Teresa Medeiros - Once An Angel

Nicholas peeped around the door frame.

"Hit me," Emily mouthed.

Justin jerked her close, genuine desperation in his grasp. "Don't ask that of me," he hissed.

Pretending to struggle, she dug her fingernails into his arms and pressed her mouth to his ear. "Hit me, dammit!"

His voice rang out. "You little brat, I'll teach you to disobey me." His eyes darkened in agonized apology as he drew back his hand and slapped her across the face.

His elbow bore the brunt of the blow. Emily barely felt a sting, but the shock of it still brought genuine tears to her eyes. At the flood of answering remorse in Justin's eyes, she would have done anything to summon them back. Justin hadn't the flare for playacting that she had. If Nicky took one glance at his face, the game would be up. The true enormity of what she must do struck her harder than his blow. Pressing her knuckles to her mouth, she whirled around to flee, only to find Nicholas standing rapt in

the doorway.

It took him a second too long to veil the cruel, excited twist of his lips with righteous anger. "I say,

man, what's the meaning of this?"

Justin shoved past him without a word. Emily flung herself across the room and crumpled into Nicky's arms. Clucking his sympathy, he led her to a settee beneath the window, where she made a valiant show of getting a grip on her emotions, all the while snuffling into his pristine shirtfront. He pried her off him and fished out a handkerchief, poorly hiding his moue of distaste.

"Please forgive me," she said, blowing her nose daintily into his handkerchief. "I never meant you to witness such a disgraceful spectacle."

"It only confirmed my worst suspicions," he said, his face set in noble lines. "I had hoped this wouldn't

be necessary, but I fear your guardian's behavior has made it so."

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a tiny derringer. Emily's hands began to tremble in earnest. He opened her icy fingers and laid the weapon on her palm.

"I want you to take this, cara mia. To use it if need be to protect yourself from that madman. There's

not a court in this land that would convict you for killing him."

Emily stared down at the charming little pistol, knowing it was no less lethal for its size. It was plated in polished mother-of-pearl and fit her palm as if it had been made for it.

He folded her fingers around the gun. "Go on. Take it. Your father would have wanted you to have it."

She gazed up at him, hypnotized by the glow of sincerity in his eyes. A blustering shout sounded from

the nether reaches of the house.

Nicky hastily stood. "I think it best if I go now. I shall call again tomorrow. Don't forget what I said."

"I won't," she said, rising like a zombie. "Oh, Nicholas," she called as he turned to go.

He pivoted expectantly.

She waved the crumpled rag. "You forgot your handkerchief."

Smiling wanly, he took it between two fingers. She watched him juggle it all the way to the door before

he finally stuffed it into a potted palm on the cloak rack.

When he had gone, Emily stood staring at the small gun. Seven years ago a weapon such as this had ended her father's life. A footstep sounded behind her, and she hastily dropped it into the pocket of her skirt.

She turned to find Justin watching her.

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothing." She averted her gaze. "Nothing of any import."

She started to walk past him. He caught her shoulders; his gaze searched her face. "You're lying to me. Why?"

Unable to bear the pain crystallizing in his eyes, she pulled away. "Please. I'd like to be alone now. I'm tired."

She brushed past him, knowing the most dangerous role in her charade had just begun. As she fled up

the stairs, the derringer lay like a cold weight against her thigh.

* * *

Emily was slipping away from him. Moment by moment. Day by day. The knowledge tore at Justin's

soul like jagged claws. Nicky's daily visits continued, but she no longer confided in him. He would enter

a room to find them sitting with heads together, laughing and whispering. They would fall into silence at the sight of him, and Emily's beautiful eyes would turn dark and cold with suspicion. Was she so eager

to believe ill of him that she'd allow even Nicky to spread his poison through her mind? He continued to play the invalid lunatic, at times querulous, at others fiercely jovial, each day feeling more like the madman he was pretending to be.

Both family and servants gave him wide berth. Not even the wounded bafflement in his mother's eyes was enough to make him lay down his pride and break his silence. It hurt too damned much to believe Emily would turn on him so easily. She made no more visits to his room, and he spent his nights pacing the spacious suite like a caged tiger. As his panic grew, he began to make his own inquiries into Nicholas's business ventures.

He returned from one of those sojourns late one evening, shaken to learn Nicky had booked two passages on a tramp steamer sailing for New Zealand within the week. Discovering Emily had gone out to attend the opera with her dear friend Mr. Saleri only fueled his panic.

"You did what?" he roared at the bewildered Edith. "You allowed her to go out unchaperoned?"

"You never wanted her chaperoned before in his company," she protested, her lower lip trembling.

"You said he was an old friend of her father's. How was I to know?"

"If you'd use that porcelain head of yours for something besides hanging your ringlets on, you would

have known," he shouted.

Edith dropped her embroidery and burst into noisy sobs. Lily and Millicent closed ranks around her, patting her heaving shoulders and giving Justin looks that would have shamed the devil himself.

He paced away from them, running a hand over his weary eyes.

His mother shoved her bulk out of her chair. "You were always a good boy, Justin. Your father never even had to take the cane to you. I'm beginning to think that was a terrible mistake."

Justin spun around. "What did Father need a cane for? He had his sarcastic wit and his demeaning remarks for weapons. I wish he'd had the common decency to give me a beating with his fists."

Emily's dulcet tones cut through the chaos. "Here now. What's all this fuss about?"

They all froze, staring at her. She stood in the doorway of the parlor, dripping sophistication. A cream-blue dress of ruched satin hugged her hips, falling to scalloped ruffles draped to reveal an ivory underskirt. She wore matching gloves studded with pearl buttons, and her hair had been swept back at

the temples by mother-of-pearl combs. Combs he had bought for her, Justin realized, fighting blind rage.

Her skirts rustled as she swept in and knelt beside Edith, handing her a handkerchief from her satin reticule. "There now. You mustn't cry so. You're getting your lovely embroidery all soggy." She straightened and looked at him, her gaze free of reproach, or any feeling at all. "Didn't they tell you?

I just went to the opera. La Traviata. It was marvelous. I do so love all things Italian."

Justin bit back the obvious retort. What was she trying to do? he wondered. Provoke him to murder

right there in the parlor. "I need to talk to you."

She smothered a yawn into her gloved little hand. "In the morning perhaps. I'm off to bed now."

She strolled out, her bustled rump swaying beneath its satin sheath. There was dead silence for three

long, lazy sweeps of the mantel clock's pendulum. Edith didn't dare even to sniffle. Then somewhere

in the house a door closed. And locked.

That muffled turn of the key was Justin's downfall. He slammed out of the room and climbed the stairs two at a time, not caring anymore who heard him traverse the darkened corridors to Emily's room. His thigh struck a table, overturning it. The photographs toppled and struck the floor in an explosion of shattering glass. His long strides devoured the carpet until he stood outside her door once again. Sometimes he felt he'd spent half his life there.

Justin didn't waste time knocking or toying with the knob. And he definitely wasn't in the mood to beg.

So he simply lifted his leg, and in one powerful motion, kicked the door down.

Emily pressed her palm to her thundering heart. Justin stood in the doorway, the splintered door lying

like an altar of pagan sacrifice at his feet. The shattered lock dangled from its mooring. He stretched out his arms and braced his weight on either side of the door frame. His lazy grin never reached his eyes.

"Hello, darling. I thought you might need some coal for your fire. Or has someone else been stoking

your flames these days?"

His clothes were rumpled. His untrimmed hair hung in shaggy disarray. His eyes were red-rimmed and wild from desperation and lack of sleep. He was everything the polished and urbane Nicholas Saleri