On Wings of Devotion
Table of Contents
Cover
Books by Roseanna M. White
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Author’s Note
Discussion Questions
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
List of Pages
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
383
384
385
387
388
389
391
393
394
Books by Roseanna M. White
LADIES OF THE MANOR
The Lost Heiress
The Reluctant Duchess
A Lady Unrivaled
SHADOWS OVER ENGLAND
A Name Unknown
A Song Unheard
An Hour Unspent
THE CODEBREAKERS
The Number of Love
On Wings of Devotion
© 2020 by Roseanna M. White
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.
com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2278-4
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
This is a work of historical reconstruction; the appearances of certain historical figures are therefore inevitable. All other characters, however, are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover design by LOOK Design Studio
Cover Photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC
Author is represented by The Steve Laube Agency.
To Kim,
for all your enthusiasm and encouragement over the years.
I’m so blessed to count you as a friend.
Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.
Psalm 57:1
Contents
Cover
Books by Roseanna M. White
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Author’s Note
Discussion Questions
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
1
CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL
LONDON, ENGLAND
1 FEBRUARY 1918
A stranger stalking down the street shouldn’t make her hands tremble in anticipation. Arabelle Denler forced her breathing to calm, forced an easy smile to her lips for the soldier whose bandage she’d just changed, and stood with the old bandage balled up in her bowl. “Is there anything else you need, Captain?”
The thrashing of his head from side to side may have been the answer to her question. Or it may have been simple agony. Poor chap. He’d just arrived in Charing Cross Hospital yesterday after ordnance had stolen his entire left leg.
“Ara!” The stage whisper came from the hallway, where Eliza, one of the volunteer nurses, motioned her frantically.
He’d be stomping down the street any moment. Brooding and aloof and mysterious and so handsome that just looking at him could make one’s heart crack a bit.
She resisted the urge to dart out. Black Heart, as the papers had dubbed him, was of no concern to her. She had a fiancé. And more, she had a purpose. Right here, right now. Resting a hand on the captain’s shoulder, she closed her eyes and whispered a quiet prayer. Only after her amen did she move away, her pace no faster than it ever was. The fact that she didn’t stop at any other cots in the ward had nothing to do with the view out the window and everything to do with the fact that her shift was over and she needed to deliver these bloodied bandages to the laundry on her way out.
If the window facing Agar Street happened to be on the way to said laundry, that was pure coincidence.
And if she went into the little room where the nurses and volunteers took their brief breaks rather than directly to her destination, she could blame it on Eliza, who seized her by the arm and tugged her into the cupboard of a room with a giggle. “Hurry.”
Arabelle rolled her eyes, even as she knew it was more to cover the thumping of her own pulse than because she found their daily ritual silly. She slid the bowl of sullied bandages onto a table and quickly washed her hands before golden-haired Eliza pulled her over to the window.
“There!” Susan, a pretty girl of perhaps eighteen who had been volunteering here for only a half year, leaned into the windowsill until her cheek was pressed to the pane.
Arabelle tugged her back an inch. Gracious, but sometimes these girls made her feel ancient. She was only twenty-five, but she couldn’t recall ever acting so giddy simply because a man was walking down the street. “A bit of propriety, if you please, Sue. He could look up again, and you don’t want him to catch you staring.”
The girls had about fainted dead away last week when he’d glanced directly up at their window and sent them all a devil-may-care grin. As if he knew exactly what they were doing and the effect he had.
“What are you three doing?”
Arabelle turned to smile at another volunteer—who was usually gone long before this hour of the day. “Lily! What are you still doing here?”
Lilian Blackwell, her red-gold brows lifted, sauntered into the room. “I had to swap my hours today so I could help my mother with something this morning.” She drew even with them and peered out the window. “What’s going on out there?”
Eliza bumped Susan companionably on the shoulder. “She has no idea what she misses every day. He walks by, Lil. The fellow the papers have dubbed Black Heart. I declare, he must be the handsomest man in all England.”
Something odd flashed in Lily’s eyes. Recognition, perhaps. Ara tilted her head. “Do you know him? He’s working at Whitehall now it seems. With your father?”
Lily’s smile was vague. She backed away from the window. “I couldn’t say. Daddy works with so many chaps, you know. Though I can certainly assure you he isn’t one my mother has invited over to dine with us.”
Eliza and Susan’s laughter turned to playful shoving as they each jockeyed for prime position at the window.
“Need I separate you two?” Arabelle made a show of putting a hand on each of their arms and pushing them a few inches apart, positioning herself between them as a barrier.
Not so she had a better view out the window.
Oh, fiddlesticks. Who did she think she was fooling?
Lily had retreated to the door. “Well, I’d best hurry along. This odd schedule today has me all sorts of discombobulated. I’ll see you in the morning, Ara. Eliza, Sue, it was nice to actually work beside you today.”
A chime of farewells soon turned into excited exclamations of “There he is! He’s coming!”
Arabelle drew in a deep breath even as her eyes sought the familiar stride of Black Heart. He was stomping at a faster clip than usual down the street. No teasing grin would be shot up at them today—that was clear from the angry set of his jaw and the hands clenched into fists at his side.
His nickname was no great mystery. One had only to watch him for a few moments to see the resentment—some would call it hatred—that held him in its teeth. Arabelle’s fingers settled on the windowsill. She’d never met the man. But she knew him. Knew how the bitterness could eat at one, gnawing away until there was nothing left but sinew and bone, no heart to speak of.
Just looking at him took her back to those dark days. The days before Aunt Hettie, before the Braxtons, before the Lord had shown her how He’d always been by her side. When it was just her and a dead mother and a missing father and a village rector who hadn’t a clue what to do with a seething ten-year-old girl.
Father God, he wears his pain like a uniform. She watched Black Heart pound the pavement ever nearer to their window. But you can reach him, as you reached me. Touch his heart, Lord. Break it, if you must. Show him that you’re there, right there beside him.
She’d prayed nearly the same prayer every day for months. Every day he stalked by Charing Cross on his way home from the Old Admiralty Building, where he’d somehow ended up instead of in front of a firing squad. To hear the papers tell it, he’d killed his entire squadron—willfully. Five flying aces taken out in their prime by his jealousy and hateful nature, all because of an argument with one of the pilots.
He chose that moment to glance up. No smile upon his lips, not today. And who knew what he could really see behind the glass. But it felt as though he looked directly at her, straight into her eyes. As if with that glance he was challenging her daily prayer for him. God isn’t here, that look said. No one is.
But He was. And He would show him. She knew He would.
“I could bring a smile back to those lips,” Eliza said to the glass, a wistful look in her eyes.
“You? No, he needs someone young and fresh and hopeful to change him.” Susan grinned down at him, though he didn’t look up again.
Arabelle took a step backward. “I wouldn’t put any hope in changing a man, Sue. None of us can change anyone else—not unless they want to do it themselves.” But the Lord could. And from the first moment she’d spotted that angry pilot, she had the strangest feeling that He was chasing him.
“I meant inspire him to change.” Susan patted her hair, pinned just so under her white kerchief, as if Black Heart would be able to see it from the street.
“Are you girls wasting time at the window again?” The ward matron brought them all around with a start, her nearly permanent scowl etched into place between her brows. She leveled a finger at the lot of them. “Back to your posts, or I’ll have you all reassigned, and you’ll never be on this side of the building again.”