Teresa Medeiros

by Once an Angel

  Blinded by rage at the full extent of Nicholas’s betrayal, Justin rammed the pistol back in his waistband and rushed him, coming in low and hard. His shoulder slammed into Nicky’s stomach. The cigarette flew from his elegant lips. They rolled to the powdery sand in an explosion of flailing arms and legs.

  Justin’s right hook connected with a solid crack, rocking back Nicky’s head. He wanted to pound his face to a bloody pulp, but all he got in was one more blow before he realized Nicky hadn’t lifted his fists to fight back, but had balled them in front of his face to protect it. A keening whimper escaped him.

  Grabbing his lapels, Justin slammed him to his back and straddled him. He shook him with each anguished word. “How could you do it, you son of a bitch? You were my friend!”

  Nicky slowly lowered his hands, and Justin realized with horror that he was crying. Tears streaked the grit on his cheeks but didn’t dim the virulent hatred in his eyes. “You don’t know what it was like,” he screamed. “You always had it all. You never had to scrounge in the sewers of Rome for food or pennies, selling whatever you could to stay alive—even yourself.”

  Justin sat back on his haunches, stunned.

  “We could have had it all, you and I, but you gave up your inheritance! You just threw it away like it was nothing. And why shouldn’t you? You never had to let some fat Sicilian pig maul you with his sweaty hands in the hopes he might give you a loaf of bread afterward for your trouble!”

  Justin turned his face away. “I never knew,” he whispered. “I swear I never knew.”

  He was completely unprepared when the sharp heel of Nicky’s boot slammed into his jaw, knocking him backward. Before he could react, Nicky rolled up. Striking with the speed and cunning of a serpent, he snatched the pistol from Justin’s waistband and leveled it at him.

  Justin stood, backing away. Nicholas followed, scooping up his hat as he rose and tilting it back on his head at a rakish angle. His grip on the gun wavered wildly. “You ruined everything, you rich brat. Together we could have had the world.”

  There was a sigh then, softer than the wind, and they both turned to find Emily standing in the sand, the moonlight pearling off the barrel of the derringer cradled in her palm.

  Chapter 35

  Know in that moment that I’d cheat even death for one last glimpse of my little girl.…

  Emily looked so beautiful with her skirts blowing in the wind and her hair tousled by its fingers that Justin wanted to weep. He was surprised she couldn’t hear the crack of his heart breaking.

  Nicky slowly lowered his pistol.

  She moved toward Justin, the gun never wavering in her grip. The moonlight polished her skin to porcelain and shaded her piquant features to an inscrutable mask. Only her eyes were alive, sparkling with an inner flame that burned bright and hot.

  “I was hoping you’d leave me the pleasure of shooting the bastard,” she said.

  A grin spread across Nicky’s face. He tossed Justin’s pistol aside, pulled out a handkerchief, and scrubbed at his palm as if the weapon had defiled it. “The pleasure is all mine, cara mia.”

  Justin faced her as he should have seven years earlier—with his arms spread wide and his heart in his hands. “It’s all right, darling. Killing me won’t stop me from loving you.”

  She took another step toward him. A single tear slipped from her lashes and tumbled down her cheek. Her thumb toyed with the hammer; her voice was as soft and lethal as a caress. “Now you’ll know what it’s like to die a thousand miles from home at the hand of someone you love.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. I am home. And I’d much rather die by your hand than his.”

  “Go on. Shoot him,” Nicky urged. “Before he kills the both of us like he killed your father. Oh, they were a fine pair, those two. Always had their heads together, laughing about something, shutting me out like I wasn’t good enough for the likes of them. What really happened the night he died, Justin?” he taunted. “Was it truly an act of mercy, or perhaps a lover’s quarrel?”

  With no warning Emily swung the gun around and aimed it at Nicky’s head. “Nobody talks that way about my daddy.”

  The derringer exploded in a smoky blur.

  Nicky’s hat flew off. He rubbed his head, his expression of bewilderment almost comical. “Do you know how much that hat cost, you stupid little bitch?”

  “More than your coat?” she queried politely, cocking the derringer and firing again. She winged his coat, tearing a blackened hole through the armpit. When she steadied her arm, the pistol was pointing straight at his heart.

  “You don’t have to do this, Emily,” Justin said very softly, inching toward her. “We can have him put away for a very long time.”

  Tears were streaming down her face in earnest now. “Not long enough,” she said, raking back the hammer.

  Nicky’s eyes rolled wildly, but his attention was not on her. It was as if he could hear something they could not. They froze, listening. It was the silence. There was something wrong with the silence. In that instant of Emily’s hesitation it had become a living, breathing thing. The shimmering leaves of the rain forest quivered and sighed, alive with knowing eyes. Justin’s skin crawled.

  The brush exploded in a screeching mass of lithe bronze bodies. Justin dove for Emily, pressing her to her knees, forcing her face into his chest, wanting to spare her the sight of the familiar tattooed faces contorted into demonic masks of fury. Their ear-shattering cries for revenge drowned out the roar of the sea. Hordes of sun-browned feet stampeded around them in a beat more primitive than drums or thunder. Someone was screaming. It might have been Emily or it might have been him.

  Nicky’s hysterical wail rose above it all. “For God’s sake, you savages. Not the suit. Don’t tear the bloody suit!”

  Justin lifted his face from Emily’s trembling throat. A writhing mass of natives had Nicky by the arms and legs. Justin stared mesmerized as they dragged him howling and bucking into the forest, leaving only his panama hat flattened in the sand.

  The screams and howls slowly died. For a wavering moment the silence was broken only by the whisper of the waves and the shrill cry of a kiwi.

  Someone was watching them. The hair on Justin’s nape stood erect. He turned his head to find a lean figure squatting beneath the shadow of a punga tree. Their gazes met across the moonlit stretch of beach, man to man, friend to friend. Then the native lifted his hand and melted into the arms of the brush without so much as a rustle of his flaxen skirt.

  Chapter 36

  Eternity will find me still watching over you.…

  “Never underestimate the resourcefulness of an English valet left to his own devices,” Justin murmured into Emily’s hair.

  She nuzzled against his chest, loath to surrender the comfort of his strong arms around her. He tasted so good—salty and gritty and real, as a man should taste. Her convulsive shivers slowly abated. She tilted her face to his, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “Oh, Justin!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck.

  It took her a moment to realize something was wrong. He knelt rigid in her embrace. She drew back fearfully. “You didn’t really think I was going to shoot you, did you?”

  “The thought did occur to me.”

  “But you were so wonderful, so gallant about it.” She gazed up at him through a puddle of besotted tears. “Why, you smiled at me like an angel.”

  He pried her arms off his neck and stood, brushing the sand from his knees. “My manners at gunpoint have always been impeccable.”

  He walked to the edge of the waves and stared out to sea.

  Emily trailed after him. “I had to do it, you know.” She waded out in front of him, heedless of the foam washing over her skirt. “It was your face.” Reaching up, she cupped his cheeks in her hands. “Your beautiful face. It’s so expressive. I had no choice. You could have never maintained the charade. Nicky would have seen right through you. To make him believe I hate
d you, I had to make you believe it, too.”

  The planes of his face were cold and stony now. Only his eyes revealed the depths of his stormy thoughts. “You did an admirable job.”

  Emily dropped her hands. She paced back and forth through the waves, frantic to make him understand. “Saleri started harping about this land grant he claimed you altered to cheat him and Daddy out of their shares of the mine. He was going to use it to have you put away for life. I was afraid if he came here alone and got his hands on it, he would destroy it, or, even worse, doctor it himself to have you brought to trial for my father’s murder.”

  Justin’s voice was chillingly devoid of emotion. “Are you sure that’s why you came with him?”

  She wheeled to face him. “What do you mean?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Maybe somewhere in your mind was just the tiniest smidgen of doubt. Maybe you wanted to see that land grant for yourself and find out if I really did murder your father.”

  “No!” She lifted her sodden hem and stumbled toward him. “I believed in you. I swear it. You’re all I ever believed in.”

  Snorting in disbelief, Justin scooped up a shell, then drew back his arm to toss it into the sea. “What were you going to do after he took you to the land grant? Shoot him in cold blood?”

  She grabbed his arm, not even realizing herself the full import of her words. “I didn’t even think about what would happen next. I knew you’d come for me.”

  The shell slipped from his fingers. He slowly swung around to face her. “And if I hadn’t come?” he asked brutally. “If I had decided a woman like you was hardly worth chasing halfway across the world?”

  She bowed her head, wondering if he would ever understand or be able to forgive her for her own dark passions. She lifted her head, her heart in her eyes. “I would have done what I had to do. He killed my father.”

  A strange expression passed over Justin’s face, then was gone, leaving it as impassive as before.

  He ran his thumb over her cheek to flick away a tear. “Then you’ll understand when I do what I have to do.” With those words he gently disengaged her hand, turned, and walked away.

  Emily’s hands hung limply at her sides. “Where are you going?”

  His stride did not slow. Desolation overwhelmed her with abandonment nipping close at its heels. All she could see was Justin Connor walking away from her one more time.

  She trotted after him, pausing to hop up and down on one foot to peel off her sodden slipper. “Go on, you coward!” she yelled. “Run away from me. It’s what you do best, isn’t it?”

  She hurled the slipper. It struck him solidly between the shoulder blades. He hesitated for a heartbeat, then kept going.

  Her voice rose. “I don’t need you. I never needed you. The day Emily Claire Scarborough needs anybody will be the day they grow tulips in hell!” She took a few more stumbling steps, then sank to her knees in the sand. “I don’t need you, you bastard.” Tears blinded her. Her voice faded to a mumble. “I don’t need anyone.”

  Emily sat on the bluff where her father was buried, hugging her knees to her chest. She watched as Justin’s clipper unfurled its sails and set for open sea. The same warm wind that tossed her curls around her face filled its billowing sails, sending it slicing for the horizon. It was a magnificent sight, silhouetted against the pagan moon like a ghost of days long gone. Its beauty would have broken her heart if it hadn’t already been broken.

  The lights of the ship slowly faded over the horizon, leaving her alone with the brilliant glitter of the stars. She tangled her bare toes in the tussock grass and laid her damp cheek against her knee.

  An unearthly sound filled the night. Emily lifted her head, stiffening. She was afraid to turn around, afraid she might have imagined the hymn brightening the darkness, afraid it might be only the stars rubbing points or the melodic wanderings of a lost choir of angels. The music rose on magical wings, drifting through the wind to her ears.

  Her hands clenched into fists. She stood and dared to turn, only to find a shimmering line of torches winding their way down the beach toward the bluff. Her breath caught in her throat.

  The procession topped the bluff. Among their well-loved faces stood Trini in full ceremonial garb, running his hands down the lapels of a rumpled coat of the finest Egyptian linen; Dani and Kawiri, their lithe naked bodies draped with shells and fragments of polished amber; the stern ariki, his mouth folded in what might have been a smile on a more expressive face.

  But Emily had eyes only for the man at the head of their procession. A barefoot king in a pair of ragged dungarees.

  The silence rustled expectantly around them.

  “You’re late again,” she said, swallowing around the knot in her throat.

  “Not too late, I hope,” Justin replied. “It’s bad form to be late for your own wedding.”

  Emily pressed her fingers to her trembling lips. She understood that he was offering her his life as bravely and as gallantly as he had on the beach. Not to end it in a flash of smoking gunpowder, but to cup its fragile moments in her palm, to nourish it and protect it as she would her own through all the sweet years to come.

  She opened her mouth to give him her answer.

  A silver tray popped into her vision, crowned by a conch shell brimming with amber liquid. Penfeld bowed. “A spot of tea, perhaps, my dear? To celebrate this momentous occasion.”

  He didn’t utter a protest when she shoved the tray aside and flew across the bluff into Justin’s waiting arms. Trini’s deep-throated laughter pealed out as Justin rocked her in his hard embrace.

  He swept out an arm toward the wind-battered cross. “I wanted David to share the moment with us.”

  “Oh, he is,” Emily breathed in wonder. “Look.”

  They both stared at the base of the cross to discover a single fragile pohutukawa bloom had pushed its way up through the sandy soil, its tender petals unfurling in a fresh promise of new life.

  Their lips met in a melting caress, making promises and vows they would gladly spend their lifetimes keeping. As the natives danced around them, Justin stroked her hair and pressed his lips to her ear, whispering the words she’d once thought never to hear again except on the distant wings of the wind—

  “Stay with me always, my sweet, my love … my Claire.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author Teresa Medeiros was recently chosen one of the Top Ten Favorite Romance Authors by Affaire de Coeur magazine and won the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Historical Love and Laughter. A former Army brat and registered nurse, she wrote her first novel at the age of twenty-one and has since gone on to win the hearts of critics and readers alike. The author of thirteen novels, Teresa makes her home in Kentucky with her husband and two cats. Readers can visit her website at www.teresamedeiros.com.

  If you loved ONCE AN ANGEL,

  don’t miss

  A Kiss to Remember

  a bewitching romance

  from the superb

  Teresa Medeiros.

  Available from

  Bantam Books.

  Read on for a preview.…

  My darling son, my hands are shaking as I pen this letter.…

  The devil had come to Devonbrooke Hall.

  He hadn’t come in a coach drawn by four black horses, nor in a blast of brimstone, but in the honey-gold hair and angelic countenance of Sterling Harlow, the seventh duke of Devonbrooke. He strode through the marble corridors of the palatial mansion he had called home for the past twenty-one years, two brindle mastiffs padding at his heels with a leonine grace that matched his own.

  He stayed the dogs with a negligent flick of one hand, then pushed open the study door and leaned against the frame, wondering just how long his cousin would pretend not to notice that he was there.

  Her pen continued to scratch its way across the ledger for several minutes until a particularly violent t-crossing left an ugly splotch of ink on
the page. Sighing with defeat, she glared at him over the top of her wire-rimmed spectacles. “I can see that Napoleon failed to teach you any manners at all.”

  “On the contrary,” Sterling replied with a lazy smile. “I taught him a thing or two. They’re saying that he abdicated after Waterloo just to get away from me.”

  “Now that you’re back in London, I might consider joining him in exile.”

  As Sterling crossed the room, his cousin held herself as rigid as a dressmaker’s dummy. Oddly enough, Diana was probably the only woman in London who did not seem out of place behind the leather-and-mahogany-appointed splendor of the desk. As always, she eschewed the pale pastels and virginal whites favored by the current crop of belles for the stately hues of forest green and wine. Her dark hair was drawn back in a simple chignon that accentuated the elegance of her widow’s peak.

  “Please don’t sulk, cousin dear,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “I can bear the world’s censure, but yours cuts me to the heart.”

  “It might if you had one.” She tilted her face to receive his kiss, her stern mouth softening. “I heard you came back over a week ago. I suppose you’ve been staying with that rascal Thane again.”

  Ignoring the leather wing chair in front of the desk, Sterling came around and propped one hip on the corner nearest his cousin. “He’s never quite forgiven you for swearing off your engagement, you know. He claims you broke his heart and cast cruel aspersions upon his character.”

  Although Diana took care to keep her voice carefully neutral, a hint of color rose in her cheeks. “My problem wasn’t with your friend’s character. It was his lack of it.”

  “Yet in all these years, neither one of you has ever married. I’ve always found that rather … curious.”

  Diana drew off her spectacles, leveling a frosty gaze at him. “I’d rather live without a man than marry a boy.” As if realizing she’d revealed too much, she slipped her spectacles back on and busied herself with wiping the excess ink from the nib of her pen. “I’m certain that even Thane’s escapades must pale in comparison with your own. I hear you’ve been back in London long enough to have fought four duels, added the family fortunes of three unfortunate young bucks to your winnings, and broken an assortment of hearts.”