Flawless (18 page)

“Lady Bancroft?”

Viv looked up from her ledger to find Mr. Smets standing in the doorway. “Yes?”

He smiled as if to say
I’m humoring you.
After nearly two weeks she’d become accustomed to it. “You asked that I retrieve you just before three o’clock. That would be now.”

“Ah. Thank you, Mr. Smets.” She indicated the journals and account books open on the table. “Will you leave these as they are, please? I’ll return tomorrow.”

“Of course, my lady.”

Careful to keep dust from darkening the watercolor lilac silk of her day gown, she followed Mr. Smets down the stairs to the front lobby. James and Franc, the men who were as much a fixture in that room as the floorboards, looked up from their hand of poker and waved.

She stepped into an early April unlike any she’d ever experienced. The silvered twilight of days growing shorter put her more in mind toward Christmas. The seasons were backward but not unpleasant. Young Jamie Shelby would light a fire upon her return that evening. She would curl up with her manuals and notes, taking supper in her room. Avoiding Miles.

No matter. He was avoiding her, too.

The process of unpacking—establishing order in the midst of chaos—had kept her busy, almost happy. Very few
of the items she brought from New York had been damaged by the transatlantic crossing. They layered memories and security over unfamiliar expanses. This town would be her home, at least for now. Then, every night, she expected the worst. But Miles behaved with perfect decorum. She couldn’t have asked for a better arrangement.

Seething under the surface, ruining her satisfaction, ran twin currents that robbed her of breath and sleep and peace. Soon he would demand his reward. And she was disappointed that he hadn’t done so already.

She dreamed of him every night, but rather than becoming more explicit, more arousing, her dreams left her hollow. He might kiss her on the forehead, then turn and walk away. Or he would press his lips to the back of her hand. That was all. Never the pleasure she craved, the closeness she would permit only in her most ridiculous fantasies. She awoke as restless as always, but a softer, impenetrable layer of grief left her shaking.

She could trust him again. Make that choice. A leap of faith to honor the man he seemed intent on becoming.

But dear God, such a risk.

On a hard shiver, she put Miles out of her mind and she set off toward Sileby’s Tea Room. Walking through Kimberley had lost some of its novelty but none of its peculiarity. Africans claimed the same right to its sidewalks and markets as did women wearing Worth gowns to equal Viv’s ensemble.

Granted, the Africans needed to produce work papers whenever stopped by a constable, and their permission to
live within the city’s confines depended on their employment. Failure to comply with either law meant jail time and expulsion from town. Without access to the diamond fields, those men would have no means of providing for families whose nomadic lifestyles had been almost entirely curtailed by mining interests.

The more she learned about her new residence, the less she liked it.

Upon arriving at Sileby’s, Viv tugged the buff kid gloves buttoned at her wrists.

Make it look easy.

Whenever she felt uncertain, she remembered Catrin’s words. Such a kind, dear counter to her father’s bold demands and thundering ambition. Together, they had made quite the team, with Catrin smoothing over with polite decorum what Sir William’s wealth could not. It’s never easy, Catrin had said.
But you can make it look that way
. She’d repeated them often throughout Viv’s life, when lessons in deportment and language became such a trial, or when missing her real mother burned like hot embers on her skin.

Viv opened the white French doors and breezed inside. Few things in life changed. Perhaps only the scenery. From Paris to Kimberley—with New York and London in between—she had become a practiced pretender.

Despite a small glimmer of apprehension, this appointment with Lady Galeworth was no great challenge. Viv hadn’t traveled in vaunted circles since leaving England, but she had no fear of forgetting her way. If Miles’s mother, the
late Countess of Bettenford, had not spotted Viv as a little French urchin, no one would.

If anyone ever did, not even Sir William’s name or wealth would protect her.

“May I help you, ma’am?” The striking young hostess wore a functional white gown and apron, the lace of which matched her cap.

“I’m Lady Bancroft. I have an appointment to take tea with Lady Galeworth.”

“Of course, my lady,” she said, switching easily to the proper form of address. “This way, if you please.”

Viv followed her through the tea parlor, catching details like pieces of a distant melody. The wildness of the previous few weeks made Sileby’s calm manners and elegance too pretty to be real. Fine bone china clinked as women set cups to saucers. Light streamed through a dozen beveled windows along the parlor’s street-facing west wall and danced through gauzy curtains. The strong, comforting scent of freshly brewed tea and warm scones teased Viv with memories of security.

This is where she wanted to belong. Such opulence had been her privilege while her father yet breathed and while she’d lived as Miles’s wife. Long days of pouring over registers and learning the diamond trade would pay off. Enduring this redoubled loneliness while sharing the same space as Miles . . . that would pay off, too. It had to.

“My lady?”

The hostess presented Viv to Lady Galeworth, a woman in her middle fifties. Steely gray hair was piled and circled in
a way that made her head look ready to topple. Strings of a four-tier pearl choker nearly covered the sagging skin of her stick-thin throat, and a fat, perfect diamond dropped from the bottom strand. The ostentatious necklace screamed a contrast to her black mourning gown. Watery deep brown eyes watched Viv with unconcealed curiosity.

Well, that was different. Viv couldn’t have located curiosity in Miles’s mother had she used a compass and a divining rod. The countess had seemed to decide that ignoring the reason for Miles’s marriage to a wealthy woman of indeterminate bloodlines was the best course for all involved.

But Viv had persevered, eventually earning the woman’s respect and even a few kind words. “She conducts a rather tidy household” had been like benediction—certainly harder to earn than the respect of this baron’s widow.

“Lady Bancroft, the pleasure is mine,” the woman said. “Trudy, tea, please.”

Trudy bobbed a curtsy before exiting. Viv eased into her seat and surreptitiously adjusted her bustle. The table was laden with a selection of dried fruits and petits fours. “Thank you for the invitation today. I appreciate your taking the time. I’m still a newcomer to Kimberley.”

“Tush,” Lady Galeworth replied. “We do what we can to make our stay here bearable.”

“Have you been here long?”

“Nearly five years. Impossible to imagine, but it’s true. My younger son owns the Galeworth Mine now, since my husband passed on in January.”

Trudy returned with the service, poured the tea, and departed without a word.

Lady Galeworth frowned throughout the whole encounter. With an agitated wave of her hand, she seemed to dismiss the entirety of Sileby’s and everything beyond its walls. “The sooner we return home, the better. We’ll sell our claim and be done with this nightmare.”

“What can you tell me about good Society here?”

“Well, that there isn’t enough of it.” Lady Galeworth munched on a buttered scone and touched her diamond whenever she wasn’t fussing with her food. “There’s an annual winter gala in August, and the holidays always bring a flurry of calls and social events—although, it never feels like Christmas. Hot and miserable is what it is.”

They lapsed into silence as Lady Galeworth ate. Viv drank tea, but she disliked the woman’s negativity and found herself short on topics for conversation. She fell back on old habits. “And what of charitable associations, such as those in London? Do ladies here offer aid to the poor or the workers?”

“Perhaps some do.” The way the dowager wrinkled her nose explained just what she thought of the idea. “The men and women who come here to work are eager for quick money. They’re a prideful bunch with no notion of how to behave properly among their betters.”

“Surely they can’t all be so terrible. I met a lovely family on the train.” With some trepidation, she wondered how Ike and Alice Penberthy had fared since their arrival. Alice would’ve had no home waiting for her, no servants, no
security, while Viv’s only duty on that day involved cajoling a pompous old woman. “They seemed hard-working and eager to make a life for their boys.”

Lady Galeworth narrowed her liquid brown eyes. “Did they?”

Viv knew a note of hostility when she heard it, and rarely did it need to be so strident to catch her attention. “Of course. They deserve that opportunity if it’s available, and our industry—why, Her Majesty’s very empire—requires dedicated laborers.”

“You are American, aren’t you, my dear?”

My dear. Not
my lady
, as was proper. Quite the slight. The baroness’s five years in Kimberley must’ve made her feel quite the grand lady, rarely matched in wealth or status.

Today she was not only matched, but exceeded.

Viv drew her spine to its straightest, most rigid height. “I was raised in America, but my parents were both proud British subjects.”

“Your
adoptive
parents.”

“Of course,” Viv said past the burn of anger in her throat. However, this bitter old crone needed a lesson in manners. “But I don’t remember my adoption being an issue when I spoke to Queen Victoria. She’s a magnificent woman, really. So generous with her wisdom and perspective. A true credit to our fair sex.”

“You’ve spoken with Her Majesty?”

“On my wedding day,” Viv said casually.

Lady Galeworth shaped her lips into an O. “I’ve only ever seen her from afar at various gatherings. To have actually
shared words with the great lady herself, that must have been such an honor.”

Viv relayed the most impressive details of the encounter—from Her Majesty’s clothing to the blessing that followed—as if it hadn’t been one of the most torturously anxious moments of her life. Now she fashioned it into an anecdote to impress a petty minor noblewoman.

Suddenly she understood a little more of Miles’s disdain for the entire farce. In London, so intent on fitting in, she had ignored the sycophantic haze that choked every conversation.

The baroness dabbed a napkin at the corners of her puckered mouth. “So after such a grand time in London, what brings you to Kimberley?”

“My father, Sir William, owned the controlling interest in Christie Brokerage. By the terms of his will, I was appointed its manager.”

Thin silver eyebrows lifted to comical heights. “You manage it? How is that possible?”

“I am under contract to do so, but by no means do I actually oversee the work.” Her tone suggested complete shock. Let people believe what they would. She wanted no enemies among bored widows likely prone to gossip. “My husband, Viscount Bancroft, is delegating the details. I am but a figurehead, although I do enjoy looking at the diamonds. Such beautiful wonders!”

“Aren’t they though?” Lady Galeworth stroked her pendant. “Completely intoxicating.”

Testing the waters, Viv leaned closer. “But not everyone
can afford our indulgences. Surely you can understand my sympathy for women in reduced circumstances. They are here against their will, much as we are.”

“I suppose,” the baroness said. “There is a small women’s auxiliary, but it is in woeful disrepair. As I mentioned, few of these people actually deserve our sympathy. We really must band together against the miners’ demands.”

Although Lady Galeworth’s callousness made her stomach churn, Viv kept up her sweet smiles. “Oh?”

“The mine owners pay comparable wages in order to keep the workers from holding out for more. Any relenting on that point would foster an anarchy of greedy salary demands. It’s us or them. Little room for sentimentality.”

Viv smiled privately, realizing that the baroness knew more about her son’s business than she initially let on. “Ah, well. Lucky thing I have nothing to do with that world.”

As Lady Galeworth chatted on about the best dressmakers and hatters, Viv realized the source of her amused thoughts. She was bored and, quite frankly, unimpressed. This was the societal victory she’d worked so hard to attain? Mundane banter with a self-important old biddy?

She missed sparring with Miles.

A headache sprouted across her forehead. What a ridiculous turn of events. But there it was—the hunger for a greater challenge. She remained fascinated by the man he had become since their separation. Someone . . .
other
. Intriguing. Still dangerous, but perhaps worth the risk.

“Oh, my, I hadn’t realized the time.” She smoothed her interruption with a flutter of apologetic titters. “I really
must
dash, your ladyship. But I would very much like to invite you to take tea with me at the manor. Please say you’ll come.”

Lady Galeworth’s spidery fingers touched the back of her hair. “My lady, I would be honored. Truly. To receive an invitation from a woman of your standing—now
that
is proper society!”

As Viv left the parlor, she stifled a sigh. Already something had shifted inside her. When had the refinements of a good, secure life actually
bored
her? How was she to process that surprising revelation? At least she had left the influential Lady Galeworth in a state of rapturous awe. Now Viv needed time to think . . . and perhaps a little more time with Miles.

M
iles crawled out of the
claw-footed tub and dried his body. The hour hand had barely crept past the nine. He used to slither home at dawn and sleep until early afternoon, as if the habits of the aristocracy constituted an entirely different species.
Homo sapiens nobilis.
Kimberley pounded with the sense that a minute left sleeping past sunrise would produce a missed opportunity. London, for all of its bustle and enterprise, had never affected him that way.