by Jill Barnett
D.L. Stewart stared at the crumpled woman lying so still in the middle of Madison Avenue. A second later he was kneeling on the icy street, feeling her neck for a pulse.
"One minute the street was empty, sir,” his driver said in a panic. “Then suddenly she was just there. I—I—"
"She's not dead, Benny." D.L. scooped the woman into his arms. "I'll carry her to the house. Take the carriage and get a doctor. Quickly." He turned and crossed to the wide sidewalk, where streetlights spilled yellow gaslight onto the ice and mucky snow.
He heard his carriage rattle past him, but it was a distant sound, as if the world had fallen away, leaving only himself and the woman in his arms. The feeling was so foreign to him that he looked down at her.
There were no answers in her features. Her skin was almost as pale as her blond hair, a sharp contrast to the dark blood that trickled from the corner of her mouth and from the red scratches on the side of her face.
Her scarlet hat hung limply over his arm, still tied beneath her chin with black velvet ribbons that were shredded on one side, the same side on which her dress and jacket were torn from skidding over the rough brick pavement.
Her breathing was labored, short and tight, but she made no sound, no moan of pain, nothing. The faint scent of lemons seemed to drift around her, and it struck him as odd, very odd, for a woman to smell of lemons, to smell clean rather than cloying.
A moment later he was in front of the stately marble mansion that served as his home. He ran up the stairs and kicked hard on the front doors.
Nothing happened. He swore, then awkwardly leaned down and pressed the door handle with an elbow. The massive door clicked open.
An instant later D.L. was inside and he called out, "Gage!"
The butler's name echoed up three open stories to the gallery above. Gage came running into the foyer, then stopped at the staircase, gaping.
D.L. pinned him with a hard stare.
The butler merely stood there.
"Gage!"
His man shook his head and recovered. "Sir?"
"I pay you a bloody fortune to open doors." D.L. gave the library doors a pointed look.
"Yes, sir." Gage shot over to the doors, then paused. "Mr. Wallis is waiting in the library."
"Good. Perhaps," D.L. muttered as he looked down, "he'll know what the hell I should do about this."
* * *
Her head was killing her. Almost as badly as the time she had flown headfirst into Jacob's ladder. And one side of her face burned terribly.
Someone touched her shoulder, and pain shot up her neck. She heard an anguished moan. It sounded like her own voice.
She could feel the presence of others—standing over her, around her—but she couldn't quite find the will to open her eyes. It seemed an effort to merely breathe.
"She's coming around," a man said in a gentle tone.
"Find out who she is." There was no gentleness in this second voice. It was the dark, strong voice of a man in command.
"God?" she whispered. "I know that voice. You are God."
Someone behind them laughed. A difference voice. Someone new.
"She called that right. D.L. Stewart, the Money God."
Someone cynical.
"Be quiet, Karl."
She felt the tension of the others around again and opened her eyes, but she saw only darkly blurred images standing over her. She licked her lips, which felt dry and swollen, then whispered, "My face..."
"Yes, my dear?"
"It burns."
"I'm certain it does, but you'll be fine. Just a few scratches. I'm a physician." A rough but gentle masculine hand touched hers. "Can you tell us who you are?"
"Lillian."
"That's good, Lillian." The kind man shifted away, then said to the tall dark blur standing next to him, "It appears she has no serious injury. She knows who she is."
"Lillian who?" came the strong voice.
"Just Lillian. Lilli."
"Where do live?"
"Heaven."
There was a bark of sharp laughter again, and the cynic said, "At least we know she's not from New York."
"Shut up, Karl."
"I'm only trying to add a little levity to a tense situation, D.L."
"I fell," she muttered.
"No, my dear." The kind man gave her hand a squeeze of reassurance. "You were hit by a carriage."
"No. No..." she said. "You don't understand. I've fallen." She could feel the tears coming. She could feel the horror of what had happened. She had been thrown out of Heaven. Oh, the shame she carried. "I didn't mean any harm. I didn't. Really."
"This accident wasn't your fault, my dear. You did nothing wrong. A carriage hit you."
"No! I just wanted to be like everyone else. They all do it so easily. I'm so ashamed." She felt the tears spill from her eyes, drip over her temples and into her hair. "No more angels," she said, hearing her voice catch. "No wings. No halo. I had such a beautiful halo. But it's gone. I heard it break. Gone. all gone." Her voice was little more than a whisper. "My wings.... Everything." She began to sob.
"She's clearly hysterical."
"The poor woman is in shock."
She could barely catch her breath between sobs. "All of it is gone. Everything wonderful is gone. I've fallen." She began to sob loudly, her shoulders shaking, and it hurt terribly.
The dark shadow stood over her. She could feel him, could feel the tension emanating from him. The air seemed to swell with his very presence.
Her sobs caught in her throat.
"You will stop crying, Lillian. Right now."
She couldn't stop. did he think she wanted to sound so lost. She didn’t like being pitiful, but she couldn't help it.
"Stop this," he said more forcefully. "Now."
She tried to stop and took a labored breath.
"I order you to stop."
"Mr. Stewart. You shouting at her isn't going to help. I suggest we get her into a bed. I'll give her something to calm her down, then clean the scrapes on her face and shoulder. She needs sleep. Sleep is the best thing for these things."
She felt two strong arms slide beneath her. She opened her eyes and saw the tall dark image bending over her, still only a blurred image of him through her tears. A second later, he lifted her into his arms and turned.
Pain shot through her side and she gave a slight moan.
He stilled immediately, standing stiff and apprehensive.
She blinked, once, twice...and her vision cleared. She looked into a face so harsh she lost her voice.
He was no god. In fact, he looked like the Devil himself.
His hair was short and slicked back from a broad stern forehead. Like his hair, his thick brows were black as the River Styx, and his skin was rough, his jaw covered with a dark shadow.
As a whole, his features were nothing but sharp angles and firm ridges—a hewn-from-granite look that was rare in Heaven, a place where beauty was light and soft and gossamer, not dark and hard and glittering.
But there was harsh beauty in this face. A dark beauty that seemed deep and fathomless. He stared down at her from eyes blacker than onyx. And in those eyes she caught one brief flicker of a soul that was lost.
Then, as if he, too, had gauged her measure in that one look, he turned with her in his arms and strode from the room, her weight seeming no more a burden to him than one of her molting feathers.
"Be gentle with her, Mr. Steward. Please."
"I'm not hurting her. I'm getting her into that bed, like you said. To do so, I must got up these stairs." He sounded irritated."
So the doctor with the kind voice followed behind as her dark rescuer with the troubled soul carried her up a wide, seemingly never-ending staircase. He looked down at her once, his expression stern and hard, so hard that she sensed he was hiding behind it. She cocked her head slightly, but he fixed his gaze ahead of them.
He took her to a room where the door opened quickly, efficiently, when they were
but a few steps away. She caught a quick glimpse of a gray-haired servant, but then she was inside where everything was blue, like the skies above Heaven, and gold, like Saint Peter's precious gates.
He laid her down on an elegantly draped bed. She winced and instinctively gripped his hand for strength.
"Did I hurt you?" His voice was gruff.
"No."
He stared oddly at their joined hands.
She watched his eyes change, flicker with something indefinable, then she whispered, "But I think you will."
He stilled, his look direct, a question in his eyes, then as if he realized what he was doing, he caught himself and hurriedly stepped back and away from her, pulling his strong, warm hand away.
The physician came into the room, followed by a maid with a steaming water pitcher, washbowl, and towels, and he removed his coat and sung it on a chair, then rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Now let's see if we can fix you up and then you can rest, my dear."
The dark man stood back near the door, watching, looking out of place. He gave her one long, unreadable look, then without a word he turned and left the room.
Chapter Three
D.L. LEANED A SHOULDER against the doorjamb, crossed his arms, and just watched her sleep. He didn't know why he felt compelled to do so, but he did.
Sleep had escaped him. That in itself was not unusual. Of late he slept little, his mind unable to rest. His work drove him, and he cared for little else. Did little else. He suspected he worked so long now because it was something that merely kept him busy.
Weak as the feeling was, there was still a thrill he could eke from closing a deal. The profit meant little to him anymore, except that money did give one power. He had enough of a fortune to be omnipotent.
But he took this small moment for himself, watching the peacefulness in her—for some reason that probably bordered on sheer nonsense. He shoved away from the door and crossed the room, standing at the bedside.
Moonlight spilled through the windows by the bedstead and shone upon the pillow where her silver-blond hair fanned outward like an angel's halo. He wondered how long it had been since he'd even noticed moonlight, and if he had ever paid one single bit of attention to a woman's hair.
He reached out and touched a strand of it, and ran a finger along it, slowly. He didn't know what he had expected to feel: coolness from the icy color or smoothness from the silk of it. What he felt was the insane urge to bury his hands in it.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
She was watching him. He hid his surprise, something that was natural and instinctive. Just as feeling any emotion had, over time, become a foreign thing to him.
It wasn't often that someone could surprise him. She had.
He looked directly into her green eyes, where frank curiosity stared back at him. "You’re supposed to be asleep."
"I've never done what I was supposed to."
He leaned over a night table and picked up a glass still almost filled with a pinkish liquid. "You didn't drink the medicine."
She shook her head. "It tastes to strong. Have you tasted that?"
"Laudanum? No."
"Lucky you."
The physician left orders.
"Let him drink it."
"I see." He set the glass down. "A rebel."
"More of a disaster, I think. That's why I'm in this fix."
He searched her face, trying to decide why she would admit something like that to him, a stranger. She didn't look like a fallen woman.
"Doing what is expected is so, so...I don't know." Her expression told him she had trouble finding the right word. Finally she gave a small sigh and looked up.
"Boring?"
"Yes! That's it exactly! It would have been extremely boring, for example, if I had slept through your visit." She sat up slowly. " Then we wouldn't be having this little chat."
"You would have never known I was here."
"True. But you would have known."
He didn't know what else to say, so he just watched her—this woman who would be bored by convention. He had been bored until he came into the room. Not that he cared to admit it.
"So, Mr. Stewart. What does the 'D.L.' stand for?" She reached out and grabbed another pillow, then placed it behind her and settled back for what appeared to be a long little chat.
'"Daniel Lincoln.’"
"A famous lawyer and a president."
"I hate to burst your bubble, but I was named after my two grandfathers."
"Oh. That's not nearly as romantic, is it?"
"I suppose 'Romeo' would be more to your liking."
"No," she said very quietly, looking up at him from the most sincere face he'd ever seen. "I didn't mean to make you feel badly about your name. Daniel is a perfectly wonderful name."
She actually thought she had hurt his feelings? How strange, to worry about hurting someone over something as silly as a name. He made no comment, but she didn't seem to notice. Not more than an instant later, she lifted the covers in one hand and looked under them. "What am I wearing?"
He could see her wiggle her toes beneath the covers. "A shirt."
"Yours?"
"Yes."
"It feels lovely. So soft."
"It's silk."
"Yes. Nice."
She dropped the covers and folded her hands on top of them, then looked up at him with a small smile. "Very nice."
"I need to contact your family."
"That would be impossible."
"Nothing is impossible."
"Contacting my family would be nothing short of a miracle."
He crossed his arms and watched her. "Not for me.
"Oh." A soft smile hovered around her mouth. "I see you haven't a problem with confidence.
"No, I haven't."
She gave a huge sigh and stared at her folded hands. "I don't have much confidence."
"It has been my experience that having enough money can make one confident about any number of things."
She looked up. "What an interesting philosophy. So you think you have to be rich to be confident?"
"It helps. Money can buy anything."
"I don't think so." She shook her head.
"Fine, then. Name something money can't buy."
"People."
He laughed then, at her naïveté. "I buy people every day."
"Do you really? Hmmm." She frowned, then mumbled, "I had thought slavery was illegal."
He wasn't certain if she'd just cut him purposely or not. Before he could comment, she continued: "Okay then. How about love? Money cannot buy love."
"For a small part of my fortune there are at least a hundred women, perhaps a thousand, who would be happy to love me."
The sparkle left her eyes and she gave him a long pensive look that made him feel uneasy. "Memories," she said so quietly that he wasn't certain he'd heard her right. "You can't buy memories. You have to make them."
"It takes money to do things that make memories."
"No it doesn't," she said, with a certainty that jarred him.
"Nothing in this world comes free."
"I assume," she said, sarcasm filling her words, "from this conversation... that money is important to you."
"At one time it was." He shrugged. "Now it's a means to an end."
"I see. So what do you do with all this money? Set up charities? Help the sick and poor?"
"No."
"Did you ever hear the expression 'You can't take it with you'?"
"Of course."
"Where I come from, wealth doesn't matter."
"Then it's probably a place I'd rather not visit."
She looked away and muttered, "I don't think that will be a problem."
After an awkward silence, she began to pluck at the coverlet.
"Tell me where to find your family."
"I can't." She stilled. "You can't find a family that doesn't exist. I have no family."
He didn't know why he tensed inside, but he did
. Something in her manner, something in the way she couldn't look him in the eye, said she was either lying or ashamed. He changed tack. "Where do you live?"
She was too quiet, and he knew then that she was going to lie to him, which angered him more than he cared to admit. He didn't want her to be like every other woman he'd known. He wanted her to be different. "Are you going to answer me?"
I don't know."
He leaned over her, placing one hand on either side of her hips, and brought his face closer to hers. He looked right at her, just a few inches away. It was intimidation at its best. "I insist."
"No, you don't understand." She returned his look with one so innocent he almost fell for it. "I am answering you. I don't know where I live."
He straightened. "How convenient."
She stiffened as if he had slapped her. "You don't believe me?"
"No. I don't believe you."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want apologies, just answers.
"I wasn't apologizing. I'm sorry for you."
"Don't be." He turned and walked to the door and opened it. "I have everything I could ever want. I don't need anything."
"Except more money," she said.
He froze, then turned very slowly, scowling. "Tomorrow, Lillian, you will tell me the truth." Just before he closed the door, he added, "And drink the damned medicine."
* * *
She didn't drink the medicine.
A short time later, she tiptoed down the dark staircase, her leather half boots in one hand, the other using the thick, smoothly polished banister to steady herself. She was still a little light-headed from the accident.
But not light-headed enough to stay in this place even another few hours.
She reached bottom and slowly made her way across the dark foyer until she felt the wood of the front doors. Leaning against them, she pulled on her boots, then, as quietly as possible, opened the door, blanching when the handle made a loud click in the eerie stillness of the mansion.
She stood frozen and listened, heard nothing, then carefully opened the door a little wider and stepped outside.
It was freezing, colder than the highest and stormiest cloud in Heaven. She shivered and stared at the bleak darkness before her for an uncertain moment, then pulled her short woolen jacket even tighter around her. She took a deep breath and watched it turn to frosty mist in the night air.
