Glorious Angel (5 page)
She stepped back, ready to express her gratitude, but Bradford was regarding her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity, and she found herself tongue-tied once again.
“It’s not my habit to rescue females in distress,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Usually they have to be rescued from me. So why don’t you thank me for saving you from a fate worse than death? You
are
a virgin, aren’t you?” he asked frankly.
His question shocked her out of her silence. “Yes—and I—do thank you.”
“That’s better. What is your name?”
“Angela,” she replied slowly, still finding it difficult to talk to him.
“Well, Angela, don’t you know better than to be out alone, especially in this part of town?”
“I—I had to find my pa.”
“And did you?”
“No, I reckon he’s gone home by now,” Angela answered more easily now.
“Well, I think you should do the same, don’t you?” he said, and retrieved her rifle for her. “It has been a delight and a pleasure, Angela.”
There was nothing she could do but turn and start back to the river. But before long he caught up to her.
“I’ll walk you home,” he offered in a rather irritable voice, as if he felt he had to, but didn’t really want to.
“I can manage, Mr. Maitland,” Angela replied, her chin tilted proudly.
Bradford grinned. “I’m sure you can, Angel,” he said in a lighter tone. “But I feel responsible for you now.”
“My—my name is Angela,” she stated in a strangely quiet voice.
“Yes, I know. Now, where do you live?” he asked her patiently, his eyes warm.
Her heart soared. He’d called her Angel on purpose!
“I live on the other side of Golden Oaks.”
“For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you tell me that to begin with? Come on.” He took her arm and led her back up the street to his carriage. “I was on my way to Golden Oaks before you—ran into me.”
Bradford Maitland didn’t speak again until they had left the city and were traveling along the river road at a moderate pace. The road was deserted. The moon was hidden by dark gray clouds threatening rain. Blackness surrounded them as they rode along.
“You were going to walk all this way?” Bradford inquired in a disbelieving voice.
“It’s not that far.”
“I know how far it is, Angela. I have walked it before, and it takes most of the day to do so. You probably wouldn’t have reached home until morning.”
“I would’ve managed.”
He laughed heartily at her confident reply, then asked, “How did you know my name?”
“Why, you must have introduced yourself,” she replied nervously.
“No, I didn’t. You know me, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she answered in a whisper, then added heedlessly, “How come you’re here in Alabama? You’re not spyin’ for the North, are you?”
She was nearly unseated as Bradford jerked the carriage to an abrupt halt. Then he grabbed both her arms and turned her in the seat to face him.
“Spying? Where did you get a notion like that, girl?”
He sounded so angry that Angela was too frightened to speak. She could have cut out her tongue right then and there for making him angry.
“Answer me!” he demanded now. “Why do you question my loyalty?”
“I don’t question your loyalty, Mr. Maitland,” Angela said weakly. “I know you joined the Union Army last year.” She felt him stiffen and quickly added, “I thought it was a terrible thing when I heard, but now I don’t care anymore.”
“Who did you hear this from?”
“Hannah told me. She didn’t mean to, but it just slipped out.”
“Hannah?”
“From Golden Oaks. Hannah’s about the closest friend I got. You won’t be mad at her none for tellin’ me, will you? It’s not as if I told anyone. And I never will. I mean, I got no call to. This here war is crazy if you ask me. You fightin’ on one side and your brother on the other—it’s crazy. But you helped me tonight and I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I won’t tell no one you’re a Yankee soldier—I swear.”
“When you start talking, you talk a mile a minute, don’t you, Angela?” His tone was lighter now and he released her arms.
“I just want you to know your secret is safe
with me. You do believe me, don’t you?” she pleaded.
He flicked the reins and they began moving again. “I guess I’ll have to. I suppose you think I’m a traitor?”
“I don’t see why you had to go and join them Bluecoats,” she said sternly, then her face turned a bright pink. Luckily, it was too dark for him to see her embarrassment. “But I guess that’s your business.”
Bradford’s amusement returned. “It’s quite simple, really. I’m not a Southerner. My family has only lived in the South for the last fifteen years. I lived up North before then, and for a while out West. Even after my father surprised us by buying Golden Oaks, and moved the family down here, I still spent most of these last years up North, in school, and on business. I don’t believe in slavery. More importantly, I don’t believe in a divided nation. If states are allowed to secede and form new nations, what is to stop all the states from doing so? We would end up another Europe. No, my loyalty is with the North and the Union.”
“But your brother joined the Confederacy,” Angela reminded him.
“Zachary is a hypocrite,” Bradford replied, his voice suddenly cold. “He joined the Confederacy for God only knows what reason, but it has nothing to do with loyalty.”
“How long have you been back? I mean—”
Bradford chuckled. “You’re determined to know why I’m here, aren’t you?” he said, his tone more congenial. “Well, it’s no big military secret. I came in on one of the blockade runners today, all aboveboard, mind you. At present, I am no longer in the army. I was wounded during the Seven Days’ Battle in Virginia and discharged because of it.”
“But you’re all right now?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes. I took a chest wound and it was assumed I wouldn’t recover. But as you can see, I made fools of those army doctors.”
Angela giggled. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“But,” he added as an afterthought, “I will be joining up again, just as soon as my old commander is replaced. We never saw eye to eye. In fact, he caused me more frustration than the enemy. In the meantime, you could say I’m on furlough. Hell, I’m telling you more than I should. You have a way of drawing me out, Angel.”
She was in love with Bradford Maitland all over again. This was the happiest day of her life.
“I’ve talked enough about myself,” Bradford said now. “What about your family?”
“My family? It’s just me and my pa.”
“Who is?”
“William Sherrington.”
Angela couldn’t see the frown that crossed
Bradford’s brow. “Then your mother was Charissa Stewart?”
“That was her name before she married my pa,” Angela answered with surprise. “But how’d you know that?”
“So you are Charissa Stewart’s daughter,” he remarked oldly, ignoring her question.
“Did you know my mother?”
“No, fortunately I never met the—woman,” Bradford returned and then fell silent.
Angela stared at his tall frame silhouetted in the dark beside her. What did he mean, “fortunately”? Had she really heard anger in his tone? No, surely it was her imagination.
Angela closed her eyes, swaying with the bounce of the carriage, and reflected on the first time she ever set eyes on Bradford Maitland. It was three years ago. She was just eleven, and Bradford was twenty then, home from school for the summer. She had gone to the city with her father to sell the corn crop, but she got tired of waiting around the marketplace and decided to go on home. It had rained heavily the night before, and as she ran along the river road, she made a game of dodging mud puddles.
And then he charged by on a swift black stallion, on the way to the city. He looked like some avenging angel, dressed all in white, riding tall on that giant black beast. When he passed her, his horse splashed red mud all over the front of her
yellow dress. Bradford pulled up his horse and trotted back to her. He tossed her a gold coin, apologized, and told her to buy a new dress, then galloped away.
From the moment she stared up into his handsome face, she was in love. She told herself many times that it was silly to think she was in love, for she knew nothing about that. Maybe she just worshiped him. But whatever it was, it was easier to call it love.
She still had that gold coin. She had worked a small hole in it and begged her father to buy her a long chain so she could wear it as a necklace. It was around her neck now, as it had been for three years, resting between the two small hills of her breasts. She had continued to wear it even after she decided she hated Bradford Maitland for joining the Union. But she didn’t hate him anymore. She could never hate him again.
They reached her home all too soon. After she watched Bradford drive away, she stood on the porch for a long time, remembering his parting words.
“Take care of yourself, Angel. You’re getting too old to traipse about by yourself.” Flicking the reins, he drove off.
“Is that you, gal?”
Angela frowned when William Sherrington came to the front door.
“It’s me, Pa.”
“Where you been?”
“Out lookin’ for you!” she snapped angrily, though she was more than relieved to find him home. “And if you’d come home last night, then I wouldn’t have had to.”
“I’m right sorry ’bout that, Angie,” he replied in a voice that sounded a bit frightened. “It won’t happen again. Was that Billy Anderson who brung you home?”
“Lord, no!” she exclaimed. “It was Bradford Maitland.”
“Well, that was kind of him. And I promise, Angie, I won’t never leave you alone again. If I go to the city, then you’re comin’ with me. I know I ain’t been a good pa to you lately, but I will be from now on. I promise.”
He was close to tears, and all the anger left her. “Get on with you, Pa. You know I wouldn’t want no other pa but you.” She came over to him and hugged him soundly. “Now get yourself to sleep. We got a field to plow come mornin’.”
Instead of going to Golden Oaks, Bradford drove farther up the river road to The Shadows plantation and his fiancée, Crystal Lonsdale.
Crystal was blissfully unaware of his activities during the last year and a half—or so he assumed. After his conversation with Angela Sherrington, he wasn’t sure of his secret any longer.
Well, if Crystal didn’t know, then she soon would, for besides wanting to see his father, his reason for coming home was to make a clean breast of it with Crystal. Better now than after the war. It would give Crystal time to get used to his stand. Then, when he returned to her after the war, there would be nothing to prevent their immediate marriage.
Bradford turned onto the gravel drive leading to
The Shadows. It was not a proper hour of night to call, but he had chosen this time in hopes of avoiding Crystal’s father, and Robert too. It was one thing to tell Crystal where his loyalties lay. She was the woman who loved him and would never betray him. But to face the rest of the family might be suicide. He could even find himself shot as a spy, as the Sherrington girl had suggested he might be.
He was not a spy, nor could he ever be. Bradford was too honest for that.
Lights were still burning in the lower half of the house, and as Bradford approached the entrance, he could hear the soft notes of a piano. He frowned slightly, wondering if Crystal were entertaining guests.
Old Rueben, the Lonsdales’ Negro butler, answered Bradford’s knock, stepping back in surprise.
“Is that really you, Mr. Brad? Lord, Miss Crystal will sure be glad to see you!”
“I hope so, Rueben.” Bradford grinned. “Is she in the drawing room?”
“Yessuh. An’ you can go right on in. I don’t reckon you’ll be wantin’ a chaperon for this reunion.” Rueben grinned. “Nor will she.”
“She’s alone then?”
“She is.”
Bradford crossed the center hall and paused only for a moment before he opened the double doors to the drawing room. Crystal was seated at the piano, dressed in pink and white silk.
She was playing a haunting piece that he didn’t recognize. Everything about the room transported him into the past, including Crystal. She hadn’t changed at all. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever known.
She was so completely absorbed in her music that she was unaware of his presence. And when she finished, a long sigh escaped her.
“I hope that sigh is for me,” he said softly.
Crystal stood up. It was a few moments before she cried his name and ran into his arms.
Bradford kissed her lingeringly. She returned his kiss, but not for nearly as long as he would have liked. She never would let him hold her for very long. Yet she was remarkably contradictory in that she would have taken him to her bed had he even insinuated as much. He had been the one to hold back.
He was quite the proper gentleman before the war, much to his regret now. Had he taken her before, she would be more pliant now, and more likely to see his point of view.
“Oh, Brad.” She pushed away from him and looked up reproachfully. “Why didn’t you answer any of my letters? I wrote so many I lost count long ago.”
“I haven’t received any letters.”