Teresa Medeiros

by Once an Angel

  His sister Edith was pounding out “Joy to the World” on the grand piano. He winced, his heart aching for the poor beleaguered instrument. Her husband Harold had thrown back his head and was baying along with her. Or was it Herbert? Justin frowned. He still could not keep his sisters’ husbands straight.

  He angled toward a punch bowl ringed with glossy leaves of holly, hoping to find a safe haven in its rum-soaked depths.

  A gloved hand caught his arm in a velvety vise. “Hello, Justin. Haven’t you a moment to spare for an old friend?” The familiar voice had the huskiness of mellow brandy ignited by flame.

  “Suzanne,” he said, turning to greet his former fiancée and lover.

  The years had been kind to her, softening her nubile beauty to glowing maturity, betraying her only in the faint puffiness beneath her eyes. Sweeping wings of auburn framed her face. Justin knew he should feel something for her, some hint of affection, or even nostalgia, but he felt nothing. She might have been a stranger. She must have sensed his detachment, for her grip tightened.

  “I thought perhaps you’d care to dance. I fear my husband is more interested in discussing the Bank Holidays Act with his friends than he is in dancing with me.”

  Justin glanced at the man she indicated—a dapper, gray-haired chap much older than she. And doubtlessly very wealthy.

  His first instinct was to decline, but her possessive grip dissuaded him. “If you’ll honor me …?” he said, spreading his arms.

  She stepped into them, smiling. Edith had switched to a tinkling little waltz, and several of the guests had begun to dance.

  “Do you still play?” Suzanne said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Only when everyone else is asleep.”

  She laughed briefly, but stopped when she realized he was serious. “Did you ever make it to Vienna to study?”

  He swept her past the gleaming windows. “No. I took a … detour along the way.”

  “Dreams are like that sometimes. We give up what we really want to reach for something else. If we could only go back …” Her wistful voice trailed off.

  She rested her head against his shoulder, and for a moment Justin was content to hold someone else who understood the terrible cost of hesitation. But as they spun in the arms of the music, his heart balked, remembering another night when he had waltzed beneath the merry twinkle of the stars. He had danced to the wrong music, held the wrong woman, but nothing in his life had ever felt so right.

  He closed his eyes, breathing in not the delicate lavender of Suzanne’s perfume, but the haunting aroma of vanilla warmed by sun-honeyed skin. His body responded to the dangerous provocation with a will of its own.

  “Perhaps we could meet again. My husband travels frequently in his work. He’s leaving for Belgium next week.”

  The breathless voice scattered his memories. He opened his eyes. Suzanne was gazing up at him, her lips parted in glistening invitation.

  “Oh, God.” He pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “For what?”

  His words echoed his despair. “We can’t go back, Suzanne. We can’t ever go back.”

  He drew away from her, frantic to escape her crushed bewilderment. He pressed his way through the crowd, snatching a full bottle of rum from the tray of a liveried footman.

  “But, Your Grace, that’s for the punch!”

  “Not anymore, it isn’t,” he replied, escaping into the deserted peace of a darkened sitting room.

  Tall windows framed the front lawn in a swirling vista of moonlight and snow. Justin leaned against the window frame and tilted the bottle to his lips. The familiar heat failed to warm him or soothe his temper. His fingers bit into the smooth glass.

  In the drawing room Herbert or Harold was crooning some maudlin ballad about a man who searched the world over for his love, only to find her in the arms of another man. Groaning, Justin closed his eyes and rapped his forehead against the icy pane.

  When he opened them, someone was standing just outside the gate.

  Snowflakes danced in his vision. He blinked, thinking he might have imagined it. But the small figure clad in black was still there, clinging in eerie stillness to the wrought-iron gate.

  It must be a beggar child, he thought.

  He had spent much time in the past few weeks reacquainting himself with the orphans and urchins of the London streets. There were no hungry children among the Maori. What was planted by one was harvested by all. It had appalled him to see the children of London starving in the slums. Perhaps one of those he had helped had sent this bedraggled creature to his doorstep to beg for food.

  A blast of wind rattled the windowpane. How very cold she must be! He would have Penfeld invite her into the kitchen for a hot meal.

  As he turned from the window, a thought brushed him with icy fingers, an idea both so horrible and so magnificent, it chilled him to the bone.

  He narrowed his eyes. The figure was still there. Motionless. Waiting.

  He tore across the room, swearing under his breath as his knee slammed into a brass pedestal crowned by a glowering bust of Prince Albert. He burst into the drawing room and shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring the crash of a footman’s tray and the startled cries of alarm.

  “Good Lord, where’s the lad off to now?”

  “Careful there, Millicent, he trod all over my train.”

  “Where’s the fire, son? Shall we call out the brigade?”

  Justin flew across the entranceway and flung open the front door. Frigid air burned his lungs. Tears of cold stung his eyes. He blinked rapidly to dispel them.

  Snowflakes tumbled and spun in a wind-driven waltz, frosting the world in white. Leaving the front door gaping, he ran, sliding across the icy lawn to the street.

  He searched both ways. The street was empty. The iron gate swung in the wind, creaking an eerie refrain.

  Justin sank down on the curb and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared blindly into the night, wondering if he was going mad and listening to the falling snowflakes whisper promises they could never keep.

  Emily’s long strides ate up the pavement. Her shoulder slammed into a passing chimney sweep, knocking his tools into the snow.

  “Watch where you’re goin’, you little fool!” he growled.

  She jerked up his metal broom and swung around to press the sharp bristles to his throat. “Why don’t you watch who you’re calling a fool, pudding head.”

  He recoiled and lifted his palms in surrender. She tossed him the broom.

  “And a merry Christmas to you, too,” he called after her as she marched on.

  Emily was madder than hell.

  She rushed on to nowhere, nursing the cold ashes of her bitterness to raging flame. She toyed with her anger, ripping the familiar comfort of the old scar wide open. She knew her anger well. It had been her friend, enabling her to hold her head high despite the giggles and slights. It had been her enemy, driving her to stomp toes and tie Cecille’s braids in knots. And it had been her lover, sustaining her through cold, dark nights shivering in her attic bed by building a stone wall of fury against the despair.

  Most of the shop windows were dark now, their owners gone home to sit in front of crackling fires. Emily heard the crunch of a footfall behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting the chimney sweep’s broom to slam into her head. A shadow vanished into a narrow alley. She almost laughed aloud. Anyone contemplating robbing her had to be desperate indeed.

  She crossed a broad street where light and laughter spilled from a corner coffeehouse. A familiar scrap of paper on a lamppost caught her eye. A man stared as he passed, and Emily pulled her shawl up around her face. The likeness in the tintype was still there. Not everyone in London was as blindly stupid as Justin.

  Poor, pathetic Justin.

  Instead of finding him mooning for her in a deserted house, she had found him gliding past a shining expanse of glass, a beautiful stranger in his arms.
He had slipped back into his life of noble decadence with alarming ease, leaving her once again on the outside, looking in.

  Perhaps if she possessed the sophistication of his waltz partner, she would have known he was only toying with her on the island. Why shouldn’t he? She was the only woman in miles except for the Maori, and he had already seduced his way through their ranks before she arrived. Justin wasn’t the pathetic one. She was.

  That night on the beach she had allowed him to touch the most tender part of her, both in body and soul. Yet tonight he had clasped another woman to his heart as he had once held her beneath a foggy pearl of a moon. He had been terribly handsome in his black evening garb, the rakish sweep of his hair over his starched collar oddly endearing. A wretched sense of betrayal closed her throat.

  Her hands clenched into fists. She couldn’t let the pain in. Not even for an instant. If she did, she would curl into a little ball right there in the street and they would find her in the morning, just another frozen casualty.

  She marched on, achingly aware of her every misery. The soles of her boots were soaked through. Her naked fingers were numb. The blowing snow stung her cheeks like tiny shards of glass.

  A well-dressed couple passed her. The woman tittered and the man raked her with a contemptuous glance. They knew she didn’t belong there. She didn’t belong anywhere.

  A bakery door opened in a blast of warmth, sugaring the air with the tantalizing aroma of gingerbread. Emily stopped dead, as paralyzed and vulnerable as if she’d been caught naked on Piccadilly Circus. She crept nearer and pressed her nose to the icy window.

  Fresh rows of pastries cooled on the shelves, swollen to bursting with red and amber fruit. Flat scones rolled in cinnamon dotted the gleaming counter. Emily’s breath fogged the glass.

  Suddenly she was hungry. Wickedly, savagely hungry.

  Her father had once taken her to such a place. He had lifted her in his strong arms so she could see the steaming array of treasures, then allowed her to pick three of the most tempting. They had sat in the bakery the rest of that cold winter afternoon, gorging themselves on pie and pastries until they had both retired to bed that night with aching bellies.

  The door swung open again. A plump woman with her hands jammed deep in a fur muff was ushered into the bakery by her towering escort. Without hesitation Emily slipped in behind them.

  She lurked behind the man’s cloak while they made their choices. As the baker turned to fill a sack with powdery crumpets, Emily saw her chance.

  She reached over the counter and snatched a fat tart, burning her fingers with its delicious heat.

  “Ho there, little lady, you can’t do that.”

  It was not the baker, but the man who spoke, his jovial tones ringing in the silence. Emily fled for the door. She tripped over the threshold and stumbled into the snow.

  “Constable! Stop this thief!”

  The baker burst out behind her. She scrambled to her feet, but had barely taken two steps when she heard pounding footsteps coming from both directions. The blast of twin whistles deafened her. She spun around, not knowing which way to run. Her hesitation cost her dearly. The baker’s genial customer caught her by the back of her dress and lifted her high.

  “There now, little one, quit squirming. You mustn’t be such a wicked gel. Wicked gels end up in jail, you know.”

  He lowered her, but before she could flee, a uniformed constable caught her arm and wrenched it behind her back. The tart slipped from her fingers and plopped into the dirty snow. A heartbroken wail escaped her.

  Caught in an implacable tangle of arms and legs, she fought wildly. Her foot connected with the shin of one of the constables with a satisfying thud. The other one howled as her teeth sank into his wrist. The shawl slid from her hair.

  “Stand back, lad!” one of them shouted. “We don’t need no crowds. She’s a rabid wench.”

  A hand caught in her curls and tugged her head straight back, stilling her struggles. Tears of pain stung her eyes.

  “Aye, a rabid wench she is. But don’t worry, gents. I’ll muzzle her right and proper.”

  As Emily stared up into black, beady eyes glistening with lust and greed, she moaned in utter dread.

  He jerked her hard against him and grinned at the gaping constables. “Mr. Barney Dobbins, mates, at yer service.”

  Somewhere a child was laughing.

  Justin sat bolt upright in bed. His heart pounded in his throat, deafening him for a long moment before the shift of the coals on the fire penetrated his panicked haze. The blankets bound his legs in tangled cords, as twisted as the dreams that haunted his waking hours, and made sleep a nightly torment.

  There was something he should know. Something hovering at the edge of his nightmares, taunting him.

  He threw back the heavy drapes of the bed and struggled out of the feather tick. Like everything else in this house, the bed was a monstrosity. Every inch of the dark mahogany had been carved with the serpentine vines and pronged leaves of miniature Venus’s-flytraps. He dreaded climbing into it each night for fear the mattress would swallow him without a trace.

  A thread of light shone beneath Penfeld’s adjoining door. The valet never slept without his lamp lit. Justin pulled a dressing gown over his nakedness, wishing light were enough to keep his own demons at bay.

  He marched down the long, curving staircase, raking his hair out of his eyes. No one would dare trouble him. The servants had grown accustomed to him prowling the house at all hours. They gave him wide berth, frightened of the gaunt shadows beneath his eyes. He was beginning to feel as mad as they must think him.

  He was the Duke of Winthrop now. He could buy a dozen gold mines. He could travel to Vienna and study music, as he had always longed to do. He could rent an opera house to feature nothing but his own symphonies night after night. But all he craved was the warmth of sunlight on his face and the music of Emily’s laughter.

  His shin slammed into a wooden pedestal in the dark and he bit off an oath. There wasn’t an inch of grace or simplicity to be found in this cramped house. He grabbed the teetering vase atop the pedestal and threw it. It shattered against the far wall with a satisfying crash. Somewhere in the house a door closed as a curious servant beat a wise retreat.

  The moon-drenched drawing room beckoned him. He slid onto the piano bench and sat in brooding silence. The snow lay in a serene blanket beyond the tall windows. Midnight bells chimed in the distance, and he realized with a shock that it was Christmas Eve.

  Christmas Eve. The night when hope had first entered the world. But not for him. Not while David’s child was out there somewhere, shivering in the dark. To him, the echo of the bells sounded the death knell of his dreams.

  He lifted his gaze to meet the impassive blue eyes of Claire Scarborough’s doll. She reigned on the piano with the aplomb of a ragged little queen. No one had dared to do so much as dust her since Justin had placed her there. He glared at her now, almost hating her for the secrets she withheld. What would she say if she could speak? Would she curse him, reproach him for his terrible cowardice?

  He crooked his fingers over the keys and began to play. He chose not his own music, but the melancholy strains of Beethoven’s “Für Elise”. Instead of losing himself in the music as he’d hoped, the notes flailed him like exquisite barbs.

  What a fool he had been! He had let go of Emily to chase a phantom. Now he had neither.

  He felt as if he were moidering in this mausoleum. He hungered to feel the powdery sand between his toes, to hear Trini’s sonorous laughter and the welcoming song of the Maori shimmering on the balmy air. His hands flew over the keys, stroking, caressing the smooth ivory as he longed to caress the heated satin of Emily’s skin. But how could he face her, knowing he had abandoned David’s child to the merciless streets of London? Emily deserved more in life than a desolate man crippled by guilt.

  His hands faltered. His fingers were stiff and callused, his left hand still inflexible from lack of practi
ce. He struck the wrong note, then slammed his fist down on the keys in a burst of despair.

  The discordant notes jarred the air. Justin dropped his face into his hands. Emily’s features were already growing misty in his memory, blurring like a hazy watercolor into another face, a face he knew as well as his own.

  A polite cough broke the silence. Justin’s head flew up. A dark shape was silhouetted against the moonlight, and for one crazy moment he thought it was David’s ghost.

  Bentley Chalmers’s clipped tones rang out. “They’ve found her, sir.”

  Justin blinked, fighting to clear the fog of confusion from his brain. His thoughts were so rife with Emily that for a weary moment he didn’t know who the man was talking about—Emily or Claire?

  Chalmers turned his bowler in his hands. “They’ve found the girl, sir. She’s alive.”

  “Alive?” he whispered.

  The piano keys blurred before his grateful eyes, and a chiming carol broke free in his head as if all the bells of London had started to ring at once.

  Chapter 18

  It seems only yesterday you were toddling after me, tugging at my coattails with your chubby little hands.…

  “Criminy, Penfeld, I asked to be shaved, not beheaded.” Justin bit back a yelp as the razor nicked his throat.

  Penfeld dabbed at the welling dollop of blood with a towel, his hands shaking visibly. The water in the ceramic washbasin at his elbow was stained a pleasant shade of pink. “I am frightfully sorry, sir. I must confess I’m a bit nervous myself.”

  “You’re nervous? What about me? I’ve never been a father before.” He ducked beneath the approaching blade and bounded out of the chair to the mirror. Stroking the foreign smoothness of his chin, he cocked his head sideways, studying his profile. “Do I look like a suitable papa?”

  Beaming proudly, Penfeld wiped the soap from the gleaming blade with a flourish. “The very model of paternal decorum.”