Flawless (36 page)

His arms circled her shoulders. The warm cotton shirt that clung to his broad shoulders smelled of dust, sweat, and a faintly metallic tinge of blood. “What happened to you?”

“I went to jail with her,” she said simply. “I had no one else. She’d wanted me to run away, but I wouldn’t let go of her hand. No words in our language can explain what prison is like—the damp and cold, the infested food. Mother never gave up hope that my father would arrive in time. I’d been eight years old and didn’t know any better. So I believed, too. And I waited for him to come make it better.”

“He never did.”

“His people found me six weeks later, but they were too late to save my mother. She’d already been hanged for murder.”

She couldn’t stop shivering. Maybe she never had, not following the last time she’d seen her beloved mama’s face. Resolution had mingled with panic as the guards led her away. Viv had concealed echoes of that raw, vulnerable moment ever since, one that felt like fingernail chewed down to the quick.

“I hated my father,” she whispered. “I blamed him for her death. His first lesson was that terrible hurt could come from placing faith in the wrong people. But he took me in, he and Catrin. They adopted me. He’d already founded Crittenford Academy. To say he’d plucked me from the ranks of those immigrant children wasn’t so difficult.”

“Do your brothers and Gwen know?”

“Yes. Our secret.”

Miles frowned slightly. “I remember Gareth once saying that you’d been a difficult child. I couldn’t imagine it, not knowing the woman you are. But he clammed up after that, as if he’d revealed too much.”

“Nothing he said would’ve done justice to the hellion I was.” She rubbed her forearms. “I spoke only French. I knew nothing of etiquette. Sometimes I stole bread in the middle of the night. It took me years to believe that I would always have food.” The shame and wordless terror of those months quickened her breathing, as if she were still on the verge of being caught and punished.

“Gwen and the boys, they did their best to bring me into
their fold. The twins wouldn’t leave my side—particularly Gwen, like a little blonde shadow. Alex read me myths and fairy tales at bedtime. And poor Catrin, she endured the years when I reminded her that she was
not
my mother. All the while she taught me what I would need to enter proper society. And my father . . .”

“You
did
forgive him.” Miles stared at her with such burning force. “How? How did he win your devotion after such a poor start?”

“Years of high expectations, if not blatant affection. Steadiness. Predictability. He had such confidence in my abilities. Eventually I decided I could be what he expected of me—better than the circumstances of my birth.”

“But you wound up with me.” He stood and began to pace, fingers pressed against the place where Elden’s bully had kicked.

“The others rebelled eventually,” she said. “Alex loved the stars. Gwen had her opera, with Gareth always so keen on guiding her career. It was almost their duty to antagonize Father and counter his wishes, whereas I thought to earn his approval by marrying into the nobility. I’d have enduring refuge, at last. Simple.”

“That’s why you were always so critical of me. I threatened to undo everything you’d worked to learn.”

“Yes! And there is
nothing
wrong with respectability. Believe me, Miles, it’s far better than being a bastard or starving in a prison where the rats ate better than we did. “

“How disheartened you must have been,” he murmured, almost to himself.

“Terrified, more like. I thought that one day the truth would come out and the vows we’d said wouldn’t matter. Especially since . . . God, since we never conceived. You would divorce me. Or you would tempt me to ruin so that even hiding the truth wouldn’t matter. I needed to find security of my own. I couldn’t trust you with that.”

Miles stopped his agitated pacing. He stood directly in front of her, his shins brushing her knees. “Look at me.”

She nodded once, her heart cleaving in two.

This is it. This is goodbye.

She hadn’t confided in him.
Not about this. The stark fact nettled Miles in the vicinity of his pride. As always, their lack of trust revealed itself as the rotten core of their union.

But he had all the pieces now—to Viv and to why their marriage had bumped and busted like a three-wheeled carriage. Even his bruised pride would not let her lack of faith ruin what they shared. The last thing he wanted was to concede defeat, not when they could start afresh.

That meant revealing
his
nasty truths.

“Viv, would you like to know how I endured your leaving?”

He waited then, waited for her interest to overcome her trepidation. Finally she raised her face. His breath hitched. Tears plowed saltwater furrows down wan cheeks. Red rimmed her lower lids. Moisture clumped and darkened her eyelashes. Her lips were full, chapped and worn by nervous teeth. But she held his gaze, unable to bank her sparkling curiosity—the only brightness left in the woman he loved.

“You’ve always assumed the worst,” he said. “Other women, debauchery, bankruptcy. But that’s not how it was.”

“No?”

“I spent that year drunk.”

“Miles, don’t jest.”

“No jest,” he said softly. “I didn’t just lose an entire year. I threw it away with both hands.”

Memories picked over what was left of his dignity. He couldn’t recall anything specific, of course. Hennessey made it impossible to find those details, like sifting through ash for the words of a singed letter. But a cloying sense of failure and hurt layered over drinking rooms and gambling parlors and the anonymous floors he’d made into beds.

“I would drink long into the evening, then wake up and start again. Days. Months, even. All a blur. I created quite the grand scandal, which helped distract from the fact my wife lived across the Atlantic. ‘Tending to her ill father,’ I would say to anyone who asked. They never thought much past that thin excuse and how much money I could lose in an evening. That bargain for one third of your inheritance wasn’t for show. Any cash I had disappeared.” He shook his head. “I simply wasn’t in my right mind, you see.”

“But . . . why?”

He knelt and took her hands, kissing the knuckles of each. “Because you were gone. Whatever purpose I’d inadvertently found in being your husband—faults and all—was gone. I missed you.”

Her mouth opened on a slow exhale. She whispered his name.

“When your father died,” he said, hurrying on before he lost his nerve, “I knew that was the end. I still had no notion as to why propriety meant more to you than the passion we’d found, but it wasn’t hard to see that I’d pushed you too far. You weren’t coming back. An inheritance from Old Man Christie would end our marriage.” A heavy breath churned out of his lungs. He was sore all over. “So I sailed to America. I wanted to be there, at least, to see the death throes. But when he gave you that challenge, Vivie, I was so thankful.”

“I couldn’t have guessed, not by the way you acted.”

“Let’s just say that I woke up thankful.” He swallowed. “Your note . . . about Newport . . .”

“That I’d left you again.”

“That’s the one. In England, it had been easier to stay insensate. Otherwise I would’ve needed to admit I was the reason why you were gone. But there in New York, I woke up to a splitting headache and a second chance.”

She regarded him for what felt like a decade. Her eyes, wide and clouded and wet, shifted to take in every feature of his face. Miles had never been so thoroughly probed and prodded, all without a single touch.

“And our wager?” she asked, almost too softly to hear.

“I tried to convince myself that it was all about revenge. I would bed you and have done.” A sick laugh gurgled out of him, which seared pain along his ribs. “Yet that’s not what happened at all, is it? The challenge of Kimberley and the brokerage—of you, all over again—has made me proud. I’ve never been a man with purpose, and imagine my surprise in learning that it suits me. Yet now . . .”

God, he wanted to touch her. Sumptuous blonde hair looped and curled around her jaw, her collarbones, her breasts. Rose water blended with her natural fragrance. Her chin quivered. He rested his thumb in its center and rubbed that quiver away.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

“To be lied to all this time. Before, I wouldn’t have trusted myself with a laundry list, let alone the details of your past. But in these recent weeks?” He bowed his head, resting the bridge of his nose on their entwined hands. “I was doing my best by you, Vivie. You know I’ve been trying.”

She wrapped her arms around his head. Heavy tremors shook her shoulders even as she held him. “You
have
been. Miles, I am so proud of you. Do you hear me, my love?” She kissed his crown. “So proud to be your wife.”

“Then why keep this from me?”

“I didn’t want to lose you.” Her voice broke. She swallowed again and pressed on. “When I was a child, I wanted food. I was hungry all the time.
All the time
. But my mother loved me so fiercely. It didn’t matter that we had nothing to eat or that we were cold. Then I had my father’s mansion and I could finally eat . . .”

“But your mother was gone. And now Catrin and your father, too.”

At an answering nod, Miles eased off the floor to sit side by side on the bed. The mattress dipped, urging her body nearer. He let out a tight sigh and his eyes rolled shut when she didn’t pull away.

“It was always a trade-off,” she said. “Love or safety. To
ask for both . . . That sort of dreaming was meant for other people. I don’t know if I can.” She strangled an errant sob. “I’m terrified of losing everything and going back to that place. Do you see what Kimberley is to me? It’s my nightmare brought to life.”

A weight pressed on his chest. Another bowed his upper back, squeezing from both directions. But his determination, that strange sense of purpose he’d only discovered upon arriving at the Cape—it remained.

“You want love
and
safety.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice shredded. “And I’m not brave enough to ask for both.”

He kissed her lips, softly, sweetly. “I don’t see why not. You’re the bravest woman I’ve ever known.”

“I don’t feel it. Determined, maybe. But never brave. Every time I walk into a room, either here or New York or London, I’m convinced someone will find out what I’ve been hiding. I’ll be back in the slums and lost. Forgotten there, with no one to come save me.”

Miles chuckled. He pushed her back against the bed, ignoring her slight protest and the stinging pain of his injuries. “You have that all so wrong . . . I hardly know where to begin.”

He smiled more deeply at her flare of indignation.

“Hear me out,” he said, curling his body alongside hers. “First of all, you
have
been found out. I know the truth now, Vivie. And isn’t that a relief? Every room we enter together—you’ll have an ally at your side who knows exactly how you think and what you fear and the amazing miracle of this life
you’ve forged. Tell me that isn’t a seductive secret to keep, just the two of us.”

“It is . . . seductive. Intimate. Like knowing what secrets you keep hidden.”

“Me? Surely not. I’m an open book.”

“Of Romantic poetry and industrial drills.” She touched his bottom lip. “Your gambling cohorts in Mayfair would be shocked.”

He caught that delicate fingertip between his teeth and grinned. “Would do them good to see what wonders a wastrel can accomplish when he sets his mind to a goal. Then no more lies, my darling girl. The last thing I can endure from you is more of the same old patronizing rubbish I’ve endured my whole life. I want all of you—real and visceral. The worst and the best. Nothing else will do justice to loving you.”

Viv smiled softly, her eyes wide, lustrous, and full of wonder. “You love me?

“I am more in love with you now than I ever have been. Had I been a different man when we married, one you could confide in, perhaps all of this would’ve made sense. But . . . oh, sod it.” He raised his head. “Say something.”

“I love you, too, Miles.”

The tight, fiery knot in his gut unfurled and cooled. The weight pressing between his shoulder blades lifted, as insignificant as steam. He hadn’t needed her acquiescence or her enthusiasm in bed. Just her love.

“It is now of the utmost importance that I strip you bare and taste every inch of your skin. You do realize that, yes?”

Viv giggled and tried to get away, but she fell back laughing when he caught her around the waist. “You’re a heathen and a cad.”

“And you’re a wanton angel. Hold still. Corsets are such a nuisance.” As he unfastened her gown, he felt as giddy as a young lad. “Do you know what else you got wrong, my love?”

“What’s that? Just bear in mind that I care very little for being wrong.” She lifted her lush hair to give him better access. Miles couldn’t help but kiss the downy-soft skin at her nape. Goose bumps shivered along her spine. Then he found the loveliest stretch of throat ever created.

“You must believe that you’ll never go back there,” he whispered. “You’ll never be alone or forgotten again. Strong and capable and so deucedly stubborn,
you
won’t let it happen. Neither will your family, and neither will I. Not ever, Vivie.” She gazed up at him with awed reverence. Miles was sure he had never felt more powerful. “I promise.”

M
iles awoke to a slate-gray
morning. Nearly winter in the south of Africa. But the season hardly mattered when the angel he was blessed to call his wife lay stretched naked at his side. Because of the snowy duvet, he couldn’t see her curves, the delicate dips of waist and spine—not unless he closed his eyes and relived their passion. From the night before. From weeks before. Layer upon layer of satisfaction. But underneath the heavy down, her body curled around his like a vine climbing a trellis. Thigh and hip and breast, all topped by her cheek nuzzled against the crook of his neck. Slow, even breaths warmed him from the outside in. This was his woman.