Page 100 of Once an Angel
the hair at his nape, marveling at the silky fineness of the new growth against his starched collar. The heady scent of his bay rum intoxicated her. She wiggled against him in an artless attempt to press herself closer, to somehow absorb all his textures and scents, both new and remembered.
Justin groaned. "You're going to be the death of me, woman," he muttered against her lips. Then his tongue filled her mouth again, plunging deep in a blatant act of possession.
Justin wasn't sure how she managed it, but Emily was just as enticing in her silly garments as she had been naked on a moonlit beach. Each scrap of lace, pearl button, and hook and eyelet was a provocative challenge to his desire. She was dressed like a ruffled cake and he wanted nothing more than to lick off
all her icing. Her untamed response to his touch shattered his inhibitions. He rained a delicate shower of kisses down her throat.
Not even the starched layers of her petticoats were enough to shield Emily from the rigid evidence of Justin's desire. He nudged against her, his hard, hungry heat making her shudder.
With a hoarse oath Justin reached beneath her skirt and shoved aside the crinolines until only the sheer cotton of her pantaloons and the crisp linen of his trousers separated them. She gasped against his lips as he moved against her, coaxing, enticing, until she could feel every inch of him pressed to the damp valley between her legs. A helpless whimper, half fear, half need, caught in her throat.
"Sweet Christ, this is madness!" he exploded, dumping her out of his lap.
He rose and strode to the sideboard, raking a hand through his hair. As he sloshed wine into a glass,
filling it to the rim, Emily could see his hand was shaking violently.
She climbed to her feet, smoothing her skirts with her own trembling hands. "Why?" she said softly. "Why must it be madness?"
He cocked the glass up and drained it. "Aside from the fact that we were writhing around on the dining room floor with a kitchen of gossiping servants only a careless moan away?"
She nodded, refusing to make this easy for him. "Aside from that."
Justin slammed down the glass. He knew it wasn't enough to put physical distance between them. She could bridge that with just one yearning look. He had to put emotional distance between them as well.
He had to build walls so high she could never tear them down. Even if they imprisoned his heart forever.
"You're too young for me," he said.
Emily flinched at Justin's emotionless tone. "What of Cecille? Is she too young for you as well? Isn't she just the sort of wife your mother would choose for you?"
He swung around to face her. "Cecille is neither my ward nor my responsibility. You are. If I had an ounce of brains, I'd have declared for her tonight."
She tapped her pursed lips thoughtfully. "Now, would that make her my auntie or my stepmother?"
He caught her shoulders in a frantic grip, pulling her hard against him. "This isn't a game. Do you think this is why David entrusted you to my care? So I could compromise you like some aging lech without a thought for your reputation or future? Is that what your father would have wanted?"
She met his gaze squarely. "My father is dead. You should know that better than anyone."
His hands went limp. He laughed shakily. "Yes, I should, shouldn't I?"
"Justin!" she called after him, frightened by the glimpse of hopeless despair she'd seen in his eyes.
He walked out on her, his gait oddly uneven, like that of a wounded man. Emily sank down among the ruins of the dinner party and buried her head in her arms.
* * *
Emily Claire Scarborough was a very bad girl. She had heard it whispered for years, and in some small corner of her heart she had come to believe it. So when Justin again shut himself away from her behind
a wall of cool reserve, she set out to do the one thing she did best. Misbehave.
She swaggered around in an old pair of Justin's trousers and a discarded jacket from one of Edith's
riding habits, her curls an uncombed tangle.
But Justin's calm was imperturbable. When she began to sprinkle her speech with careless profanities,
he blithely retaliated by hiring a tutor, an art teacher, and a dancing master, all of whom resigned in hysterics within the week. When she shortened the legs of all of his trousers, he summoned a tailor and ordered new ones. When she stuffed the chimney in the study with her discarded petticoats, layering the room in coal dust and soot, he moved his work to the library until the room could be aired.
