Flawless (15 page)

“Vivie, my darling,” he said, his voice low and jagged, “you have twenty-nine days.”

A
fter his first formal supper
with Viv, Miles decided to forestall dining together. He wanted no more part of forced conversations and averted eyes. Kissing her had been just as astonishing as he remembered. No,
more so
. He couldn’t recall many times they had kissed without alcohol staining his tongue.

Now he had twenty-six days to earn her trust. And at that moment, he didn’t trust himself to keep his hands where they needed to be. What a torture, this task of not touching. If that was what dining together meant, then he would kindly decline. Permanently. He’d rather skin himself with a butter knife and make Viv watch.

That evening he intended to take supper at the Kimberley Club. He and Adam strode along the plank wood walkway.

“There is a logic to it, isn’t there, my lord?”

The setting sun took the day’s warmth with it, as autumn overtook summer. “What’s that?”

Adam grinned. “The walking.”

“What was it Wordsworth said? ‘A respite to this passion, I paced on with brisk and eager steps.’ “

“Wordsworth never walked in Cape Colony after dark.”

Adam eyed the city’s secretive corners, where bold, wild dogs slunk in from the desert to forage along the outskirts of town. Birds added their melodies to the air, and in the far distance, the grunting call of a large animal sent a strange shiver up Miles’s forearms.

“A rhinoceros?” he asked. “Or perhaps it’s one of those massive wildebeests that put Spanish bulls to shame.”

“Or a lion.”

“Nonsense. Although, there is a certain thrill to living in a place where being
eaten
is an actual possibility.”

Adam grimaced. “Thrill isn’t the word I’d use.”

Young shadows stretched sideways across the road. Soon the changing shift at the Hole would provide an exchange of men—diggers going home, guards heading down to work—but few other people walked after dark.

“Let’s call my impulse toward exercise a fair alternative to pugilism.”

His quirking grin was all too predictable, but Miles never held that against his manservant. From Adam, predictability was like having a firm, steady wall at his back. Dependable and unflinching. “Feeling the urge to punch something, my lord?”

“Kicking would be fine, too.”

The urge had raged within him for weeks, like a lad throwing a wild tantrum. And why not? After all, he could do just short of murder and still retain his title. Kimberley
could take nothing from him, while providing the unpredictable vigor England never had.

His rebellion of choice was to flaunt what so many others yearned to acquire. In London, that commodity had been respectability. Here, where fortunes could literally be picked up off the ground, he possessed what so many rich entrepreneurs envied: heritage. A noble bloodline. And connections as thick as a wall of ivy. So he paid little heed to neatness, and he walked—but not to become the talk of Kimberley. Let them try to negotiate with a man who seemed capable of wasting so much. Then they would never grasp what he truly valued.

“And my role tonight, my lord?”

“Eyes and ears, as always. If the disparity between my appearance and my status is any indication, I assume that the major players will not be readily apparent. Which of these fat cats has a wallet to match his talk and reputation? And which sly snakes are waiting to strike? That’s what we must learn, and quickly.”

A faint trace of sweat lined his collar when he arrived, the only proof of his ungentlemanly mode of transport. The large, rather exotic club, with its high gates and wraparound verandah glowing with a dozen gas lamps, looked particularly ostentatious. Most buildings in Kimberley admitted that the plateau’s harsh conditions would be their eventual ruin. Not this one. Its girth alone proclaimed that it was a thing of wealth, grandeur, and permanence.

“Adam, do you have any idea how much money is at stake in this venture?”

“No, my lord.”

“Just over two hundred thousand pounds sterling.”

Adam’s pale blue eyes widened, then he whistled low and long. “And here I thought you were just in it for her.”

Cutting his manservant a sharp look, Miles fought a grimace. “No need to be
that
bold with your counsel. But yes, Vivienne figures into my intentions, just as her maid figures into yours.” A grin was easy to indulge upon seeing Adam’s amazement. Rarely had Miles been in a position to take the patient man by surprise. “You’ll earn five percent of whatever I do, which means you can marry young Chloe in high style, if that’s what you want.”

“Your word, my lord?”

“My word,” he said, offering his hand. “Now go find what dirt lurks beneath all this frippery.”

With two fingers to his brow in a mock salute, Adam strode on ahead where he would join the other valets for gossip, gambling, and cheap gin. The perfect place to learn what even Miles could not.

Carriages came and went outside the entrance gate, disgorging men in all their evening glory. Miles observed their arrivals from his place across the street, momentarily donning the cloak of anonymity he’d worn at the way station. As on that day, he prepared to do battle.

In the coolness of the
fading day, Viv stood in her so-called garden and surveyed the work that needed to be done. Must everything in Kimberley be such a tremendous challenge? But after the many shocks and surprises she had endured
since disembarking at Cape Town, she was happy to be back among familiar tasks.

This certainly wasn’t her garden in New York. Would wisteria grow here? Or lilac? She wanted blooming flowers and fragrant scents, but she hardly knew where to begin. What would grow in this climate? Perhaps the town’s only bookshop, which she had visited to purchase industry trades and newspapers from New York and London, would have a guide to local flora and fauna. From what she’d observed, however, activities that didn’t pertain to mining held little interest for the citizens of Kimberley. The entire population was obsessed.

She felt on the verge of joining them. Learning about the native environment might take the edge off her rabid thirst for answers. She had seen a small antelope-like creature only a few minutes before, and bugs of all kinds roamed the soil. Especially spiders. Which were useful? Harmless? Poisonous?

But starting completely anew was one of her specialties. Entering a French prison with her mother and leaving it an orphan, only to be adopted by William Christie. Or marrying Miles and undertaking the colossal task of winning over London. Those had been changes. This was merely a matter of reading and applying new knowledge. Insects and plants and little antelopes would soon have proper names, and she might even be able to think of the manor as her home.

Playing house. With Miles.

No, she was simply resuming her love of gardening. To forget him, if anything.

But how could she? Right at that moment, he was at the mysterious Kimberley Club, doing God-knew-what in the name of business. Likely, he did what he wanted in the name of his own pleasure.

She hoped that wasn’t true. He had been the one to suggest a divide-and-conquer strategy, which was perfectly viable in practice. Only, it meant trusting him. He had never been reliable, unless it came to disappointing her quiet hopes. With the town’s most powerful entrepreneurs cloistered in a men’s club, her ability to conduct financial affairs on an equal footing would be radically curtailed. On the docks and at that marauded way station, she’d needed Miles because he was a man. He could protect himself with wit and words and, if necessary, with his fists and a whip. Now even backroom negotiations fell within his domain. Part of her had been unwilling to believe the extent of her dependence.

Frustrated, she tugged off her gloves and knelt in the center of the twenty-by-twenty-foot patch of ground. The modest plot of land was bordered by a whitewashed wooden fence. There, beneath the gleaming white manor’s grandeur and high, sloped roof, she would have shady cover in the morning. That would mean ample time to work before the sun became too strong overhead. By midday, any plants she cultivated would thrive in full brightness. A perfect arrangement.

The previous owners apparently hadn’t thought so. They had given up on any attempt at maintaining order. Weeds and tangled vines covered her to the waist, and she couldn’t tell the cultivated plants from the wild ones. The odd bloom,
so rare now with autumn’s early push, seemed a useless achievement. But that was how to proceed. A little at a time. Small victories.

Oh, how she had missed tending her plants, nurturing the floundering ones to health and bringing the healthy ones to full splendor. Turning this patch of land into a garden was within her purview, unlike the challenges of the business, which would demand all of her concentration with no promise of results. Diamond prices were slipping. Everyone knew it. No matter how many times she had looked at the books over the past few days, she reached the same conclusion: the brokerage was failing.

And Viv had no idea how to stay solvent. That they could fail after investing an eventual two years of hard work was enough to squeeze her heart in a vise.

Perched just east of town on a slight rise, the two-story manor house overlooked the whole of Kimberley. Neighbors along that same rise were all mine owners, brokers, and bankers, having scouted and claimed the grandest views. Only if she held very still could she detect the constant rattling drone of metal chipping away at rock. It was always there, ceaseless, but less intimidating from such a distance.

At least she was standing in a derelict garden, not dragging rocks out of the ground with her bare hands.

I will not fail.

Although the light was fading, she scrubbed her fingers into the soil. Cool. Sandy on top. A hint of water lurked just beneath the surface—the last vestiges of the summer rainy season.

A noise caught her attention. She stood upright, hands behind her back as if caught without gloves by her strict governess. “Who’s there?”

“Mr. Kato, my lady.” He stepped away from the shadows at the base of the manor and into the purpled light. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Forgive me.”

His skin was so impossibly dark. The bright whites of his eyes glittered. Something about his features or his expression combined to offer the impression of mirth. He was on the verge of chuckling, and Viv felt the oddest impulse to be offended. By an African.

“I’ll forgive you, but only if you tell me why you did not announce your presence.”

“Because you are an English lady touching the earth. You took me by surprise.”

“As you did me.” She brought her dusty hands forward. Dark crescents of dirt lined her nail beds. “Do few English women you know—how did you put it? Touch the earth?”

“None that I have ever seen.”

“Are you Zulu?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice impossibly deep. “Half, at least. My father was a Dutch farmer. I took a name from my mother’s people.”

Another bastard.
Like me.
Although she would never admit to such a connection, she felt one instantly with this man so unlike any human with whom she’d ever spoken. Much of her experience with him had been of an impersonal nature. He was dutiful and silent, like a painting in the background. Now she was seeing him as if for the first time.
That had been happening quite frequently in the Cape. Miles had opened her eyes to more than just his true nature.

“How do you know English so well?”

“If a Dutch father is never a part of his son’s life, that son has one of two choices. Love all things Dutch—the mystery of a missing parent. Or rebel against it.” He grinned then, almost laughing at himself. “I chose the latter. Working in Cape Town for a few years helped as well. Lots of English there.”

“But the lure of diamonds . . . ?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe just the lure of something different.” He nodded toward her. “I think you know that feeling. His Lordship, too.”

“I wouldn’t say that at all. I miss my home.”

Mr. Kato approached the whitewashed fence and leaned against the gate. Perhaps decorum kept him there, which set him apart from Miles. Then again, Miles had clout and influence to spare. He could burn down the Houses of Parliament and come out of the escapade unscathed. This man, this half-Zulu man who bore whip marks on his back, had no such authority to squander. Like Viv, respectability might be all he had.

“Many people here miss their homes,” he said.

“I can imagine. So far away from England and the Netherlands.”

Mr. Kato smiled. “And KwaNongma and KwaZulu. Some from even farther away.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know those places.”

“Much to the east. People from many tribes were lured
here, just like the working men from your countries. A better life.” He shrugged, remarkably calm when discussing the sweep of fate across so many varied cultures. “I came to dig for the stones, but soon I was not allowed to lease the land. Then I was an overseer. But soon that was not allowed either. Cape Town seemed better for a time. I wandered. Now that I have returned, I know I will wander again. For now, this is home. That’s all home can be.”

His quiet words invited a new melancholy into her heart. Viv breathed more gently for the first time in days. She had time. And in the spring, she would transform this small corner of Kimberley into her own paradise. As with all things, hard work would make it happen. Her father had taught her that, but Catrin, her stepmother, had been the one to show her the enjoyment of one’s endeavors. She had never believed in work simply for its own sake, or for the sake of material gain. If one chose to support an opera company, one attended the premiere. If one chose to plant a garden, one was afforded the privilege of basking in the bright, sweet blossoms.

Perhaps in all the clamor of arriving in Cape Colony, Viv had lost sight of that simplicity. Yes, she would work hard, and the goal remained a long way off, but there would be little rewards along the way. She knew it.