My Fallen Angel (3 page)

She stiffened when his hand trailed up her side, skirted around her breasts, traipsed along her collarbone, and up the side of her neck to halt at long last on her jaw. She felt him shift, realized he was going to kiss her, realized that she should tell him to stop, but then she felt the gentle caress of his breath on her cheek, and then … and then …

Heaven.

It was a kiss so soft, yet so … so
amazing,
Lucy was too stunned to move. Her legs weakened. She felt Garrick try to catch her wilting body, but they were so cramped in the narrow confines of the closet they could barely move. He grunted in frustration, and without removing his lips from hers, pushed past some petticoats and stepped from the closet, leaving her behind. It worked out perfectly, for their two heads were on level.

Lucy sighed in contentment, but then he did something so unexpected, so startling, she stiffened in protest. Still he continued to pull her shirt from the waistline of her breeches. She pulled her lips away, but he startedtrailing kisses down the side of her neck instead. That left her momentarily breathless and so she closed her eyes, but then he leaned back and before she knew what he was about, he touched her breast.

She pushed him away in shock.

He flew over backward like Hyperion falling from heaven.

And downstairs two gazes shot to the ceiling.

“Now, you tell me that weren’t nothin’,” one footman said to the other.

“What
do you
think
you’re
doing!”

Garrick didn’t want to open his eyes. Unfortunately, the voice which had spoken sounded all too familiar. Arlan Horatio Shuck, his “Heavenly Guidance Counselor.” He opened one eye, then wished he hadn’t. The white-robed figure staring back at him looked furious—livid, really. His wings beat back and forth like a hawk’s hovering over its prey. The motion caused the papers on his desk to rustle. One of his feathers came loose and drifted to the white tiled floor.

“You’ve been alone with Miss Hartford for a half hour,” he ranted, raising his hands in the air.
“A half hour,
and
already
you’ve nearly broken your vow. What? Do you
want
to go to hell?”

Garrick stared at Arlan warily. Arlan stared right back. The silence stretched on, the only sound the agitated flapping of Arlan’s wings as they brushed against the room’s walls, a room where everything was white: the desk, the ceiling, Arlan’s hair. It was like beingtrapped in the middle of a blizzard. It gave Garrick a headache.

“Well,
say
something,” the angel demanded.

“This is not a fair test.”

“Oh.” The angel’s thin lips spread into a grimace, exposing teeth that would be better suited on a horse; his blue eyes narrowed into a squint. “Oh, oh, oh, I get it.” He looked toward the ceiling. “He says it’s not a fair test.”

Thunder rattled the little room, and the angel squinted back at him, a look of disgust on his face. “That excuse didn’t work for Adam, either.”

“Then give me another person to guard.”

“Sorry. This is the path you chose, Garrick. This here and this now. We can’t undo what we’ve already done because you’ve changed your mind.”

When Garrick didn’t answer, he added, “Do you know what we went through to place that little boy in Lucy’s care?” Arlan didn’t wait for an answer, just raged on. “First the carriage accident. And then manipulating Lucy into offering to care for the child, not that that took much work. You simply cannot change your mind midway through the test. This is your one chance to go directly to heaven. If you don’t, you must take your chances with the Well of Souls.”

Garrick stared at the angel for a long moment then ran his fingers through his hair, muttering, “God’s balls. I had no idea it would be this hard.”

“God’s
what?”
Arlan snapped.

Garrick stared at him in confusion.

The lightning bolt came out of nowhere.

It filled the room with its brightness, bounced off a nearby chair, ricocheted off the door, and found its mark on the left cheek of Garrick’s rear.

“Bloody hell!” he yelled, looking over his shoulder to check the damage.

“All clear?” asked a muffled voice from under a desk. Garrick turned back in time to see Arlan peek out, breathe a sigh of relief, and then slowly stand. “Whew. Thought you were going to get hit harder than that. The Chief must be in a good mood today. Guess you learned
that
lesson.” He dusted off his robe.
“Not
a good idea to say things like that around here. Now, where were we? You were asking for a different assignment and I had just told you no, but there was something else. Ah yes, I remember now.” Arlan reached into his desk and pulled out a scroll that, when unfurled, was easily two feet long. “I was going to tell you how many penalties you’d incurred for touching Miss Hartford.” He scanned the list. “Where is it, where is it? Kissing, kissing, kissing. Ah, here it is!” His brow furrowed as he read, “An automatic one-day deduction shall be incurred when a guardian kisses his client.”

Arlan looked up.“See? You’ve already lost a day. And right below it says a deduction of two days shall be incurred should you touch a mortal’s, er … ahh, private parts. That means you’ve lost three days in all, leaving you a total of twenty-four days to prove the identity of the little boy Lucy has in her care. Need I remind you, Garrick, that if you break your vow of celibacy, you go directly to the Well of Souls. It’s simply not a good idea to waste your earthly energy on physical pleasures. Consider it a stroke of luck that you qualified for the Guardian Program the first time around. Granted, if you go back to the Well, you might, and I stress
might,
get another chance, but I doubt it. And if you don’t, well, you know where they’ll send you.”

“Hell,” Garrick muttered.

“Well, at least you’ve remembered
that
much.” Arlan’s eyes held a warning as they stared across at him. “You must be circumspect, Garrick. Prove the identity of that little boy within twenty-four days and you’ll earn your spot in heaven. Fail and it’s back to the Well of Souls to await a hearing. And do you have any idea how long it takes to get a hearing? An eternity.

“My advice is to stay as far away from Lucy Hartford as possible since you seem to be so, er, attracted to her. ”

“Garrick, please, please wake up.”

If there was one thing Garrick had learned to hate it was the way he was zapped from one location to the other. The same thing had happened the first time he’d been tossed from heaven.
Kapow …
and he was on the ground watching Lucy Hartford’s behind hurtle toward him from above.

A tentative hand touched his shoulder, bringing him back to the present. Was it his imagination or did that hand linger? He opened his eyes, then wished he hadn’t. She was close, too close.

“Oh, thank God. I thought you dead,” she murmured.

God should be so kind.“How long?” he mumbled, throat dry. After the sunlike brightness of Arlan’s room, the candle she’d lit seemed as dim as moonlight in comparison.

“Only seconds,” she answered, “but we must leave. When your head hit the floor, you sounded like Goliath falling to the ground.”

He nodded, then sat up.

“Garrick,” she said softly.“You’re not angry with me, are you?”

“No,” he snapped, pushing himself to his feet, fed up with the whole situation: Arlan, Lucy, the bloody mess this day had turned out to be.

She stood up alongside of him, then tugged at his arm. Reluctantly, he turned to face her.

“I’m so sorry for pushing you away,” she said hesitantly.“What you did just startled me so. Not even dear Harry has done that.”

Dear Harry? Who the hell was dear Harry? Never mind, he didn’t want to know.

He shook his head, furious with himself for losing control in the arms of an innocent—an incredibly responsive innocent, but still an innocent.

“And I suppose I should warn you that I’m not the world’s most graceful person,” she went on to say as he stood.“Things just seem to happen around me. I mean, I didn’t
plan
for that branch to break earlier, but it did.” She sighed.“My aunt says I’m as clumsy as a pig on ice. And dear Harry refuses to dance with me—”

“Miss Hartford,” Garrick interrupted.“I assure you I will never touch you again.”

He wouldn’t
? Lucy thought. Whyever not? But then she realized she shouldn’t
want
him to touch her. Sheshould want dear Harry—a man who was expected to propose to her—to touch her. She should be outraged, horrified, disgusted by Mr. Wolf’s behavior. She should be stricken with maidenly affront. At the very least she should slap his face.

Instead she felt a brazen need to make him want to touch her again. She peeked up at him.

He glared.

Her heart sank. Just sank to the bottom or her dirt-stained heels. He didn’t like her. That much was clear. A lump the size of Sir Wilmont’s garden grew in her throat. She tried to swallow, nearly choked, then looked away. Heaven knows she should be used to such reactions from men.

Heaven knows she wasn’t.

Turning, she blindly reached for the door, wanting only to escape. It was hard to say who was more surprised when she opened the door and came face-to-face with two servants—her or the servants. One man’s mouth gaped open. His face filled with horror, the dim light of the lantern he held turning his features into a ghoulish mask. He crossed himself.

Unfortunately, the other servant wasn’t so timid.“Thief!” he screamed, pointing at her.

“Well!” Lucy huffed, sniffing back her tears.“I never. Thief indeed. Why, I’ll have you know—”

Whatever else she’d been about to say was unceremoniously cut off when Garrick jerked her back and slammed the door in the footmen’s faces.

“Stop!” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

Garrick shoved the lock in place, then pulled her toward the adjoining sitting room. He tried the window, but it was closed now. She watched as he struggled with the latch for a moment, then gave up and tugged her toward the door.

They burst into the same hallway as their pursuers, and a cold gust of air blew out Lucy’s candle. She dropped it to the floor, then glanced over her shoulder and saw that the two servants had spotted them.

“Stop, thief,” one of them yelled, charging in their direction.

She faced forward again only to crash into Garrick’s back a moment later. He almost tumbled down the dark chasm before them. A stairwell.

He hesitated a moment, then plunged down the steps; Lucy followed closely behind. They made it down with nary a misstep, only to meet up with another servant at the bottom.

Lucy, unable to stop her momentum, sent the man flying backward with an “oomph.”

“Beg your pardon,” she blurted, managing to stay upright only because Garrick had a vicelike grip on her upper arm.

“Stop!” ordered their first pursuer from the stairs above.

They headed for the front door, bursting into the chilly night air a second later. It was blacker than a witch’s cauldron outside, but Lucy noted Garrick somehow knew instinctively where to go.

The sound of pursuing footsteps receded, but still Garrick pushed on, practically shoving her up a smallknoll, which Lucy dared to hope was the same knoll where her cart was hidden. When they crested the rise, she wheezed in relief at the sight of her pony cart.

“We can’t go in that,” he immediately announced. The wretch didn’t sound the least bit out of breath, she noted.“We’ll take my horse.” He pulled her forward, dragging her behind like a poodle on a leash.

Horse, what horse? But then her eyes opened wide upon spying the white horse tethered next to the pony. Where had that come from? And the sudden moonlight, too?

“Hurry, they’re pursuing us.”

Lucy heard the thrashing footsteps as well.“B-but what about my aunt’s pony?” she asked breathlessly.

“Leave it.”

“We can’t,” she gasped in a breath.“My aunt will be furious.”

In response he quickly untied the pony’s traces, then slapped the little animal on the rear. Lucy watched in dismay as her aunt’s pony and cart rumbled off into the night like a mail coach on its way to London. Next Garrick untied his horse and quickly mounted. He held out a hand to her.“Hurry,” he ordered.

“I can’t.”

Garrick looked from her to the two servants nearly upon them, one of them brandishing what looked to be a pistol.“This is no time for theatrics, Lucinda,” he rasped.“Give me your hand.”

“But I hate horses,” she wailed.

She saw him frown just before he reached down and grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled her atophis animal. The breath was forced out of her as she landed face down over his thighs. He gripped her derriere, then kicked the horse forward.

Lucy forgot everything as she struggled to stay aboard the lurching beast. Something swung alongside her head and she realized distantly it was Garrick’s leg. She clutched at it frantically.“Garrick! Let me down!”

He ignored her words.

Minutes later Lucy prayed fervently for Garrick’s horse to throw a shoe, have a fit of horsy apoplexy, or drop dead—anything to put her out of her misery. The ground sped by at a distance far too close for comfort. Her hair all but dragged on the ground. Her stomach felt ready to purge itself.

And then the horse lurched. Lucy gasped.

Seconds later they both flew through the air.