Page 248 of Once an Angel
He bit the inside of his cheek, afraid to do so much as smile. "You might have descended the staircase
in a more conventional manner."
Groaning, she rubbed her bottom with both hands. Justin swallowed an offer of assistance. It was only too easy to remember the feel of her plush rear cupped in his palms.
"Perhaps you should reconsider that bustle," he said coolly, offering her a hand.
"Perhaps they shouldn't wax the banister quite so often. I thought I was going to sail clear across the Channel to Paris."
He pulled her to her feet. He had forgotten how fragile her small, warm hand felt in his own. He jerked his own hand away as if she had scorched him. "Breakfast is waiting for you in the dining room. Now,
if you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to." He gave her a crisp bow and fled toward the study.
His mother's chiding tones rang after him. "I don't know what's gotten into that boy. You'd have thought
I never taught him any manners at all."
Justin was spared Emily's murmured reply by the hastily erected barrier of the study door. He strode through the dusty gloom to the towering secretaire and slammed open one of the doors. The glass panes rattled. Curse the girl! He would be damned if she would blunder into his life and create utter chaos yet again. Eyeing his father's well-aged Scotch with distaste, he pulled out the rum bottle he had stashed behind a leather-bound edition ofThe Pickwick Papersand uncorked it. Tipping it all the way back,
he took a deep swig.
An image rose unbidden to his mind—Emily sailing off the banister and drifting across the English Channel, her starched petticoats swollen like the skin of a hot-air balloon.
He choked, spewing rum. Tears stung his eyes and seared his nostrils. He sank into a chair and clutched his aching sides as the laughter he'd been holding back rolled out in silent waves.
* * *
Justin spent the morning barricaded in the study, refusing to even look up from the Winthrop Shipping reports until Penfeld interrupted him for tea and sandwiches.
He took a sip of tea, then frowned. A frilly object was curled at the bottom of the cup. He crooked his pinkie and fished it out. Tea dripped from dainty pink rosettes.
"Penfeld," he said, pulling off his spectacles and glowering at the valet from beneath his brows. "May
I ask what this is?"
Penfeld looked up from cutting the sandwiches into flawless squares. A flush blistered his cheeks.
"Good Lord, sir. I believe it's a woman's garter."
"Would you care to explain how it got into my tea?"
"I haven't a clue." Penfeld lifted the lid off the teapot and peeped into it as if afraid an entire trousseau
of women's underwear might leap out at him.
A timid knock sounded on the door.
"Come in," Justin barked.
A gardener crept in, holding a rake at arm's length with such trepidation that Justin expected to see a snake twirled around its prongs. It was not a serpent, but a rumpled crinoline that dangled in his face. "Sorry to trouble ye, master, but I found this stuffed into one of the flower pots in the shed. Shall I
burn it?"
Justin's face was grim as he plucked the crinoline off the rake. "No, Will. I'll take care of it."
Breathing a sigh of relief to be rid of the offensive diing, the gardener left. Justin smoothed the rich
linen, over his palms. The pure, sweet fragrance of vanilla wafted to his nostrils.
