Teresa Medeiros - Once An Angel

Did she really think she could abide in the same city, walk the same streets without even trying to steal

a glimpse of him? Did he sit sad and alone in a deserted house with only his regrets for company? Did

he wander a cold, snowy garden, dreaming of her?

There was only one way to find out.

The sky began to spit snow. Sighing, Emily pulled her shawl up over her hair and hastened through the deepening dusk.

Justin stood at the window and watched the fat snowflakes drift down to fur the lawn. Despite his

longing for sunlight and sea, the snow still captivated him with its purity, its eternal promise of fresh hope.

"Justin, oh, Justin, my darling, where are you?"

He blew out a breath of frustration, fogging the cold windowpane. Even the heavy damask of the drapes wasn't enough to deter his mother. She swept them aside, smothering him in the cloying fog of her perfume.

"There you are! I was beginning to think you were hiding under the bed as you used to do when you

were little."

"Fat lot of good that would have done me. You would have just sent the butler to drag me out by my heels."

She slapped his arm with her fan. "Don't be a bad boy. You promised to be civil to my guests, not spend the evening lurking behind the drapes. It was heartless of you to deny me my annual Christmas ball. The least you can do is grace my modest fete with your presence."

Justin sighed. The duchess's idea of a modest fete was cramming a hundred guests into the octagonal drawing room. "I warned you I wouldn't be good company, Mother. I have more pressing matters on

my mind than playing Simile with a bevy of sotted swells."

"I suppose you mean that infernal child. You must stop this ridiculous fretting. You've got the finest men in the business on it. They'll find the little lad soon enough."

"It's a girl," he explained for the hundredth time. "A girl."

"Speaking of girls," his mother said, rescuing a perfumed handkerchief from the bodice of her dress, "there's that charming du Pardieu woman I told you about. You simply must meet her daughter. Quite

a bewitching little creature. Fresh out of seminary." She fluttered the hanky in the air like a flag of surrender, calling out, "Over here, dear."

Justin jerked her arm down, cringing at her shrill titter. Now that she'd regained one rightful Winthrop heir, her primary mission in life seemed to be to ensure he produced another one. "I don't want to meet the charming du Pardieu woman and I don't want to meet her daughter. If Queen Victoria is here, I don't want to meet her either. I wish to be left alone."

The duchess's iron-gray ringlets quivered in indignation. "Very well, then. Perhaps I'll let them think you

a savage."

She sailed away, her formidable bosom jutting out like the prow of some mighty ship. The staring guests milled in her wake. Justin shook his head, understanding for the first time why his father, in his own besotted youth, had ordered a figurehead carved in her honor.

He turned away from the window, tugging irritably at his starched collar. Perhaps he should make more of an effort to be pleasant. He might want to bring Emily back here someday after they were wed, and

he didn't want her reputation besmirched by his.

He wandered through the crowd, managing a smile here, a friendly nod there. The diplomacy of his years with the Maori seemed to have deserted him. He felt stiff and awkward, beset by the painful shyness that had troubled him as a child.

His sister Edith was pounding out "Joy to the World" on the grand piano. He winced, his heart aching for the poor beleaguered instrument. Her husband Harold had thrown back his head and was baying along with her. Or was it Herbert? Justin frowned. He still could not keep his sisters' husbands straight.

He angled toward a punch bowl ringed with glossy leaves of holly, hoping to find a safe haven in its rum-soaked depths.

A gloved hand caught his arm in a velvety vise. "Hello, Justin. Haven't you a moment to spare for an old friend?" The familiar voice had the huskiness of mellow brandy ignited by flame.

"Suzanne," he said, turning to greet his former fiancée and lover.

The years had been kind to her, softening her nubile beauty to glowing maturity, betraying her only in

the faint puffiness beneath her eyes. Sweeping wings of auburn framed her face. Justin knew he should feel something for her, some hint of affection, or even nostalgia, but he felt nothing. She might have

been a stranger. She must have sensed his detachment, for her grip tightened.

"I thought perhaps you'd care to dance. I fear my husband is more interested in discussing the Bank Holidays Act with his friends than he is in dancing with me."

Justin glanced at the man she indicated-a dapper, gray-haired chap much older than she. And doubtlessly very wealthy.

His first instinct was to decline, but her possessive grip dissuaded him. "If you'll honor me . . . ?" he

said, spreading his arms.

She stepped into them, smiling. Edith had switched to a tinkling little waltz, and several of the guests

had begun to dance.

"Do you still play?" Suzanne said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Only when everyone else is asleep."

She laughed briefly, but stopped when she realized he was serious. "Did you ever make it to Vienna to study?"

He swept her past the gleaming windows. "No. I took a … detour along the way."

"Dreams are like that sometimes. We give up what we really want to reach for something else. If we could only go back . . ." Her wistful voice trailed off.

She rested her head against his shoulder, and for a moment Justin was content to hold someone else

who understood the terrible cost of hesitation. But as they spun in the arms of the music, his heart

balked, remembering another night when he had waltzed beneath the merry twinkle of the stars. He had danced to the wrong music, held the wrong woman, but nothing in his life had ever felt so right.

He closed his eyes, breathing in not the delicate lavender of Suzanne's perfume, but the haunting aroma of vanilla warmed by sun-honeyed skin. His body responded to the dangerous provocation with a will of its own.

"Perhaps we could meet again. My husband travels frequently in his work. He's leaving for Belgium next week."

The breathless voice scattered his memories. He opened his eyes. Suzanne was gazing up at him, her lips parted in glistening invitation.

"Oh, God." He pushed her away, holding her at arm's length. "I'm terribly sorry."

"For what?"

His words echoed his despair. "We can't go back, Suzanne. We can't ever go back."

He drew away from her, frantic to escape her crushed bewilderment. He pressed his way through the crowd, snatching a full bottle of rum from the tray of a liveried footman.

"But, Your Grace, that's for the punch!"

"Not anymore, it isn't," he replied, escaping into the deserted peace of a darkened sitting room.

Tall windows framed the front lawn in a swirling vista of moonlight and snow. Justin leaned against the window frame and tilted the bottle to his lips. The familiar heat failed to warm him or soothe his temper. His fingers bit into the smooth glass.

In the drawing room Herbert or Harold was crooning some maudlin ballad about a man who searched

the world over for his love, only to find her in the arms of another man. Groaning, Justin closed his eyes and rapped his forehead against the icy pane.

When he opened them, someone was standing just outside the gate.

Snowflakes danced in his vision. He blinked, thinking he might have imagined it. But the small figure

clad in black was still there, clinging in eerie stillness to the wrought-iron gate.

It must be a beggar child, he thought.

He had spent much time in the past few weeks reac-quainting himself with the orphans and urchins of

the London streets. There were no hungry children among the Maori. What was planted by one was harvested by all. It had appalled him to see the children of London starving in the slums. Perhaps one

of those he had helped had sent this bedraggled creature to his doorstep to beg for food.

A blast of wind rattled the windowpane. How very cold she must be! He would have Penfeld invite her into the kitchen for a hot meal.

As he turned from the window, a thought brushed him with icy fingers, an idea both so horrible and so magnificent, it chilled him to the bone.

He narrowed his eyes. The figure was still there. Motionless. Waiting.

He tore across the room, swearing under his breath as his knee slammed into a brass pedestal crowned

by a glowering bust of Prince Albert. He burst into the drawing room and shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring the crash of a footman's tray and the startled cries of alarm. "Good Lord, where's the