Teresa Medeiros - Once An Angel

She climbed out of bed and drew a robe of woolly cashmere over her nightdress. As the toys and fairy-tale books had disappeared from her room, other things had appeared-an olivewood stationery case lined in velvet, a delicate box of rose-leaf face powder, a handsome leather diary inscribed with her initials. Gifts not for a child, but for a woman, all placed by magical, unseen hands.

Leaving Pudding drowsing in front of the fire, she padded down the stairs. Silence enveloped her in its dark cloak, making her realize how badly she missed Justin's music.

She pushed open the door to the ballroom. A pale splinter of a moon shone through the oriel windows, bathing the long, empty room in a silver wash. She felt foolish. Of course, Penfeld would have rescued his master by now. She shivered as the chill of the marble tile crept into her bare feet.

She was turning to go when a voice came out of the shadows, as husky and intimate as a touch.

"You still owe me a dance, Emily Scarborough."

Justin stepped away from the dais into a shallow arc of moonlight. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his head inclined at a sheepish angle.

Emily's breath tightened in her throat. She smoothed back her curls and hugged the robe tighter around her. "How can we dance? There isn't any music."

His eyes searched the reaches of the vaulted ceiling. "Don't you hear it?" He lowered his gaze to her

face. "The angels sing every time you walk into a room."

She laughed nervously. "It's more likely a chorus of demons."

Justin's laugh never came. He walked toward her, his steps measured, his eyes glowing with an odd light. Emily resisted the urge to fly back up the stairs to the safe cocoon of her bed.

He stopped in front of her and bowed with no trace of a drunken falter. "May I have this dance, Miss Scarborough?"

He opened his arms to her, and just as she had in New Zealand, Emily stepped into them, powerless to

do otherwise. Justin held her with perfect propriety, sweeping her around the floor in eerie silence. Emily didn't dare look at his face, so she looked at his chest instead, painfully aware of the shift of his powerful muscles, his flawless rhythm, the off-key cadence of his breathing.

Each faint brush of their bodies in the darkness made her feel as if she were suspended over a dangerous chasm, too high to drop without shattering. The peaks of her breasts ached against the soft cotton of her nightdress.

His breath touched her ear, warm and tart with the scent of champagne. "Can you hear it now?" he whispered. "The thundering chords? The sigh of the harp? The moan of the oboe?"

"All I can hear are drums."

"Drums?"

"My heart."

Laughing softly, he gave her a gentle squeeze. His steps slowed, and he released her reluctantly, as if hearing the music come to an end. Emily could still hear its bittersweet echo lingering on the air.

She took a step away from him. "I'd best go. I wanted to make sure you were all right, but I should be getting back upstairs now. It's late."

"Too late." She might have imagined his whispered words. As she turned to go, he called her name.

She stopped. Their eyes met across the polished expanse of moonlight and marble.

"You were magnificent tonight. I wish David could have seen you. You made me"-he balled his hands and shoved them back in his pockets-"proud."

Swallowing around the knot in her throat, Emily fled the ballroom, leaving Justin as she had found him. Alone.

* * *

When Emily slipped into her chair at breakfast the next morning, Justin greeted her with a polite nod.

He and Harold were engaged in a heated debate pitting the efficiency of clipper ships against steamers. She stole a look at him over het milk glass. His black coat was impeccable, his gray tie knotted in sleek folds. He bore no resemblance to the rumpled roue who had swept her around a deserted ballroom.

She glanced up at the gasolier, but heard no choir of angels announcing her entrance. This Justin did not look the sort of man inclined to such romantic folly. Although he bore no visible scars from last night's debauchery, she wondered if he had been too drunk to even remember their stolen interlude.

A serving maid leaned over his shoulder with a silver platter. "Kippers, Your Grace?"

Emily might have imagined the faint paling around his mouth as he replied, "No, thank you, Libby."

He stared as his mother took the fork the maid offered and heaped kippers on her own plate, filling the dining room with the pungent aroma of herring. Justin pushed away his plate and Emily thrust a hot

scone into her mouth to hide her smile.

"Will you be going out today, Emily?"

His question caught her off guard, and she swallowed quickly, licking away the stray crumbs. "Lily and

I might go shopping this afternoon." She held her breath, waiting for him to forbid her her freedom as

he had done on the island.

He pulled his napkin out of his lap and dabbed his lips. "You may take the brougham if you like. I'll tell the coachman to make it ready. If you wish to purchase anything, charge it to my name."

"Why, thank you . . . sir."

At her added note of respect he cast her an unreadable glance that might have been displeasure.

"Will you be going to the office today, dear?" the duchess inquired, her booming voice an octave lower than usual.

Justin flinched and touched his fingertips to his temple. "I might. There is a surfeit of accounting to be done."

She bit into a kipper with unmistakable relish. "Don't we have men hired for that?"

He shot her a dark glance. "Of course we do. But even the best of men require supervision."

As Harold launched into a soliloquy pronouncing steam engines instruments of the devil and predicting

a return to sailing ships by all right-thinking men, Emily murmured her excuses and slipped out.

When she returned to her room at midmorning, the fairies had visited again. A plum-colored cloak of luxuriant wool was fanned across her bed. Among its folds lay a mother-of-pearl calling-card case polished to a lustrous gleam. She touched her fingertips to the cool inlay, remembering Justin's words.

You made me proud.

She had made people many things since her father's death-ashamed, infuriated, embarrassed, frustrated, murderous-but she couldn't remember making anyone proud. She rubbed the prickly softness of the cloak against her cheek, knowing she could not have imagined the hint of bay rum that clung to it.

* * *

"What's she doing now, Penfeld?" Justin whispered.

Penfeld lowered his newspaper a fraction of an inch and peered over the top. "Ribbons, sir. She's

finished with the brooches and gone on to the ribbons."

Justin stole a glance around the edge of his own paper, squinting against the glare of the setting sun striking the frosted shop window. Emily stood at the counter inside, studying a display of ribbons proffered by a fawning shopgirl. She tapped her lips in indecision, then plucked up a burgundy ribbon

and held it against her dimpled cheek for Lily to admire. The gesture was so girlish and free of care that

it made his heart catch. He watched mesmerized as the velvet length trailed her skin. His fingers itched

to follow its path.

Without warning Emily dropped the ribbon and glanced at the window. Justin jerked up the paper, burying his nose in it.

Penfeld stamped his feet on the pavement and adjusted the collar of his greatcoat. "My toes are going numb again."

"Wiggle them," Justin snapped, daring another peep around the paper.

The clatter of a passing omnibus drowned out the warning tinkle of the shop bells. Emily and Lily were headed out the door, their arms loaded with packages. Justin grabbed Penfeld and hurled him around

the corner into the waiting carriage.

He slammed his walking stick into the roof of the carriage and yelled, "Follow that brougham!"

"Aye, sir." At the driver's urging the horses clip-clopped into motion and Justin settled back in the plush seat.

Penfeld hunkered down into the lap blankets until all but the reddened bulb of his nose disappeared.

"I'd be the last to suggest a flaw in your character, Your Grace," he said, his voice muffled, "but don't you think you're being a bit overzealous?"

Justin slid open the window and craned his neck for a glimpse of Emily's plum-hooded head in the graceful brougham in front of them. "Nonsense, Penfeld. You know Emily has a penchant for getting

into mischief. London is full of dangerous sorts who might take advantage of that. I simply want to

ensure her safety."

Penfeld suspected his master's motives had more to do with Emily's transformation than London's dangers. Now that his little caterpillar had sprouted wings, he didn't want to risk her flying away.

"But we've been following her all day, and she has been the very model of propriety."

"That doesn't alter my responsibility to her. It's no more than any other guardian would do."

The valet rolled his eyes and muttered, "In a pig's eye."

Justin drew back his head. "Pardon me?"

Penfeld cleared his throat. "Impeccable, sir. I said your devotion to your ward was impeccable."

"Hmm." Justin leaned back in the seat, smirking. "I thought that was what you said."

* * *

Emily poked her head out the brougham window for the sheet pleasure of watching Justin's handsome, dark head disappear again. She threw herself back in the seat, biting her lip to keep from laughing. With

a frame as rugged and masculine as Justin's, he was hardly unobtrusive lurking behind lampposts and skulking outside ladies' dress shops. Why, she could hear the chattering of Penfeld's teeth through the window of the last haberdashery!

Lily shot her a curious look. "Why are you looking so pleased with yourself? Have you tacked a note saying 'Pinch me' to my bustle?"

"Would I do such a thing?" She leaned forward and whispered, "Actually I stuffed a dead hedgehog in your muff."

Lily jerked off her ermine muff and shook it in horror.

"For heaven's sake, I was only joking!" Emily assured her.

She hung out the window again, checking the progress of Justin's carriage. A hansom cab had come between them, and the coachman was frantically searching for a way past. She could well imagine the shouted instructions he was receiving from his master.

Lily squealed, startling her into bumping her head. "Good Lord, what was that for? Did you see a mouse?"

"No. I saw a house."

Emily blinked. Lily was even more unintelligible than her mother at times.

Lily caught the collar of her cloak and dragged her to the opposite window. "Look!" She clapped her hands over Emily's eyes. "No, wait. Don't look. Someone might see you. All right, you may look now."

All Emily saw was a rather ordinary-looking gray town house, fronted by a wrought-iron fence and a neatly trimmed lawn.

Lily lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper. "Mrs. Rose lives there with all of her little blooms."

"Mrs. Rose," Emily echoed softly, pushing back her hood.

She stared up at a lighted window on the second floor, thinking of Tansy. A sharp pang of nostalgia touched her. She wondered if her friend was still warmed by her fancy gentlemen with their gentle

hands and generous purses?