Page 282 of Once an Angel
Tansy slammed the door in his leering face.
Emily clapped a hand over her mouth. The enormity of what she was about to do rolled over her in
dull waves of panic. But it was too late. Tansy was already powdering her nose, guiding her out the
door, shoving something into her hand.
Dazed, she looked down to discover she was holding a sugared pink lollipop. "What am I supposed
to do with this?" she asked, baffled.
Tansy gave her a gentle push toward the stairs. "Why lick it, of course!"
* * *
When Justin returned to Grymwilde late that night, all the lamps except for those in the parlor had been extinguished. He turned instinctively toward the gentle glow, knowing his family's comfort was better
than none.
None of them dared to speak as he threw himself into an upholstered chair and rubbed his bristled jaw.
His mother's needle flicked calmly through the flowered fire screen she was embroidering. "Unless you acquired some peculiar tastes in cologne in New Zealand, son, I would venture to say you smell like a house of ill repute."
"As would you if you'd visited every brothel in London in the past twelve hours."
"My goodness," she said dryly. "Such stamina."
Lily and Millicent blushed like twin roses. Edith buried her nose deeper in her novel.
Justin shot her a dark look. "Perhaps we should discuss this in private."
The duchess only smiled benignly. "Your sisters are married, aren't they? If they don't wish to hear what I have to say, they can join their husbands in their respective beds." She laid her embroidery across her knees and looked at Justin squarely. "I'm more interested in why you think your ward might have taken up such an unsavory occupation. Did she perhaps have a little nudge in that direction?"
Justin was shocked by his mother's frankness. All the spirit and fire she had banked for years flickered in her gray eyes. They must have been startlingly pretty in their day, he realized, like misty bits of smoked glass. His guilty soul could not bear their scrutiny.
He rose and paced to the hearth. A rumpled, hollow-eyed stranger stared back at him from the chimney glass. "I didn't touch her." He dropped his head, despising the lie. "I didn't compromise her," he amended.
"Perhaps you should have," his mother pronounced. "Then she might not have run away."
Justin swung around, wide-eyed, but his mother had returned to her embroidery. In the awkward silence Lily began to sing under her breath, some ridiculous tune about bees flitting from bloom to bloom.
Justin's raw temper snapped. He turned on her. "Would you stop that infernal squawking!"
Lily flinched. "So sorry. All of this talk of lewd pursuits put me in mind of Mrs. Rose's garden in Mayfair."
Justin failed to see how lewd pursuits related to some matron's garden in the fashionable district of Mayfair.
His mother nodded sagely. "Quite an establishment. Caters only to the carriage set—the creme de la creme of society."
Realization slowly dawned on Justin. "There's a bordello in Mayfair? How would you know of it?"
His mother blinked up at him. "Why, your father frequented it. Only on Fridays, of course. Saturdays
he saved for me."
A wild song of hope sang through Justin's heart. He snatched up Lily and kissed her full on the mouth. "Thank you, you witless little darling. If I find her, I swear I'll make Herbert secretary-general of Winthrop's." He dropped her back in her chair and dashed for the door.
"That's all very nice for Millicent," Lily called after him. "But what about my Harvey?"
