Glorious Angel
Johanna Lindsey
Glorious Angel
For my mother,
whose love and encouragement are priceless
Contents
One
Angela Sherrington tossed another log on the hearth. “Damn myself,…
Two
Billy Anderson slowed his mares. He had ridden as if…
Three
Angela slammed the door with a bang and threw the…
Four
Hannah went the full mile back to Golden Oaks, almost…
Five
The sun had set by the time Angela reached the…
Six
Instead of going to Golden Oaks, Bradford drove farther up…
Seven
Angela Sherrington sat in one of the two old wicker…
Eight
Angela was sure she had dreamed her meeting with Jacob…
Nine
Angela spent the afternoon pacing restlessly about the large bedroom.
Ten
The night was a long one, for Angela had a…
Eleven
Jacob Maitland took her to Mobile a little later. They…
Twelve
After three winters in South Hadley, Massachusetts, Angela should have…
Thirteen
Angela returned to school late in the afternoon and went…
Fourteen
When Bradford returned to his home in New York, he…
Fifteen
Bradford rode to the jail with David Welk in a…
Sixteen
Angela showed little interest in her surroundings. The huge bedroom…
Seventeen
After that first time, she rejoiced in the week they…
Eighteen
Zachary Maitland knocked on the door to the study and…
Nineteen
Angela waited anxiously on the dock, sitting on one of…
Twenty
The downtown office of David Welk was tastefully furnished by…
Twenty-one
Three weeks after Jacob Maitland’s attack, Hannah met Angela in…
Twenty-two
Bradford Maitland paid his bill and left the Mobile hotel.
Twenty-three
Bradford said good-bye to his father, who tried once again…
Twenty-four
Angela spent the rest of the day in her room,…
Twenty-five
Angela had wondered for so long why Bradford never came…
Twenty-six
Angela awoke with a sudden start, half expecting to find…
Twenty-seven
Golden Oaks was a different house with Bradford Maitland living…
Twenty-eight
Bradford was still determined to keep Angela well out of…
Twenty-nine
“Angel, hurry up,” Bradford called impatiently from outside her door.
Thirty
It was nearly one o’clock when Angela awoke, but she…
Thirty-one
Zeke halted the carriage in front of Madame Tardieu’s little…
Thirty-two
It was nearing dusk as the two riders wearily approached…
Thirty-three
The first knock on Angela’s door was so light that…
Thirty-four
Bradford Maitland returned to Mobile to learn that his father…
Thirty-five
Jim McLaughlin cleared his throat and looked slowly around the…
Thirty-six
Under the torrid western sun, the stagecoach bounced along the…
Thirty-seven
Angela sat across from the sheriff’s desk, close to tears.
Thirty-eight
It didn’t take Angela long to pack. Soon, wearing a…
Thirty-nine
Angela finished the breakfast dishes and sat down at the…
Forty
The wind howled fiercely against the windows. The sky was…
Forty-one
Morning dawned bright and sunny, without a trace of yesterday’s…
Forty-two
Angela waved good-bye to her guests, waiting on the porch…
Forty-three
“Did you sleep well, amigo?”
Forty-four
Angela stood on the porch, leaning against a post, looking…
Forty-five
Angela reclined against the corral fence, one foot resting on…
Forty-six
The afternoon was cold, with dark purple clouds approaching from…
Forty-seven
Threatening clouds hovered and an eerie quiet prevailed as Bradford…
Forty-eight
Angela returned to her hotel room after an early dinner.
Forty-nine
Angela spent two full days in bed. The storm raged…
Others Books by Johanna Lindsey
Angela Sherrington tossed another log on the hearth. “Damn myself, anyhow!” she cursed as she glared at the sparks shooting out onto the floor.
If only she hadn’t been so foolish as to waste matches! Now she was forced to keep the fire burning all day and all night. Since the matches had run out last week, the shack Angela called home had been hell to live in.
Angela cast another glowering look at the fire and then she walked out onto the narrow porch in front of the little one-room shack. She was hoping for a breeze, but it was at least eighty degrees. She cursed herself again. In this sorry year of 1862, matches were scarce. The war had made every necessity scarce, and she would just have to be more careful.
The Sherrington farm, if it could be considered
a farm at all, was less than a quarter mile from the Mobile River, and about a half day’s ride from Mobile, Alabama’s largest city. The fields surrounding the farm were newly bare, as was the harvest shed, with its rotting walls and leaky roof. The house had once been whitewashed, but now it was necessary to strain to see the few patches of remaining paint. Two wicker chairs in deplorable condition and a wooden crate that sufficed for a table were on the porch.
Reluctantly, Angela went back inside the house and began kneading dough at the kitchen table. The heat was wearing her down, what with the fire blazing behind her and the sun pouring in through the windows in front of her. But equally wearing was the worry over her father. He had gone to Mobile yesterday to sell the last of their corn crop. He should have returned yesterday afternoon, but for the fourth time in her life, Angela had spent the night by herself. It was a sad fact that all four times had happened since the war.
With a heavy sigh, Angela gazed out the cracked window to the red field. The field should have been plowed that morning to make it ready for the new crop of peas and lima beans. She would have begun the task herself if they owned more than one mule. But they didn’t, and her father had old Sarah hitched to the wagon. Damn his old leather hide, where
was
he?
Angela had been up since well before dawn. That was the time she liked to clean house, the only time of day in summer when it was cool enough. Her home wasn’t much, but nobody could say it wasn’t clean.
Angela wiped at the sweat on her face. She tried to stop worrying, but she just couldn’t. The other three times he had stayed away all night had been when he was too drunk to make it back to his wagon. She hoped he was only drunk, and that he hadn’t gotten into a fight.
Angela could take care of herself. She wasn’t worried about that. Even when her father was home, he was often drunk and lying in bed. She hated it, but there was nothing she could do to stop his drinking. William Sherrington was a drunk.
Of necessity, she had learned how to hunt game. Otherwise she might have starved waiting for him to come out of his stupors. She could kill a moving rabbit in only one shot.
Yes, she could take care of herself, but that didn’t stop her from being uneasy whenever her father was away.
Awhile later the sound of an approaching wagon made Angela’s spirits rise. It was about time! And now that her anxiety was over, her anger surfaced. Her father would get an earful this time.
But it was not old Sarah who came loping
around the tall cedars. Two gray mares were pulling a dusty, mud-splattered carriage. And the last person she wanted to see was driving that carriage.
Billy Anderson slowed his mares. He had ridden as if an army of Yankees were hot on his tail. The chance he had been waiting for had come unexpectedly this morning, with the knowledge that William Sherrington was passed out drunk in the street, leaving his daughter alone. Billy grinned, recalling the day.
The morning had begun as any other, with the hot summer sun quickly melting any traces of the cool night. It would be another fiercely hot day, a day to fray everyone’s nerves, a day to make tempers flare. Billy stretched lazily and wiped the sleep from his eyes. Before opening his father’s store for business, he gazed out into the street where hawkers were crying their wares, servants were hurrying to market, children were playing while they had the chance to, before the heat sent
everyone scurrying home to hide in their shaded houses.
It wasn’t too different from before, Billy thought. At least Alabama was not like other southern states, where battles were being fought. The Union army had been kept out of Alabama. To many people here, the war was not quite real.
Billy snorted. Yankees were cowards—anyone with sense knew that. It was only a matter of time before the Confederacy won the war. Things would be normal again. And Billy’s father would be out of debt.
A long sigh escaped him and Billy stretched, trying to shake the sleep from his lanky body. He moved over to the large table covered with bolts of material and fingered the dull cottons resting protectively on top of the more expensive cloths. It had been a long time since anyone had bought even the cheap cottons.
These were hard times for everyone. But that wouldn’t last much longer—it couldn’t. And one day this store would be Billy’s. He didn’t have the heart for merchandising, though. He didn’t have the heart for much of anything—except whoring.
Billy grinned, his brown eyes crinkling. He sauntered over to the long counter where the money box was kept and sat down heavily on a three-legged stool behind it. Running his hands roughly through his reddish-brown hair, he tilted the stool until his back rested against the shelves
behind him, and propped his feet up on the counter.