Dark Angel (Casteel 2)

"All right, Heaven. I'll be your friend." He sounded reluctant, as if he were committing himself to something that was going to be burdensome. "But remember that there are good reasons why Tony doesn't want you to become involved with me. Don't be too harsh on him. Before you decide that I am just the friend you need, you have to realize that Tony rules here, not me. We are at different ends of the pole in personality. He is strong, and I am a weak dreamer. If you arouse Tony's disapproval and displeasure, he will send you out of his life, and out of Jillian's, straight back to the Willies! And he'll do it in such a way I'll not have the chance to save you, or even to give you money."

"I would not take money from you!" I flared, my pride rearing high.

"You take it from my brother," he said wryly.

"Because he is married to my grandmother! Because he told me he manages the money Jillian inherited from her father and her first husband. Money that would have gone to my own mother if she had lived. I feel perfectly justified in taking from Tony."

He turned his head away so I could no longer see his face. "Heaven, your passion exhausts me. It is much later than I thought it was, and I'm tired. Would you mind if we continue this discussion next Friday when you come home from Winterhaven?I'll still be here."

He touched me deeply as he sat there, looking totally vulnerable, and I suspected he was terribly afraid of letting someone like me into his wellorganized life. Slowly I got up from the floor, reluctant to leave the cozy warmth of his cottage.

"Please, Heaven, I have a thousand things to do before I go to bed tonight. And don't cry because Logan Stonewal

l didn't recognize you. His thoughts could have been elsewhere. Give him another chance. Call him up at his dorm. Offer to meet him somewhere you can talk."

Troy didn't know Logan's stubbornness. Logan was like his name, a stone wall!

"Good night, Troy," I called at the door, "and thank you for everything. I'm looking forward to next Friday."

Softly I closed the door behind me.

No servants were around when I slipped inside the door of the big house, and in the dining room, when I checked, I found food in silver chafing dishes: wonderful, thin slices of meat covered with French sauce. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd put a little of each dish on a plate and then sat down to eat again. All by myself, at a table big enough for all the Casteels.

Seven Treachery

. THE GIRLS OF WINTERHAVEN WERE NOT AS DISTANT my second week there. Boldly they eyed me up and down, staring at the lovely knit dress I wore, for I'd be damned before I'd go back to wearing clothes not so much better than what I'd worn in the Willies. To my delight, that Very Monday when I sat down to eat my lunch, Pru Carraway smiled my way, then invited me to eat at her table. Three other girls were seated there. Happily I gathered up my silverware, my plate and napkin, and carried them over. "Thank you," I said, as I sat down.

"What a pretty pink dress," said Pru, batting her pale eyelashes.

"Thank you. The color is mauve."

"What a pretty mauve dress," she corrected, as the three other girls tittered. "I realize we have not been very nice to you, Heaven," and again she put stress on my name, "but we try never to be nice to any new student until we are sure she's worthy of our approval."

What had I done to gain their approval? I wondered.

"How do you know so much about poverty and hunger?" asked Faith Morgantile, a very pretty, brown-haired girl in a clean but ratty-looking white sweater and pants.

My heart skipped a beat. "You all know I am from West Virginia. That is coal-mining country. There is also a cotton mill there. The hills are full of very poor people who think an education is a waste of time . . . so naturally, I know about the people who used to live around me."

"But you described the pangs of hunger so well in your theme paper," persisted Pru, "it's almost as if you knew hunger from firsthand experience."

"When you have eyes and ears, and a heart that feels compassion, you don't really need firsthand experience."

"How nicely you put that," said another girl, smiling at me warmly. "We've heard that your parents divorced, and your father won custody of you . . . isn't that unusual? Most of the time the mother wins custody, especially when the child is a girl."

I tried to shrug nonchalantly. "I was too young to remember the details of the divorce. When I was older my father refused to talk about it." And with that I dismissed the subject as my fork stabbed into my tossed salad and speared the tomatoes and lettuce I liked most.

"When will your father be coming to visit you? We would just love to meet him."

You bet they would love to meet him! Luke Casteel would shock them into instant old age. I resented Pru Carraway, who was like a thorn constantly trying to draw blood. I felt the power of her background, her family, her heritage, the friends she had and I didn't, forming a barricade around her, while I was defenseless, with only my wits and new clothes to shield me. I finished my lunch with determination, eating every strand of spaghetti, relishing every morsel of the meatballs, and wanted in the worst way to sop up the spicy tomato sauce with what remained of my Italian bread, but I didn't dare. And they were watching me with such fascination I felt I was doing everything wrong; showing too much enthusiasm for an ordinary dish like spaghetti. Made hostile and angry from their insinuations, I decided to blast them with a little truth. "My father will never come to see me, for we don't like each other, and he is dying."

Each one of those four girls stared at me with lips agape, as if I were an apparition straight from the cemetery of bad taste. And even as I'd said the words, the thought of Pa being dead filled me with strange, uneasy guilt. As if I had no right to hate him or wish him dead because he was my father. There was no reason why I should feel ashamed. None! He deserved every mean thought I gave him.

Again Pru Carraway spoke, carefully: "We have in this school certain private clubs. Now, if you could arrange, somehow, for one of us to have a date with Troy Tatterton . . . we would be very

appreciative."

Thoughts of Pa had come between me and them. I was caught off guard. I sat with the last of my Italian bread held halfway to my mouth. "I really couldn't manage that," I said uneasily. "He's a man who makes up his own mind, and he's much too old and sophisticated for the girls of Winterhaven."