Redeeming Gabriel. Elizabeth White

      She was about to scream.

      He reached her in one silent lunge. Clapping one hand over her mouth, he snatched her into the corner under the stairs and waited for disaster to strike.

      The woman in his arms continued to tremble. Fearing discovery, Gabriel kept his hand over her mouth, his hold gentling as she began to relax.

      When she began to squirm, he tightened his hold. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he hissed in her ear. “I’m not uncovering your pretty mouth until I’m sure you can keep it quiet.”

      Feeling a pain in the palm of his hand, he barely contained a yelp as he released her mouth. “Are you trying to get us both hanged?”

      “Who are you?” she whispered, sounding frightened.

      ELIZABETH WHITE

      As a teenager growing up in north Mississippi, Elizabeth White often relieved the tedium of history and science classes by losing herself in a romance novel hidden behind a textbook. Inevitably she began to write stories of her own. Torn between her two loves—music and literature—she chose to pursue a career as a piano and voice teacher.

      Along the way Beth married her own Prince Charming and followed him through seminary into church ministry. During a season of staying home with two babies, she rediscovered her love for writing romantic stories with a Christian worldview. A previously unmined streak of God-given determination carried her through the process of learning how to turn funny, mushy stuff into a publishable novel. Her first novella saw print in the banner year 2000.

      Beth now lives on the Alabama Gulf Coast with her family. She plays flute and pennywhistle in church orchestra, teaches second-grade Sunday school, paints portraits in chalk pastel and—of course—reads everything she can get her hands on. Creating stories of faith, where two people fall in love with each other and Jesus, is her passion and source of personal spiritual growth. She is always thrilled to hear from readers c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, or visit her on the Web at www.elizabethwhite.net.

      Elizabeth White

      Redeeming Gabriel

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Truly I tell you, whatever you did to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to me.

      —Matthew 25:40

      For Hannah, who has read them all

      Acknowledgment

      I’d like to express my gratitude to the Mobile County Public Library Department of Special Collections. The research librarians kindly supplied me with resources which provided pertinent historical details. I took some liberties to suit the story. A few real historical personages are mentioned, but most names have been changed. For an accurate history of the city of Mobile, consult www.mplonline.org/lhg.htm or The Story of Mobile by Caldwell Delaney.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter One

      Camilla Beaumont cautiously opened her bedroom window and leaned out. It was one of those inky Mobile nights when warm April air met earth still cool from winter, brewing up a fog as thick as gumbo. A night when the Union blockade crouched like a sullen watchdog far out in the bay and Confederate soldiers camped under abandoned cotton shelters at Camp Beulah just outside town. A night when any civilian with a grain of sense was tucked up asleep under the breeze of an open window.

      She paused with one leg out the window and took a deep breath. With practiced ease she grabbed the knotty old wisteria vine that twined around the lattice and began the climb down.

      It was amazing she hadn’t been caught and sent to the prison on Ship Island. In the early days her forays had been executed with haste and blind luck. Lately, however, every move and communication were plotted with exquisite care, orchestrated by an anonymous sponsor. Camilla longed to meet him, one day when the war was over, the Yankees went home, and the Southern conscience woke up to the truth that slavery was wrong.

      As she scooted into an alley behind the Battle House Hotel, a baby’s cry from an open upstairs window stopped her in her tracks. She prayed there wouldn’t be a baby tonight. Babies made her task twice as difficult and dangerous.

      Shuddering, she continued down empty residential streets, slipping from behind one tree to the next—huge old oaks dripping with Spanish moss that tickled her face, magnolias just beginning to bud, and scratchy, richly scented cedars. She sneezed, then looked around, stricken with fear, breathing in and out. The fog was so dense she could barely see her hand in front of her face. When all remained quiet, she continued, knees trembling.

      At the waterfront, noise and light from inside the buildings spilled out into the fog. She paused outside the Soldiers’ Library to watch the approach of two gray-uniformed soldiers. They seemed more intent on observing the ribaldry inside the gambling saloons and oyster bars than enforcing the 9:00 p.m. slave curfew.

      Slouching into a bowlegged, droop-shouldered posture, she lurched out into the road. An inebriated vagrant wandering the downtown streets in the wee hours of the morning was a common enough sight. As long as he was white.

      She hesitated at the corner of Water and Theater streets, peering blindly into the mist, and nearly jumped out of her skin when cold fingers tapped her cheek. She stifled a shriek with one hand.

      “Now, now, Missy, I thought you wasn’t comin’.” The whining whisper was so close to her ear that she could smell the speaker’s fishy breath.

      “Shh! Virgil, you nearly scared the life out of me. Come here before somebody sees us.” She grabbed a skinny arm and towed him deeper into the shadows.

      Any passerby who chanced to see them would have found little to tell them apart. Much the same height, they wore the same disreputable costume—dark stocking cap, patched pea jacket, canvas pants of an indeterminate color and hobnailed boots.

      “Where’s the bag?” Camilla turned Virgil around and yanked off the burlap sack slung across his back, then placed her hands firmly on either side of his vacant face. “You forget you saw me tonight, you hear?”

      Virgil nodded with childish pleasure. “I ain’t seen you, Missy.”

      “Good.” Camilla reached into her pocket for a coin and a slightly fuzzy toffee. “Get yourself something to eat, and I’ll sell your papers for you.”

      “Yes’m, Missy.” He popped the toffee into his mouth. “You’ll bring my bag back when you’re through?”

      “Haven’t