Alex's Angel Read Online Free

same royalist tyranny we’ve already won against. Just look at him.”
    She dared a glance at the bar, expecting to see Satan himself. All she saw was the back of a gentleman who was deeply engrossed in conversation with Mr Porter.
    He was the tallest man she could ever recall seeing. A well-tailored jacket of Federal blue clung to exceptionally broad shoulders and powerful-looking arms. Yet his body was not dense and heavy and barrel-chested, as with so many men with similar qualities. No, he was finely muscled and held himself with an elegant, upright posture.
    In the yellow light from the lanterns hanging over his head, his queued hair glowed antique gold. John kept his dark hair cropped to his collar in support of radical liberalism and France’s revolution. But it wasn’t a universal gesture for all Republican-Democrats. Most men of moderate political feeling still retained their queues.
    “You’re sure he’s a Federalist?”
    He nodded. “I recognise him from my father’s dinner parties. That’s Alexander Dalton.”
    “And why should that mean anything to me?”
    “ The Alexander Dalton.”
    She shrugged.
    “Don’t you know anything?”
    “I suppose not.”
    He shook his head. “Your grandmother has a lot to answer for, keeping you so homebound and ignorant of the world.”
    His words awoke an urge to run home right now, to the comfortable two-storey house on Maple Street in Easton where they had once lived, and accept her grandmother’s warm, safe embrace. But those embraces had been like iron manacles, squeezing off her freedom. Guilt, sadness and, worst of all, relief churned together like an odd sort of nausea. It confused her too much. She couldn’t dwell on it. Not now.
    She was on her own from here on out. Alone in the world. Forever.
    She must be brave. She must be strong.
    Wrinkling her forehead, she redirected the subject. “He doesn’t look like too much of a devil.”
    “Oh, aye, all the ladies are taken with him. Why should I have expected you to have better sense?” He threw some coins onto the table, then rose. “But you really shouldn’t be here. Go on home.”
    He took the dollar and thrust it at her, letting it fall onto her lap. Then he donned his tall, round hat with its tri-coloured liberty cockade, and walked away.
    She glanced down at his money in her lap, gathered it up and jumped to her feet. She hurried after him, determined to return his money. But he exited before she could reach him. As she watched the door close behind his tall form, she slumped and sighed. She’d catch John at his offices tomorrow and give the money back to him then.
    She turned again to the bar. John’s Federalist devil had turned his head to the side, revealing his profile. She caught her breath.
    He had a refined handsomeness. A proud, broad forehead, fine, high cheekbones, a straight nose, thin yet sensual lips and a strong jaw, an almost regal air… Her fingers itched for her charcoal so intensely that she tightened her hands into fists to dull the sensation.
    The sight held her transfixed. She’d never seen a more beautiful person—at least not outside a book.
    As if he felt her scrutiny, he turned sharply in her direction. His gaze, blue-grey and as fierce as storm clouds, locked with hers and stripped her mind clean of anything but him.
    Something solid bumped into her, jarring her out of her transfixed state. She half turned. A man loomed over her. He flared his nostrils and blew hot, stale, rum-scented breath over her. It burnt her nose and she gagged. He narrowed his green eyes and grabbed her arm.
    “Lookin’ to pick my pockets, girlie?”
    “G—goodness no!” She tried to push him away. He was lanky, but his body was like a stone wall of hard, muscled flesh.
    “Oh yes, then, what’s this?” he asked in a slurring voice. He plucked the crumpled dollar from her hand.
    “That’s mine—give it back!” she cried.
    “I see you’ve already hit some sap tonight.” He tightened