The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings Book 2)
Read The Angels' Share (The Bourbon Kings Book 2) Online
Authors: J. R. Ward
Praise for J. R. Ward’s Bourbon Kings series
‘Breathless fun! J. R. Ward moves her trademark dark and sexy from the world of warrior vampires to the halls of the Kentucky elite, where the family members’ claws are just as sharp and the consequences just as deadly. I couldn’t stop turning the pages!’
New York Times
bestselling author Lisa Gardner
‘The setting is 80’s TV soap opera
Dallas
meets
Downton Abbey
… This is high drama, and it’s mesmerising’
Fresh Fiction
‘J. R. Ward delivers a sweeping saga where family roots run deep and passion sizzles hotter than a Kentucky summer. Potent and heady, one taste just isn’t enough’
New York Times
bestselling author Gena Showalter
‘The drama and dark secrets behind the Bradford family’s empire propel this irresistible story of high-society scandal … a read that’s rich, smooth, and satisfying as a glass of Kentucky bourbon’
New York Times
bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips
‘Soapy elements abound in this
Dynasty
esque tale, from lavish wealth to feuds, dirty secrets, and forbidden love … Ward is a master of pacing and world building’
Booklist
(starred review)
J. R. Ward
lives in the South with her incredibly supportive husband and her beloved golden retriever. After graduating from law school, she began working in health care in Boston and spent many years as chief of staff for one of the premier academic medical centres in the nation.
Visit J. R. Ward online:
Bourbon Kings series:
The Bourbon Kings
The Angels’ Share
Black Dagger Brotherhood series
:
Dark Lover
Lover Eternal
Lover Revealed
Lover Awakened
Lover Unbound
Lover Enshrined
Lover Avenged
Lover Mine
Lover Unleashed
Lover Reborn
Lover at Last
The King
The Shadows
The Beast
The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider’s Guide
Black Dagger Legacy series:
Blood Kiss
Fallen Angels series
:
Covet
Crave
Envy
Rapture
Possession
Immortal
Published by Piatkus
ISBN: 978-0-349-40991-7
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 Love Conquers All, Inc.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
Piatkus
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
Praise for J. R. Ward’s Bourbon Kings series
Dedicated with love to:
LeElla Janine Scott
xxx
The “angels’ share” is a term of art used in the bourbon-making industry. Nascent bourbon is put into charred oak barrels for its aging process, which can last up to twelve years or longer. As the barrels are stored in uninsulated facilities, the natural climate shifts in Kentucky’s four glorious seasons cause the wood to expand and contract in the heat and the cold and thus interact with, and further flavor, the bourbon. This dynamic environment, with the additive of time, is the final alchemy that produces the Commonwealth’s most distinctive, well-known and well-enjoyed product. It also results in a vital evaporation and absorption. This loss, which can average about two percent per year of the original volume, and which varies depending on the humidity of the environment, temperature swings, and the number of years of aging, among other things, is known as the angels’ share.
Although there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the depletion that occurs, a logical rationale, as it were, I love the romantic notion that there are angels in the warehouses of these venerable Kentucky distilleries, enjoying a tipple as they float above the earth. Perhaps it is a mint julep during Derby when it’s warm, and then a bourbon up neat during the cold months of winter. Maybe they’re using it to make pecan pie or to spice up their chocolates.
The functions for a good bourbon, as I am coming to learn, are endless.
I also think the term can apply to the weathering that changes us all over time. As the heat and cold of our experiences, our destinies, expand and contract our emotions, our thoughts, our memories, we are, like fine bourbon, a different product at the end—and there is a sacrifice involved: We are made of the same core elements we were at first constructed of, but we are never the same afterward. We are permanently altered. If we are lucky and we are smart and we are freed at the right time, we are improved. If we are aged too long, we are ruined forever.
Timing, like fate, is everything.
Virginia Elizabeth Bradford Baldwine, also known as Little V.E.:
Widow of William Baldwine, mother of Edward, Max, Lane, and Gin Baldwine, and a direct descendant of Elijah Bradford, the originator of Bradford bourbon. A recluse with a chemical dependency on prescription pills, there are many reasons for her addiction, some of which threaten the very fabric of the family.
William Wyatt Baldwine:
Deceased husband of Little V.E. and father, with her, of Edward, Max, Lane, and Gin Baldwine. Also father of a son by the family’s now deceased controller, Rosalinda Freeland. Also the father of an unborn child by his son Lane’s soon-to-be-ex-wife, Chantal. Chief executive officer of the Bradford Bourbon Company when he was alive. A man of low moral standards, great aspirations, and few scruples, whose body was recently found on the far side of the Falls of the Ohio.
Edward Westfork Bradford Baldwine:
Eldest son of Little V.E. and William Baldwine. Formally the heir apparent to the mantle of the Bradford Bourbon Company. Now a shadow of his previous self, the result of a tragic kidnapping and torture engineered by his own father, he has turned his back on his family and retired to the Red & Black Stables.
Maxwell Prentiss Baldwine:
Second eldest son of Little V.E. and William Baldwine. Black sheep of the family who has been away from Easterly, the historic Bradford estate in Charlemont, Kentucky, for years. Sexy, scandalous, and rebellious, his return to the fold is problematic for a number of people in and outside of the family.
Jonathan Tulane Baldwine, known as “Lane”:
Youngest son of Little V.E. and William Baldwine. Reformed playboy and consummate poker player in the throes of a divorce from his first wife. With the family’s fortunes in turmoil and embezzlement rife at the Bradford Bourbon Company, he is forced into the role of family leader and must rely now more than ever on his one true love, Lizzie King.
Virginia Elizabeth Baldwine, soon-to-be Pford, known as “Gin”:
Youngest offspring and only daughter of Little V.E. and William Baldwine. A rebellious contrarian who thrives on attention, she has been the bane of her family’s existence, especially as she had a child out of wedlock during her college years and barely graduated. She is on the verge of marrying Richard Pford, the heir to a liquor distributing company and fortune.
Amelia Franklin Baldwine:
Daughter of Gin and Gin’s one true love, Samuel T. Lodge. A student at Hotchkiss School, she is a chip off her mother’s block.
Lizzie King:
Horticulturist who has worked at Easterly for nearly a decade and has kept its gardens nationally renowned showcases of rare specimen plants and flowers. In love with Lane Baldwine and fully committed to their relationship. Not into the drama of the family, however.