Dark Angel (Casteel 2)

It was nice the way Troy immediately jumped to his feet and broadly smiled at me. "You took forever. I was beginning to believe this man from your past was going to drive you home after all."

He pulled a small chair for me, helped me off with my fur, then sat me down. "It would have been nice if you had brought him over and introduced me."

My head bowed. "Logan Stonewall is from Winnerrow, and your brother has ordered me to have no contacts with any of my old friends."

"I am not my brother. I would like very much to know your friends."

"Oh, Troy," I half sobbed, bowing my head and really beginning to cry, "Logan stared straight at me. He had the nerve to pretend not to even know me! He looked me squarely in the eyes and then he turned and walked away."

His voice came softly and kindly as he reached for my gloved hands and held them in his. "Heaven, has it occurred to you that you have changed a great deal? You are not the same girl who arrived here in early October. You have had your hair styled differently. You wear makeup now and you didn't then. And those high-heeled boots you wear add a few inches to your height. And Logan may have had other thoughts on his mind, other than meeting an old girlfriend."

"Here," he said, pulling out a clean, white handkerchief and handing it to me. "And when you've finished crying--soon, I hope, for I hate seeing a woman cry--then perhaps you can tell me more about Logan."

When I had dried my tears and put his handkerchief in my purse, intending to wash and iron it later, another cup of hot chocolate had arrived. I saw so much kindness and understanding in Troy's eyes that before I knew what I was doing, I was telling him everything, right from the very beginning, when Logan had seen me in his father's pharmacy, and Fanny had been sure he was admiring her, not me; then how we met in the Winnerrow schoolyard; how he insisted on buying lunch for four starving Casteel children. "And when he became my regular boyfriend and walked me home from school, I was the happiest girl in the world. He wasn't like the wild boys who hung around Fanny. He was the most different boy I'd met, decent and never fresh. We were planning to be married as soon as we finished college--and now he doesn't know me." My voice rose in slight hysteria. "And it took so much nerve to do what I did. Did I overdo it, Troy? Am I too overwhelming in Jillian's beaver coat, and wearing so much jewelry?"

"You look beautiful," he said softly, reaching to take both of my hands in his. "Now let's put today in perspective. Logan didn't expect to see you, did he? You were here, out of the element he'd grown accustomed to seeing you in. Nor did he expect to see you dressed as you are. So give him a telephone call later on, and tell him what happened. Then you two can plan a meeting, and you'll both be ready for each other."

"He won't forgive me! He'll never forgive me!" I sobbed, hotly and passionately. "For I haven't told you everything

. When Pa sold all five of his kids to strangers for five hundred dollars apiece, something bad happened to me. First Keith and Our Jane were bought by a lawyer and his wife. Then Fanny was sold to Reverend Wayland Wise, and unlike Keith and Our Jane, Fanny was delighted to be sold to such a wealthy man. Then a burly farmer named Buck Henry showed up at our place, and he went straight to Tom and felt him over like he was an animal. Pa and Buck Henry dragged Tom away.

"I was sold to Kitty and Cal Dennison in Candlewick, Georgia. Their house in Candlewick was the nicest, cleanest house I'd ever been in before, and there was always plenty to eat. But Kitty wanted a kitchen slave, a housekeeper to keep everything spotless while she ran her beauty shop. She worked five days a week there, and on Saturdays she taught a ceramics class, and that meant Cal saw more of me than he did of Kitty. Oh, it was complicated, for I used to think Cal was twice the man Pa could ever be. I began to think of Cal as my own father, the kind I'd always wanted and needed. He was someone who saw me, liked me, needed me. When he bought me new clothes, new shoes, and a lot of little things I didn't even know I needed, I'd sometimes go to bed hugging those dresses to my heart.

Like a river undammed, started by my tears, my story gushed forth in full, horrible detail. I think the only area I left clouded was the exact year of my birth, and somehow, long before my tale was told, I knew Troy had forgotten his plans for today, and soon we were headed for the road that took us back to Farthinggale Manor. Under the high, arching iron gates he drove, closing them with his automatic control. Then on a road I'd never noticed before, he wended his way toward his stone cottage. The gray autumn afternoon touched me with sweet melancholy for the hills, for the innocent and trusting girl I used to be.

Not a word did Troy speak until we were both in his cottage, and he had his fire renewed and burning brightly. Then he said his meal would be ready in a jiffy. "The chef from the big house keeps my larder full," he said, as he began to ready a snack. It was four o'clock by this time, and I'd already missed lunch. I didn't doubt for one moment that that would be reported to Tony by Percy.

"Go on, don't stop," he urged, handing me a chopping board with raw vegetables to slice. "I have never heard anything like your story before. Now tell me more about Keith and Our Jane."

Only then did I realize I should have held on to caution and been more discreet, but it was too late, much too late. But what did I care about anything now that Logan had cut me out of his life? I had already told Troy every last thing about the Christmas Day when Pa began to sell us off one by one, repeating it all again because he had to hear it twice in order to believe it. I was even careless enough to let out the reason Logan didn't trust me anymore, and not once did Troy look my way, or comment, or hesitate in what he was doing.

"I didn't know that those trips to the movies, and those wonderful dinners in fine restaurants, and all the gifts he gave me were part of Cal's seduction. I grew more and more dependent on him. He gave me my best times when I lived there, and Kitty gave me my worst times. I used to pity Cal when every night she'd find one reason or another to say 'no' to him, and when she finally did agree to accept his advances, he'd come to the breakfast table looking so happy. I wanted him to look happy all of the time. And when he began to touch me too often, with odd lights in his eyes, and his kisses became not so fatherly, I'd lie on my bed at night and wonder just what kind of signals I was subconsciously sending out. I never blamed him. I kept right on blaming myself for putting wicked ideas in his head. How could I hold on to him as a father figure, and not submit to what he wanted to do?"

I paused, gasped for more breath, then went on.

"So you see, I have no one now! Tony has ordered me to cut my family out of my life, even out of my thoughts, and he doesn't even know about Tom, Fanny, Keith, or Our Jane. Tom hasn't responded to my letters. Fanny is expecting the Reverend's baby, and she never writes to me. I don't even know if she wants to. And someday I have to find Our Jane and Keith!"

"Someday you will find them," said Troy with the kind of sincerity that made me trust him. "I have a great deal of money. I can't think of a better way to spend some of it than to help you find your family."

"Cal promised me the same thing, and nothing ever came of it."

He turned to give me a chastising look. "I am not Cal Dennison, and I don't make promises I don't keep."

My tears began again. "Why would you do that? You don't know me. I'm not sure you even like me."

He came to sit beside me at the table. "For you and for your dead mother I will do this, Heaven. Tomorrow I'll see my attorneys and put them on the trail of this lawyer whose first name is Lester. You should bring me the studio portraits of Keith and Our Jane that you told me about. Photographers are always proud to display their names somewhere on their photos, or on the back. In no time at all, you will know the full names of the couple who bought your younger brother and sister."

I sat spellbound, breathless with the hope that flooded me. Hope that soon simmered down to nothing, for hadn't Cal Dennison promised the same thing? And I didn't really know Troy.

"Now tell me what you'll do when you know where they are?"

What would I do?

Tony would put me out of his life. He'd stop his support of my education.

I was on my way now toward the goal I had to have . . . but I'd think of the answer later, when his attorneys found the little boy and girl who belonged with me. I'd find some way to get them back and to hold fast to my goals too. I was determined, now that I'd come this far, never to slip back again.

Oh, if only things had been different! If only I could have grown up like a normal girl! I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes again. Shoving my memories away and taking a deep breath, I said, "There, now you know everything about me. And I'm not even supposed to be talking to you. Tony has ordered me to leave you alone, never to come to your cottage. In fact he told me before he left that you were not here at all. If he knows I've broken one of his rules he'll send me back to the Willies. I'm terrified of going back there! There's no one in Winnerrow who cares what happens to me. Pa lives somewhere in Georgia or Florida, and Tom is living with him, but Tom never writes, nor does Fanny! I don't know how to live without someone who loves and cares about me." I ducked my head so he couldn't see those irrepressible tears that began to fall. "Please, Troy, please! Be my friend! I need someone so desperately."