Flawless Read Online Free PDF

her dark childhood. Now those destitute years crawled over her skin and down her throat. She squeezed the wooden handle of the portmanteau in her lap—squeezed until her pinkie finger jerked.
    The train station was a picture of barely controlled bedlam. Wealthy colonists strolled toward first-class accommodations, while servants dragged luggage in their wake. Rougher folk flocked toward the overburdened rear cars. A woman, great with child, followed a tradesman with a full blond beard whose back bowed under the weight of a massive trunk. She gripped the hands of two young boys, their little legs pumping to keep pace with her determined waddle. The crowd gobbled them up as a whistle announced the train’s impending departure.
    A baby wailed and Viv knew its terror.
    She eased down from the wagon bench, having lost feeling in her rear. Miles was busy directing Adam and the African in the care of her possessions. “Take Lady Bancroft’s girl with you,” he said to his manservant. “Here are your tickets, plus money enough to make sure Mr. Kato is fairly accommodated. He cannot lose his pass, understand? And for God’s sake find a salve for his back. And a shirt. One of mine, if you must.”
    Viv watched the exchange, curious. She had always known Miles to be fair with regard to servants and tenants on his family’s estates. She just never recalled him . . . caring. He had treated such matters as just another responsibility to be mocked.
    Adam offered Chloe his arm and a friendly smile. He was exactly as Viv remembered, his master’s opposite in so many ways: shorter, fair, genial, and thoughtful. How he’d managed such a lengthy working relationship with Miles, loyal even to the back of beyond, was a mystery she had reconciled herself to never solving.
    “Alone again,” he said as the trio walked away. “It’s been, what—a year? Two? I honestly cannot remember back that far.”
    “An entire naval crew’s ration of liquor each night will do that to a brain.”
    “Especially one as stunted as mine?”
    “Quite.” She peered at him, as if doing so might reveal his deeper intentions. “You’re determined to make this difficult. Tell me why.”
    “A gentleman does not air his laundry in public.”
    “No, he threatens to toss his wife’s laundry into the harbor.”
    “New money insists on showiness,” he said with a slight sniff. “Seems a shame not to display what frilly bits of lace and satin the Christie fortune can buy.”
    Viv smiled sweetly. “Perhaps I’m fresh out of lace and satin.”
    “Oh?”
    “If you recall, shoring up your father’s bankrupt estates permitted little allowance for niceties.”
    His lips lost their teasing tilt. “Sounds a great deal like our marriage.”
    She stiffened. Mussed clothing and chaotic hair made him appear more rakish, and yet he was the same man underneath. If only that weren’t the case! She couldn’t take her eyes off the brawn he’d acquired in only a few months. Wider shoulders. Thicker arms. His haphazardly buttoned waistcoat strained over his more muscular chest. What, exactly, had he been doing?
    And why did her body insist on reacting so contrary to good intentions?
    Because it always had. She always had. With Miles.
    “Tell me what you intend. Please,” she added for good measure. Even her father knew the value of pleasantries during business negotiations.
    “When you sit with me on the train.”
    “You seem certain I’ll do just that.”
    “Yes,” he said. “Because you think you can best me. Admit it, you can’t wait to take me on again. You’ve been bored stiff.”
    “At peace, more like.”
    “Peace isn’t meant for the living.”
    The tips of his fingers graced her corseted waist as he guided her toward the first-class car. What should’ve been a gesture of affection or support felt as if he’d wiggled under her crinolines. Hot-faced memories layered atop her restlessness, softening her guts to glue.
    And blast, she was simply