Page 236 of Once an Angel
It must be a beggar child, he thought.
He had spent much time in the past few weeks reac-quainting himself with the orphans and urchins of
the London streets. There were no hungry children among the Maori. What was planted by one was harvested by all. It had appalled him to see the children of London starving in the slums. Perhaps one
of those he had helped had sent this bedraggled creature to his doorstep to beg for food.
A blast of wind rattled the windowpane. How very cold she must be! He would have Penfeld invite her into the kitchen for a hot meal.
As he turned from the window, a thought brushed him with icy fingers, an idea both so horrible and so magnificent, it chilled him to the bone.
He narrowed his eyes. The figure was still there. Motionless. Waiting.
He tore across the room, swearing under his breath as his knee slammed into a brass pedestal crowned
by a glowering bust of Prince Albert. He burst into the drawing room and shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring the crash of a footman's tray and the startled cries of alarm. "Good Lord, where's the
lad off to now?" "Careful there, Millicent, he trod all over my train." "Where's the fire, son? Shall we
call out the brigade?" Justin flew across the entranceway and flung open the front door. Frigid air burned his lungs. Tears of cold stung his eyes. He blinked rapidly to dispel them.
Snowflakes tumbled and spun in a wind-driven waltz, frosting the world in white. Leaving the front door gaping, he ran, sliding across the icy lawn to the street.
He searched both ways. The street was empty. The iron gate swung in the wind, creaking an eerie refrain.
Justin sank down on the curb and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared blindly into the night, wondering if he was going mad and listening to the falling snowflakes whisper promises they could never keep.
* * *
Emily's long strides ate up the pavement. Her shoulder slammed into a passing chimney sweep, knocking his tools into the snow.
"Watch where you're goin', you little fool!" he growled.
She jerked up his metal broom and swung around to press the sharp bristles to his throat. "Why don't
you watch who you're calling a fool, pudding head."
He recoiled and lifted his palms in surrender. She tossed him the broom.
"And a merry Christmas to you, too," he called after her as she marched on.
Emily was madder than hell.
She rushed on to nowhere, nursing the cold ashes of her bitterness to raging flame. She toyed with her anger, ripping the familiar comfort of the old scar wide open. She knew her anger well. It had been her friend, enabling her to hold her head high despite the giggles and slights. It had been her enemy, driving her to stomp toes and tie Cecille's braids in knots. And it had been her lover, sustaining her through cold, dark nights shivering in her attic bed by building a stone wall of fury against the despair.
Most of the shop windows were dark now, their owners gone home to sit in front of crackling fires.
Emily heard the crunch of a footfall behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting the chimney sweep's broom to slam into her head. A shadow vanished into a narrow alley. She almost laughed aloud. Anyone contemplating robbing her had to be desperate indeed.
She crossed a broad street where light and laughter spilled from a corner coffeehouse. A familiar scrap
of paper on a lamppost caught her eye. A man stared as he passed, and Emily pulled her shawl up
around her face. The likeness in the tintype was still there. Not everyone in London was as blindly
stupid as Justin.
Poor, pathetic Justin.
