Teresa Medeiros - Once An Angel

Someone was watching him. Tiny prickles danced along his spine. He twisted his head to find stoic blue eyes gazing at him. A doll sat propped against the pillow. He picked her up and brushed his hand over golden curls matted with age, touched the jagged crack in her porcelain skull.

Tansy's voice startled him. "That there is Annabel. I used to 'ear 'er talkin' to the doll when she thought

I weren't listenin'. Sometimes she'd cry." She shrugged apologetically. "The walls are thin."

The doll hung limp in his hands. Yes, the walls were thin, he thought. Even now he could hear within them the rustle of mice and other skittering creatures.

It shouldn't surprise him that the child had run away. It should only surprise him that she had stayed so long.

Icy fury poured through his veins, washing away the hopeless despair, sharpening his sense of purpose. His hands tightened on the doll. Damn Amelia Winters for condemning an orphaned child to this attic coffin! And damn himself most of all for letting it happen!

He rose and started down the stairs. Tansy followed, galloping behind him. As he strode into the parlor, still clutching the bedraggled doll, even Barney backed away, leaving the headmistress to face him alone.

The woman's name suited her, he thought maliciously. She was as gray and colorless as the peeling paint and faded carpet of her school. How could David have left his precious Claire with this grim creature?

Of course, he and Nicky had convinced David he would be gone for only a few months. Not forever.

His baleful stare fell on the old woman's gnarled hands. They were trembling as if palsied. Her steely fagade was cracking just like the paint on the medallioned ceiling. For the first time Justin saw her for what she was. A pitiful old woman whose school was crumbling around her head.

His empathy did not soften the bite of pure contempt in his voice. "My detectives are going to comb this city for Claire Scarborough. If so much as one curl on her little head has been harmed, I'll see you ruined. I'll tell all of London about that attic prison you built for David Scarborough's daughter. I'll ensure that even the poorest merchant wouldn't trust his dog to your care."

He spun on his heel, whipping his greatcoat around him. He paused in front of the wide-eyed Tansy and pulled a fat handful of pound notes from his pocket. Money meant little to him. He had lived too long

free of its encumbrance.

He pressed the notes into her hand. "If you remember anything else about the night Claire ran away, or

if you require any kind of assistance at all, come to Grymwilde Mansion in Portland Square and ask for me."

"Gor blimey, sir! Ya really mustn't!" But she was already shoving the money into the bodice of her shirt.

"Lord Winthrop."

The voice raked down Justin's spine like a steely claw.

The headmistress's gray eyes bored into him. "I may have failed with the child, Your Grace, but your own care left much to be desired."

His jaw twitched. The clock on the mantel ticked in the utter silence. Then he dipped at the waist in a gallant bow. "I concede your point, madam. If I have the good fortune to find her, I intend to spend the rest of my life atoning for my neglect."

"Aye, that ya will. She'll see to it, I'll wager," Tansy muttered under her breath.

Chalmers cast her a curious look, but Justin hadn't heard her. The agent tipped his derby and gave his cane a jaunty toss. "A good afternoon to all of you," he wished them before following the duke's determined form into the winter afternoon.

* * *

Justin didn't think he would ever be warm again. The dawn sun shining through the carriage window

shed pale light but little else. His clasped hands were numb beneath their white gloves. The cold sank deep into his joints, chilling him to utter exhaustion. He tried to let his mind drift away, but each passing day made it harder to hear the chanted song of the sea, the taunting whisper of a balmy breeze against

his skin. His memories of Emily were his only warmth.

A month of searching had yielded nothing. Claire Scarborough had vanished into London's merciless

jaws without a trace.

Neatly trimmed lawns and iron gates drifted past the carriage. Portland Square was a world away from the slums he had haunted through the long night. He had spent it as he had a dozen others-combing the narrow streets, shoving his way through taverns and gin mills, growling questions at anyone who would listen. Even the motliest of scoundrels gave him wide berth. Perhaps there was something to be said for the reliable web of society gossip. News of the wild-eyed duke had filtered down even to their ranks.

He sighed, almost wishing for Chalmers's dapper form to steady him. But he had sent his chief agent with an efficient army of detectives to search the orphanages and cottages in the countryside around London.

The carriage turned a corner and clip-clopped down a cobblestone drive. Justin's spirits plunged further, as they did every time he saw his father's house. No, his house, he reminded himself ruefully. Grymwilde was a veritable Gothic nightmare of pitched roofs, gables, and bay windows. A crenellated tower perched like a clumsy growth on one side. The house's only symmetry had been achieved by planting two leering gargoyles on matching turrets at each end of the roof. Justin swore under his breath, cursing Mortimer Connor, the first Duke of Winthrop, who had been so enamored of his newly bought title that he had

built this vulgar monstrosity as a monument to his own bad taste.

Climbing down from the carriage, he commanded the droopy-eyed coachman to get some sleep. He slipped through the front door, thankful for the sleeping peace of the house.

His mother was more concerned with throwing a ball to introduce him to the eligible ladies of her acquaintance than with his vain search for his partner's child. His three sisters had all married vapid men who had promptly taken up residence at Grymwilde and had no discernible occupations other than wandering the house with the most current copy of the Times tucked under their arms. Justin was starved for privacy. He missed his simple hut and his native friends who had known when to speak and when to be silent.

Most of all he missed Emily. He missed her dimpled smile, the warmth of her golden skin beneath his palms, the intoxicating taste of her lips.

A hard ache curled deep inside of him. He peeled off his gloves and tossed them on a lacquered table, meeting his reflection in the mirrored panel above. He had avoided mirrors in the last few weeks, and

now he remembered why. His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, his hair wild as if raked too many times by desperate fingers. Against the incongruity of his finely cut evening clothes, he looked every inch the crazed savage half of society believed him to be.

He touched his cheek. His tan was fading as rapidly as his hopes. His seven years on the North Island were melting before his eyes like a forgotten dream, unbearably sweet in its poignancy. Only the daily letters he scribbled to Emily kept him sane. He posted them half mad with panic and frustration,

knowing it might take weeks, even months, for them to reach her.

Would she wait for him? he wondered. Or would the greedy sea take her back to punish him for being fool enough to leave her?

He shoved away from the table, too tired to do anything but stumble up the stairs and fall into the

dubious comfort of his cold, lonely bed.

Emily's fingertips brushed something smooth and cold. She stretched out her hand. The object rolled

just out of her reach. She swore softly under her breath and craned her neck to peer over the edge of

the cart. An apple, fat, shiny, and red, taunted her from its perch, making her mouth water and her stomach snarl.

The vendor swung away from the cart to hand a sack to a gentleman in a tall beaver hat. Emily lunged, crooking her fingernails into claws to snag the tender skin of the apple.

The vendor would have been none the wiser if her shawl hadn't caught on the handle of the cart. As she broke into a run, the cart tipped, spilling apples in a stream of scarlet into the dirty snow.

"Thief!" the vendor bellowed. "Come back 'ere, ya bloody brat! Constable!"

She didn't dare look behind her. She could already hear running feet, confused shouts, and the all-too-familiar shrill of a constable's whistle. The thin soles of her boots slapped the snow as she sped down the narrow sidewalk, shoving her way through the crowds. A gray-haired matron screamed and dropped an armful of packages. Three grimy urchins joined in the chase, dogging her heels until they became bored.

The whistle sounded again, closer this time. She plunged into the busy street, darting between a hansom cab and an omnibus, narrowly missing the flailing hooves of the startled horses. A driver's jeering curse rang in her ears.

She rounded a corner into a narrow alley, then threw herself into a doorway and waited, her chest heaving as the slam of running feet passed and subsided. Without waiting to get her breath back, she

sank to a crouch on the filthy stoop and dug her teeth into the crunchy apple. She knew she was behaving like a piglet, but she was beyond caring. Her empty stomach knotted around the food. The core dropped from her fingers. She hugged herself as a sharp cramp seized her.

It passed as quickly as it had come, leaving her shivering in its aftermath. The overhanging roofs above blocked even the meager winter sunlight. She pulled her threadbare shawl tight around her shoulders, fearing all the stolen apples in the world couldn't fill the yawning void inside her.

She squared her chin, determined to rally her flagging spirits. What did she have to whine and moan about? It had finally stopped snowing and she was free at last after being crammed in a steamer cabin

for the past month with five other women, most of whom had never discovered the pleasures of daily bathing. It had taken the last of the money from the sale of her father's watch to book passage from Australia to England, but she was no longer reliant on the fickle charity of Amelia Winters. She was her own mistress now and London was hers.

She shoved herself to her feet and made her way toward the street, stepping gingerly over a snoring

drunk clutching a gin bottle. Her robbery had already been forgotten, replaced by the fresh scandal of a skinny ragamuffin caught stealing a gentleman's purse.

She wandered the streets, wondering how the city could have grown so much smaller and danker while she was away. Horse-drawn vehicles thronged the roadway, churning the snow into black slush. No one took any notice of her. She was just one of a sea of faces in this vast slum.

Before she realized it, she'd turned down a finer street with freshly salted cobblestones and broad sidewalks flanked by shops. Gas lamps flickered in shop windows, illuminating shining displays of goods nestled in fresh boughs of pine and holly. She paused at the window of a toy shop to watch a mechanical St. Nicholas beat a tiny green drum.

As she turned away, she came face-to-face with her own image tacked to a lamppost. A sigh caught in

her throat. Was this one photograph to haunt her forever? She pulled down the notice, her hands trembling more in shock than cold. The sketch was a very good one, obviously done by a professional from her father's old tintype. Her eyes widened at the staggering amount of the reward. She hadn't a halfpenny to her name and she was worth more than any notorious criminal stalking the London alleys.

Two words seemed to leap out of the elaborate script-

LOST CHILD.