Nobody's Angel (3 page)

He was tall, she thought, comparing his height to that of the auctioneer and the two burly guards who, armed with coiled whips and rifles, stood on either side of the platform. If the breadth of his shoulders was anything to judge by, he was also large-framed, but something, his current dire circumstances or perhaps a recent illness, had rendered him so thin that his clothes hung on him as though they'd been made for a far bigger man. His hair straggled about his shoulders and seemed to be very dark, but it was so matted and filthy that its precise color was impossible to determine. There was a gray cast to his skin, and a scruffy dark beard obscured the lower part of his face. His eyes—like his hair, their color was impossible to determine—appeared sunk into their sockets. As he stared out over the crowd, they seemed to glitter, and his lip curled into what looked like a snarl. His arms hung limply in front of him. The irons that linked his wrists appeared to be weighing them down. His fists were clenched, which Susannah took as another sign of belligerence. This is a bad one, Susannah thought with an inward shiver, and vowed to bid no more on him. Sarah Jane's warning no longer seemed quite so farfetched.

"Who'll give me a hundred? Come on, now, a hundred! You, Miss Redmon? No? You over there?"

Someone must have raised a hand, because Shay picked up the beat. "I have a hundred. I have a hundred! Will you let this big, strong fellow get away from you for so paltry a sum as that? I . . ."

"Why's he still got the irons on, Hank Shay?" a male voice called out.

"Gave you trouble, did he?" A guffaw accompanied this sally from a farmer at the edge of the crowd. From somewhere an object was let fly. It sailed past the convict's head, just missing him, to splatter against the far edge of the platform. An overripe tomato, judging from the mess it made when it landed, Susannah saw. The man didn't even duck, let alone flinch, but his eyes seemed to burn just that much brighter. The curl of his lip grew more pronounced. He emanated waves of hostility so intense they were almost palpable as his head turned in the direction from which the missile had come, and his gaze raked the crowd.

"Enough of that now, you boys, or I'll be having you hauled up before the magistrate! I don't take kindly to having my sales disrupted, as you'd do well to remember!" Having dealt with the tomato-thrower and his friends, Shay's angry bawl moderated, and he addressed himself to the farmer and his confederate. "The irons are a precaution, no more. You can see for yourself that this one's big, and he's strong, too, I can vouch for that! He'll be a fine worker for the lucky bidder what gets him! Do I hear a hundred and ten?"

The bidding continued, but Susannah paid little attention as she had no intention of joining in. The convict looked sullen at worst, ferocious at best, and was definitely not the man she sought. Still, she couldn't help but feel pity for him, just as she would feel sorry for any poor creature who had so obviously been ill-treated. Like a bear that had been baited, he bristled with hatred. But who was to blame for that: the bear, or the one who had done the baiting? she asked herself. She could not condemn him for his fierceness, though it bode ill for his future. Only a fool would buy a bound man who looked as if he would positively relish murdering one in one's bed.

"He can read and write, the King's own English, too! That should up his price considerable! Some canny buyer will be gettin' a real bargain for a hundred and sixty pounds! Do I hear a hundred and sixty?"

Shay got it, but the bidder sounded reluctant. This man was not going to sell for as much as Shay wished, it was clear. Indeed, from the ferocious way the convict was scowling at the crowd, Susannah was surprised at anyone having the nerve to bid on him at all. But Shay had said he was an educated man. Was that true, Susannah wondered, or merely one of the auctioneer's devices to drive up the bidding? The convict certainly did not appear educated, though if one looked closely it was possible to discern that his clothes had once been fine. He was dressed in black breeches, now badly torn and stained, an equally deficient shirt that must once have been white, a ragged waistcoat fashioned from what might have been gold brocade, and a pair of flat brogues that were sadly at odds with the rest of his costume. He wore no stockings, and his hairy bare legs were plainly visible below the knee- band of his breeches.

The red-haired man had been far more prepossessing, and certainly more suited to Susannah's purpose. But something about this one roused her compassion.

When Shay pushed the bidding up, Susannah stood silent. Mandy and Emily watched the proceedings wide- eyed. From their expressions, it was clear they were pleasantly titillated by the convict's aura of ferocity, but they had no wish to take him on as a family servant. Sarah Jane looked uneasy, as if she really feared that Susannah might be so lost to all judgment as to buy such an obviously unsuitable man.

"Afternoon, Miss Amanda, Miss Susannah, Miss Sarah Jane, Miss Emily. Ladies, what are you doing here? I could hardly believe my ears when that villain Shay addressed Miss Susannah by name and I saw you were bidding. Don't tell me that the good reverend countenanced any such thing, for I'll not believe it!"

This greeting, boomed without warning from just behind Susannah's left shoulder, was more than audible. She turned her head sharply, to behold, as she had known she would, Hiram Greer. He was a prosperous indigo planter who had long had an eye on Mandy. As he was nearly as old as their father, and homely and brusque-mannered to boot, none of them had ever given his suit serious consideration, though he was quite wealthy. Mandy, for all her flirtatious ways, had never purposefully encouraged him. But still he fancied himself her future husband and therefore adopted a proprietary manner toward the rest of the family that set their collective teeth on edge. Barrel- chested and stocky, of average height, with thinning, grizzled hair and coarse features, Hiram Greer was a bull of a man in both appearance and manner. Susannah couldn't abide him, although, as he was a leading member of her father's small flock, she had perforce to be polite.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Greer." Though she gave his question no direct reply, he was not the man to recognize and accept a rebuff.

"Good God, ma'am, when I saw you here with your sisters I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me! Did you know you actually bid on that scum? For you cannot have done it on purpose, surely! But you should realize that if you raise your hand Shay up there takes it for a bid. Fortunate for you that others have topped you, or you might have found yourself saddled with a hooligan you never wanted and your father to answer to for it! Let me escort you ladies away from here!"

He took Susannah's arm without waiting for her reply and would have pulled her with him willy-nilly had she not jerked her elbow free.

"You quite mistake the matter, I assure you, Mr. Greer," she said firmly. "I have no wish to move an inch from this spot. Indeed, I am here for the express purpose of securing a bound man."

So saying, she lifted her chin and fixed her eyes firmly on the platform again. Shay called for more bids. The convict bared his teeth as if daring someone to buy him. Shay, looking ugly, sent the man a sideways glance that bode ill for his future if he remained in the auctioneer's care. For a long moment no one bid, and then a man near the middle of the crowd raised his hand.

"One seventy! I have one seventy! A ridiculous price for an educated gentleman strong enough to work like a field hand while he keeps your books! Come on, folks, are you going to let Mr. Renard there get away with robbery?"

"Renard can have the taming of him! He's got the stomach for it. The rest of us are a mite more squeamish about how we use the whip!"

The catcall produced a tidal wave of guffaws. Georges Renard was a cotton planter from the up-country, and his cruelty was legendary. Slaves on his plantation were routinely whipped to the brink of death for such sins as what Renard perceived as laziness. Rumor had it that nearly as many who survived died, but the veracity of that was generally discounted; after all, Renard was a businessman, and slaves were valuable pieces of property. Susannah shuddered to think what he might do to a man so obviously bent on defiance as the convict.

"You'll not buy that one," Greer said, his voice commanding. "Do you hear me, Miss Susannah? I'd not sleep easy, worrying about you and yours, with the likes of that around. If you must buy a servant, I'll choose him for you. There's a man to be put up a little later that I've had my eye on for myself. He's an older fellow, but stout looking, and in for no more dangerous a crime than forgery. I asked. When he's put up, I'll buy him for you. Consider it a gift."

The munificence of that offer drew a gasp from Emily and a blush from Mandy. It annoyed Susannah so much that she had to draw in a quick, steadying breath to keep from losing the temper that was one of her gravest faults.

"I thank you for the offer, but I've quite decided on this one," she said, realizing even as the words left her mouth that she had, indeed, made up her mind. She raised her hand.

"One eighty! I have one eighty!" Shay acknowledged her gesture almost instantly, while Greer's face reddened, and the girls made a collective sound that might have constituted shock, or, in Sarah Jane's case at least, a realized fear. "Will anyone go one ninety? No? What about one eighty-five? No? This is your last chance, good people, for the bargain of the year! Are you going to let Miss Redmon steal him out from under your nose for a measly one hundred and eighty pounds? Any bids? Any bids? No? Then going, going, gone, to Miss Redmon for one eighty! You've made yourself a mighty fine purchase, ma'am!"

"Oh, Susannah!" Sarah Jane moaned. Susannah wasn't sure that she didn't feel like moaning, too. Already she was having second thoughts. But with Hiram Greer bristling beside her and so many other eyes turning to seek her out, this was not the moment to indulge in them. She stiffened her spine and thrust up her head and marched through the crowd toward the auction block where the convict was being led down. Behind her trailed Hiram Greer, for once shocked into silence, and her sisters. With the sinking feeling that she had let pity and annoyance lead her into making a grave error, Susannah counted out the required amount of sterling to a man who sat behind a table just beside the platform guarding a cash box. The man recounted the cash, then handed her a piece of paper —the Articles of Indenture, she later discovered—and the frayed end of a rope. The other end of the rope was attached to the neck of the man she had just bought.

Her eyes were wide as she followed that rope to its end.

3

The crowd eddied around the auction block, appearing to Ian Connelly as a single colorful, noisy mass. Individual faces blurred before his eyes as he stood like a stone behind the table where Shay's assistant, Walter Johnson, greedily counted the cash that would purchase—purchase!—him, just as he himself had once purchased a horse or a cow. Equally indistinct were the strangely accented voices that rose and fell against his eardrums. Their cadence served as a stomach-churning reminder of the rhythm of the waves that had slapped ceaselessly against the hull of the ship that had carried him from England. His head was pounding, though whether from the stifling humidity, which was like nothing he had ever experienced, or from the effects of the starvation they had finally used to tame him, it was impossible to say. The sun—surely this was not the same sun that gently warmed the Irish countryside or chased away the sober English mists—beat down without mercy on his uncovered head. His legs felt odd, boneless almost, his knees shaky. It had taken every iota of his willpower, first to stand without wavering on the platform and then to make his way down the makeshift wooden steps to the trampled grass. Hatred was what kept him going—black, burning hatred of his enemies, who at the moment constituted most of mankind.

"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.