Teresa Medeiros Read online

  She wrapped her arms around a magnificent wedding doll complete with tiny trousseau and thrust it into his arms. “Why don’t you send all of these charming things over to the seminary? I’m sure Miss Winters will waste no time finding some other poor beggar child to board in my attic.”

  Her fury spent, she folded her arm over her brow and leaned against the bedpost. Her slender throat convulsed, and it broke Justin’s heart to know how hard she was fighting not to cry in front of him.

  He set the doll gently on the bed, afraid Emily might crumple if he touched her. “I didn’t know, Emily. I swear to God I didn’t know.”

  She gazed at him over her shoulder, her eyes glistening with tears. “And if you had known? Would you have come?”

  He yearned to offer her that pathetic scrap of reassurance. But even now he hadn’t the courage to say the words that would freeze the contempt on her face forever. The words that would brand him as the monster she had believed him to be. She had every reason to hate him. Far more reason than she knew. He couldn’t give her the truth. But he couldn’t lie to her either.

  “I would have made the necessary arrangements.”

  Her beautiful eyes darkened in bitter triumph. “And you thought me fool enough to wait for you again.”

  Justin’s sense of helplessness nearly choked him. “I would have never left New Zealand if I hadn’t had to comb this godforsaken city for David’s daughter.” He narrowed his eyes as realization dawned. “If I had gone back, you wouldn’t have been there, would you? Because you were here, leading me on a merry chase for a child that didn’t exist. I’d have gone back to a deserted beach and an empty hut. Was that to be your final revenge, Claire?”

  She tossed back her head in proud defiance. “Don’t call me that. You haven’t the right.”

  With agonizing clarity Justin realized all of the other things he had no right to do. She was standing near enough for him to touch, but forever out of his reach. A wall of propriety had slid between them, as fragile as glass and as impenetrable as stone. Society had a name for men who seduced their wards. Their shocked whispers and stares might never touch him, but Emily had already lived half her life under the burden of their scorn. She deserved far better.

  His oath to David bound his heart like chains of iron. He had robbed her of her father and it was his penance and duty to replace him. To atone for his own neglect, he could give her a home, an education, a place in society. He could even find her a husband who would cherish her as David had. Fate had ensured he could never be that man. She would despise him if she knew the truth about the night that had left her father’s blood on his hands. All his noble intentions paled in comparison to what he could never give her—his love, his body, his children.

  A white-hot anger blazed through him. Anger at her cunning, her blatant deceit, and the terrible unfairness of it all. His desire for her flared as brightly as ever. He wanted this defiant woman no less than he had wanted the angelic creature who had washed up on his beach garbed in nothing but sand and moondust.

  He caught her arms and drove her back against the bedpost. His fingers pressed into her soft flesh, assuring himself she was real and not an illusion of his maddened desire. Her lips trembled, and he felt a bitter satisfaction to know she was not as immune to him as she was pretending to be.

  He lowered his lips near enough to smell the tantalizing musk of fear and anticipation on her breath. “Are we even now? Have you punished me enough, Miss Scarborough? Are you satisfied with your revenge? To make me want you? To make me dream of you when you knew that once I discovered I was your guardian, I could never lay a hand on you?” She turned her face away, but he forced it back, capturing her chin between two fingers. “It was a terrible and wicked thing to do. Your father would be ashamed of you.”

  With those words Justin turned and left her, slamming the door behind him. He sank against the door, knowing his survival depended on pretending those stolen moments of passion and tenderness in New Zealand had never happened. But his bluff had not fooled him. Emily’s revenge had just begun, and the punishing flames of hell couldn’t lick any higher than his burning need for her.

  Emily drifted in and out of sleep, her jumbled dreams as tortured as her waking thoughts. She threw back the suffocating weight of the comforter. An icy draft blasted her fevered skin, drying the sweat and rippling goose flesh over her body. Shivering, she burrowed back under the comforter and tried to pinch her down pillow into some semblance of comfort. It was too wet from her tears to be salvageable. She heaved it off the bed and threw herself back, rapping her head sharply against the carved headboard. Groaning, she rolled facefirst into the mattress.

  She had taken to her bed after Justin had stormed out, and was contemplating spending the remainder of her life there.

  She had lain unmoving, her sullen face turned to the wall when the maids had come to clear away the toys and sweep up the debris. She ignored the broth they brought, rising only to wiggle out of the binding wool and creep into the nightdress they left draped across the footboard of the bed. For hours people had tiptoed and whispered outside her door as if she were dying, but now, at last, even they had gone away.

  She sat up, hugging her knees. One by one the tears slipped unbidden down her cheeks. Loneliness was no stranger to her. She had often tasted its bitter draft huddled in the attic with only Annabel for company. But that was a vague melancholy compared to this shuddering ache. All she wanted was someone to hold her. Annabel’s porcelain limbs were a cold comfort at best.

  How could she be so miserable in such luxury? Two nights ago, shivering on an icy park bench, she would have swooned to imagine being snuggled between a feather mattress and a fat down comforter. A brass warming pan had been tucked at the foot of the bed to toast her toes. A fire licked at the grate, but its serene glow only emphasized the unfamiliar shadows of the room. The half-tester loomed over her head like a black cloud.

  The alien house creaked and sighed a mournful refrain. Emily shivered. This was worse than being alone—a thousand times worse. Justin was in this house somewhere, near enough to hear her cry out but separated from her by a jagged chasm of broken promises and lies.

  Emily wiped her cheek with her ruffled sleeve, becoming slowly aware of a new sound—music seeping through the floorboards. The faint notes swept her heart, bittersweet and hauntingly familiar. They called out to her, compelling her to rise and seek their source.

  Her fists knotted in the comforter. How could she face Justin again? Her first glimpse of him beneath the Christmas tree had wreaked havoc on her fragile control.

  With his dark hair trimmed against his nape and his face clean-shaven, he had looked ten years younger than she remembered—vulnerable but devastatingly handsome in a crisp suit tailored to the lean planes of his chest and thighs. He had offered his heart in that lopsided grin, looking as tempting and delectable as a present waiting to be unwrapped. Emily had felt like a dowdy wren in Doreen’s borrowed dress and bonnet. Only her humiliated pride had given her the strength to spurn him.

  It had been so easy to condemn him, but having him look at her as if he despised her, knowing he loathed what she had done, made her feel truly ashamed for the first time in her life.

  The music played on, dancing over her nerves like silken fingers. She threw back the comforter and climbed down from the bed. A pair of velvet slippers warmed on the rug in front of the hearth. She shoved her feet into them, unable to resist a wiggle of her toes in their plush contours.

  As she slipped out of her room, the music grew louder, a dark and fantastical lullaby in the sleeping hush of the house.

  She crept down the long, curving staircase, realizing halfway down that the drawing room lay directly across the checkered tile of the foyer. Moonlight spilled through the wall of windows, varnishing the grand piano to an ebony gloss.

  Justin’s hair flew as he pounded the keys. He had abandoned his waistcoat, and his white shirt was half unbuttoned. The muscles in his
shoulders rippled beneath the rich linen. Sweat glistened on the column of his throat.

  Emily sank to a sitting position on the stairs, clasping the wooden balusters in her trembling hands. The melody poured over her in jarring shocks of recognition. It was the symphony he had written for her on the island. Hearing it rendered in these magnificent tones made her realize what pathetic justice her own reedy voice had done it.

  Justin played the piano like a master. His hands flew over the keys, making her purr and thunder beneath his skillful touch.

  Emily’s eyes fluttered shut. Her mouth felt dry, her breathing unsteady. It was as if Justin were ravishing not the piano, but her, taking her against her will with each crash of the chords. As the music climbed to a crescendo, a broken gasp escaped her. Her eyes flew open.

  Justin looked up, and his gaze met hers across the gleaming expanse of tile. His eyes were dark and dangerous. His fingers never missed a stroke.

  I’ve spent the last few nights pouring all of my passions into my music when all I really wanted to do was pour them into you.

  Without warning his words came back to her, rough with promise.

  Tearing her gaze away from his, she rose and flew back up the stairs. She slammed her door and locked it, her heart beating frantic wings in her throat. She jumped into the bed, slippers and all, and pulled the comforter over her head. But no matter how hard she pressed her hands to her ears, she still could not stop the music.

  Chapter 20

  Yet when we said good-bye, the shadow of the woman you will become was in your eyes.…

  “Here’s one, sir,” Penfeld said, jabbing his finger at the newspaper spread on the dining room table. “ ‘Personal maid,’ ” he read over Justin’s shoulder, “ ‘Companion. Expert dresser of hair. Fluent in French and Italian.’ ”

  Something slammed into the ceiling above them. Tiny specks of plaster floated down to dust Justin’s tea. A muffled oath that was neither French nor Italian burned their ears.

  “Do you think we can find a maid fluent in bear wrestling?” Justin muttered.

  “You might try the circus,” Penfeld suggested.

  Justin held the paper in front of his face, trying to ignore the alarmed cries, thumps, and howls coming from the second floor. He winced at the tinkling sound of glass shattering.

  Penfeld lifted the teapot to pour him a fresh cup of tea.

  “One. Two,” Justin counted under his breath.

  A door slammed. The valet gazed upward, pouring a stream of amber over the ivory tablecloth. Footsteps thundered down the stairs accompanied by hysterical sobbing. Click, click, click went the shoes across the marble tiles of the foyer, then the front door slammed with a bang that echoed like a gunshot through the waiting house.

  “Three,” Justin dourly pronounced, massaging his aching brow with the palm of his hand.

  Warm tea trickled into his lap.

  “Oh dear, sir. I’m frightfully sorry.” Penfeld snatched up a napkin and mopped his trousers.

  The duchess entered the room at full sail, the flounces of her skirt following a good foot behind her. “That was the third maid in as many days. The girl can’t sulk in her bedroom forever. If she refuses to be dressed, I insist you see to her.”

  Justin laid down the paper, biting back a groan. Dressing Emily was the last thing his frazzled nerves needed.

  His mother droned on. “Your sisters and I have been planning an intimate gathering to introduce your young ward to society, followed by a splendid ball to launch her into the company of the more eligible young men.” She sighed happily. “It will be such a joy having a young girl in the house again, won’t it, dear?”

  “A pure delight,” Justin replied grimly.

  He rose and slipped from the room before his mother could begin discussing the flower arrangements for Emily’s wedding or sewing the christening gown for her first child.

  He smoothed his waistcoat as he climbed the stairs, steeling himself behind his only shield—a cool paternal demeanor. His sharp knock received no answer. He opened the door to find his entire view captured by the charming sight of Emily’s ruffled drawers upended in the window.

  She was leaning halfway over the sill, shaking her fist. “Don’t come back either! It’ll take a lot more than a puny creature like you to shove me into one of those bloody contraptions.”

  She leaned out farther as a bonneted figure scampered out of earshot. Her pantaloons hugged the sleek curves of her thighs. Justin wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before striding across the room and catching her by the waistband. He could just see her tumbling out the window in her white drawers and lacy camisole.

  She wiggled in his grasp. “I won’t wear it. I won’t. You can’t make me. And if you try, I’ll …” She jabbed the air with a sinister-looking hat pin before realizing who had caught her.

  He stepped back, dodging her easily. “You’ll what? Deflate me?”

  She straightened, muttering something about “hot air.” A flush dusted her cheekbones. She crossed her arms over her breasts, then folded her hands casually at the juncture of her thighs, finally giving up all attempts at modesty by resting her hands on her hips and glaring at him.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked, already knowing there was. Five feet three inches of problem, exuding a rumpled femininity that would have given a eunuch pause.

  She stabbed an accusing finger at the chair. “That is the problem.”

  Justin picked up the object she indicated and ran his hands over the rigid whalebone. “What is it? A hat of some sort?”

  Emily realized he was genuinely perplexed. She’d forgotten how long he’d been away from society. His innocence touched her until she remembered that lush native beauties like Rangimarie would never bother with such contrivances. All he had to do was reach his hands beneath her skirt and—

  She jerked it away from him. “It’s a torture device designed to fill out the shape of my rump.”

  Justin muttered something under his breath, then frowned. “That must be what Mother’s wearing. I thought she had a bird cage under her dress.”

  Emily rested the cumbersome form on her hips and struggled with the tapes. The bustle swayed like a gangly bell. Justin caught her before she crashed into a floor lamp.

  “See what I mean?” she pleaded, clutching his arm. “There’s no need for all this fuss. Couldn’t I just wear a skirt like the one I wore in New Zealand?”

  As he gazed down into her earnest brown eyes, memories pierced Justin’s heart like beams of fragrant sunlight. Emily frolicking through the waves, her wet skirt plastered to her hips; Emily sitting in the sand, her palms pressed to her naked breasts, her hair ruffled by the morning wind and his stolen caresses.

  He gently but firmly extracted his arm from her grasp. “We’re in London now. Not New Zealand.” His reminder was more for himself than for her, but it failed to dull his gnawing hunger.

  He escaped her disappointed gaze by moving to the bed. A charming array of clothing had been laid out by the poor departed maid.

  He caressed the softness of a silk stocking between thumb and forefinger. “You’ve been barricaded up here for three days. If I allow you to leave off this bustle thing, will you join us downstairs?”

  Emily glared at the heap of feminine garments. “I’ll not wear the gloves. They’re ridiculous.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Very well. Forget the gloves.” He tossed the stocking over her shoulder and turned away. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Now, that’s a switch, isn’t it?”

  Justin stopped, his broad shoulders rigid. His exhaled breath echoed through the room. He left, pulling the door shut behind him with such pained gentleness that Emily knew he itched to slam it out of its frame.

  Justin waited for Emily at the foot of the stairs. He had never seen so many people trying to look inconspicuous while milling around the foyer. Two maids dusted the tripod base of an occasional table while an underfootman polished the tinkling
glass prisms dangling from a fringed lampshade. Their gazes kept wandering to the top of the stairs, craving a glimpse of the severe little creature who had dared to slap their master.

  The long-case clock chimed the hour. Justin drummed his fingers on the banister. One of the husbands had parked himself on the bench of the cloak stand and was puffing away on a long-stemmed pipe. Justin wondered if even his sisters could tell them apart. They all had the same tepid brown hair and wore tweed jackets in lieu of more formal garments that might suggest they were going to leave the house in search of other pursuits—such as gainful employment. He supposed this one was Herbert, spouse of Millicent. His bushy eyebrows were in desperate need of a combing.

  Justin suppressed a sigh as Edith and his mother strolled arm in arm from the drawing room, their heads inclined as if enjoying a profound conversation, something he knew to be impossible. The last thing Emily needed was an audience. She might take one look at their rabid faces and shy back to her room like a frightened doe.

  His fears melted as an enchanting vision appeared on the landing above, taking his breath away. This girl bore no resemblance to the stern creature who had marched into the house. Her white dimity frock belled around her ankles, revealing a tantalizing hint of ruffled crinoline and kid slippers. Justin had chosen the short frock himself to remind him Emily was little more than a child. A blue velvet sash hugged her slender waist and a matching bow tamed her curls. The warmth of a new and unexpected emotion flowed through Justin’s veins—pride.

  Emily’s fingers were poised lightly on the banister. Her lips curved in a smile so sweet it made him feel he was the only man in the room—or the universe.

  Her smile never wavered as she hooked one leg over the banister, giving the entire foyer a healthy peek at the starched layers of her petticoats. The duchess gasped.