Page 211 of Once an Angel
Or the ocean, Emily thought, quenching a hysterical giggle.
The valet's voice lowered to a fervent plea. "If you don't trust her, why don't you remove the child
from her care? The calculating woman may try to sell the knowledge of your location to your family for
a profit anyway. Perhaps your father could—"
"I'm dead to my father. He made that painfully clear when I threw my inheritance back in his priggish face."
Penfeld fell into defeated sikice. Emily heard the rustle of tissue paper, the clink of metal. She eased her eyes above the windowsill. Justin was drawing her father's watch over his head. It dangled from his graceful fingers, spinning in the sunlight above a tissue-lined box.
She sank back down, pressing her fists to the cool earth. Her thoughts raced in time with her heart. What in God's name had happened to the gold mine? Had Justin lost not only his friends and partners, but his fortune as well, in the Maori uprising? She realized he hadn't sent more money to the school because there had been no money. And now he meant to send her father's precious watch to Miss Winters.
Emily felt sickened by the image of the old woman digging her talons into the fragile tissue, clawing greedily for the heavy gold at the bottom of the box. She would probably send Barney to the goldsmith that very day to have the engraved case melted to a formless lump.
Emily choked back the lump in her own throat. Their words had only confirmed what she had come to suspect. Claire Scarborough's sole inheritance lay in the inscrutable gold of Justin Connor's eyes.
* * *
"Gor blimey, ya bloody brat! 'Aul yer arse to the other side of the beach or I'll 'aul it there for ya!"
As the vulgar words spewed out in Kawiri's musical tones, Justin dropped the basket he was carrying
and exchanged a startled look with Penfeld. Children swarmed over the kumaras and passion fruit
heaped along the shore for the following day's feast. Kawiri glowered at his sister.
Dani thrust her hands on her hips and stuck out her little pink tongue in a defiant gesture Justin found painfully familiar. "Ya ain't big enough to make me move." Justin cringed at the grating cockney. "An' effin ye try, I'll call my Emmy and she'll box yer damned ol' ears."
Justin spared her the trouble. He threw back his head and bellowed, "Emily!"
She popped up from the newly dug clam pit, brushing sand from her stomach. "You rang?"
She looked so charming that Justin almost forgot his reprimand. Her cheeks were flushed with the afternoon heat. Her hair twined in damp tendrils around her face, framing a smile that was an intoxicating mix of mischief and tenderness. A menacing thud from the direction of the baskets jarred his memory.
He pointed. "Those children. What have you been teaching them?"
She shuffled her feet primly. "The King's English?"
"Guttersnipe English, more likely. They'd do better at an East End brawl than at court. What are you trying to do? Erase all the good I've done?"
She poked her toe in the sand, showing excessive interest in the tiny crab she unearthed. "Have you ever heard Dani speak a complete sentence of English before?"
"That horrid exhibition could hardly be called—" He stopped, scratching his head. "Well, no, I suppose
I haven't."
He was spared from further thought by the solid thwack of a kumara striking someone's head. An answering wail followed. Justin winced.
Emily wiggled past him. "I shall endeavor to set a better example," she promised, bending over to box both Kawiri's and Dani's ears in one smooth motion. "Hush your silly selves," she hissed, "or I'll blister both your naked little arses."
A reverent course of "Aye, mums" followed.
Justin's lips twitched as he gazed at the delectable curve of her own ripe derriere.
A voice boomed out, unmistakaHe in its resonant bass. Move out them torches, laddies! We ain't got
all bloomin' day!"
