Nobody's Angel

by Karen Robards

  "Move, you!" One of the men employed by Shay to guard the cash box shoved Ian from behind without warning. He stumbled, caught himself. He snapped his head around, fists clenching as he snarled at this newest tormentor. The offender took a hasty step back. Then the man remembered who he was and where he was and stepped forward again, ostentatiously shaking out the whip in his hand as if using it would be a pleasure.

  "Not here, fool. Shay'd mislike it," one of the other guards muttered, stepping between them. The first guard looked around, nodding sullenly.

  "Aye, you're right," he said, and coiled the whip again. Ian felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. He would not have surrendered to another beating without a fight.

  But the guard had not quite finished with him. He shouldered his whip and picked up a length of rope, fashioning what looked like a hangman's noose at one end. He stepped forward and with a smirk flung the loop around Ian's neck.

  "Goes against me grain, but I guess we'll just have to let your new owner deal with you. How does it feel to be a slave, me fine lordling?" This taunt was uttered under the man's breath so it would not be overheard.

  Ian's fists clenched. Bloodlust boiled in his veins, but he kept the urge to do murder under careful control. To snap the slimy little worm's neck would afford him only the most momentary satisfaction, for which he would then pay with his life.

  The bastard wasn't worth it.

  The frayed hemp chafed Ian's skin as the guard, jeering, deliberately tightened the noose about his neck, then jerked him forward another dozen or so paces. But after all the suffering he had endured over the past six months, he barely noticed the small discomfort. The real prick was to his pride; in some strange fashion the rope around his neck galled him more than the irons linking his wrists. The guard—Ian had had no dealings with him before and thus did not know his name—was no better and no worse than he had come to expect his captors to be. They were jackals, all of them, quick to rend the flesh of the weak. They had best pray God help them all when he was restored to himself again.

  But he had not been whipped, whereas, only two days before, no more than an insolent look had earned him a beating that had brought him to his knees. Why not? His brain, dulled by the heat or the smell or his own damnable physical weakness, took a moment to come up with the answer: he was no longer their property to abuse as they pleased.

  He had been sold. He was free of the sadistic crew.

  Now he had only his new owner to contend with.

  Ian's gaze, drawn more by instinct than by any conscious act of will, followed the path of the rope to the small, capable-looking hand that clasped its other end. A woman's. He'd been bought by a woman. As his eyes rose to the face that went with that hand, he felt a burning sensation build deep inside his belly. He knew what it was: shame. He thought he had grown immune to that long since.

  But being sold like an animal to a woman was as degrading as anything he had so far experienced. Once, in what seemed another lifetime, he wouldn't have spared a second glance for a dowdy dab of a female such as the one who now stood regarding him with what appeared to be both resolution and dismay. She was tiny, the top of her head reaching no higher than his shoulder even when she stretched herself to her full height, as she was clearly doing at that moment, and he was not standing particularly tall himself. And she was plain. Dumpy was the word that came to mind as his gaze slid over her. Her face was square, and her body looked square, too. Her bosom seemed ample enough, and her hips, but only the smallest indentation between hinted at any proper kind of female waist. Her fashion sense was clearly nonexistent. The gown she wore, of a faded tan color that appeared to be sprigged, most improbably, with orange flowers, was unbecoming, and her orange bonnet was worse. Even his toothsome Serena, with her tall, lissome figure and raven hair, would have looked less than beautiful in a rig like that.

  During the passage over, he had spent weeks chained in a dark, rancid-smelling hold, lying spoon-fashion on one of a tier of wooden pallets, with men crammed before and behind him. He had held on to his sanity by imagining what his future might hold. As soon as the ship docked, he would be sold at auction, he knew. He would become the property of a farmer, or a merchant, or one of the planters who, he had heard, ruled this part of the New World, Carolina it was called, like the nobles ruled England. But he didn't mean to be anybody's bound servant for long. At the first opportunity that presented itself, he would do whatever he had to do to regain his freedom. If violence against his new owner was necessary, well, he was no stranger to that. But a woman had never entered into his plans. Even such an obviously unfeminine one as this. Violence against women was where he drew the line.

  Or at least, it was where he had drawn the line. Before. But circumstances had changed, and so had he.

  To be free again, he would do whatever he had to do.

  The stone walls of Newgate and the stinking bowels of a ship had held him; this little dab of a woman would not.

  "Thank you," she said to Johnson as he handed her the Articles of Indenture. It was the first time he had heard her speak. Her voice was low and deep, her words slurred in a melodious fashion that was far more feminine than her appearance. Against his will, Ian felt himself drawn to that voice. It was lovely, soothing as a lullaby in this nightmare that had so unbelievably caught him in its coils. "Now you may strike his irons."

  "Ma'am?" Johnson gaped at her. Ian blinked. Surely she was not going to make it as easy for him as all that.

  Her eyebrows lifted. They were thick, straight, a shade or so darker than her hair, and very expressive. "I said I want his irons removed. At once, if you please." That she was accustomed to being obeyed was unmistakable despite the velvety drawl. Johnson looked at her uneasily, wetting his lips. Ian watched her too, beneath lowered lids that he hoped masked the sudden gleam in his eyes.

  "Now, ma'am, I daren't do any such thing. Yon's a bad lot. Violent, as we've learned to our cost. 'Tis attempted murder that brought him here, and . . ."

  "I have no use for chains. I would not treat a dog so, so please remove them."

  Johnson, cut off in mid-protest, shrugged and signaled to one of the guards to do as the lady wished. An anvil was dragged over, and Ian squatted to place his wrists on the iron. A mallet slammed home with the clang of metal against metal. One pin and then the other shot from its casing. The mallet grazed his wrist with the final blow. Ian ignored the small hurt, as he had learned to ignore most unpleasantness. He was alive, and that was what mattered. And he meant to stay that way.

  Perversely, now that his arms were free, Ian found himself questioning the lady's good sense. He rose slowly, so as not to make the pounding in his head worse, rubbing his numbed wrists and then spreading his arms wide. The muscles of his shoulders and back protested the unaccustomed movement, but it was a good kind of pain, and he welcomed it. He had not known such freedom of movement for almost half a year. The guard jumped hastily back at his sudden movement; Johnson's hand strayed to the pistol at his waist. But the lady watched him unmoved, her head cocked a little to one side, her hand still clasping the end of the rope that encircled his neck. Had he been more himself, Ian would have found the situation utterly ridiculous. She could not have been more than an inch over five feet tall, if that, while he stood six feet two in his bare feet. Though she was sturdy for her size and he was emaciated, he could have picked her up and held her immobile with one hand and wrung her neck with the other. Yet she had ordered his irons removed. What would she do if he turned ugly, pray?

  "Susannah, be careful, please!"

  This plea and the sound of shocked giggles from just beyond the woman drew his eyes. Glancing over the top of that hideous bonnet with no trouble at all, Ian beheld a trio of girls clustered at the lady's back. One was lovely, the other two merely passable. All three were looking at him as if he had sprouted horns through the top of his head. The quiet-looking one in the pink bonnet held her hand pressed to her mouth as she stared at him in open fe
ar. Ian had to repress an urge to bare his teeth at her, just to give her a taste of what she so obviously expected.

  "See here, Miss Susannah, I'll take the miscreant off your hands for you, give you back the money you paid for him to the pound. 'Tis no shame to admit you've made a mistake." The speaker stepped up to stand beside the woman, looking down at her. He was a choleric-looking fellow who might have passed for her father but for his manner of addressing her.

  "I do not want the miscreant taken off my hands, thank you very much, Mr. Greer. I am convinced that he will suit my purpose admirably." For all her frumpishness, the lady could summon the cool hauteur of a duchess. She even managed to give the impression of looking down her nose at a man who was half a head taller than she.

  "When the animal tries to murder you all in your beds you'll sing a different tune, my dear, but 'twill be too late then. If you will not think of yourself, at least think of your poor innocent sisters." Greer wore a bottle-green frock coat that would have been the better for being thoroughly brushed and a pair of black breeches that seemed to have been made for a much trimmer man. He looked every inch the bumbling provincial and would have been laughed out of London or Dublin had he blustered about so there. Here, it seemed, he was an important man, and one who was used to being obeyed. The lady's intransigence caused his face to turn even redder than nature and the hellish New World sun had rendered it.

  "He is not an animal but a human being, and he will certainly not try to murder us in our beds. How absurd you are to even suggest such a thing!"

  That decided speech, delivered with a lift of her too- square chin, made Greer look apoplectic. His lips clenched, and his eyes promised trouble as they darted from her to Ian and back.

  "Absurd, am I? When even the likes of Hank Shay and his men were afraid to strike his irons? I am not the absurd one here, I fear!"

  "Nonsense."

  "Nonsense!"

  "Nonsense."

  Her cool stare seemed to drive Greer over the edge. Before Ian realized what the man was about, Greer snatched the rope out of the lady's hand and yanked it hard. Ian's head was jerked forward, the hemp bit deeply into the skin of his neck, and he had to bite back a pained oath.

  "Mr. Greer!"

  Ian's hand shot up to close over the man's fist even before the protest was out of the lady's mouth. His eyes blazed, his fingers tightened, and he knew the momentary urge to bring the bleating fool to his knees with the sheer pressure of his grip. But to humiliate the man publicly would be to create a dangerous enemy, and Ian already had enough of those. For a moment, just a moment, his eyes locked with Greer's. He slowly eased his grip before releasing the man entirely and stepped back.

  "You'll pay for that!" Greer danced with rage. He shook his fist at Ian, who watched him without expression. The man talked a good game, but he was careful to stay out of reach. Ian had known many like him, all loud bluster until put to the test, and then the first ones to hightail it to safety. His eyes narrowed with contempt.

  "I'll have you whipped till you bleed, you insolent bastard! Hell, I'll do it myself, with pleasure! You'll learn to lay hands on your betters at your peril! You won't be so high and mighty when the cat's slicing your back to ribbons!"

  The past eight weeks had rendered Ian sensitive to that particular threat. Rage rose in his throat, bitter as bile. By the skin of his teeth he managed to bite it back, but his eyes glittered ferociously at Greer, causing the man's words to falter.

  "That's quite enough, Mr. Greer! You are making a spectacle of yourself, and us as well, to no good purpose. I will thank you to leave the management of my people to me." The gentle slurring of the lady's words in no way mitigated their bite. She took the rope from Greer's hand, then stepped around him, showing him her back in no uncertain manner. Then the lady looked lip, all the way up, to meet Ian's gaze. Her eyes matched her voice, Ian saw: soft and unexpectedly lovely.

  "You need have no fear," she said. "You will be kindly treated, and you will not be whipped. You may put that concern from your mind."

  "Susannah, I think you should at least give Mr. Greer's caution some thought. This is no three-legged dog or one- eyed cat, but a man." The chit in the pink sunbonnet spoke urgently to his new owner's back. Though the comparison made no sense to Ian, Susannah—like her voice, her name was surprisingly feminine—appeared to understand it without the least trouble. She inclined her head.

  "I'm well aware of that, Sarah Jane. But I am certain that Mr."—she looked down at the papers in her hand, then back up at his face—"Mr. Connelly will do us no harm. Will you, Connelly?"

  4

  For a moment Ian stared at her without answering. The simmering hatred that had grown to be as much a part of him as his arm cooled just the tiniest bit. She was so very naive that he wanted to laugh at her—did she really think that she could trust the word of such as he?—but her eyes were so large and grave that he found himself giving her the answer she sought.

  "No," he said, and slowly shook his head. His voice sounded rusty from long disuse. The timbre of it surprised him.

  She smiled at him then, and he was interested to discover that her face was quite transformed. "There, you see." Her eyes left his to swing around triumphantly to the group behind her.

  " 'Twould be useless to tell you that I think you've done a very bad day's work for yourself, 'tis clear. You are one of God's angels here on earth, Miss Susannah, as we all know. You would not recognize evil if it stood grinning at your right hand. I honor you for that even as I fear your very goodness will cause you to come to grief. But whether you wish it or not, I feel I must do what I can to keep you and yours safe."

  Greer transferred his gaze from the lady's face to Ian's. Ian regarded him with no expression whatsoever. Greer's fists clenched, and his voice grew harsh. "Despite what you may think, Miss Susannah here and her sisters are not unprotected. Do you in any way cause them to come to harm, or offer the least insult to her or hers, and I'll peel the hide from you inch by inch with my whip whether Miss Susannah says me yea or nay. Then, if the offense merits it, I'll have you dragged before the magistrate and with God's grace see you hanged as you doubtless should have been to begin with. Do you hear, fellow?"

  Ian stiffened, but did no more than that. The man was a bully and a fool and not worth the price that he would have to pay did he crush him like an ant. But his hatred, slightly cooled, boiled anew.

  In some strange way, Ian realized that he welcomed the emotion's resurgence. It strengthened him, fortifying him against pain and fear—and the ridiculous softening he had felt in himself as he had stared into Miss Susannah Redmon's smiling eyes. It had been so long since he had known true goodness that he had almost forgotten what it was like.

  "I'll thank you to save your bullying for members of your own household, Mr. Greer." If Susannah's eyes had been smiling when they met Ian's, they were smiling no longer as she turned them on Greer. Instead they flashed angrily, and her chin came up as she fixed Greer with a look that was as daunting as if the lady had been twice her present size, and a man to boot. "Now I must ask you to excuse us, please. Come along, Connelly. Come along, girls."

  Without so much as another glance at Greer, she turned on her heel and started to walk away.

  "But, Susannah . . ." The pink-bonneted girl protested in a faint voice as she fell back out of her sister s way.

  "Hush, Sarah Jane," said Susannah, and she tugged on the rope that bound Ian to her as she reached the end of its length without stopping. It was an absentminded tug, Ian thought, but still it was too much. The hemp stung as it dug into the raw welt left by Greer's harsh jerking of the rope, but the pain was nothing compared to the sting to his pride. He was having none of being hauled through the crowd at the end of a tether. He did not move but put both hands up to loosen the knot and slip the loop over his head.

  At his refusal to budge, the rope went taut and stopped Susannah in her tracks. She looked back over her shoulder at him to find the noose n
o longer about his neck but rather held in both his hands. Her expressive eyebrows lifted in silent inquiry. By way of a reply, he dropped the noose to the ground. His eyes challenged her to protest.

  Instead she nodded once, in a decided way. "You are quite right, of course. I should not care to be dragged about at the end of a rope, either. Now please follow me."

  Somewhat to his own surprise, Ian obeyed. With neither chains nor rope to hold him, freedom beckoned ever more brightly. But he could not very well just turn and walk away, however much he was tempted. Someone would surely give chase. He would be recaptured, probably harshly punished, and certainly guarded far more carefully in future. It was clear that his new owner had more heart than sense. He could tarry awhile in her household, regaining his strength and formulating a plan for the future, without fearing either physical abuse or humiliation. For the first time in a long time, his prospects looked bright.

  At the thought, Ian felt a lifting of his spirits. Unfortunately, his body did not respond quite as swiftly to the renewal of hope as did his mind. As he set one foot in front of the other, Ian was disconcerted to realize just how weak he was. He had to force himself to concentrate even on so simple an act as walking, had to will his feet to obey the commands of his sluggish brain. Something—the heat, the sun, the damned sickening smell of rotting vegetation that permeated the place—was making him dizzy.

  So dizzy was he that he was barely aware of the curious eyes that fixed on him from every direction as he followed his new mistress through the throng. He was only peripherally conscious of Susannah being greeted by what seemed to be half the matrons present, to which obviously expectant salutations she responded with no more than a smile and a wave. Trailing not too far behind him came the three girls he assumed were her sisters. He knew they were there because he could hear them whispering. One of them giggled.