Flawless (29 page)

Although she feared that Miles’s cynical view of Society was clouding her own, she had come to believe that his interpretation was much clearer, more honest. But where did that leave her, a woman whose past was best left entirely obscured?

Dizzy, she made her excuses to the small gathering. Miles accompanied her to a small alcove. He tipped up her chin with two white-gloved fingers. “What is it?”

“I hate these lights.”

“Lies from my Vivienne? Very unbecoming.”

“I need a moment, nothing more. Just to catch my breath.” She smoothed her palms down his silken lapels. Not once since arriving in Africa had she seen him so resplendently dressed, and yet all she wanted was to strip each layer away to indulge in hot skin and dense, sturdy muscle. “Please, do what you must to maintain our appearances.”

He peered deeper. Lit from behind by the electric lights, his cheekbones appeared stronger, his eyes hooded and dark. All she could see clearly was the pearlescent shine of his teeth as he indulged in a lazy smile. “Very well. But remember what I said, my dear. I’ll come find you.”

Despite her misgivings, fearing the worst should he find out the truth behind her nightmares, she returned his smile. He had opened her body, showing her unimaginable pleasure. Now he wanted more vulnerability. She could hardly
do that and expect to keep Viscount Bancroft as her husband. Her hands shook slightly as he kissed her knuckles. He caught that, too, frowning slightly.

To prevent him from probing, she said, “I’ll be here, Miles. I promise.”

“Lady Bancroft, whatever are you
doing alone?”

Neil Elden arrived at her side as if conjured by a shadowy spell. The urge to pull away from his presumptuous closeness was instant, when she had once considered him a friend and ally. The support he continued to muster on behalf of the Auxiliary was remarkable, which meant Alice was well on her way to opening its doors to Kimberley’s most desperate women. Yet goose bumps sprouted on the inches of bare skin between her evening gloves and the sleeves of her most decadent red silk gown.

“Yes, just a moment free of business and politics. I can only bear so much before I lose the threads.”

“Here, drink this.” Neil pushed a crystal of claret into her hands.

She sipped the sweet red wine and smiled halfheartedly. “Thank you.”

“I don’t suppose we could have that dance now? Your husband is quite occupied with matters of greater significance.”

Wondering at Elden’s choice of words, she very much doubted that Miles would consider dancing with her insignificant. “No, thank you. I’m not quite up for the exertion.”

Not with you.

But Neil’s face had taken on a harder look. He reached out as if readying to stroke her face, then hesitated. Viv could only watch, removed from her own body, as he tried again. The touch of his fingers against her cheek made her jump. Mouth open, a predatory keenness had crept into his blue eyes.

“Mr. Elden.” She backed against the wall. Only her glass of claret acted as a tiny shield, promising a red wine stain. “Stop, please.”

“I have no intention of doing so.”

The threat in his tone stole the fear from Viv’s spine and replaced it with anger. “Get away from me.”

“I will. But I’m only going to tell you this once, Lady Bancroft. You will regret it if you go ahead with this scheme to sell carbons.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Do not think to insult me with some vapid protests. Say what you like to the others, but I suspect you know a great deal more about the workings of your father’s business. You either make the decisions, or you influence that noble braggart of yours. You are as much a partner in running Christie Brokerage as you are a married woman.” His hand cupped the back of her neck. Like a velvet rope, his touch was soft but no less restraining. “I rather think I forgive him on that score. I imagine your kind could be rather . . . persuasive.”

Her
kind
?

“Mr. Elden, I insist that you let go of me, right this instant.”

Rather than comply, Neil’s expression darkened. He yanked the glass of claret from her hands. A few drops of
red scattered across the lapels of his new suit coat. The crystal clattered to the marble floor. Viv looked around frantically but found no one. The alcove she’d chosen to find a moment of reprieve and privacy kept them shielded from the main body of dancers.

I can always scream. If he goes further, I can scream. But he won’t. He wouldn’t dare.

“Don’t fight this, Viv,” he whispered, so close now. “Change that business model or I will find out exactly who you are.”

Her sputtered protests meant nothing as he leaned in to kiss her. He smelled of the spilled claret and cigars.

Maybe that cigar stench was what freed her. Cigars meant Miles and the way he used to batter and abrade her will to resist. But that was a long time ago. And no matter Miles’ss teasing aggression, she’d never actually feared him. Loved, hated—never physically feared.

But she feared Neil Elden. He touched his lips to hers, igniting the fury of the nightmare she’d once lived. Viv’s frozen body finally responded to her mind’s frantic pleas. She pushed against his chest and slapped him clean on the mouth.

“I said
no
.”

Her chest hurt. The palm of her hand hurt. And her pride was a wreck. She’d fooled herself into believing that her father was a reflection of all self-made men—the opposite of Miles’ss behavior in London. Something better, more honest in a world constructed of polite lies.

Neil smoothed his mustache. “I tried to warn you because
I admire you. You’ve clawed your way up from nothing, just like I have.”

“We have nothing in common, Mr. Elden.”

His meticulously pale skin had taken on the pink cast of a man losing his temper. “That’s what I intend to disprove.”

Viv threw back her shoulders. Her head ached and every muscle along her spine had turned to rock. “You do not want to make an enemy of my husband. The business arrangement between the Lion’s Head Mine and Christie Brokerage will be irrevocably damaged.”

“Believe me, Lady Bancroft, it has been already.”

She spun away from him, tripping blindly toward the ballroom, seeking someplace public and well lit. Her neck itched where he’d touched. She wiped her lips with the back of her gloved hand. The skilled quartet had moved on to a lively minuet, but it all sounded like the lowing of cattle.

A hand touched her arm and she nearly shrieked. Her heart stuttered.

Just as he promised, Miles had found her.

O
ver the previous few weeks,
Miles had come to understand the delicacy of Vivienne’s expressions. She possessed no fewer than eight different smiles, seven of which expressed emotions other than joy. Embarrassment. Chagrin. Derision. The last one—the one he liked best—shaped her lips right then. Genuine happiness. She was glad to see him.

Fire and fear mixed in his chest. He wanted to stand up taller and run away at the same time. She had such control over him. When had he ever thought otherwise? He’d peel off his own skin for her.

The musicians ended their frothy minuet.

He bowed and when he kissed her hand, he lingered. He turned her palm up and placed a second kiss on the inside of her wrist. Were he in command of the entire world, including women’s fashion, he would ban bustles, corsets, and evening gloves. The leather, warmed by her body, was a poor substitute for skin. But her radiant red gown was undeniably gorgeous. The deep scarlet made her hair brighter, her
eyes greener, her pale skin even more lustrous. Silver embroidery shimmered with each movement, until he could see her pulse as it rippled down her body—her heart creating waves in a river of red.

“You have impeccable timing, Lord Bancroft,” she said, that smile still molding her strawberry-pink lips. “I was just ending a most unpleasant conversation with Mr. Elden.”

Something had happened, tightening Miles’s chest. “What did he do?”

Hazel irises darkened and her hand tried to flutter away. “Ask me to dance.”

Miles caught her fingers, kissed them, held them. The quartet had started a piece by the younger Strauss. “Will you waltz with me, Viv?”

Couples began pairing off. She watched them go with a strength of longing that Miles had rarely seen. Always torn between what she wanted and some other darkness he couldn’t identify, let alone remedy. He’d thought it ambition or even the need to live up to her father’s expectations. But if Viv’s sleeping hours were diseased by nightmares, he needed to reconsider. Some piece of her was still hiding.

“It’s been . . .” She dropped her gaze. “It’s been such a long time since we waltzed.”

“It has.”

Memories of the Saunders’ long-ago gala layered over them—not like the quartet’s sweet melody, but as a discordant screech. Yet despite Miles’s fear that a brick wall would thrust between them once more, Viv’s smile turned rueful. “Shall we try to rewrite history, then?”

“Just a new chapter, my dear.”

With more haste than he would’ve admired in another man—but damn it all, he didn’t want Viv to change her mind—Miles led her to the dance floor. He encircled her body and pulled her near, his fingers possessively splayed between her shoulder blades. And they waltzed.

Moving in time to the music was natural and familiar. Their bodies found a place of unison, rising and falling, spinning and twirling. He led and she followed, which was fact enough to leave him more excited than the dance. Color and light spilled like paint along his peripheral vision. Conversation and music layered over the pulse in his ears.

“You’re smiling,” she said.

“That sounded like a question.”

“One can never be certain with us.”

“That has been our wont, hasn’t it? Blasted unpredictable.”

A frown creased between her flaxen brows. “I suppose it can’t be helped. We bring out the worst in one another.”

“Funny.” He pulled her closer. “I was just thinking that we bring out the best.”

She appeared a little dazed, a little shy. Miles wanted to crawl into her thoughts and live there until he could interpret her mysterious reserve. What would he find? Did she feel anything for him at all? More likely he was a monumental fool, the likes of which the British aristocracy had yet to survive.

They finished the dance and started straight into another. He was reluctant to let the moment escape. Still, some matters
simply outshone all others. Apparently dread and an uncomfortable tickle of jealousy were, at present, stronger than desire.

“Tell me now, Viv. What happened?”

“He kissed me.”

Miles stubbed his toe, then tightened his grip on Viv’s upper body to keep from taking them both down. To her credit, she kept the rhythm and yanked him back into step.

“Saving your renowned subtlety for more worthy peers?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Best to say such a thing bluntly.”

“I might beg to differ.”

He gulped a mouthful of hot air, tasting a hint of ozone from the electrical lamps. The room seemed jaundiced then, bathed in that unnatural yellow light. Or maybe the idea of Elden’s tongue pressing into his wife’s mouth put him in mind of disease. Miles certainly felt capable of retching.

“Did you enjoy it, then?”

“No! Of course not.”

“There is no ‘of course’ about it, Viv. We’re back to that measure of unpredictability. I can no more judge your appreciation of Elden’s sexual advances than I could predict whether you’ll accept my proposition.”

“Which . . . proposition?”

“As to where you’ll sleep tonight.”

Soldiers prepared for incoming cannon fire with less anxiety than Miles as he awaited her reply. He pushed at Viv because she could push him to the point of ruin. He’d
been close once, so very close—and he hadn’t loved her then. With no trust and no faith, they had no future. Those were the stakes.

“Yes,” she said simply. “I would like to sleep with you tonight.”

Miles stopped dancing. It was either that or take an irrevocable tumble the next time she lobbed another verbal volley. He avoided swirling couples and walked her off the floor.

They wound up tucked behind the ostentatious staircase. “Well, this is nicely reminiscent,” he said dryly. “Now, explain. Everything Elden did.”

“For some reason, he doesn’t want the brokerage to sell carbons. When I told him I wouldn’t be intimidated, he kissed me. It wasn’t . . .” She made a sour face and crossed her arms over her stomach. “It wasn’t one of passion. He means to intimidate us.”

Miles closed his eyes as red dyed his vision. “By threatening you? Viv, I’ll have him arrested.”

He remembered the wagon master he’d fought there on the Cape Town docks, and the Boer raiders who’d attacked the stagecoaches. Would that dealing with a human snake like Elden were so easy, so physically satisfying. Nothing short of garroting the man would completely quell the steaming rage in Miles’s veins. But no. He may as well have been back in London, tangled by the polite conventions of money and politics.

“No need for anything so dramatic,” she said. “He promised we’d be sorry, but nothing more specific. In the meantime, don’t you think we should discover the real reason he’s
so against our new business model? The idea his dislikes are based on its lack of prestige doesn’t ring true.”

Her eyes twitched to take in every nuance of his expression. He’d never quite felt so much like an exotic beast. No matter the tidal pool of nausea swirling in his gut, he appreciated one plain fact: she cared what he thought.

“Yes, of course.” Miles, however, needed other answers. “When you described this . . .
encounter
, you seemed disappointed. Why?”

“I admire that entrepreneurial spirit—the ability to rise above one’s birth. Perhaps because that’s what I admired about my father. But they are nothing alike beyond their rise to fortune.” She shaped her lush lips into those of a prim spinster. “I most certainly did not enjoy it.”