The Better Angels: Hearts Touched by Fire, Book 4 by Gina Danna

Author:Gina Danna
Language: eng
Format: epub

Grandview Hall

The crowd was more than Francois could imagine. As they filed through the double doors, into the main auditorium, he managed his way best he could with the cane and his lopsided walk. Ada was at his side, guiding him through to the side stairs so they could view the event from above, which he was grateful for, because his skin crawled as more people poured in, all to hear about the evils of the peculiar institution, the polite phrase for slavery.

Constantly, he asked himself why he’d agreed to this. The only answer he had was a flimsy one at that. To get out of that prison of a house and breathe, plus to be at her side. It was the last excuse that now made him almost trip on the stairs, because she was one of these people and therefore viewed him as evil, being Southern and a slave-owner. He shook his head.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, just misjudged the step.” He’d have to watch himself more closely. An accident here might be more deadly for him than a battlefield.

“We are just a few feet away. I think this will give us a better view.”

He wanted to laugh. As if he wanted to see this. He glanced at her and noticed she wasn’t wearing the new dress.

“You did not like Madame’s creation?”

He caught her swallowing hard.

“No, it isn’t that.” She struggled. He could see it in her eyes. “But I didn’t consider this the place to wear such a fine piece.”

He nodded. “Entirely understandable.” His own attire, pieced together by the butler from the owner’s wardrobe, was somewhat underrated, but to him, fit an abolitionist yelling match quite well.

They took their seats near the front balcony. She smiled warmly, as if she’d caught the cat who drank from the pitcher of milk, and though perhaps she had in luring him here, he drank in her grin as if it was dessert for a starving man.

A banging on the podium below brought the roar of the audience to a lull and attention on the man behind the stand. He was a tall white man, dressed in his finest. His face had the look of a politician, to Francois’s opinion. As he addressed the crowd, Francois watched the people sitting behind him on the stage. There was a stern-faced woman in a fancy dress, two other white men looking so severe and a black man, with graying hair that was a bit out of control, looking out of place to Francois as he was dressed in fine clothes. Now Francois wasn’t naïve to freedmen, but for one to be dressed so well, outside of New Orleans, surprised him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you here tonight, to listen to a profound orator, a true witness to the evil ‘peculiar institution’ running rampant in the South…” the leader of the event started.

Francois narrowed his gaze. The slanderous tone of this man, condemning all in the South for slavery, rubbed him wrong. He worked

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