Nobody's Angel

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Book: Read Nobody's Angel for Free Online
Authors: Karen Robards
Tags: Romance, Historical, Adult
waiting for an answer. His head was throbbing and the sidewalk was beginning to undulate beneath his feet, but the spot on his shoulder where the rock had struck troubled him not at all.
    "No," he said after a moment spent summoning the word to his tongue. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Ma'am."
    That bow to courtesy earned him a glimmering smile. She half-turned, slowing as though to allow him to catch up. It was her sisters she waited for, of course. He was not quite so light-headed that he did not realize that. But the smile was for him, and once again Ian was struck by what a smile did for her face.
    "I did not think so, or I would have been more severe. Jeremy is not a bad boy, you see, but he is much interested in impressing his friends. His mother is a good woman, but his father is a notorious scoundrel, and that makes Jeremy susceptible to such behavior as you bore the brunt of."
    "You would find excuses for the Devil himself, if he came in the guise of a child," the lovely one said, as, cautiously giving him a wide berth, the three girls scooted around him to gain their sister's side.
    "I make no apologies for liking children." Susannah's answer was brisk as she turned her back and quickened her step again.
    "By rights you should have some of your own, Susannah," Miss Pink-bonnet put in.
    "She must needs be married first, dolt, and no one's come asking her that I have seen." That leveler came from the plump one in the yellow dress.
    "Hush, Em!" said Miss Pink-bonnet, with a conscious look over her shoulder at Ian.
    "It's all right, Sarah Jane. Emily is telling no more than the truth and must not be scolded for that." Susannah sounded untroubled, and Ian deduced that her apparently unwed and unsought state was not something that bothered her unduly. To his surprise he found that he rather admired her for that. Almost all the females with whom he'd been acquainted up till now had viewed marriage as their ultimate goal in life.
    They turned onto a wide avenue lined on both sides with shops, the four girls in a fluid cluster with Ian a few paces behind. The few people who were not attending the auction sauntered along, in pairs or singly. The ladies they passed were surprisingly well-dressed, Ian considered, taking into account Susannah's appalling gown and the provincial nature of the area. Some carried baskets over their arms to hold their purchases, while others clung to the arm of a male escort. Nearly all called or nodded greetings to Susannah and her sisters, their faces reflecting their curiosity as they discovered Ian, filthy and tattered, lurching in the ladies' wake. Had he been feeling more himself, he would have snarled at the most avid, just to hear the women squeal and to see their eyes widen with fear. But he was growing more and more woolly- headed, and it required all his concentration to keep on his feet.
    "Here we are." Susannah halted before a dusty, iron- wheeled wagon. Her sisters stopped too, as did Ian. A man sat on the high plank seat, his head in his hands, the picture of misery.
    "Miss Susannah," he said thickly, glancing up. The movement must have pained him mightily, because he groaned and dropped his head back into the cradle of his hands.
    "I have a very great deal to say to you, Craddock, but I will reserve it for a later time. You will oblige me by getting into the back, if you please."
    "I didn't mean . . ." the man began miserably, but Susannah cut him off.
    "At once, Craddock." Her voice was cool and perfectly polite, but Craddock said no more. Moving as if he were eighty years old and crippled to boot, he got down and crawled into the wagon-bed, where he sat with his back propped against an ironbound barrel and his feet dangling toward the street.
    "You may get into the back as well, Connelly." Susannah turned her eyes on him. There was nothing of feminine coyness in the look, nothing that said that she was conscious of herself as a woman at all, but only the kind of directness

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