Page 231 of Once an Angel
The vendor swung away from the cart to hand a sack to a gentleman in a tall beaver hat. Emily lunged, crooking her fingernails into claws to snag the tender skin of the apple.
The vendor would have been none the wiser if her shawl hadn't caught on the handle of the cart. As she broke into a run, the cart tipped, spilling apples in a stream of scarlet into the dirty snow.
"Thief!" the vendor bellowed. "Come back 'ere, ya bloody brat! Constable!"
She didn't dare look behind her. She could already hear running feet, confused shouts, and the all-too-familiar shrill of a constable's whistle. The thin soles of her boots slapped the snow as she sped down the narrow sidewalk, shoving her way through the crowds. A gray-haired matron screamed and dropped an armful of packages. Three grimy urchins joined in the chase, dogging her heels until they became bored.
The whistle sounded again, closer this time. She plunged into the busy street, darting between a hansom cab and an omnibus, narrowly missing the flailing hooves of the startled horses. A driver's jeering curse rang in her ears.
She rounded a corner into a narrow alley, then threw herself into a doorway and waited, her chest heaving as the slam of running feet passed and subsided. Without waiting to get her breath back, she
sank to a crouch on the filthy stoop and dug her teeth into the crunchy apple. She knew she was behaving like a piglet, but she was beyond caring. Her empty stomach knotted around the food. The core dropped from her fingers. She hugged herself as a sharp cramp seized her.
It passed as quickly as it had come, leaving her shivering in its aftermath. The overhanging roofs above blocked even the meager winter sunlight. She pulled her threadbare shawl tight around her shoulders, fearing all the stolen apples in the world couldn't fill the yawning void inside her.
She squared her chin, determined to rally her flagging spirits. What did she have to whine and moan about? It had finally stopped snowing and she was free at last after being crammed in a steamer cabin
for the past month with five other women, most of whom had never discovered the pleasures of daily bathing. It had taken the last of the money from the sale of her father's watch to book passage from Australia to England, but she was no longer reliant on the fickle charity of Amelia Winters. She was her own mistress now and London was hers.
She shoved herself to her feet and made her way toward the street, stepping gingerly over a snoring
drunk clutching a gin bottle. Her robbery had already been forgotten, replaced by the fresh scandal of a skinny ragamuffin caught stealing a gentleman's purse.
She wandered the streets, wondering how the city could have grown so much smaller and danker while she was away. Horse-drawn vehicles thronged the roadway, churning the snow into black slush. No one took any notice of her. She was just one of a sea of faces in this vast slum.
Before she realized it, she'd turned down a finer street with freshly salted cobblestones and broad sidewalks flanked by shops. Gas lamps flickered in shop windows, illuminating shining displays of goods nestled in fresh boughs of pine and holly. She paused at the window of a toy shop to watch a mechanical St. Nicholas beat a tiny green drum.
As she turned away, she came face-to-face with her own image tacked to a lamppost. A sigh caught in
her throat. Was this one photograph to haunt her forever? She pulled down the notice, her hands trembling more in shock than cold. The sketch was a very good one, obviously done by a professional from her father's old tintype. Her eyes widened at the staggering amount of the reward. She hadn't a halfpenny to her name and she was worth more than any notorious criminal stalking the London alleys.
Two words seemed to leap out of the elaborate script—
LOST CHILD.
She leaned her forehead against the cold lamppost, no longer able to fight the despair. More lost than Justin could ever know, she thought. Her hatred for him had sustained her for years. Now that it was gone, she felt nothing. Nothing at all but a desperate yearning for warmth. He had shed his sunlight
across her soul, then slammed the door, leaving her cold and alone. Would he return to New Zealand, seeking the woman he had known only as Emily Scarlet? By taking the coward's way out, she would never have to know if he didn't.
"Move along, girlie. We don't need your kind scaring the customers away." A fat shopkeeper shooed at her with his apron.
Emily gave him such an evil look that he began to bellow for a constable. She broke into a run, feeling
as if she might run forever and never get anywhere. She had no intention of trading one kind of cell for another, although the jail might be warmer than the park had been last night. Dusk was nearing and the temperature was plunging rapidly. Warm tears blurred her vision.
She never saw the soft, immovable object in her path until she slammed into it. She went sprawling.
A torrent of packages rained down on her head.
She glared upward, rubbing her brow and preparing to unleash a string of curses on the hapless shopper.
"Gor blimey, if it ain't Emily Claire Scarborough, as I live an' breathe!"
"Tansy?" Emily whispered in awe. She clambered to her feet, shoving boxes off her lap.
Surely this statuesque creature could not be her Tansy. A feathered hat perched jauntily on her nest of ebony curls. A dress of yellow satin sculpted her ample curves in scandalous relief, then tapered to scalloped ruffles piled high over a bustle. But surely no one else could possess eyes as big and blue as Dresden saucers.
"Tansy?" she repeated, her voice rising to a squeak.
