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Battles of Destiny: A Promise Unbroken / a Heart Divided (Battles of Destiny, 1A Promise Unbroken) - Hardcover

Lacy, Al

 
9781590529454: Battles of Destiny: A Promise Unbroken / a Heart Divided (Battles of Destiny, 1A Promise Unbroken)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1590529456 ISBN 13: 9781590529454
Verlag: Multnomah Press, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Dramatic Tales of Love and Civil War

The Battles of Destiny series is now available in four attractive two-in-one volumes! Bestselling author Al Lacy packs each dramatic novel in the popular historical fiction series with heartwarming romance and solid moral values. Set during the Civil War, these are the tales of families, soldiers, nurses, and spies as they contend with the deadly threats posed by war and the eternal hope that springs from love. Fast-moving and historically accurate, these stories appeal to men and women who enjoy a trip back in time. Now longtime and new Lacy fans can purchase the entire Battles of Destiny classics and enjoy hours of endless reading pleasure.

It was the war that divided our country, shaping the destinies of future generations. It was the war that brought forth triumphant men, women, and families who dared to fight bravely, sacrifice unconditionally, and love without end.

THE CIVIL WAR

A Promise Unbroken

As the first winds of Civil War sweep across the Virginia countryside, the wealthy Ruffin family is torn by forces that threaten their way of life and, ultimately, their promises to one another. Mandrake and Orchid, slaves on the Ruffin plantation, must also fight for the desire of their hearts. Heartache and victory. Jealousy and racial hatred. From a prosperous Virginia plantation to a grim jail cell outside of Lynchburg , follow the dramatic story of love indestructible.

A Heart Divided

Wounded early in the Civil War, Captain Ryan McGraw is nursed back to health by army nurse Dixie Quade. In her tender care, love’s seed is sown. But with the sudden appearance of Victoria, the wife who once abandoned Ryan, and the five-year-old son he never knew he had, come threats endangering the lives of everyone involved. Between the deadly forces of war and two loves, McGraw is caught witha heart divided.

Story Behind the Book

“While studying American history in high school, I was struck with a strange fascination for the Civil War. That fascination grew stronger when I studied it again in college, and I’ve visited many of the sites where the battles took place. When I visited the Appomattox Court House in Virginia , where General Robert E. Lee signed the documents of surrender before General Ulysses S. Grant, I was struck with the thought of creating a series of novels based upon specific battles in the Civil War. I wanted to mold fictional characters with real ones and fill the stories with romance, suspense, intrigue, and the excitement of battle. That’s how the Battles of Destiny series came to be.” —Al Lacy

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Al Lacy has written more than one hundred historical and western novels, including those in the Angel of Mercy, Battles of Destiny, and Journeys of the Stranger series. He and his wife, JoAnna, are coauthors of the Mail Order Bride, Hannah of Fort Bridger, Shadow of Liberty, Orphan Trains, Frontier Doctor, and Dreams of Gold series. The Lacys make their home in the Colorado Rockies.

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Web Steele whipped his head around as the flat report of the shot carried to him through the cool mid-October air. Jerking hard on the reins, he drew horse and buggy to a halt in the middle of the road. While the breeze carried the small dust cloud away, he peered past the imposing archway on his left that housed the gate to the Jason Hart plantation.

Letting his gaze follow the narrow, winding road that led to the mansion and its complex of buildings nestled in a thick stand of trees, he listened for any further sound of trouble. The gunshot seemed to have come from that way, but the pounding of the horse’s hooves and the whir of the wheels had suppressed the report enough to make it impossible to be sure.

Pulling his gaze from the Hart mansion, Steele looked up the road ahead of him as his horse blew and stamped a hoof. The Virginia sky was clear, and the brilliant light of the early afternoon sun revealed no movement in that direction. The John Ruffin plantation lay two miles further on, but the shot was too loud to have come from there.

Turning around on the seat, he looked down the road behind him. The Steele plantation–from which he had just come–was nearest, but it also was too far away to have been the source of the shot. There was no sign of life except for the birds that hopped about in the branches of the towering trees that lined both sides of the road. Sunlight danced on the orange and golden leaves as they fluttered in the autumn breeze.

Steele looked to his right across the rolling hills toward Richmond, but saw nothing moving.

Suddenly there was a second shot, followed by a third. This time he knew it was coming from the Hart place. The gate beneath the archway was open. Snapping the reins, he sent the horse galloping under the archway, following the narrow, winding road. Another shot rang out, and Web felt a vast hollow in his stomach. Instinct told him that what he had been expecting to happen on both the Ruffin and Hart plantations was now in progress directly ahead of him.

The mansion was a quarter-mile from the road. As the buggy bounded into the spacious yard, another shot reverberated through the air, the sharp sound coming from the rear. Guiding the horse along the path to the backside of the house, Steele saw Jonas Hart and his two sons hunkered behind an overturned wagon, facing the tool and wood shed, which was close to the barn, about forty yards from the rear of the mansion. There were splintered places on the wagon where bullets had chewed wood.

Drawing the buggy to a sudden stop, Steele saw Mabel Hart, her oldest daughter, Mary Ann, and daughter-in-law, Chloe, collected on the back porch of the mansion with the butler and the maid. All were wide-eyed with fear.

As Web Steele jumped out of the buggy, he saw that Jonas was holding a revolver with one hand and a bleeding shoulder with the other. Sons David, twenty-two, and Daniel, twenty-one, were not armed. A group of slaves could be seen at the edge of a clearing some fifty yards further back, where their small cabins huddled in a circle. They too looked frightened.

Steele knew his instincts were correct. Hart had a slave revolt on his hands. Some of them were holed up in the tool and wood shed, and were armed. The absence of Hart’s sixteen-year-old daughter and fourteen-year-old son might mean they were being held hostage.

Jonas Hart shouted, “Web, take cover! We’ve got real trouble here!”

Steele took one look at the open window next to the shed’s only door and saw the barrel of a revolver glint in the sunlight. He dashed to where Jonas and his sons were clustered behind the overturned wagon. “Please tell me that Darrel and Melissa aren’t in there!”

A gray pallor was on Jonas Hart’s pain-pinched face. Even his lips were colorless. At forty-four, he owned the large plantation and had done well, but Steele knew that Jonas was sometimes unnecessarily harsh with his slaves. He had come close to warning Jonas about it on several occasions, but the man was sixteen years his senior, and he could not bring himself to do it.

Jonas’s voice was tight as he replied, “They’re in the shed, all right, Web.”

“How many slaves in there?” Web asked.

“Two.”

“Do I know them?”

“Yeah. Dexter and Orman.”

Eyeing the blood that was running between Jonas’s fingers as he gripped his shoulder, Web said, “You’d better get to the house and let Mabel tend to that wound.”

“Naw,” growled the plantation owner, “it’s only a scratch. It’ll be all right. Main thing right now is to bring this situation to an end.”

Looking back toward the shed, Steele said, “Dexter and Orman, eh? What do they want?”

Gritting his teeth in pain, Jonas replied, “To go free. They say if we’ll let them go, they’ll release the kids when they’re a safe distance from here.”

“What brought this on?”

“Nothing special, they just–”

“Tell him the truth, Pa,” butted in David, who was slave overseer for his father. “I’ve been warning you this was going to happen.”

“Shut up!” snapped Jonas. “If you’d be a little more stern with these lazy whelps, it wouldn’t make me look so mean when I have to discipline them.”

David Hart had been developing a distaste for slavery for the past two years. He and his father had had many heated discussions about it. Jonas accused him of becoming an “abolitionist Yankee” in his heart.

Before David could respond, a voice came from within the shed. “We’s gettin’ tired of waitin’, Massa Jonas! We want those horses, and we want ‘em right now!”

Web Steele recognized the voice of Dexter, whom he had known for several years. In a half-whisper, he said, “Jonas, Dexter knows me well. So does Orman. Do you think it would help if I talk to them?”

“Couldn’t hurt, that’s for sure,” spoke up Daniel. “Both of them like you.”

“What about it, Jonas?” pressed Steele.

“Go ahead. Talk to them. Like Dan said, it can’t hurt for you
to try.”

“Massa Jonas!” bellowed Orman. “We saw Massa Web come in. You can do yo’ talkin’ later. We want those horses, or we’s gonna be forced to hurt dese chillin o’ yo’s!”

Jonas’s anger broke. “You harm my kids and you’ll wish you’d never been born, Orman!”

There was no response from the shed. Setting his gaze on Steele, Jonas said, “Well, do your talking.”

“First I have to know what David meant when he told you to be truthful with me.”

“Aw, I just found it necessary to give them both a good belt-whipping, that’s all. They’ve been getting lazier by the day. David won’t chastise them, so they just get continually worse.”

“How bad did you whip them?”

“Not too bad.”

“Did you draw blood?”

“A little.”

“Pa, you expect too much of them,” said David. “Their bodies get tired like ours do. If you’d only ease up on the load–”

Jonas swore, cutting off his elder son. “Young and strong as they are, they oughtta be able to do a whole lot more than they’ve been doing! There are other slaves on this place who put out more work.”

“Yes, and there are other slaves who’ll be doing this same thing shortly,...

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Verlag
Multnomah Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1590529456
ISBN 13 
9781590529454
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
651
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Verantwortliche Person
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