Teresa Medeiros - Once An Angel

The parlor rang with laughter and music at all hours of the day. Justin and Emily played endless rounds

of cards with Lily, sang warbling duets with Edith, and helped Millicent pick out the tangled threads of

her embroidery. Each morning Herbert and Harvey marched off to their new offices at Winthrop Shipping, proudly displaying the handsome leather writing cases given them by their brother-in-law. Finally, bored and grumbling, Harold even took himself off to apply for a position at the Exchange.

If this was yet another manifestation of His Grace's mysterious brain fever, whispered the servants as they counted their generous bonuses, it was a pleasant one indeed. Only Justin knew he had been possessed by a different sort of fever altogether.

Penfeld was gazing out the bay window overlooking the garden one afternoon when the duchess came sailing up.

The two of them stood in silence, watching Justin and Emily romp around a frozen fountain, Pudding hard at their heels. Their antics brought such a breath of spring to the dead garden that the duchess wouldn't have been surprised to see a blush of green come creeping over the trellises before their very eyes.

As they watched, Emily darted behind the naked spines of a hawthorn bush, her cheeks flushed with laughter and cold. Her escape was cut short when Justin caught a handful of her hood in his fist and dragged her back over his arm. The laughter faded from Emily's eyes and she went still. He inclined

his head, his lips hovering so close over hers that the mist from their mouths mingled.

The duchess sucked in an audible breath.

At that moment a jealous Pudding stood on his hind legs and thrust his pug nose between them. Penfeld pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his brow.

They must have seen the flash of white, because both of them looked guiltily to the window. Emily

broke away from Justin's arms and waved cheerily before kneeling to bury her face in Pudding's brindle coat.

Penfeld tilted his nose in the air and sniffed. "Heartwarming, is it not, to see a man taking such an active interest in his responsibilities?"

The duchess eyed the portly valet through narrowed eyes. "Oh, deeply affecting. Deeply."

The game was on. Justin and Emily played it with relish. By day they appeared the very model of propriety with no one the wiser if her foot climbed up his calf beneath the shelter of the tablecloth, or if he slipped her an extra card beneath the loo table. The interminable moments ticked away, measured not by the swing of the pendulum in the long-case clock, but by longing looks and stolen kisses until finally the hour came when Emily might politely smother a yawn into her handkerchief and climb the long, curving stairs to bed.

She would lie trembling on tenterhooks of anticipation until the house fell silent. Then the telltale creak

of the unlocked door would come and Justin would slip into her bed and arms.

With the pleasure of Emily's company by day and the delight of her lithe young body by night, Justin felt he had died and gone to heaven. He was in thrall to her tender possession of his heart and body. He had never in his life imagined such sweetness and passion at his fingertips. She was a miracle, a marvel who brought the same enthusiasm and adventurous spirit to her lovemaking as she had brought to his life.

Late one night the drowsing peace of the house was fractured by the crash of heavy furniture and breaking glass. A herd of feet stampeded to Emily's door.

Harold's fist rattled the mahogany panels. "Hullo there, gel. Open up! What's going on in there? Are

you all right?"

Emily swung open the door, her cheeks burning, to face a nightcapped mob that included Penfeld,

Justin's entire family, and a few of the bolder servants.

She brushed back her tousled curls, laughing nervously. "I'm my clumsy old self, I fear. I must have

been having a nightmare. I seem to have fallen out of bed and overturned the nightstand." She reached

up to smooth the ribbons of her nightdress, then realized in horror they were trailing down her back because her nightdress was on backward.

One of the wide-eyed housemaids tried to peer around her at the carnage. "I'll fetch a broom, miss, straightaway, and clean up the mess."

"Oh, no," said Emily hastily, narrowing the crack between door and wall. "That won't be necessary.

I'm really quite exhausted. You may clean up in the morning."

Justin's mother rested her fists on her ample hips.

With her iron-gray ringlets wrapped in rags, she resembled a matronly Medusa. Emily lowered her eyes, fearing the duchess's accusing gaze might turn her to something worse than stone.

"Where's my son?" she demanded. "I would have thought a crash like that would have brought the dead running."

Penfeld quickly piped up with "My master is a very sound sleeper."

They all stared at him. Emily couldn't stop her own mouth from falling open at that preposterous falsehood. But even in his tasseled nightcap and long nightshirt, Penfeld's dignity was so profound that

no one dared challenge him.

"Harrumph," pronounced the duchess skeptically.

She charted a course for her chambers, the skirts of her brocaded dressing gown frothing in her wake. One by one the others trailed away.

Penfeld was the last to go. He gallantly tipped his nightcap to Emily and gave her a knowing wink.

She closed her door and twisted the key. "Why, that pompous little scoundrel. He's known all along."

She clapped a hand over her mouth to smother her giggle.

The door of her wardrobe swung open and Justin emerged, her satin dressing gown wrapped around his waist. He plucked a stray ostrich feather out of his hair.

"Don't look at me like that," she said. "I didn't lie. I did fall out of bed."

He wagged the feather at her. "Like you fell off that boat in New Zealand?"

"Oh, no. That wasn't the same at all."

"Thank God." He bent to graze her lips. He trailed the feather down the curve of her back and she moaned softly. "I despise this need for silence. I wish we were in New Zealand now, lying on the beach with nothing but the moon and stars to hear us." His voice lowered to a husky whisper. "I'd like to spend all night making you scream."

She buried her mouth in his chest. "What did you have in mind? A complete recitation of Penfeld's tea collection?"

"Why don't I just show you?" He gently guided her around until she was kneeling in the plush cushions

of the window seat. The curtains of Brussels lace tickled the tip of her nose.

Her voice caught on a tremulous note. "Justin?"

"Mmm?" he answered, kneeling behind her and pushing the backward nightdress up.

"If we fall out the window, I'm going to leave the explanations to you."

"My pleasure, darling."

As the dressing gown fell in a shimmering satin pool around their knees, Emily arched against him, knowing the pleasure was all hers.

Justin wrapped a gossamer curl around his finger, then freed it, watching it spring back against Emily's cheek. She mumbled something in her sleep and wiggled deeper into the pillows.

* * *

The watery light of dawn crept across the tangled sheets. Justin despised its arrival. He hated dragging himself out of the warm cocoon of blankets and sneaking through the drafty old house to his own barren bed. A pain seized his heart. Emily looked so sweet and warm with her cheeks rosy with sleep and her curls rumpled. He didn't want to leave her. He realized with a shock that he never wanted to leave her.

He wanted the right to spend all night and all day in bed with her if he chose. He wanted to escort her

to the countess's fete that afternoon and show the whole world that she belonged to him.

"Oh, David," he whispered. "What have I done?"

David had once given her to him. After all those years of self-imposed exile, would he still find him worthy of such a prize? Justin knew if his friend were alive today, he would have gone to him on

hands and knees if necessary to beg for her hand.

He smoothed back her curls and tenderly kissed her brow before climbing out of the bed. When she moaned a protest, he slid a pillow into the hollow his body had left. She pulled it into her embrace and tucked it under her chin, sighing in content.

Stepping over the carnage from the previous night's mishap, he dressed quickly, fearful his resolve to go might weaken. He wondered what his ever-so-proper servants would do if he simply jerked the tasseled cord hanging from the ceiling and ordered eggs and kippers in bed for him and his ward. He grinned at

the thought.

His smile faded as he opened the door to find his mother leaning with arms crossed against the opposite wall.

Olivia Connor was no less intimidating in dressing gown and slippers than she was armored in a full ball gown and bustle. Justin reached behind him and pulled Emily's door shut.

He faced his mother squarely, trying to ignore the flush he could feel creeping up over his cheekbones.

He forced a wry smile. "Why do I feel like I'm six years old and I've been caught dipping into Gracie's cookie jar?"

Her steely gaze raked him, taking in his unbuttoned shirt, the rumpled folds of his trousers. "It seems you've been caught dipping into much more than that."

Summoning the remnants of his grace, he leaned against the door and crossed his arms, mirroring her posture deliberately. "Guilty as charged. So what are you going to do? Disinherit me again?"

"Have you forgotten? You're the duke now. I can't disinherit you. But you may pack me off to a

dower house if you desire."

"Ah, but that would imply there was another duchess waiting in the wings."

She nodded toward the door. "Isn't there?"

Justin raked a hand through his hair, suddenly feeling less six than sixty. "I'm afraid not."

"More's the pity. The two of you would make pretty children together." She lifted an eyebrow.

"That is, if you haven't already."

A muffled oath exploded from his lips. He strode a few paces away and stood with hands on hips, his back to her. A bitterness he'd pushed deep down clawed its way to the surface. "You were never there for me before, Mother. What makes you think I'd confide in you now?"

Her voice was devoid of self-pity. "I don't think you will. I know what I was. A good wife and a

wretched mother."

Justin swung around, surprised by her blunt confession.

"Did you ever ask yourself why your father resented you so much?" she asked.

He stared at the carpet. "Every day. And I always came up with the same answer. There was something wrong with me."

She shook her head. "There was something right with you. Something so shining and bright that it

blinded him with jealousy." He stared at her disbelievingly. "Frank Connor wasn't always the man you knew. He didn't want the business or the title any more than you did. It was like a lead anchor around

his neck, dragging him down. He longed to sail one of those graceful clippers right over the horizon and explore the world. But he didn't have your guts. He didn't have the courage to simply walk away."

Justin stood awash in conflicting emotions as she moved toward him.

"Denying himself his dreams made your father a bitter, mean-spirited old man." She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, filling his nostrils with the longforgotten comfort of lilac and camphor. "Don't make the same mistake, son."