Teresa Medeiros

by Once an Angel

  She clawed the skirt from her face. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’d be very grateful if you would let me live. Not really for myself sir. Just to spite Barney and Doreen.

  And Justin Connor, that dirty, no-good, thieving wretch who stole my daddy’s gold mine.

  The familiar litany was a prayer all its own. She had breathed it, dreamed it, and feasted on its bitterness for seven years. Her legs pummeled the water with new ferocity. She tore at the buttons of her bodice, wrenched the bustle’s tape from its mooring. Her head pounded. Tiny dots of light danced before her eyes. Still she clawed at the heavy garments, shedding each layer like musty skins. Finally, she was able to shoot toward the surface, strong and lithe in the simple cotton chemise issued each of the girls at the seminary.

  Her hands pressed on with a life of their own, ripping the chemise as if they could somehow tear asunder not only the garment, but all the drab, lonely, soot-stained years since she had sat in Miss Winters’s library and been told her daddy was never coming back.

  The buoyant water bore her upward. Her head split the surface with a splash. She sucked in a shuddering breath. Life and air tingled through her blood all the way to the tips of her toes. The brilliant orb of the sun lay flat on the water, and for a dazzling instant Emily couldn’t tell where the exploding rainbow of the sunset ended and she began. She dove beneath the waves and turned an exultant flip.

  She emerged from the water, shaking sun-gilded drops from her hair. “Thank you, God,” she whispered fiercely. “I shall try to be nicer. I swear I will.”

  At that moment she saw the steamer chugging toward the far horizon. A faint cry floated on the wind. Barney waved his arms and Emily knew he had spotted her.

  Noble intentions forgotten, Emily thumbed her nose and wiggled her fingers at him in a gesture seldom practiced at the seminary. Blowing him a final taunting kiss, she kicked herself around, rolling and bobbing like a sleek seal. The silvery curve of the shoreline beckoned. She quenched a flare of trepidation. Before he’d gone off on his quest for gold, she and her father had rented a modest cottage at Brighton each summer. She’d become a strong swimmer. It couldn’t be as far to land as it looked. Could it?

  The cool water caressed her bare skin. A wave of heady delight coursed through her. She drew in a deep breath and struck for the shore with long, graceful strokes, free at last.

  As Justin prowled the deserted beach, the bloated moon laved the peak of each swell in molten silver. The waves broke on the sand and rushed over his feet in a swirl of foam before the sea could suck them back. He felt the inexorable tug against his bare soles as if the sea held the power to melt the very shore beneath his feet.

  He thrust his hands deep in his pockets. The breeze whispered of a respite from his aching restlessness, but for Justin it was a taunting refrain. He couldn’t even still his thoughts long enough to hear the night’s music calling to him. The only thing more elusive than sleep was peace.

  Damn the tenacious Miss Winters and her letters! It had been months since he had been jolted from sleep by the bright, merry edge of a child’s laughter. Tonight the mocking echo had driven him stumbling and groaning from his pallet to seek the brighter darkness of night.

  He paused, rocking back and forth on his heels, and stared blindly out to sea. Cool spray misted his skin. It had been seven years since he, Nicholas, and David had come to New Zealand to seek their fortunes. Seven years since Trini had dragged his boat ashore and pried David’s stiffening body from his grip. But when Justin closed his eyes, time melted like the sand beneath his feet.

  If the smooth-talking Nicky had been their wit and Justin their brains, it was David who had been their heart. After weeks of fruitless panning for gold in the cold shadow of the Southern Alps, it had been David’s relentless optimism that had given them the cheer to continue. David had hope enough for all of them; David had dreams for the future; David had Claire.

  Claire. Long after Nicky was snoring, Justin would lie awake in the dark and listen hungrily as David talked of his baby daughter. As he would drift into sleep, it was almost as if the scent of her tousled curls and the echo of her irrepressible giggle would warm their lonely camp. He had even dreamed of her once. She had toddled from the sea, her plump arms outstretched, the lilting timbre of her voice crying for her father. In the dream it had not been David but Justin himself who soothed her puckered brow against his shoulder.

  The stringent cry of a kiwi shattered his memories. Justin sucked in a breath, half expecting the beach to erupt in a welter of Maori natives, their tattooed faces twisted in frenzied cries for utu, their sun-browned hands twined around the deadly hilts of their taiahas. From behind him came only the flurry of wings as a startled gannet took to the sky.

  Justin opened his eyes. He stood on a different shore now. The salt-tinged breeze of the North Island was kinder and balmier than the stiff winds of the South Island. The palms swayed in lulling rhythms and the sea sang instead of roaring. He had created a life for himself here. A small and simple life stripped of snarls and entanglements. But the stench of gunpowder and blood still haunted his nostrils, mingling with the rich, sweet scent of the crimson-flowered pohutukawas.

  It had been Trini, with his innocent wisdom, who had told him he still carried with him the body of his friend.

  Justin kicked at the waves and started down the moon-drenched ribbon of beach. If he didn’t return soon, Penfeld would come searching for him. His valet believed him too absentminded and too immersed in his music to find the hut once he wandered far from it.

  He turned his face to the wind, abandoning his senses to the seductive beauty of the night. Stars misted the smudged charcoal of the northern sky. His hair danced against his shoulders like a dark cloak as he ambled along, lost in the pounding symphony of sand and surf.

  A cloud darted across the moon; Justin spotted a dark shape against the sand. Seaweed, he thought. Or driftwood. The cloud sped away. Moonlight spilled over the beach, illuminating the shape in a pool of riveting clarity.

  Justin’s heart slammed into an uneven drumbeat; he glided forward as if in a trance.

  A woman lay on the sand, half curled into herself, half exposed to his piercing gaze. No, not a woman, but a gossamer creature woven of moonlight and dreams. Justin blinked, expecting her to vanish. But she remained—mysterious, provocative—and wearing not a single stitch of clothing.

  He crept nearer. Her cheek was pillowed on folded hands. Her breasts rose and fell gently with each breath. Justin’s dazed mind absorbed details with dizzying lucidity: a cherub’s face—a dash of freckles across the bridge of a snub nose, a rosebud mouth, lashes of stubby velvet, an unruly mass of chestnut curls. Before he could stop it, his gaze drifted lower, where a nest of darker curls glistened with sea drops. His toes curled into the wet sand.

  The sun had kissed her face and arms, but the rest of her was polished to creamy pearl. Sand sparkled against her skin like ground diamonds. Luminous coral tipped her breasts. He was tempted to look around for the giant shell that must have birthed her.

  His gaze flicked upward to the mocking wink of the stars. “For me?” he whispered.

  He sank down cross-legged in the sand beside her. He ought to be rousing her, checking her for injuries, covering her. But he had worn only his tattered dungarees. Even with the best of intentions, one of them was going to be naked. And he wasn’t yet sure his intentions were the best.

  He rested his chin on steepled fingers, unable to drag his gaze away from the rosy little nymph. He couldn’t fathom the effect she had on him. He felt as if someone had punched him low in the gut, driving out all the breath with one blow. His rising desire was a foreign heat that bore no relation to the rare fumble in the dark he might share with some generous Maori woman or Auckland whore.

  He felt he might sit forever, afraid of not touching her, more afraid of touching her, locked in her strange spell until someone dragged him away. The breeze whispered encouragement even as the
waves chanted a warning. They might have been the only two alive. For the first time Justin understood Zeus’s temptation to turn himself into a swan to mate with Leda in the forest. He knew the hunger of the fierce knight Huldbrand groaning for the siren song of his sea witch Undine.

  A primitive enchantment beckoned him. It had nothing to do with the civilized constraints of his time, but hearkened back to another era, when a man had knelt between a woman’s thighs with no need for polite small-talk to woo her heart.

  Justin buried his face in his hands. Sweet Lord, his morals were becoming as muddled as his dreams. Perhaps he should return to England, where he wouldn’t be tempted to ravish a girl just because she’d had the ill luck to wash up naked on his beach.

  He shoved his hands through his hair, determined to take some action. He would have to carry her back to the hut. Unless he wanted to drag her by the hair, that would mean touching her.

  He sat up on his knees. The feathery fingers of his shadow fell over her, brushing all the plump swells and lush hollows his hands burned to touch. Dragging in a breath that was more a groan, he eased an arm beneath her shoulders. The coral petals of her mouth parted in sleepy surrender. Justin’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips.

  What could one kiss hurt? Even Sleeping Beauty’s prince had stolen that much. He leaned forward, taking painstaking care that no less-principled part of his body should meet with hers. He touched her mouth softly with his own. Her lips were salty-sweet. Justin licked the salt away, glazing her lips with liquid moonlight. He couldn’t remember the last time he had kissed a woman. His head reeled. Only minutes ago he had been walking alone on the beach. Now he was kissing a goddess.

  A mistake. As her lips parted beneath the subtle, hungry pressure of his own, Justin knew kissing her had been a terrible mistake. But it was too late to extricate himself. He could only slide his tongue between her parted lips, making hot, slippery love to her mouth with all the tender ferocity his body craved. Her taste was magic and he couldn’t have pulled himself away if she had wrapped her legs around him and dragged him to her kingdom deep beneath the sea.

  He buried his face in her damp curls. The faintest aroma of vanilla clung to her hair, rendered erotic by its very purity. Just one touch, he promised himself. Just to rake his fingers across her sand-sugared skin, to cup the gentle swell of her breast in his palm …

  He was already reaching for her when the husky whisper came, so close to his ear it had the intimacy of his own thoughts. “I stabbed the last man who stuck his tongue in my mouth.”

  Justin slowly lifted his head. He hung there, caught dead in the sights of her sparkling brown eyes.

  “What’s wrong? I didn’t swallow it, did I?” Her pert nose crinkled as she laughed. Justin thought it was the most endearing thing he had ever seen.

  Her merry eyes went somber. She lifted her hand. Justin couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Her fingers caught a stray lock of his hair, brushed it gently from his brow. “You have the most extraordinary eyes,” she whispered.

  Then she rolled over, snuggled her face against the warmth of his lap, and went back to sleep.

  Time stopped. Justin couldn’t have said how long he knelt there, brushing the sand from her tangled curls and enduring the exquisite torture of her warm sigh breaching the threadbare calico of his dungarees.

  He didn’t even hear Penfeld approach, huffing and puffing as if he’d trotted all the way from England. “There you are, sir. I was just out for a stroll—” His gaze dropped to Justin’s lap. He threw a hand over his eyes. “Good Lord!”

  “What?” Justin gazed dumbly up at him, still lost in the throes of his reverie.

  Penfeld peeped between his round little fingers. “If I’ve come at an inopportune moment, sir …?”

  Justin blinked as if coming awake after a long sleep. The sleep of a lifetime. He reluctantly untangled his fingers from the skein of curls. “No, no. You’ve come at the perfect time. Give me your coat.”

  Justin had to admire his valet’s aplomb. Penfeld turned his back and peeled off his coat as if finding his master cuddled on the beach with a nude, insensible woman were a normal occurrence. He started to fold it. Justin tugged it out of his hand. If he hadn’t stopped him, Justin knew he would have washed and pressed it before handing it over.

  Penfeld rubbed his arms, shivering in his crisp linen shirt as if he were the one naked. “I do say, is it a mermaid, sir?”

  “Do you see any gills?”

  Penfeld chanced a tentative glance over his shoulder. What he did see was a voluptuous young woman being tenderly enveloped in the folds of his coat.

  Justin stood, gathering her like a child in his arms. Her head lolled warm and damp against his shoulder. His gaze traced her features—the elfin tilt of her nose, the pout that made no apology for its sensual promise.

  Penfeld dared to turn around. “Wherever did she come from, sir? Could she be the victim of a shipwreck perhaps? Or a stowaway?”

  Grinning, Justin lifted his head. “No stowaway, Penfeld, but a gift. A gift from the sea.”

  Penfeld couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his master truly smile. Justin was already striding down the beach, his steps no longer weighted, but as light as if he carried not a woman, but a blithe spirit fashioned of sea foam and stardust. As Penfeld watched, Justin did the most extraordinary thing. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the tip of the woman’s nose.

  Penfeld mopped his forehead, wondering if they’d both been struck with the moon madness so coveted and feared by the natives.

  Emily burrowed into the thin mattress, her mind tugging greedily at the blurred edges of sleep. She despised waking up. Despised the sleet tapping at the tiny attic window, the wash water frozen in her basin, the prospect of crawling down the steep stairs to teach French to wealthy little brats who didn’t know their demitasses from their derrières and who teased her mercilessly because her dress was two years too small. Groaning, she fumbled for a pillow to pull over her head. Perhaps if she hid long enough, Tansy would come tapping on the door with a mug of steaming black coffee smuggled out from under Cook’s bulbous nose.

  Her groping search yielded no pillow. A new sensation crept over her, a feeling utterly delicious and so foreign to her gloomy attic that she wanted to weep at its beauty.

  Warmth.

  She slowly opened her eyes. The sun fanned tingling fingers across her face. She lay there, stunned, basking in its heat, enveloped in its healing rays. She closed her eyes against the dazzling shaft of light. When she opened them again, a twisted green face hung only an inch above her own, its pointed teeth bared in a ferocious grimace.

  She shrieked and scrambled backward, groping for a weapon. Her fingers curled around the first blunt object they could find. As her back slammed into a wall, dust exploded, setting her off on a quaking chain of sneezes.

  “Now look what you’ve done, Trini. You’ve frightened the poor girl. I dare say she’s never seen a savage before.”

  Emily wiped her streaming eyes. Now two faces were peering at her. One was still green, but the other was round and decidedly English. It was clicking its tongue and shaking its side-whiskers like a great overgrown hamster.

  The fierce green face loomed nearer. “How do you do, miss? The sheer luminosity of your countenance beguiles me. I take extreme delight in welcoming you, our most charming breast.”

  The round face pinkened. Emily gaped. The savage’s words had come rolling out in deep, resonant tones as if he’d just strolled from the hallowed corridors of Cambridge, his feathered cloak swinging around his shoulders. Emily realized his teeth were bared not in a snarl, but in a beaming smile. Nor was he entirely green. Deep furrows of jade had been tattooed in his honey-colored skin in elaborate curls and soaring wings.

  A soft groan came out of the shadows. “Not breast, Trini. Guest.”

  She squinted into the corner, but the sunlight had blinded her. She could make out only a vague shape.

&n
bsp; The tattooed man stretched out a hand. She recoiled and smacked it away. “I’ll keep my breast to myself, thank you. I’m not a simpering ninny for some native Lothario to ravish.”

  The savage threw back his head. His musical laughter rocked the small hut.

  “Did I say something amusing?” she asked the hamster. Her head was starting to pound and she was wishing even more desperately for that coffee.

  “Oh, dear, I’m afraid so. You see—the Maori don’t ravish their victims.” He leaned forward and whispered, “They eat them.”

  Emily felt herself go the same color as the snorting native. She pressed herself to the wall. “Stay away from me. I’m warning the both of you. I wasn’t kicked out of every girls’ school in England for nothing.” Emily disliked lying. She much preferred to embellish the truth.

  She attacked the air with her makeshift weapon. The native danced backward. Narrowing her eyes in what she hoped was a menacing fashion, she said, “That’s right. I know how to use this thing.”

  “What a comfort,” came a dry voice from the corner. “If Penfeld ever decides to stop serving tea long enough to dust, you’ll be of great service.”

  Emily glanced down to discover she was threatening a cannibal with a feather duster. Her cheeks burned.

  A man unfolded himself from the shadows with lanky grace. He stepped into a beam of sunlight, tilting back a battered panama hat with one finger.

  Their eyes met and Emily remembered everything. She remembered swimming until her arms and legs had turned leaden and her head bobbed under the water with each stroke. She remembered crawling onto the beach and collapsing in the warm sand. Then her memories hazed—a man’s mouth melted tenderly into hers, his dark-lashed eyes the color of sunlight on honey.

  Emily gazed up into those eyes. Their depths were a little sad, a trifle mocking. She couldn’t tell if they mocked her or himself. She forced her gaze down from his, then wished she hadn’t.

  Her throat constricted. His physical presence was as daunting as a blow. She had never seen quite so much man. The sheer volume of his sun-bronzed skin both shocked and fascinated her. In London the men swathed themselves in layers of clothing from the points of their high starched collars to the tips of their polished shoes. Shaggy whiskers shielded any patch of skin that risked exposure.