, his posture as negligent as the arm he draped on the massive marble mantel.

Had he really made plans to sell carbons? The figures she’d compiled during the weeks up in the brokerage’s cramped bookkeeping room suggested few scenarios for success, even if the gem trade remained volatile. What plans did he have for a mountain of rocks in the basement? But rather than doubt her husband’s judgment, she found herself scrutinizing Neil’s so-called concerns. Something did not add up.

“Have no worries about my husband, Mr. Elden,” she said, taking the man’s elbow. “I’ll speak with him.”

“I appreciate it, my lady.”

She wasn’t her father’s daughter for nothing. Neither had she navigated a lifetime of social obstacles by being unobservant. As she and Mr. Elden entered the dining room, Viv put faith in her gut impression: her concession was exactly why he’d approached her.

And she didn’t appreciate being manipulated.

Repeatedly stabbing a carving knife
into the back of his hand would’ve been a more satisfying way to spend the evening. The woman Miles was promised to bed before dawn ate supper at Neil Elden’s side. That the seating had been a coincidence was beyond his ability to entertain.

Stuck between the vile, stringy old harpy Lady Gale-worth and her slack-faced son, a fat bachelor with a penchant for off-color jokes, Miles was in hell. The food was tasteless and the water completely unsatisfying. Instead he drank in the sound of Viv’s voice, chasing its dips and rises with far more dedication than he followed the tedious conversations that swam beneath the ceiling of cigar smoke. One endless month of
not having
Vivienne had cleaved a split in his brain.

Frustration and boredom plagued him through the interminable dinner. He accomplished the bare minimum with regard to involvement. Drinks with the men afterward held just as little interest, except that he kept his ears open to possible industry gossip. The entrepreneurs in this town were as competitive as they were uncouth—braggarts, all of them—which meant the ill-mannered lot
divulged more secrets than a fishing vessel spilling its catch on the docks.

Preserving the mystique of the nobility was Miles’s obligation and birthright, one he had gloried in ruining. But gambling was all about holding one’s cards close. He knew how to keep his mouth shut.

Their words and posturing blended into an aural backdrop. Viv was with the women in the other room and he wasn’t with her. They would drive home, inflicting hideous silences on one another. And then they would finalize the last terms of their bargain: how to make love without feeling.

Goblins would’ve been more welcome company at that moment, but Elden’s appearance was more genuinely hellish.
Talk of the devil, and his horns appear.

“Good to see you, Bancroft,” the eel said.

Miles made a noncommittal noise, unwilling to rouse the energy to offer a proper greeting. Instead he applied his imagination to how satisfying it would be to crack his fist against Elden’s cheekbone. What would happen? He didn’t seem the type to punch back. Likely he kept hired muscle for dirty deeds that he considered beneath his newly elevated station.

“I appreciate your permitting me the pleasure of your wife’s company this evening,” Elden continued, perhaps not realizing what a clear invitation his words were to violence. Miles set aside his tumbler of tonic water and squeezed a fist until the knuckles in his left hand cracked. “She really is the most amazing woman, and yet nothing above her station.”

“Her station?” Miles asked.

“As a woman. I was worried, initially, when you both arrived in town. We all were. Christie’s decision to place her in charge was a point of contention for myself and the other suppliers. Any active role on her part . . . well, no one was pleased. Not in so many words, of course.” Elden slammed back the last of his liquor. Then like a cat embarrassed by a misstep, he smoothed his palm over the hair at his temple. “But she seems a keen sort of woman, properly versed in matters of decorum. You’ve done well keeping her in line.”

Had Miles been in a jovial mood, he would have laughed. Keep Viv in line? Not only was that impossible and quite the opposite of their true marital roles, it meant their discretion was paying off. Elden didn’t suspect how deeply she was involved with running Christie Brokerage. “Indeed, she is my most daunting challenge,” he said dryly.

“That’s why I had no qualms investing in her women’s project. Something to occupy her.”

Miles regarded him as he would a specimen jar containing a preserved tapeworm. He’d seen such a thing, once, at a curiosities exhibit in New York. He’d been both fascinated and revolted that such a creature existed. He could respect new money, in a distant way like admiring a bird in flight—an achievement he would never share. Sir William Christie had been such a wonder. But Neil Elden was not the self-made paragon Viv seemed to believe of him. Something about the man did not ring true, even among the falsities of such a dinner party.

A dissection for another time. At the moment he
wanted to establish one particular boundary with unflinching clarity.

“I would appreciate, Elden, if you left me the task of occupying my own wife. Wouldn’t want to strain our business relationship, would we?”

“Is that a threat, Bancroft?”

“It’s Lord Bancroft to you, my good man.” Miles grinned at the indignant flare of Elden’s nostrils and edged into his space. The ability to look down at his rival, both socially and literally, held a distinct advantage. “And that was most certainly a threat. Stay away from my wife.”

Miles turned to go before the urge to belt his opponent became too great to stifle. The thick pulse in his ears submerged every sound. He made his apologies to Jonathan Montgomery, then departed through the front door, leaving Viv to endure the final hour amid diamond-decked females.

Having tapped deep into a wellspring of aggravation, he hardly trusted his ability to restrain it. Rather than dragging Viv home and risking irreparable harm by claiming his reward, he simply needed to take a walk.

V
iv couldn’t find Miles. Using
polite inquiries to mask her burgeoning anger, she discovered that he’d left the party an hour earlier. But why leave her behind? On the night when they were to consummate their marriage anew? In years past, she would have assumed that he had ducked into some private room for an all-night card game—or worse. She could not count the number of times they had attended a function together, only for Viv to ride home alone.

But the heat sizzling along her nape suggested this disappearance was even more sinister. Perhaps this was checkmate in an elaborate revenge, where a new, tempting version of her husband softened her heart, crumbled her defenses, and left her wanting. Embarrassed. Broken.

It wouldn’t happen.

Adjusting her wrap, waiting for Adam to bring around the coach, she gloried in the steel reinforcing her spine. Whatever petty games Miles wanted to play, she would rise above them—perhaps with enough resolve to overcome her renewed fascination. How could she possibly love a man
who thrived on such whims? Her heart was too precious to leave in such careless hands.

The coach eased around the corner and came to a stop before Montgomery’s palatial residence. Adam stepped out and made a face. “Where is he?”

Viv matched his confusion. “I thought you took him home already.”

A flicker of something—guilt? sheepishness?—briefly eclipsed his concern. “I spent the last few hours in Chloe’s company. I haven’t seen him since I dropped you both here.”

“He probably went for a walk,” she said. “You know how he can be at functions such as these.”

Adam didn’t appear convinced and neither did Viv’s words convince herself. Short of grabbing a lantern and searching the streets, she had little recourse but to climb inside the coach and return home. Old humiliations haunted that solitary carriage.

She recalled his quiet words, spoken just before their arrival.
Perhaps this has all been a mistake. Say the word and we’ll leave it.

A halfhearted rain to match her mood spat down from the sky by the time Adam returned her safely home. She dashed indoors, hoping Miles was there. She stood before the door to his room. Never had she ventured inside. The first knock was tentative, but she tried again with more resolve.

He did not answer.

Hands unsteady, she opened the door and crossed the
threshold, feeling like an intruder in her own home. The scent of him—bergamot and plain glycerin soap—breezed over her, sparking impulses through her senses. She tasted his insistent lips, felt his hand caressing her inner thigh, and recalled the relaxed sprawl of his big, beautiful body after they’d made love.

His bed was draped with a dark blue duvet. Matching curtains lined the windows, creating the impressions of a sensual cave, a place of refuge and intimacy. Part of her was intimidated and more than a little furious, but she still wanted to explore it, be part of it.

Be with him.

Rather than torture herself with what they did not share, she returned to her room and closed the door. She tossed her evening gloves on the foot of the bed. Her hair came next, as pin after freed pin released pent-up tension. The mental image of Miles doing that for her, sinking his fingertips down to the scalp and massaging away the subtle ache, was almost clear enough to believe. But the truth was more lonely. Just her own hands. Just the wish he would, for once, honor his promises.

She nearly laughed at herself. That evening’s seduction had not started as a promise but as a threat. Something akin to disappointment had settled around her heart. Although she feared Miles would prove as fickle and insensitive as always, she had also hoped . . .

No. Even in this seduction, he was determined to play games. She wanted stability, not the caprice of a man used to indulging every stray impulse.

With a huff, she turned toward Chloe’s room. The sooner she was out of her evening gown and asleep, the sooner Viv could put this monstrous night behind her.