Almost an Angel (7 page)

"Why, James," she teased. "This is all so sudden." But her smile faded when he did not respond. Just moments before he had been fantasizing about capturing her beneath him; now fate had literally placed her there. He was not about to lose this opportunity.

Supporting himself on his elbow, he looked at her, enjoying the fresh blush of her cheeks and the sparkling clarity of her eyes. He had to touch her. He'd been denying himself too long. And she seemed willing. Using his free hand, he touched her face, gently brushing a curl away from her eyes. Her skin felt soft, like angel down, surrounded by short gossamer strands of spun gold.

"What a crime to crop your hair so short."

"What?" Her response was breathy and almost inaudible, and he felt it pass his cheek on a whisper of air.

"The poets say a woman's hair is her crowning glory. Who cut yours so short?" He played with it, drawing the silky stands over his fingers, delighting in the feel of each lock as it tickled the back of his hand.

She tried to pull away, but he would not release her. Not before he had explored the smooth planes of her face. Not until he had tasted the ruby bow of her lips. But as he leaned forward, he felt her skin flush with new heat. Looking down, he witnessed her enchanting blush.

"Carolly?” he whispered.

"In one of my past incarnations, I had to pass myself off as a boy. It was a bloody mess trying to get all that hair into a cap, so I cut it off. I've kept it short ever since."

He felt his eyes widen in shock. Though his attention had been focused on her face, he could not deny the exquisite feel of her left breast pressed intimately against his chest, its point a tiny pebble of heat. Lower down he felt the yielding indent of her waist before the hard flare of her hipbone.

"How could anyone mistake you for a boy?" he asked, his voice already thick with desire.

Her blush deepened, and he decided he liked the idea that he could affect her. "I, uh, I didn't do it often and not for very long."

"I should say not." He let his fingers pull away from her hair to trail across her soft cheek and gently caress her full lips. "Your curves are decidedly feminine."

He would kiss her now. He knew it with a profound sense of inevitability. No force on earth would prevent him. And so he lowered his head to touch his mouth to hers, but she shifted beneath him, her long body sensitizing his with her every movement.

"Uh, James. I think you better get off now." Her voice remained breathy, and he could hear the regret in her voice. She wanted his kiss as much as he wanted to give it. And yet, inherent modesty forced her to twist her hips away from him, to push at his shoulders. She could not know that her very movements inflamed him all the more.

He pressed his bad knee downward to hold her steady. God, to feel a woman beneath him again, warm and lovely and aching for his touch. She moaned slightly, a desperate, hungry sound of both surrender and desire. All he required for completion was motion, so he lowered his head and at last touched his lips to hers.

Lord, she tasted sweet. Innocence and wonder were pale descriptions of his feelings at their first tentative touch. He felt Carolly's mouth tremble beneath his, even as her entire body seemed to soften, surrounding him in heat and beauty.

"I can't do this," she whispered. But her mouth clung to his, her hands trailed upwards to stroke his arms, his back.

"It's just a kiss," he lied. "One, single, sweet . . ." His lips descended again, and this time he opened her mouth with his tongue, exploring deeper. He felt his blood surge as he began to take control, his mouth slanting more fully over hers, his body angling between her thighs, opening her to his touch, encouraging her surrender.

He went too fast. He knew it and so did she, and he felt her stiffen beneath him. "No!" she cried. "I can't!" Then she tried to shove him away. But he was too heavy, his bulk too much for her slender frame.

He shifted, twisting to remove his weight from her. But as he did so, she jostled him and his bad leg strained to support his weight. Suddenly it slipped, slamming him down onto the hard wood floor with just enough force in just the right place to completely immobilize him. Pain sliced through his limb like a hot nail had been driven deep through his kneecap.

"Lie still," he gasped, his voice harsh. He tried to lift himself up, but his muscles locked up and her every breath jostled him further, bringing fresh waves of torment.

Unfortunately, she thought he was continuing to take advantage of her. "Get off, James."

"I cannot."

"Then let me help you." She abruptly shifted her leg out from under him, unwittingly wrenching his knee again as she did.

"Caroaiiiiiiee!"

"James?" She tried to sit up, and he obliged her by rolling backwards, nearly fainting from the shooting bolts of anguish.

"My knee," he managed to gasp.

"Oh, God, you really are hurt. What happened?”

"I injured my knee . . . in Spain." Shallow, panting breaths kept the worst of the pain at bay.

"Oh, Lord," Carolly moaned. "That's why we fell down. You have a bad knee!"

He opened his eyes, trying to keep his breathing steady. "I apologize for accosting . . ." His words faded as fresh waves of agony punished him. Nevertheless, he forced himself to roll onto his side, intending to stand up and apologize for his heinous actions in the proper manner. His leg did not cooperate. "Damn," he grunted.

"What are you doing? Lie still!"

"I should not have done that," he responded through clenched teeth.

"What can I do?" She was frantically looking about the room. Suddenly, she jumped up and grabbed a pillow from the bed. "You shouldn't have pulled me in the window. I could have made it myself."

"I have insulted you," he began again, but she wasn't listening. Instead, she focused on sliding the pillow beneath his knee.

At last she said, "It's God's way of punishing you, you know. For being so macho." She stood again, reaching into the bed curtains for another pillow.

He shook his head. "It is the Lord's way of telling me I should not kiss lunatics," he snapped.

She was lifting his head, intending to slide the second pillow beneath, but she froze at his words. He watched her eyes, and he saw them grow glittery as they filled with tears. "Oh God, you're right. Oh, James, I'm so sorry." She set his head down on the pillow. "I won't let it happen again."

"What are you talking about?" The pain was subsiding into an aching throb of misery, and the whole experience had made him curt and irritable. "You should be demanding my apologies," he said.

"Shhh. Don't try to talk."

"Damn, woman, I—"

"I said, shut up!"

He stared at her, torn between shock at her tone and amusement that she was trying to keep him silent because of a knee injury. But then she leaned over him and brushed a lock of hair from his brow, and he forgot everything. He gazed into the deep swirling pools of her eyes.

"I'm well aware that in your culture a woman is responsible for her own virtue," she said.

Her words took a while to reach his brain, but when they did, they made him furious. He jerked away from her touch and glared at her. "Do not be ridiculous. I tried to take advantage of you, and I most heartily beg your forgiveness for such reprehens—"

"Shhh." She pressed her fingers against his lips, but he shook them off.

"I will not be quiet. I was in the midst of begging—"

"My forgiveness. I know." Then she dropped her hand into her lap and regarded him silently. He tried to shift to see her expression more clearly, but a sharp pain in his knee kept him still. When he finally could see her, he wondered at the strange expression on her face. She seemed remote, as if she were afraid he would see too much of her thoughts. Compared to the openness he usually felt with her, her current lack of expression was like a bucket of ice water in the face.

"What has happened?” he asked. "What are you thinking?”

 "James," she began, speaking slowly as though carefully weighing her words. "Do you often force yourself on unwilling servant girls or unprotected guests?”

He stiffened in outrage. "Of course not!"

"Then, I was your first?"

"Madame, this conversation is highly improper!"

"So is trying to force yourself on me," she responded tartly. "Now answer my question."

He lifted his head off the floor, but she pushed him back onto the pillow. "I was not forcing you," he snapped. "You only needed to say no!"

"So, which is it, James? Am I responsible for my own actions or not?  If you weren't forcing me, then I must have been willing. And it was just a kiss."

"But—"

"I was willing, James." Her eyes darkened. "It's been so long.  And for the first time in forever, I felt . . ." She gestured vaguely with her hand. "Womanly." She touched his cheek. "Alive." Her fingers trailed longingly over his lips. "I let myself get carried away. I'm so sorry. It won't happen again."

She pulled her hand away and began to stand, but he grabbed her wrist, kept her beside him. "You are alive, Carolly. Perhaps more alive than anyone I have ever met."

She shook her head. "I'm different, James. I was born in the twentieth century, and now I am forced to be an angel—"

"No!" He shook his head, trying to make her focus on the rational, the here and now—anything but her strange delusions. "There is nothing wrong with what we did. I was merely jesting before. God is not punishing me. Kissing is perfectly natural. And as for your culpability, I simply overwhelmed your maidenly sensibilities."

"Not a prayer," she said. "You could never overwhelm those." She grinned at him, and for a moment he was lost in the brilliance of her smile. But then her expression faded as she grew serious. "Of course there's nothing wrong with kissing—provided you do it with a living person. I'm dead, James. I want you to fall in love, but necrophilia wasn't what I had in mind."

He was shocked. Necrophilia? She should not even know such a word, much less understand it. Certainly such words were not taught to gently bred girls. Yet, neither would a common laborer have learned it. In fact, most educated men did not even know it.

Ignoring the pain in his leg, he pushed himself upright to confront her. "Who are you?"

"I've already told you, James. When are you going to start believing me?"

He had no answer.

She passed a hand over his swelling knee. "I better get your valet. You'll need to ice that before it becomes a grapefruit. Even so, you may have to cut your trousers just to get them off." At his look of astonishment, she chuckled and pushed to her feet. "Good Lord, James, you don't mind rolling around on the floor with me, but you're shocked when I talk about taking off your pants? Don't be such a prude." Then she dropped a chaste kiss on his forehead and disappeared, leaving him more frustrated and confused than ever.

***

Back in her room, Carolly sat on her bed and listened to James and his valet shuffle by. The valet murmured something polite, but James responded with a string of curses that made Carolly giggle. She hadn't thought he knew how to swear, but obviously she'd been wrong. Obviously James possessed a rough edge that he rarely revealed to anyone.

Carolly dropped onto her pillow, her thoughts spinning back to that moment on the floor. He'd kissed her. She touched her fingertips to her lips, still feeling them tingle. She'd never wanted a man more.

Abruptly, she pulled her hand away. She couldn't give in. She was working her way toward being an angel, and angels didn't seduce their charges. Besides, with luck she'd only be around a few more weeks, a couple of months at most. She was finally getting the hang of this time-travel business. Her last life had been very short. If she worked hard, then this one would go equally quickly. It wasn't fair to James to start something that would end so soon.

Yet her legs still trembled with wanting, and her heart beat triple-time with every thump as James's valet helped him to his master suite.

She had to do something fast, had to get him interested in other women. Her chest squeezed at the thought, but she refused to be stopped. True angels didn't lose their focus. She had a mission, a purpose here, and she wasn't going to welsh on it no matter what the personal cost.

But how? It wasn't like eligible women were beating down James's door.

Carolly bit her lip and wondered what was wrong with the local females. James was a handsome, well-dressed man. She sighed in wistful memory of tonight's dinner. He'd worn a dark maroon evening coat contrasted with a white linen shirt and a single diamond to anchor his cravat. Carolly's mouth watered even now. If only other women could see him like that. They'd climb in the windows to get to him. Surely then he'd find one to his liking, one who could change his life and make him happy.

Carolly flopped over in bed. How? How would she get women here? As far as she could tell, no one ever came to visit. Obviously, a person had to be nearly beaten to death to be invited in.

The answer came suddenly. It was like a divine whisper in her mind, and she knew immediately that it was the perfect solution. And so simple!

A ball. Just like the one where Prince Charming finally met Cinderella. A huge ball for all the eligible ladies in the land, or at least from the surrounding area. Given James's title and wealth, they'd be crammed into the rafters.

Organizing would be a lot of work, of course. And she'd need Mrs. Potherby's help every step of the way. But this was still the perfect solution.

The only problem was how to convince James. Worse yet, she had to convince him without giving in to her baser instincts. Without throwing herself into his arms in the most shameless fashion. It would be a difficult task, because more than anything else—more than throwing a Cinderella ball, and perhaps even more than gaining her angel wings—Carolly desperately longed to finish what they'd started on that bedroom floor.

Chapter Six

Carolly tried not to run. She tried not to streak through the house on the way to the library, but it was hard to restrain herself.

The mail had arrived.

Mrs. Potherby had told her quite clearly: The post had come. And with it came the
London Times
. Finally, she had a chance to find out exactly when and where in time she'd landed. Sure she knew the date, but Carolly needed to fit herself into world events.  Plus, she was desperate to get an idea of modern fashions. After all, she didn't want to disgrace herself at James's ball.

She barely checked her speed at the closed library door, pausing only to throw it open before she sailed through. "Good morning, James!" she called sweetly.

He sat in a comfortable leather chair, one that might have been a recliner if they were a hundred years in the future. As it was, it seemed big and warm and very elegant—the perfect backdrop for James in his superbly fitted, tightly clinging coat and pantaloons. Geez, didn't the man ever look bad? After last night's disaster with his knee, he could at least appear a bit disheveled. But no, he had to look like a Greek god. An annoyed Greek god. One with a fearsome scowl.

"Goodness, Carolly, has no one ever taught you to knock?"

She grinned at him, her eyes hungrily taking in both him and the newspaper spread across his knees. "Of course I know how to knock. I was trying to catch you doing something scandalous."

"In the library?" He seemed more shocked by the suggested location than by anything else.

She gave an airy wave. "If you prefer, I can burst into your bedchamber."

He carefully set down his paper. "I would rather you not burst in on me at all."

She crossed the room to drop into a chair. "I'll try, of course, but my mother used to say I have the manners of a barnyard animal. Is that the newspaper?" She leaned across to lift if off his knee, but he neatly folded it up out of her reach.

"Is there something you wanted, Miss Carolly?" His tone of annoyance finally broke through her fixation, and she realized she'd have to cajole him out of his ill temper just to get her hands on his paper.

She sighed and flopped back into her chair, then looked at the difficult man across from her. "How's the knee?"

"My leg is recovering quite nicely. I shall no doubt be able to ride as early as tomorrow."

She nodded, suddenly understanding. "You're in a bad mood because you couldn't go riding today."

"I am in a perfectly normal humor."

"Which for you means a bad mood, especially when you can't ride in the morning." She dropped her chin onto her hand, her gaze straying longingly to the newspaper. "Unless it was something you read. What's happening in the world? I'm desperate for a peek."

To her surprise, he seemed to soften toward her. His lips lost their pinched look. The change was as startling as it was subtle. "I would not worry about Napoleon, Carolly," he said gently. "We managed him before, we shall manage him again."

"Napoleon?" Carolly perked up. Of course, the Napoleonic wars! "Is he doing something?”

James flipped the paper to the front page, his expression grim. "He has escaped."

"Escaped St. Helena?"

He gave her a sad look, the one men reserved for particularly ditzy women. "From Elba."

"No . . ." She frowned, sifting through her dim memories of history class. "Oh, right. He's doing his hundred-day thing." If she remembered correctly, Napoleon marched through France bent on a glorious re-instatement as supreme emperor. It took the English a hundred days to defeat him.

"I beg your pardon?"

She curled her legs up beneath her as she settled into her chair. "You have to remember that for me the Napoleonic wars happened over a hundred years ago. The most I can remember about him was that he died on my birthday."

"He is still alive, Carolly."

She tried not to laugh at his solemn expression, but it was hard. He took everything so very seriously. "Well, of course he is, silly. He
will
die on my birthday. May fifth, by the way—in case you want to get me a present." She was teasing him, but he seemed to take the comment as proof of her idiocy.

"That was two weeks ago," he said repressively.

She sighed with her own special dramatic flair. "Oh, well, can't blame me for trying. So what were we talking about?"

"Napoleon." He said the word as if he didn't really want to hear any more of her nonsense, but couldn't stop himself.

"Right. If memory serves," she said, gazing sweetly at him, "and believe me, it wasn't all that reliable even before this reincarnation stuff." He clearly didn't know how to respond to that, so she just kept talking, ticking off the facts on her fingers: "First, Napoleon escapes from Elba. Then he marches around terrifying everybody for a hundred days before he gets it at Waterloo."

"Where?”

"Waterloo. Oh, you mean, where is Waterloo. Gee, I don't know." She shrugged. "What exactly is Napoleon doing?"

James glanced down at the paper, and Carolly noticed how tightly he gripped the pages. "He is gathering another army."

"Oh." Slowly she began to fit the pieces, not into a world order, but into the way they fit James personally. She eyed his injured leg, now stretched in front of him, all hint of last night's accident totally masked. "You were wounded in the army, weren't you?"

"Yes." The word came out almost as hard as the planes of his face.

"You must be worried about your military friends."

He didn't answer, but she saw the anguish in his eyes.

"Well, don't worry. The British perform brilliantly at Waterloo."

"Carolly—"

"I know, I know—where exactly is Waterloo? Let's see. Where do you think he'll march first?"

James shook his head, and she wondered briefly how involved he'd been in military strategy. Probably deeply. He seemed born to command. "It must be really hard for you to be out of the loop, so to speak."

"I beg your pardon?”

"Well, you're stuck in the countryside far away from the most important battle of the century."

"Carolly—," he began, but she cut him off.

"Oh, stop thinking so much and just play along for a moment. Where do you think Napoleon will go first?"

He sighed, but his gaze grew abstract as he started thinking. "Probably into Belgium to reestablish France's so-called natural borders."

She nodded. "Well, there you have it. Waterloo must be on the way to Belgium."

He frowned at her. "Or perhaps he will cut south into Spain, or expand westward toward Italy."

She shrugged. "Whatever. Waterloo is in Europe somewhere. I'm sure of it. Unless it was that big naval battle . . ." She shook her head. "I really wish I could remember. Mostly I remember reading Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings
through history class. Elven battles seemed much more interesting at the time."

"Of course," he agreed, his voice completely deadpan.

Carolly glanced up, then suddenly fell backward with a peal of laughter. "Oh, James, lighten up. I promise, Napoleon rules for a hundred days, gets beaten at Waterloo by . . . um . . . beef . . . beef Wellington, and then gets sent off to St. Helena."

"To die on your birthday. Which has already passed." His tone remained excruciatingly disbelieving.

"Well, he obviously doesn't die this year." She laughed. "It's in ten, twenty years or so. Does it really matter?"

He took a long time to answer, but when he did it was with infinite sadness. "No. I do not suppose it does."

Carolly felt her good mood slowly evaporate. The man across from her was the most handsome she'd ever met. In fact, he was a lot of "mosts." The most sexy, the most infuriating, and the most sweet. But he thought she was completely insane.

"James—"

"Perhaps you should go rest for a while, Carolly. We will have a busy afternoon hunting insects with Margaret."

"I'm not crazy, James."

"I never said you were."

"But you're thinking it." Carolly bit her lip, wondering exactly how she could bring him around. Then she remembered the other reason she'd come here this morning. Putting on the smile that had always worked wonders on her father, she clapped her hands as if suddenly getting a brilliant idea. "I know, we'll make the ball a Waterloo theme party! Naturally, it's going to be the topic of the hour. It'll be great."

"Ball? What ball?"

Carolly tried to look shocked. Her best strategy was to pretend he'd forgotten, even though she'd never mentioned it to him. "Why,
your
ball, of course. You're going to have a party. With dancing and food and lots of champagne."

He leaned forward, and Carolly was relieved to see the lines of strain ease from his face. Unfortunately, he shifted to a severe frown. "I am not going to have a party, Carolly. I do not give balls, I do not dance, and I do not have champagne."

"Wine, then. Or ale. It doesn't really matter what people drink," she said, focusing on the easiest of his objections.

"Carolly—"

"Oh, come on. It'll be fun."

"I sincerely doubt—"

"How else are you going to meet all the eligible young women in the land, hmm?"

"No."

"Let me think." She jumped up and began pacing, pretending she hadn't heard his refusal. "All I have to find out is when Napoleon lands in France, add a hundred days, and voila, we have the Battle of Waterloo."

"No, Carolly."

"I'll make all the arrangements. With Mrs. Potherby's excellent guidance, of course. Cook will be thrilled, I'm sure. She'll get to show off her culinary arts. Maybe we could even get Mags—"

"No."

"Just think of it, James."

Suddenly he stood, his injured leg rigid as he grabbed her shoulders. "I do not dance, Carolly. I do not need to meet any more women. Believe me, those already in my life are more than enough."

He glared directly at her. She made a face back at him.

"And I will not allow a rout or an endless parade of husband-hungry women through my parlor."

"But—"

"End of discussion!"

Carolly could see she was beaten. James's eyes blazed gray lightning. If she pushed any more, she risked being tossed out on her ear. At last, she sighed in defeat. "All right, James."

"Good. Now I suggest you go to your room and rest for a while. You have had an extremely taxing morning."

"You mean
you've
had an extremely taxing morning," she said airily. "I've just gotten started."

He groaned. It was a sound made of frustration and dread. She loved it. Finally, she was breaking through his cold reserve. Perhaps this morning hadn't been a total loss after all.

"I believe I shall go sit in the garden," he ground out.

"Good idea," she agreed, flashing one of her best smiles. "And I'll look at the fashion pages for ball gowns." She winked outrageously at him. "Just in case you change your mind."

He stared at her in open-mouthed shock. Then with a curse, he stomped out of the room. She didn't stop laughing until after she heard the front door slam behind him.

***

"Mags, tell me about your uncle." Carolly lowered her butterfly net and sidled closer to the young girl. "Does he have any lady friends? Maybe some woman that he talks to a lot?"

The girl didn't look up, but her snide voice carried easily. "He will not many you. You are not proper enough."

Carolly winced as the words hit home; then she quickly covered her pain with a false laugh.

"Oh, how sweet of you to think of me," she said gaily. "But no, I'm talking about another lady he might get interested in." Why did the words taste like dust in her mouth?

"He sometimes goes to London." Margaret glanced up, her large eyes serious as she awaited Carolly's reaction. "Mrs. Hornswallow says all men have needs. Uncle James goes there to take care of them."

Carolly wrinkled her nose. "Ugh. Sounds like he's going to get his tooth pulled or something."

"No, he goes to have carnal relations with a woman."

"Uhh . . ." Carolly let her voice trail away. What could she say to that?

"Miss Hornswallow says we have to be practical about understanding men's baser instincts."

"Everyone has baser instincts," Carolly returned. "Men just don't bother to hide them." She let Margaret chew on that while she turned her attention to Mrs. Hornswigger, who was sitting rigidly correct under a nearby tree just up the hill. The woman seemed happily occupied with James, discussing Greek poets as if the subject truly intrigued her.

Carolly sighed. She hated to admit it, but Mrs. Hornsipper was rising in her esteem. The woman seemed quite intelligent and apparently spoke bluntly to her charge about every possible subject, including sex. Carolly couldn't help but admire such honesty. She knew how rare that was, especially in the 1900s. Unfortunately, from what Margaret had been saying, the woman's views tended to be somewhat bitter. Her attitude on men's baser instincts seemed typical of the governess's general outlook.

Carolly shook her head. Any woman who could speak so bluntly was either a realist or had been badly hurt. Glancing over at the thin governess, currently conversing with regal formality with James, Carolly judged it a little of both. The genteel poor suffered a miserable lot. Mrs. Hornswoffer was lucky to find so fair a boss as James. Yet, fair or not, her existence certainly couldn't be one filled with much joy.

Carolly sighed, mentally adding Miss Hornswallow to her list of people to assist.

"Look! Look, I got one!"

Carolly turned as Margaret held up her butterfly net to show what looked like a huge black grasshopper. It jumped around in the net, scrambling for an opening, but Margaret cut off the poor creature's escape.

"That's wonderful," said Carolly, suddenly feeling a kinship for the little thing, trapped as it was in delicate gauze, suddenly snatched from its peaceful world without explanation. "Now what do we do with it?”

"Miss Hornswallow! Miss Hornswallow! I got one." Margaret scrambled up the grassy hill. Both governess and guardian turned at the child's scrambled approach, each with a fond smile.