Angel in Scarlet Read Online Free PDF Page A

kinship like him and me—he and I—were somehow two of a kind, like neither of us belonged. Get hold of yourself, Angie, I scolded. That fall must’ve addled your brains.
    There were a lot of big, thick shrubs in back of the gardens, all green and overgrown, and The Bastard led me through them and to a rusted iron gate in the back wall. He opened it and spread his right palm against the small of my back and gave me a brutal shove. I pitched forward and stumbled through the gate and almost fell down. I whirled around and glared at him with angry defiance, and Hugh Bradford gazed back at me with bored indifference as though I were a worrisome but harmless gnat. Stood there like a gawky scarecrow, he did, tall as a beanpole, thin as a whip, boots muddy and breeches too tight, loose white shirt sweaty and soiled, that dark wave dipping across his brow like a lopsided V. I gave him the finger. His wide mouth curled slightly at one corner in what might have been another grin.
    â€œDon’t ever let me catch you around here again,” he told me. “Next time I just might use the thumbscrews.”
    â€œSod you,” I said hotly.
    The Bastard did grin then, no mistake, and I glared at him for another moment or so and then tilted my chin and marched haughtily away. I heard a clang as he closed the gate, heard leaves rustling as he moved back through the thick shrubbery, and then there was just the sound of the breeze rustling the grass and making the daisies dance. I went back around the wall and retrieved the basket of eggs and started home, dawdling, lost in thought. I decided I wouldn’t say a word to Eppie Dawson. Something strange had happened to me there in that garden. Silly goose like her wouldn’t understand at all. I wasn’t sure I understood it myself.

Chapter Two
    As I sauntered down the lane with elm trees making shadowy patterns on the sunny road, my bottom still throbbed, still felt warm and prickly, but the sensation wasn’t at all unpleasant. My knees were scratched and my face was probably dirty, but that didn’t concern me. I was worried about my torn skirt which, I knew, would give Marie conniptions. Marie wasn’t cruel, just bitterly disappointed with her lot, buried alive in a rustic backwash, she felt, but her sarcasm could be devastating. Shrewd, shrewish, she faced life with a tight mouth and glittering yellow-green eyes that missed nothing. My ruined skirt would be just another example of the sad lot she had to bear.
    My own mother had died from complications three days after I was born, and six months later my bereaved father had left me with a wet nurse and gone for a much-needed holiday in Brittany, and it was there that he met the French widow with two young daughters. In her early thirties, Marie de Valois was vivacious, attractive and quite desperate. Although she claimed an impressive aristocratic background, she was completely impoverished, living in cheap lodgings and taking in sewing in order to pay for food and rent. The handsome English schoolmaster must have seemed a godsend to her. My father extended his holiday. When he returned, he had a new wife and two beautiful stepdaughters whom he legally adopted shortly thereafter. The chic, sharp-tongued Frenchwoman had detested life in our village from the first, always contemptuous, always an outsider, and though her husband provided a secure, comfortable home, he provided none of the frills and fripperies she felt essential for civilized living.
    Passing the bank of rhododendrons with their lush purple blossoms and dark green leaves, I turned and started toward our cottage. Of mellow golden-beige stone with a thick, grayish-brown thatched roof, it was the largest in the village, which, as Marie pointed out, was hardly a distinction. It was on the outskirts of the village, actually, with pleasantly ragged flower beds in front and two large oak trees that provided bountiful shade. Our fat gray tabby was