Nobody's Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

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