Teresa Medeiros - Once An Angel

She waited until he'd set down the cup, then deftly switched it with her own. She took care to sip, not gulp, knowing the rum was more exotic and far more potent than the cooking sherry she and Tansy

used to pilfer from the seminary kitchen.

A line of oil-sheened warriors leaped into the center of the torchlit circle, their wild gyrations telling of battles won and battles still to be fought. Emily swayed to the chant of their mighty war song. They used no drums, but kept the tempo by stamping their feet. The packed sand reverberated with their masculine fervor, churning Emily's blood to a dangerous pitch. She shifted in the sand, feeling acutely the press of Justin's hip against her own.

She was almost relieved when the women of both tribes appeared, weaving a dance to a lilting melody as they twirled balls of plaited flax between their graceful fingers. Her relief vanished as a dusky-eyed stranger broke from their ranks and started for Justin.

Emily slumped with a long-suffering sigh, awaiting the deferent bow, the adoring squeal of "Pakeha!"

"Justin, my darling!" the woman cried, her voice a musical purr.

"Rangimarie! I didn't know you were coming," he answered, breaking into a boyish grin.

Emily sat straight up.

The woman flung herself to her knees, enveloping him in her embrace. He disappeared in the straight

fall of her silky black hair. Emily dazedly touched her own coarse curls. The humid air had tightened them into corkscrews.

The lush Polynesian beauty spread her skirt around her, speaking rapidly in Maori. Justin answered in kind, bringing her hand to his lips in a gesture so civilized, so purely English, Emily found it as damning a confession as if he'd laid the woman on the sand at her feet and bedded her. Their intimacy was obvious. The woman shook her hair in a seductive motion. Emily glared at it, wondering what sort of war she would start if she yanked it out by its ebony roots.

She nudged Trini, nearly overturning his cup. "She's rather pretty, isn't she? If you fancy women with tattoos."

In truth, only the woman's chin was tattooed. The etched wings emphasized the pouting tilt of her lips, the exotic slant of her eyes. Reaching across Emily, she plucked a passion fruit from a tray and snapped half of it away with her straight white teeth. Golden juice trickled down her chin.

"Did you see that?" This time Emily did tumble Trim's cup, spilling cold water down his bare chest. "What horrid table manners. The brazen wench wouldn't last through tea at Miss Win-" She bit off the word, casting him a nervous glance. Trini didn't seem to notice her slip. He was too busy sponging off

his chest with his feathered cloak.

Her mouth fell open in hopeless shock as the intruder tucked the other half of the passion fruit into Justin's mouth, her tan fingers lingering against his lips as if in memory of past delights and a promise of future ones. A jagged spear of pain plunged into Emily's heart. Feeling small and ugly and freckled, she bowed her head, wishing for hair long enough to hide behind.

The song of the dancers swelled to a new rhythm, hypnotic and sensual. Laughing, the woman pulled away from Justin's hands and rose to join the sultry dance of her native sisters.

Justin leaned toward Emily, forced to yell over the music. "Now you can see why I find the Maori so irresistible. They do nothing without singing."

"Nothing?" she bit off acidly.

He hummed under his breath, blithely unaware of the petite volcano seething at his side. "Rangimarie

was one of my best pupils. I taught her English."

"Is that all?"

He missed her lethal look. His admiring gaze was hovering at the opulent bosom of his sloe-eyed friend. Her serpentine twists threatened to shake the golden orbs free. She danced toward him, stamping her

feet and swinging her hips in blatant invitation.

The tips of her hair flicked Emily's cheek like tiny eels as she bent over Justin, mouthing Maori words.

He grinned and ducked his head. It might have been the torchlight, but Emily would have sworn a flush crept along his cheekbones.

As the woman slithered away, Emily slammed her fist into Trini's arm. "What did she say?"

Trini gave her an infuriating smile and wagged his finger under her nose. "No, no! Not for the hearing appendages of filial progeny."

"Not for the hearing appendanges . . . ?" She muttered the words under her breath before their meaning came to life with furious clarity.

Not for the ears of children.

Justin's own voice, smooth and condescending, echoed through her head. Are you being a naughty little girl again?

Her nails dug into the woven flax of her cup. They all seemed to think her some overgrown toddler who needed her fingers slapped to keep her out of mischief. She tilted the cup to her lips, draining it in one swig. Fire raced through her limbs, throbbing in time with the music.

Rum and wavering torch smoke blurred her vision. The exotic features of the dancers melted into the smug faces of Miss Winters's students. She had hovered in the corner during their ballet class as they floated past, wrapped in yards of delicate white organdy. Her feet had itched to join them, but it had been Cecille who drifted to her sylvan death as Giselle at the recital each spring. Emily's own small satisfaction had come last year when Cecille had lifted her head to take her bow only to find her shimmering blond mane pasted to the stage.

The stamp of native feet thundered through Emily's veins, enthralling her with their primal beat. She glanced over at Justin. His rapt attention was still held by the siren song of the dancers.

The empty cup slid from her fingers. She was sick of watching from the wings while others took their bows.

She rose with sinuous grace and slipped among the dancers. She had no need to mock their motions.

As she closed her eyes and lifted her hair from her sweltering nape, the rhythm took her in its masterful hands, swaying her like a long-stemmed bloom in the wind.

The wailing song of the dancers soared and the pent-up spirit of a lifetime burst into flower. Emily spun free, caught in the sheer joy of the motion. The stamping swelled until it resonated through her bones

and fueled her pumping heart.

One by one the natives left their places in the sand to join the dance, bewitched by the spell of rhythm and song. Kawiri leaped and grimaced, wielding a piece of driftwood as a spear. Trini spun with a

graceful swirl of his feathered cloak. The old tohunga gummed a smile and rocked in the sand. Dani hopped from one foot to the other, shaking her dark mop of hair.

For one magical moment Emily was no longer alone. She belonged to something larger than herself-a family. She whirled around, coming face-to-face with Justin.

Somehow in the midst of this exuberant crowd Justin had never looked more alone. A quizzical sadness tinged his expression. Emily faltered.

He swept his hair from his eyes and made a courtly bow, giving her a jarring glimpse of how striking a figure he might cut in a London drawing room. "May I have the pleasure of this dance, my lady?"

The native music seemed to fade, merging into the sweet strains of a formal waltz, half imagined and

half remembered from a dream.

Emily had trouble finding her voice. "I should be honored, my lord."

He took her into his arms, holding her at arm's length with flawless grace. His big, warm hand pressed against the bare skin of her lower back. The natives faded to faceless blurs as they swept through the sand in an ever-widening circle, both of them too lost in the charm of the moment to recognize its incongruity. They never saw the Maori step back, yielding their own dance to the exotic cadences of

the waltz.

Emily gazed up into his face, marveling anew at the strong line of his jaw beneath its careless whiskers, the somber sparkle of his feline eyes. This was nothing like waltzing with Tansy in the cramped corners of their attic rooms.

She had been dancing for him as long as she could remember. She had always imagined Cecille would twist her ankle and she would be forced to take the lead in the recital. Her guardian would materialize from the fog-shrouded night and slip into the back of the recital room. As she collapsed in a graceful heap of organdy, his beautiful baritone would ring out, crying, "Bravo, bravo! There's my girl!" to the shocked stares of Miss Winters and the other girls.

Tears pricked Emily's eyes. She blinked them away, then wished she hadn't as Justin's face came clearly into focus. Lust and tenderness and hopeless longing warred in his gaze. She closed her eyes, dizzied by his strength and the warm, spicy scent of his skin. The windy beach vanished. They might have been dancing alone in a darkened ballroom beneath the tinkling fingers of a thousand chandeliers.

He folded her deeper into his embrace. She lay her head against his chest, half expecting to feel a crisp waistcoat instead of the warmth of his bare chest.

He rubbed his cheek against her curls. A shuddering breath escaped her. They were merely swaying

now, clinging to any excuse to remain entangled in the tender web they'd woven. As the last pure note of the Maori song rang between them, the solution came to Emily, a revenge so simple and so diabolical, it could not fail to destroy him.

Tansy had always said there was only one way to bring a good man to his knees.

The music died and she quivered in the sudden hush.

The silence seemed too harsh, too penetrating. Justin reached to tilt her face upward. She tore herself out of his arms and ran, fleeing both herself and him, yet knowing in her heart that he would follow.

A laughing mob of dancers streamed around him, but Justin stood in a daze, staring at the spot where Emily had been as if he expected her to reappear in a puff of smoke. Blood rushed through his veins, flooding uninvited to his loins, his heart, his pounding head. The roaring in his ears had nothing to do

with the sea. It was the same roar he had heard on the night he found Emily, the same relentless ebb and flow of warning and desire that had taunted his waking moments and colored his dreams with madness.

He plunged forward, shoving his way through the Maori, deaf for the first time to the lilting intricacies

of their song. A woman's hand touched his arm, but he shook it away, blinded to all else by the lithe shadow growing smaller in the distance.

The ribbon of beach unfurled beneath his pounding feet. A shy moon peeked through the sparse clouds, scattering diamonds of light across the sand. Emily stayed just ahead of him, a whisper of movement between the shallow dunes. His nostrils twitched. He would almost swear he could scent her on the

wind, an alluring blend of vanilla and musk.

As he ran, the lights from the feast faded to a rosy glow in the sky. The echoes of music and laughter were drowned in the crash of the waves. He rounded a high dune and staggered to a halt. Emily stood alone on the stretch of beach where he had first found her.

Justin knew he would never forget the way she looked at that moment. She was as rare and exotic as a wild English rose blooming in the desert. The wind tousled her curls and whipped at her skirt. Her chin tilted in defiance even as she twisted her hands together for courage. He couldn't have said which made her more beautiful to him -her vulnerability or her pride. She might have been a defiant Eve dangling a juicy apple in front of Adam's nose.

As he angled toward her, he could feel his face hardening in ruthless lines of desperation.