Redeeming-Love-By-Francine-Rivers

F R A N C I N E R I V E R S
Angel was shaking inside. Her unreasoning rage had evaporated. She
took the Duchess’s hand and pressed it against her cold cheek. “Please. I
can’t stand anymore of this. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Maybe you do need a change,” the Duchess said, stroking Angel’s hair.
“Let me think about it. Go upstairs now and rest. We’ll talk later.”
Angel did as she was told. She sat on the end of her bed and waited.
When Magowan walked in without knocking, Angel had her answer. She
got up and backed away from him as he closed the door quietly.
“Duchess said you had a lot to say to her a little while ago. Well, little
dove, now it’s my turn to do a little talking. When I’m done, you’ll be as
obedient as Mai Ling. And I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve been waiting for this for
a long, long time. And you know it, don’t you?”
Angel looked at the closed two-story window, then back at the locked
door.
“You won’t get past me.” He took off his black coat.
Angel’s mind flashed back to a tall dark man in a black evening suit. It
came to her with sudden finality that there was no way out, not for her.
There never had been; there never would be. Everywhere she turned, every
time she tried, she was trapped again, worse off than before.
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave any marks that show. And you’ll be working
tonight whether you feel up to it or not.”
Hopeless rage filled her. She remembered everything ever done to her
from the time she was a child in a shack on the docks to now, in this room.
It was never going to get any better. This was all she could ever expect of
life. The world was full of Dukes and Duchesses and Magowans and men to
come line up outside her door. There was always going to be someone to
enslave and use her, someone to profit from her flesh and her blood.
There was one way out.
Maybe she had always known it was the only way. She could feel it like a
living presence in the room, a force standing beside her, dark and beckoning.
And she was finally ready to embrace it. A few well-aimed words, and
Magowan would end it for her. She would finally be free—free forever.
Magowan frowned at the look on her face, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t
afraid anymore. She was grinning at him. “What’s the matter with you?” Her
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