Glorious Angel - Glorious Angel 1

by Johanna Lindsey

  Glorious Angel

  Johanna Lindsey

  The sensuous daughter of a dirt-poor Alabama farmer, Angela Sherrington dreams the impossible: loving the dashing heir to the magnificent Golden Oaks, Bradford Maitland...and having him love her in return. Now, in the satin boudoir of a Yankee bordello, her wish is coming true.

  At long last in the arms of the proud, powerful man she has always desired, Angela finally knows what rapture means. But scandal and a shocking family secret threaten to destroy their miraculous, forbidden romance — unless two newly joined hearts can remain strong and true to a once-in-a-lifetime passion too powerful to deny.

  * * *

  AVON BOOKS

  An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination of are use fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  AVON BOOKS

  An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, New York 10022-5299

  Copyright © 1982 by Johanna Lindsey

  Cover art by Al Pisano

  Inside cover author photograph by Jerry Chong

  Published by arrangement with the author

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 81-66477

  ISBN: 0-380-79202-8

  www.avonromance.com

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

  For information address Avon Books.

  First Avon Books Printing: February 1982

  Avon Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. and in Other Countries, Marca Registrada,

  Hecho en U.S.A.

  HarperCollins® is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  Printed in the U.S.A. WCD 30 29 28

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  For my mother, whose love and encouragement are priceless

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  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.

  Chapter 2

  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 throu
gh 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.

  Sam Anderson would take a fit if he found his son like this, but Sam Anderson wouldn’t be down for another hour or so, having had a late night with his cronies. Billy’s father liked cards and dice, and anything else he could wager on, and Billy just managed to keep quiet every time his father said, “Just one big win, and we’ll be out of debt.” But Sam Anderson’s luck wasn’t with him, not the way it had been before the war. He continued to lose and borrow, lose and borrow more.

  Billy snapped to attention when the tiny bells above the door jingled. His eyes widened with surprise when two young women entered, their frilly parasols swinging from their wrists, and he recognized nineteen-year-old Crystal Lonsdale, high and mighty princess of The Shadows plantation, and her friend, Candise Taylor. Billy assessed them thoroughly. Crystal was stunning, with wide blue eyes and shimmering blond hair. A trifle skinny for his taste, but certainly a beauty, and one of the most sought-after females in Mobile County.

  Candise Taylor was a few years older than Crystal, with raven-black hair tucked neatly under her blue bonnet, and startling blue eyes the color of early dawn. She was the daughter of Jacob Maitland’s closest friend, here for a visit from England. She was as lovely as Crystal, with a softer face and gentle manner.

  Billy came around the counter and approached the two fashionably dressed young women, the one in pink and the other in blue. He wished that he were not so poorly dressed.

  “Can I be of service, ladies?” he asked in his most sophisticated voice, a charming smile on his thin lips. Crystal glanced at him briefly, then turned away. “I hardly think so. I can’t imagine why Candise wanted to come in here.”

  “It never hurts to shop wisely, Crystal,” Candise replied shyly.

  Candise looked quite embarrassed, though not nearly as much as Billy as he watched them walk away from him and heard Crystal’s annoyed drawl. “Really, Candise! Your daddy’s as rich as mine is. Why, when Maitland asked me to accompany you shoppin‘, I never dreamed you’d want to come to a place like this!”

  Billy bristled. The snobby little bitch! He’d love to throw Crystal Lonsdale out on the street. But he knew his father would horsewhip him if he so much as looked at her funny. She was too close to the Maitland family. Jacob Maitland was a very wealthy man. He was also a man to whom Sam Anderson was deeply indebted.

  Billy stalked back to the counter and plopped down on the stool again. He watched the two young women furtively, his freckles noticeable now because his face was pale with anger.

  Billy would have given anything to be as rich as Jacob Maitland. Billy had always envied the Maitlands. He could still remember the day they arrived in Mobile, fifteen years before. He had gone to the docks with his father to pick up a shipment of goods for the store. A large ship had just docked and there were Jacob and his wife and their two sons, the only passengers on that fine ship. Billy was awed by their rich clothes, the magnificent carriage awaiting them, the crate after crate after crate of Maitland belongings.

  It was currently rumored that Jacob Maitland’s business interests were so many that he was one of the richest men in the world. He had properties and businesses, mines, railroads, and countless other investments all over the world. Billy didn’t know, but Maitland was surely one of the richest men in Alabama.

  There was a man who didn’t have to stay in the South while the war was going on, who could be living anywhere in the world. Yet he was a southern gentleman now, and had elected to stay and support the South. And support it he did, with money, and with his younger son Zachary, who had joined the army, leaving the older son, Bradford, to handle the family interests. Now, there was a fellow Billy envied—Bradford Maitland. He had all that money, lived as he pleased, and traveled all over the world.

  What luck to be a Maitland! How Billy wished he were one of Jacob Maitland’s sons. How often he had dreamed of being part of that family. He didn’t have those silly dreams anymore, but the envy was still there.

  Billy’s attention was abruptly drawn.

  “Why, even trash like the Sherringtons come in here,” Crystal was sneering.

  “You mean that poor man you pointed out to me? The one lying in the alley?”

  “That disgusting wretch we saw lying drunk in the alley. Yes, William Sherrington. Did you know they live only a mile away from Golden Oaks?” Crystal asked her friend disdainfully. “I can’t imagine why Jacob Maitland lets a man like that farm his land.”

  “I think it’s a shame,” Candise ventured.

  “Heavens, Candise! You’d pity anyone. Now let’s leave this place before someone sees us here.”

  A smirk formed on Billy’s lips as he watched the two girls leave the store. Yes, run little princess, before any of your fancy friends finds you slumming. Bitch!

  His blood had quickened as he listened to them discussing Angela Sherrington’s father. That wild, fiery-tempered hellion had been his obsession for a long time. Although she had only just turned fourteen, she had filled out nicely recently. She was the prettiest piece of white trash he’d ever seen.

  Billy had hardly recognized her when she came into the store a few months back. No longer a skinny little brat with stringy brown curls, she had started showing curves. And her face had changed. Angela Sherrington was downright pretty. Her eyes were deep violet pools hidden by thick, sooty lashes. Billy had never before seen eyes that color. They could catch and hold attention as if casting a spell.

  After that day, Billy had started going out to the Sherrington farm and hiding in the crop of cedars that formed a thick wall in front of the Sherrington shack. He watched her working in the fields with her father. She wore tight breeches and a cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves. Billy couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  Billy waited impatiently for his father to come down so he could leave. And when he left the store, he made sure that William Sherrington was just where Crystal had said he was.

  Now Billy’s time was at hand. Just thinking about Angela being all alone in that shack caused an ache in his loins. Now he would have her! He could just feel her wiggling beneath him. He would be the first, too, and that counted for a lot. Lord, but he couldn’t wait!

  Billy halted the mares and leaped down from his father’s carriage.

  “That’s far enough, Billy Anderson.”

  Billy smiled. She was going to put up a fight, and that just might be even more fun.

  “Now, is that any kind of greetin‘, Angela?” he asked indignantly.

  He stared at the rifle she held pointed at him but then his eyes moved to her slim hips, outlined by breeches, then up to the tight shirt. Her breasts pressed hard against the rough material. Obviously, she wore nothing beneath it.

  “What’re you doin‘ here, Billy?”

  He looked at her face now, smudged with dirt and flour, but still pretty, and then he caught and held her eyes. What he saw surprised him. Was it humor? Was she laughing at him?

  “I just came for a visit,” Billy said, running a hand nervously through his hair. “Anythin‘ wrong with that?”

  “Since when you come visitin‘? I thought you was the kind that just hid behind trees, too damn scared to come forward,” she replied.

  “So you know about that?” he asked smoothly, though his blush betrayed him.

  “Yeah, I know. I seen you plenty times, hidin‘ over there,” she said, nodding toward the cedars. “What you been spyin’ on me for?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  Her eyes widened and seemed to turn a few shades darker, a striking violet-blue. Now there was no trace of humor. “You get, Billy! Get!”

  “You sure ain’t bein‘ very neighborly, Angela,” he said warily, his dark brown eyes on the rifle held firmly in her hands.

  “You ain’t my neighbor, and I got no call to be neighborly to the likes of you.”

  “I only came to visit—sit
down and talk a spell. Why don’t you put down that rifle and—”

  “You admitted why you came, Billy, so don’t be tellin‘ me lies now,” she said coldly. “And this here rifle ain’t leavin’ my hands, so why don’t you get your skinny ass on back to the city where you belong.”

  “You’re a foul-mouthed little bitch, ain’t you?” he sneered.

  She smiled, showing gleaming white teeth. “Why, thank you, Billy Anderson. If that ain’t the nicest compliment I ever did get.”

  He decided on a different approach.

  “All right. You know why I came, so why are you bein‘ so disagreeable? I’m not just out for a little fun. I’ll take care of you. I’ll set you up in a house in the city. You can leave this little farm and live a life of ease.”

  “And what would I have to do in return for this life of ease?” she asked.

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she returned. “And my answer is no.”

  “What the hell are you savin‘ yourself for?” Billy asked, his freckled face showing his irritation and bewilderment.

  “Not for the likes of you, that’s for sure.”

  “The only thing you got to look forward to is marry in‘ another dirt farmer and livin’ just as you are now for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?”

  “I got no complaints,” she replied defensively.

  “You’re lyin‘!” he snapped and started toward her.

  “Don’t you come no closer, Billy!” Her voice rose to a high pitch. She stared straight into his angry eyes. “I’m gonna tell you honest that I’ll shoot you without battin‘ an eye. I’m sick’n tired of you boys thinkin’ you can have me just for the askin‘. Hell, most of you don’t even ask—you just grab. I’ve had it, do you hear? I ain’t got the strength for no more fightin’. But this here rifle’s got strength. It’s got the strength to blow your conceited head off. So you better get before that’s just what happens!”