Page 252 of Once an Angel
"Very good, sir. Right away." He began to tug at the knot around the dog's collar.
"Penfeld!" Emily wailed. As she backed away from Justin, her feet slid on the dead grass.
He stalked her, grinning like a vengeful demon. "Why make these poor policemen come all the way
out here for nothing? They can use their wagon to cart me off to jail. Think what a nice, peaceful place prison will be after living with you for a day. I can while away the hours with thieves, ruffians, and other killers."
Her voice trembled. "This isn't very sporting. You can't murder me in front of all these witnesses."
She came up against the trunk of an oak. His fingers closed ever so gently around her throat, his broad thumbs seeking and caressing her throbbing pulse points. "Why not? They can testify before the House
of Lords that I was provoked. They won't hang me. They might even give me a medal of valor."
The pads of his fingertips combed through the delicate fleece at her nape. Her shiver vibrated through his taut body like the stroke of fingers against harp strings. A shiver of what? Justin wondered. Cold? Fear? Reaction to the heat blasting like a furnace from his body? A glint of triumph sharpened in her smoky eyes. The tip of her pink tongue moistened her lips. Taunting him. Tempting him.
Her husky whisper was meant only for his ears. "What do you really want to do, Justin? Kill me ... or
kiss me?"
He wanted to kiss her, all right, long and hard and rough. He wanted to mate her mouth with his teeth
and tongue until he'd wiped away her teasing smirk. He wanted to carry her upstairs to his bedroom and lock the door against them all. He wanted to peel off her damp clothes and drown her beneath the unrelenting weight of his body until neither of them could think or walk straight.
Then he'd kill her.
She'd done it again, he realized. With barely a flutter of her silky lashes she'd committed the unpardonable sin of shattering his composure and making him feel alive again. More alive than he'd felt since he buried her father.
His hands dropped from her throat. He unbuttoned his coat and with a sweeping motion laid it over her shoulders.
"I must apologize for the inconvenience, gentlemen," he told the bobbies. "I fear my ward is a bit high-spirited."
"Nothing a good beating wouldn't cure," Harold muttered, still sulky from being rousted from his bed.
His bluster wilted beneath Justin's glacial stare. He slipped behind Edith's skirts.
Justin linked his hands over his waistcoat, every inch the affable lord of the manor. "I'm sure you know how trying children can be."
The bobby ducked his head. "That we do, Your Grace. Got eight of 'em between us, don't we, Ned?"
"Aye, Clarence. And a feisty lot they are."
Justin divided a wad of pound notes between the two men. "Buy yourselves a round of ale when you
get off duty. For your trouble."
As the men climbed onto the wagon, still singing the praises of the generous duke, Justin commanded
his own driver to take the dog to the stables. Penfeld mopped his brow with Emily's sash, thankful to
be relieved of his monstrous burden. Justin refused to look behind him.
"Mother, would you please escort Emily to her room?"
"That won't be necessary." Emily's words rang out in the crisp air.
He pivoted to face her. She hugged his coat closed at her throat like a queen's mantle. She wore her dignity well, but not well enough to disguise the stricken look in her eyes—eyes darkened by his casual betrayal.
"Thank you, but I'm not so young I can't toddle up the stairs unassisted." As she brushed past him, a whiff of vanilla tickled his nostrils.
