Page 243 of Once an Angel
his grip.
"Surely you jest." Her low laugh hit an off-key note. "Miss Winters would never have allowed it. She wanted me given into the hands of my illustrious guardian, pure and undefiled."
Her words struck Justin like a blow. Reeling from its shock, he stared down at her wrist. The dusky
hairs on the backs of his knuckles stood out in sharp relief against the pale silk of her skin. His hands were strong, graceful, from long hours at the piano, honed and callused by hard physical labor, and like any man's hands, capable of both gentleness and cruelty.
His fingers had stroked her until she cried out for his touch in a voice husky with passion. His hands,
not Barney's, had defiled the child given into his care.
His thumb massaged the circlet of prints he had left in her tender flesh. "Ironic, isn't it? I'd kill any man who had touched you as I have."
She pulled her arm free and paced to the window, turning her back on him. "A pity dueling is out of fashion. You could challenge yourself. Penfeld would make a dapper second."
A ragged sigh escaped him. The flippant Miss Scarborough was beyond his reach. His only hope lay in coaxing out a glimpse of his Emily.
His voice softened. "Why didn't you wait in New Zealand? I was coming back for you."
"Too little, too late, Mr. Connor!" Emily spun around, her ruse of control snapping. Unshed tears
polished her eyes to brilliance. "What did you want me to do? Sit at the hut window until the birds built nests in my hair? No, thank you! I've had my fill of waiting for the likes of you. Seven years of it. Dreaming, hoping, praying. Sitting with my fingers pressed to the window until I thought they'd crack
and fall off from the cold. Even after I'd stopped hoping and started to hate you, I'd wake up crying in
the middle of the night and think I heard your footsteps on the stairs."
Justin started for her. She recoiled violently, stumbling over a miniature railway laid before the window.
Her foot lashed out, sending the caboose slamming into the wall, marring the wallpaper with an ugly red gash. "Did you really think you could erase years of neglect with trains and dolls?"
Her arm raked across the marble-topped chiffonier. Tiny bottles of toilet water tumbled to the carpet, their crystal stoppers rolling away. The sickly sweet fragrance of lavender water stung Justin's eyes.
"Did you hope to buy my forgiveness with baubles? Trinkets?" She hauled open the doors of the lacquered wardrobe, snatched out an armful of dresses, and hurled them toward him. "I fear you've misjudged me, sir. My affections can't be bought for a length of ribbon or a scrap of lace."
Justin stood unmoving beneath her assault, allowing Emily her anger. He owed her that much. She was finally giving vent to the pain she hid so well behind sarcasm and flippancy. She was magnificent in her fury, whirling through the bedroom like a cherubic demon of vengeance.
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."
