by Carrie Lofty
Yet a line of worry cut between her brows. “The last thing I want is to be looked upon with embarrassment by the people you love. Lord, Alex, I couldn’t stand that.”
“You remember what I told you about my stepmother, and about Viv. For pity’s sake, she’s a viscountess who’s been running a diamond brokerage! They’ll respect you all the more for the responsibilities you’ve assumed so diligently.” Slowly, he stripped her white kid gloves, which were edged with exquisite silver thread embroidery and lace. Bright green eyes watched as he pressed her bare palms to his cheeks. “We’re not a family of saints. Only one generation separates us, my love. My father was a child of Calton, just as you are. He belonged here,” he said, nodding toward the brownstone. “And so do you.”
“I belong with you.”
“Then you’re in the right place.” He nuzzled her cheek, her neck, and down to the delectably soft flesh pillowed above her bodice. “My family will adore you because you’re a good woman. You bore me a beautiful daughter. You love Edmund as your own. And you’ve utterly transformed me into a man worth knowing and loving.”
“You were worth loving before,” she said with a hint of laughter. “You were just . . . tightly wound.”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘broken.’ I didn’t know it at the time, but I was.”
“And now look at you. As filthy-minded as the next red-blooded male.” She dragged his face up from between her breasts. Her smile had widened—a return of the teasing he’d grown to adore. “I can hardly believe you stand before successful capitalists and wise scholars and keep a straight face.”
“I wouldn’t be able to if you were there to smirk at me.”
“I smirk out of love.”
“I’ll remind you of that next time you speak before the union. Turnabout is fair play.”
She reached around and pinched his bum. “The worst part is, I believe you would. Not that it’ll matter when we get back home. I could address them wearing nothing but bloomers and a bonnet, and they’d only care about the size of the bonuses you’ll hand out.”
“Everyone on that factory floor deserves a share of the Christie fortune. They made it possible.”
“They’ll name parks and important buildings after you—you wait and see.”
He shook his head. “I told you, Polly. It was never about the money, nor winning my father’s last challenge. It was about claiming the life I wanted, even if I didn’t understand that at the time. Others deserve a chance at so much happiness. Your brothers, your ma, even Tommy and Les and the rest. They’re part of you. In a way, they’re part of me, too.”
“Back to where the Christies came from. Going home.”
Feeling almost bashful, he smiled softly. “Something like that.”
She flung her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a quick kiss. The tip of her tongue pushed past his lips, infusing him with another jolt of masculine pride. He loved that he could do that to her, repeatedly, whenever they wanted.
“But believe me, Mrs. Christie, the bloomers and bonnet would still take precedence.”
“They might at that. Now in we go, before the coachman suspects our activities.”
After one last hot kiss, he whispered, “He’d be right to.”
Alex descended from the carriage and held out his hand—to be gentlemanly, for certain, but also as a means of admiring her radiant appearance. The midnight-blue gown had been custom-made in London before their departure for New York. The shimmers of brilliant silver and gold threads woven into the fabric reminded him so much of stars against a dark, infinite sky that he had flatly refused to heed her protests over the cost. The sweeping neckline accentuated her bosom, while artful tucks, pleats, and a subtle bustle hinted at the mouthwatering feast of her curves. Matching blue and glittering silver ribbons adorned her bright auburn hair and trailed between shoulder blades swathed in a fur-lined winter pelisse.
She wore the gown effortlessly, as if born to such finery. Alex knew better and admired her all the more for it. His wife was infinitely brave. She would fit in just fine with the Christies.
With Polly on his arm and a heart near to bursting with satisfaction, he escorted her up the steps to the brownstone. They clung to one another whilst traversing little patches of ice and slushy snow, past clinging ivy vines withered by the cold, and into the soaring marble foyer.
“Alex!”
Viv practically ran out of the library and into his arms. Despite his surprise at his sister’s uncharacteristic jubilance, he held her with all of his strength. In a rush of words, she explained that she had indeed prospered while managing a diamond brokerage in Cape Colony. But the most surprising revelation occurred a few moments later when, joining her in the library, Alex watched her tuck along her husband’s side. Blocks of ice had been warmer when last he saw the pair.
Viscount Bancroft, weathered and tan and resplendently dressed, held out his hand. “Good to see you again, Alex. Glad you made it through in one piece.”
A little dumbfounded, Alex flicked a questioning glance toward his sister. She only smiled, as joyfully as he could ever recall. The letters she’d penned from the Cape had hinted at her happiness, but this was far more than he’d dared hope.
Alex shook the man’s hand. “And you, my lord.”
“Call me Miles. Please. We’re past all that nonsense,” he said with a deprecating grin. His gaze shifted toward Polly. “And who is this magnificent creature?”
With more pride than a man should have the right to feel, Alex introduced his wife. Polly accepted their congratulations with grace and aplomb. Then her eyes alit on the portrait of Sir William above the huge fireplace aglow with a crackling fire.
“Well, well,” she said cheerily. “If that isn’t the very image of a man from Calton. You look a great deal like him, Alex.”
Viv laughed. “She’s not wrong. Now, you simply must tell me how you came to be married. My brother pens letters as if writing a scholarly treatise.”
Alex exchanged a grin with Polly but decided to save the topic for later. “We all have stories to share, I suspect. But where are the twins?”
“They haven’t arrived yet.”
“And Delavoir? I want to conclude these legal matters.”
“He stepped out briefly.” Viv glanced at her husband with an sly smile. “Something about giving us privacy?”
“Hush,” said the viscount. “You’ll embarrass the new Mrs. Christie.”
Polly giggled. “Oh, hardly.”
“Anyway, he said this letter is for you.” Viv’s mischief receded. A glimmer of far deeper emotion wet her eyes. “It’s from Father. I received one, too. Just . . . prepare yourself.”
Alex nodded. His fingers were numb as he took the letter. “In that case, if you’ll excuse me.”
Polly followed him into the corridor, which was dim with long winter shadows. Briefly, he touched her face. She leaned into his palm before finding her bravest smile of the day. “Get on with it, then. I want to hear more about the Cape.”
He kissed her forehead, which she tucked against his shoulder. “I knew you’d find your feet.”
The hiss of gaslamps and his thudding heart were far louder than the rattle of servants in the kitchen. Polly kept her body pressed against his, but without needing to be asked, she kept her eyes discreetly lowered. In doing so, she offered both the stability and privacy he needed.
He opened the envelope.
My Alexander,
Circumstances both left us widowers with young sons. Whereas I fled the hardship of facing fatherhood on my own, you persevered. You do our name credit by raising Edmund with such devotion. No matter how you look back on the mistakes I regret, know that I love you both.
I am continually humbled by your intellect, just as I envy your faith in the permanence of this earth. You look at its solidity with assurance. I do not pen such words as a slight, my son, but as a confession of my amazement. Always, I have craved proof of my succe
ss, while you possess the confidence to look skyward with a limitless imagination, to transcend these mortal bounds.
In Calton, I hope you’ve learned to better appreciate my origins, as I’ve endeavored, rather imperfectly, to appreciate you. Keep your fearless heart, my son. I wish you success in your undertakings and, perhaps one day, a love to see you through the rest of your life. My material wealth and your distant stars are naught but dust without the love of a bonny lass.
Your father,
William
Alex chuckled despite the stunned, humbled tension his father’s words had built beneath his chest. “He’s right, you know.”
“How’s that?” Polly lifted her face, full of silent questions.
“I’m a lucky man for having found a bonny lass.” He gathered her petite body in his arms. To hold her was to breathe and to hope. “I love you, Polly.”
She stood high on her tiptoes and kissed his lips. Even better was the soft way she whispered, “And I love you, Alex.”
No teasing now. Just the truth he carried every day in his heart. He threw a quick prayer of thanks up to where he hoped his father might hear. Then he led the woman he adored back into the library.
Continue reading for an exclusive excerpt from
Flawless
The Christies, Book One
One
Cape Town
March 1881
Although Miles stood well back from where the Coronea had docked, the push and crush of humanity threatened even his studiously crafted calm. Hordes of disembarking passengers wrestled with their belongings as they forged toward land.
The ripe stench of coal fires, harbor rot, and hundreds of bodies overpowered the clean salt of the ocean. Seabirds circled and swooped in a chaotic dance. Miles touched the back of his neck where a light wind teased his hair. The cool seaside air reminded him of Southampton.
I watched thee on the breakers, when all was storm and fear.
But Lord Byron’s words offered Miles no comfort, only an odd sort of foreboding.
Viv had left him a note. Yet another elegant, prissy note to say she was leaving.
So he’d sobered up. And made a decision.
After catching the first steamer back to England, he’d evaded his father long enough to gamble his way into a bit of ready cash. Then it was off to Cape Town.
Vivienne Bancroft would come back to him. Willingly.
With a hand to his brow, he looked toward the luxury clipper’s topmost deck. Viv would be up there among that tangle of people, along with the manservant he’d sent to intercept her luggage.
Intercept . . . and then hold hostage.
Miles found himself twirling his wedding ring. That little hypocrite—all decorum and indignation until her mouth met his.
Had beastly Sir William given his daughter a plump dollop of cash, she would’ve had the financial means to end their marriage. Miles would’ve gone back to London, alone, solvent enough to keep the family estates intact. But little else remained of her dowry.
Instead, the challenge of Old Man Christie’s bequest offered a one-million-dollar reprieve. Damn and blast. Far, far too much money to ignore.
His scant head start aside, during which he’d secured accommodations in Kimberley and completed banking transfers, he and Viv would need to learn quickly: every major player, every aspect of the diamond trade, and even the bloody weather. They were starting near to zero. He should have been terrified but a sharp thrill sped the beat of his heart.
The crack of a whip snapped his attention toward a man sitting atop a heavily laden wagon. The road leading away from the docks, clogged with dark bodies, permitted no room for the vehicle to pass. Burly and dough-faced, the wagon master wasn’t directing his whip at donkeys, but at people.
“Get off there,” the driver shouted. He threw his weight into the next strike of braided leather.
With relentless clarity, the Cape’s autumn sunshine illuminated every face twisted by concentration and fear. The donkeys continued to bray. The wagon master raised his arm again. Leather sliced through the air, this time striking a tall shirtless man whose dark, scarred back had already suffered the bite of a whip.
“Out of the way, you kaffir scum!”
Across three months, the colony had subjected Miles to many such scenes. Perhaps the difference, on this occasion, could be traced to the bitterness Viv churned in his blood. His arms ached with the need to pummel his fretfulness into submission—or pummel someone. The lawlessness of the colony, the otherworldliness of it, gave him permission to do what his tedious title had never permitted: take matters into his own hands.
“Oh, bloody hell.”
He strode into the crowd, abandoning his role as a mere bystander. Fully a head taller than most of the scrambling people, he fixed on the wagon master. Every crack of the man’s whip filled Miles with sizzling indignation. Like most of the British Empire, Cape Colony hadn’t permitted slavery in almost fifty years. That didn’t stop some colonists from treating Africans as they would the lowest animals.
Miles didn’t consider himself a do-gooder, but such a flagrant abuse of power assaulted his most basic principles. It wasn’t sporting and it simply wasn’t British.
He elbowed his way through the throng until the wagon master loomed above him on the bench. Miles quickly climbed aboard, senses centered on his target. The wagon master turned just as Miles balled his fist and let it swing. A satisfying crack of bone rewarded him as his opponent’s nose gave way.
Blood streaked the man’s mangy beard. Narrow-eyed anger replaced his stunned grimace. He reared back the butt of his whip and brought it down like a cudgel. Miles used his forearm to deflect the blow, then retaliated with jabs to the gut.
Foul exhales accompanied the wagon master’s grunts, but his flab seemed to absorb the impact of each punch. Winded, he tottered slightly. His guard dropped. Miles snatched the whip. When the man’s expression bunched around the need to continue the fight, Miles jabbed the butt of the whip against that broken nose. The wagon master clutched his face.
“Are we quite through?” Miles demanded.
His opponent sank onto the bench and nodded once. Rage still flared across his expression but his shoulders caved forward.
“Good.” Miles slowly coiled the whip. “Now, I suggest you notice the situation here. Too many people, for one. Laughably poor engineering. But that’s no excuse for whipping people.”
“They’re bloody kaffirs,” the man said, his voice muffled behind his hands. “Beasts like these donkeys.”
Miles glanced across the sea of faces, more dark than light, and wondered again at the state of the Cape. Ripe, raw, it perched on the edge of violence. He tasted its bitterness in the air and felt it itching under his skin—a shocking sort of awakening.
“No more beastly than the rest of us,” Miles said.
He hopped down from the wagon.
As the immediacy of the fight seeped from his body, Miles shivered. He eased back into the crowd on legs just shy of steady, intent on returning to the machinery crate. Surely Viv had found her way off that damned clipper by now.
He bumped into a solid wall of ebony flesh and found himself looking up at a man—a rare occurrence. Before him stood the same shirtless African who’d taken one of the wagon master’s cruel strokes. His shaven head gleamed.
“Thank you.” The African’s deep bass was melodic, like the notes of a bassoon. “Boggs is a scourge.”
Miles raised his eyebrows. “A scourge? Nice word.”
“I speak the truth.”
“And I believe you. My hope is that I won’t require his services.”
“Hire a wagon,” the man said. “I’ll drive for you instead.”
Miles studied that dark African face. Every feature was as he’d seen in caricatures and even so-called scientific journals: the wide, flat nose, the large lips, and the fathomless black irises surrounded by white. Those demeaning illustrations hadn’t captured what it was
to look upon such a man. Miles found intelligence and a rugged, hard-edged dignity—a refreshing change from the feckless gentlemen who’d comprised his social circle in London.
“You need a work pass,” Miles said.
“Yes, sir.”
Without a work pass, Africans could be subjected to police harassment or expulsion from the city. In Kimberley, the threat of diamond theft tainted all manual laborers, regardless of skin color, but Africans bore the heaviest burden of suspicion.
“Good, because I need reliable workers. I’m returning to Kimberley, if you’re interested.” He held out his hand. “Call me Bancroft,” he said, omitting a significant part of his identity—namely, his title.
The man stared at Miles for a long moment, then shook hands. His grip was strong, his expression intent. “I’m Umtonga kaMpande. But you English seem to find that a challenge.”
“No argument here.”
“Because you have shown the kindness of a friend, I ask that you call me Mr. Kato.”
“That is a kindness in itself, Mr. Kato.”
With nothing more by way of niceties, he turned and strode back toward the Coronea, toward Viv, glad to know that the tall African would follow.
Viv brushed a gloved hand across her forehead and pinned the porter with a hard look. “What do you mean they’ve been taken care of?”
The short man, bulky and rippling with menacing muscles, simply shrugged. “Your baggage has been taken care of, ma’am.”
Fear brushed up her spine. Had her things been stolen? Hardly on African soil for five minutes and already a snag. She took a quick breath. “By whom?”
“He said he was your husband. Lord Bancroft.”
She locked her knees against the impulse to sink onto the foot-worn planks of the dock. “My husband,” she whispered.
Of course he would come. She’d been willfully naïve in believing her trip would signal her intention to remain separated.
She needed her belongings. Every last item would be necessary if she were to endure the twenty months that remained of her contract.