Page 151 of Once an Angel
She started to walk past him. He caught her shoulders; his gaze searched her face. "You're lying to me. Why?"
Unable to bear the pain crystallizing in his eyes, she pulled away. "Please. I'd like to be alone now. I'm tired."
She brushed past him, knowing the most dangerous role in her charade had just begun. As she fled up
the stairs, the derringer lay like a cold weight against her thigh.
* * *
Emily was slipping away from him. Moment by moment. Day by day. The knowledge tore at Justin's
soul like jagged claws. Nicky's daily visits continued, but she no longer confided in him. He would enter
a room to find them sitting with heads together, laughing and whispering. They would fall into silence at the sight of him, and Emily's beautiful eyes would turn dark and cold with suspicion. Was she so eager
to believe ill of him that she'd allow even Nicky to spread his poison through her mind? He continued to play the invalid lunatic, at times querulous, at others fiercely jovial, each day feeling more like the madman he was pretending to be.
Both family and servants gave him wide berth. Not even the wounded bafflement in his mother's eyes was enough to make him lay down his pride and break his silence. It hurt too damned much to believe Emily would turn on him so easily. She made no more visits to his room, and he spent his nights pacing the spacious suite like a caged tiger. As his panic grew, he began to make his own inquiries into Nicholas's business ventures.
He returned from one of those sojourns late one evening, shaken to learn Nicky had booked two passages on a tramp steamer sailing for New Zealand within the week. Discovering Emily had gone out to attend the opera withher dear friendMr. Saleri only fueled his panic.
"You did what?" he roared at the bewildered Edith. "You allowed her to go out unchaperoned?"
"You never wanted her chaperoned before in his company," she protested, her lower lip trembling.
"You said he was an old friend of her father's. How was I to know?"
"If you'd use that porcelain head of yours for something besides hanging your ringlets on, you would
have known," he shouted.
Edith dropped her embroidery and burst into noisy sobs. Lily and Millicent closed ranks around her, patting her heaving shoulders and giving Justin looks that would have shamed the devil himself.
He paced away from them, running a hand over his weary eyes.
His mother shoved her bulk out of her chair. "You were always a good boy, Justin. Your father never even had to take the cane to you. I'm beginning to think that was a terrible mistake."
Justin spun around. "What did Father need a cane for? He had his sarcastic wit and his demeaning remarks for weapons. I wish he'd had the common decency to give me a beating with his fists."
Emily's dulcet tones cut through the chaos. "Here now. What's all this fuss about?"
They all froze, staring at her. She stood in the doorway of the parlor, dripping sophistication. A cream-blue dress of ruched satin hugged her hips, falling to scalloped ruffles draped to reveal an ivory underskirt. She wore matching gloves studded with pearl buttons, and her hair had been swept back at
the temples by mother-of-pearl combs. Combs he had bought for her, Justin realized, fighting blind rage.
Her skirts rustled as she swept in and knelt beside Edith, handing her a handkerchief from her satin reticule. "There now. You mustn't cry so. You're getting your lovely embroidery all soggy." She straightened and looked at him, her gaze free of reproach, or any feeling at all. "Didn't they tell you?
I just went to the opera.La Traviata.It was marvelous. I do so love all things Italian."
Justin bit back the obvious retort. What was she trying to do? he wondered. Provoke him to murder
right there in the parlor. "I need to talk to you."
She smothered a yawn into her gloved little hand. "In the morning perhaps. I'm off to bed now."
She strolled out, her bustled rump swaying beneath its satin sheath. There was dead silence for three
long, lazy sweeps of the mantel clock's pendulum. Edith didn't dare even to sniffle. Then somewhere
