The Romany Heiress

by Nikki Poppen

  “It is simple,” Cecile said, reaching over to squeeze Cate’s hand in an old gesture of feminine affection. “We are women of an age. Women must always band together, especially when men conspire to know and do what is best for us.

  “Tristan and Alain and even Giles most likely only see the issue of legitimacy in this situation. I doubt any of them see beyond it to what happens afterward. Men don’t have the foresight women do when it comes to people,” Cecile said sagely, giving a light laugh. “My dear husband has built a seaside resort in Hythe. He had the forethought for the economic future of the middle class-one where they’d be able to afford vacations and the time to take them, but he nearly lost me because he, like most men, lacked intuition. Besides, I know from experience how much a woman in a new place needs the counsel of other women with experience. I needed Bella when I first married Alain and now it’s my turn to pass on that assistance to you”

  Cate glanced at Isabella. “And you? Why would you do this for me?”

  Isabella laughed. “You routed Lady FoxHaughton as if she were no more than lint on your sleeve. I despise the woman, and I relish any opportunity to see that pompous dragon cut down to size, especially when I can be involved in the cutting.” Then Isabella sobered. “While that’s the truth, I am not that petty. You thwarted her. In the process, you’ve acquired a powerful enemy. If you seek to move in circles where you will encounter her, you will need armor. She will exploit any weakness you show her no matter how small. Heaven help you if she discovers she was thwarted by a gypsy queen. If we’re successful, she won’t suspect that you’re anything other than a remote cousin of Giles’s.”

  Cate gave a tremulous smile. “Thank you. When I first came to tea I didn’t expect this to happen. I expected to be ambushed. You should know I don’t mean any harm to Giles. He’s shown me every courtesy and treated me far better than a stranger with ill tidings deserves”

  Cate found herself fixed with another of Isabella’s stares. She lowered her teacup to meet it.

  “My dear Cate, no matter what happens, you will change his life. You already have. It is a great power to shape another’s life. For the rest of his, he will remember you in some way. The only choice you have is how you shape that remembrance”

  Isabella poured another cup of tea for every one. “We mean you as little harm as you mean Giles,” She imparted meaningfully, raising her teacup for a toast. “Here’s hoping it stays that way” The three of them clinked their delicate cups gently and sipped.

  Cate did not miss the implied meaning beneath Isabella’s toast. All in all, Cate thought the act quite civil in comparison to the promised unsheathing of claws that could follow should she harm Giles in any way. She suspected that whatever punishments Lady FoxHaughton could mete out would pale against the vengeance Isabella could wreak on behalf of a maligned friend.

  Since her tea with Isabella and Cecile, Cate’s days took on a regular and yet daunting routine; mornings were spent with the ladies studying the precedence of the peerage, learning the intricacies of household management, and the arts of carrying off social situations ranging from dinners enfamille to the society ball. There were lessons in the meticulous details of each context: seating arrangements, table settings, which fork to use at dinner parties, instruction in popular card games such as Cassino, Speculation, and Commerce along with the mastery of dancing and the delicacies of small talk. There were also lessons in the things Isabella deemed mundane-planning one’s wardrobes for the seasons: the Little Season, the Winter Season, summers at the estate and fall hunting parties.

  Cate had always lived her life attuned to the seasons: the fall of the leaves in autumn, the bleakness of winter, the rebirth of spring, and the full vibrancy of summer. To Cate, the change of the seasons had rotated on cycles of nature. Now, under Isabella’s tutelage, she was introduced to a new rhythm-a rhythm dominated by events instead of buds and tender new shoots.

  She learned that the season might start after Easter but wasn’t official until the royal art exhibition at the academy, usually held in May. The season ended not with the heat of summer that made London nearly intolerable in July but in August, August 12 to be precise, correlating with the closure of parliament.

  Cate recognized in hindsight how her lack of knowledge regarding the intricacies of Giles’s life could have been quite damning. If she’d been left on her own, free to find her “own level,” she would have foundered immediately. All the rituals and practices that Giles observed were quite foreign to her practical life.

  From Cate’s perspective and experience, it was difficult to see why it mattered that one attend the Royal Regatta at Brighton or be on hand at Ascot, even if one didn’t have a horse racing. Why should one bother with an extensive wardrobe of gowns intended to be worn no more than twice? To a woman who had the privilege of owning two complete outfits each year, the requirements of a true lady’s wardrobe seemed outlandish, inefficient, and highly uneconomical.

  Isabella was patient and tolerant to a degree. When Cate balked at the extensive lessons laid out before her, Isabella would straighten her shoulders and fix her protege with a piercing topaz stare and remind her that the mark of a lady was not the cut of her gown but the depth of her manners. A true lady knew how to carry on in any situation and in the face of any adversity no matter how small or how major. A true lady could be relied upon at all times to do and say just the right thing in the just the right way.

  While the lessons were tiring, they were also intriguing. Cate had always had a great fascination for how other people of any social status lived. Part of the charm of traveling with the caravan was a chance to see all of England and all of its various peoples. Learning about the ton was no less exciting than learning about the sheep farming communities of the Cotswolds.

  But there was time to learn about nature as well as society. Isabella relinquished her claim on Cate’s time after luncheon. If Cate could pick a time of day that pleased her most it would be the afternoons, which were alternately spent with Giles touring the estate or at her leisure. For the latter afternoons, she spent her time strolling the grounds of the estate, marveling in the autumnal beauty of Spelthorne’s gardens and forests or, when weather did not permit such outdoor activity, in the music room playing on the violin she’d spied the day Isabella had invited her tea.

  Those were good days, quiet days when she found a semblance of inner peace in a world that had upended itself. She was honest enough with herself to admit that the carefully dressed and coiffed woman who looked back at her in the looking-glass was far from the brassy woman who had risked all by coming to Spelthorne three weeks ago with her bold claim.

  The days she did not spend with her own pursuits, she spent with Giles, receiving an instruction of a different sort. While Isabella and Cecile taught her the art of manners amongst the ton, Giles taught her estate management. He gave her free use of an excellent bay mare in his stables, and together they would ride the length and breadth of the estate. She was impressed by the extent of his holdings. There was a home farm which generated the crops that fed the manor, the tenant farmers, and the villagers. There were the village merchants ranging from the butcher, baker, a dressmaker, and other myriad small businesses that contributed to the self-sustaining lifeblood of Spelthorne.

  Not only was Giles responsible for the economic survival of Spelthorne through the successful managing of business and agricultural needs, he also oversaw the spiritual needs of his people. The parish vicarage was part of his holding, and it was his job to bestow that living on a worthy individual who could provide ethical guidance to the people of Spelthorne.

  She had not guessed, could not have begun to guess, at the profundity of his obligations. She learned that when Giles was not riding the lands talking to cottagers about new roofs for winter, or inquiring about the impact of taxes on local merchants, making rounds to offer the latest agricultural advice on crop rotation to farmers, or visiting shut-in parishioners with the vicar in the
afternoons, he spent the mornings in his study poring over ledgers, paying bills, writing correspondence, and attending to issues of parliament which committees had addressed to him during the off-season.

  When Cate commented to Isabella that Giles needed a secretary, Isabella retorted that Giles didn’t need a secretary so much as he needed a wife. A wife would be able to take up the visits to the tenants, establish groups for the ladies, and keep an ear open to the news of the village, without Giles having to be there personally.

  With a wife he would be free to spend more time on parliament issues and agriculture, leaving the spiritual life and interpersonal workings of his holdings to his wife’s capabilities. While he would ultimately make decisions on quarter day when the farmers and villagers brought their issues before the earl, those decisions would be significantly influenced by his wife’s perspective. Isabella pointed out that the wife would be the one to know what the dowry should be for the butcher’s daughter who was betrothed to the miller’s son.

  Cate found Isabella’s not-so-subtle message daunting. If she attained her goal of acquiring Spelthorne, she would be faced with an enormous task. It was apparent from her afternoon rides with Giles that his tenants adored him, trusted him to safeguard their livelihoods. After all, it was Giles who negotiated the market prices for their crops, who decided when new roofs were needed and which roofs would last another year. He decided which crops were planted and which fields lay fallow.

  Everyone respected him and because of their respect for him, they allowed her, a stranger, to move among them, to learn their ways. She did not doubt that the people of Spelthorne would be less open to her if she’d come on her own or if they’d known her true purpose for being there. One thing was clear to her-no one saw Giles Moncrief as less than the rightful heir. They were proud of their earl, proud to work for a man who respected them and knew them.

  She knew how they felt for she felt that way too. When she would look back over her month at Spelthorne in the later years of her life, she would recall first and foremost not the lessons Isabella drilled her in, not the substantial reconfiguration of her life as she slowly transformed from a Rom who lived outside of society to a lady of quality, but the man, Giles Moncrief.

  If what Isabella said about Cate’s ability to influence Giles’s life, the reverse was also true about Cate’s ability. Simply knowing him changed her in countless ways. He taught her innumerable lessons without opening his mouth. He taught her the true merit of a gentleman. A gentleman dressed cleanly, immaculately, stylishly, without putting on the foppish habits of a dandy. A gentleman didn’t need bright colors and peacockish affectations. A gentleman maintained his honor always, even when temptation presented an easier route. A gentleman could be judged by the behavior he exhibited not only among his equals but the behavior he displayed in his treatment of those beneath his social status-those who looked to him and relied on his guidance for their livelihood. Giles was all those things. Chivalrous to a fault.

  It was a fault she would not have seen if she had not lived in close proximity with him. The first time she’d encountered him years ago telling fortunes, she had taken his measure, and correctly so. She had seen him as an upstanding man of honor who wore fine clothes and carried himself well. She had not seen beyond that or had even an inkling of what those abilities required of him.

  To her, originally, he’d led a life of ease and luxury, devoid of responsibilities. Now, riding by his side through the harvesting of the crops or standing beside him as he talked with the vicar, she understood fully what it meant to be a Spelthorne. To Giles Moncrief, it was not a way of life, it was his life. He had given his all, the sum of his being, to the running of his estates.

  Years ago Cate had admired him from afar for his handsome looks and regal bearing. His golden good looks would do any fairy-tale prince proud from the pages of a child’s book. In retrospect, what she’d felt for him was probably nothing more than a type of envy, a covetousness of wanting what was out of reach. The man she knew now was worthy of her true admiration for something beyond his looks and bearing.

  As the days grew closer to the arrival of the vicar, Cate found herself faced with three realizations that shook the core of her being and challenged her sensibilities. First, she more than admired Giles Moncrief. He had far superseded any of her expectations.

  True to his word, he had not kissed her since that first night in his chambers, nor had he given any indication of treating her as less than a lady. He had not used his status as lord of the manor to seduce her or take ungentlemanly advantage of her position.

  It was something of a shock for her to recognize that she wished he would. When she’d look at him across the supper table, ride by his side across the fields, or share a friendly smile across the card table in the evening, she would recall with all too vivid recollection the feel of his hands on her body when he’d gathered her in his arms, the press of his lips, the fire of his passion. She wanted to live the passion again, when he had met her as a man and not as the earl.

  But he was the earl, first, last, always. That was the second realization and perhaps most damning. He was the embodiment of Spelthorne. He was indisputably the lifeblood of Spelthorne. To deprive this place of him, would be to take away its heart. Long before the vicar arrived, Cate knew she couldn’t allow that to happen.

  The third realization frightened her. All that Magda had predicted since the night of the ball had come to pass. Magda had warned her against the folly of falling for the earl, of allowing herself to play at the fairy tale she’d wholeheartedly concocted for herself.

  Magda had warned her about being able to separate myth from reality when the time came. The time was swiftly approaching and Cate knew she was ill-prepared to deal with the situation of her making. She had set her destiny in motion and now, for the sake of a man who did not guess the depth of her feeling for him or who did guess and did not reciprocate those feelings, she was willing to throw her future away. Practicality told her her choice was ludicrous but intuition told her something else was afoot at Spelthorne, as the month of October headed into its final week.

  Cate did not doubt the strength of her intuition; it was what made her such a success as a fortuneteller, sham though she was. She’d never had the “sight” the way some of the other tellers did. But she had her own sight. She could see people and their penchants from the way they dressed to the way they behaved and treated others.

  It was her sight that bothered her most about the month she spent at Spelthorne, surrounded by people who meant her well but, as she was coming to realize with disappointing clarity, did not believe her claims would come to fruition.

  Isabella and Cecile were teaching her deportment. Giles was showing her the running of the estate. Neither of them were showing her because they thought she would be taking over the reins at Spelthorne. Nor were they imparting their knowledge in an elaborate scheme to make her recognize her inferiority and decamp as Magda believed. They had something else, something secret, planned for her.

  The “secret plan conspiracy” which she privately labeled her unease, grew in merit as she contemplated the interactions over the past weeks. Isabella and Cecile had made several references about “her new life” using the phrase “regardless of what is decided here” Cecile had talked at length about the inability to “go back” to her old life.

  As October waned, Cate began to get the sense that a surprise of sorts was being planned. The caravan had once planned a secret party for Tommasino to celebrate his birthday. For two weeks, they’d all crept about, carrying out their mysterious little tasks to acquire a gift, decorations, and the ingredients to bake a cake. It had been fun, even exciting then, but she’d been on the other side of things. She decided being the recipient of a surprise wasn’t nearly as wonderful as planning the surprise.

  Thus, her last week was not filled with the things she wanted to remember most about Spelthorne. Instead of enjoying the scarlet leaves and the honking
of geese as they winged over the lake heading south, she was plagued with anxiety on two fronts. She was trying to unravel the mystery of what her new life might be in the eyes of the others, and she was trying desperately to find a solution to the situation with Giles.

  She loved him. Unrequited or not, her feelings for him would not allow her to be the instrument of his undoing. She did not want to hear the vicar pronounce her story as true. It would break Giles, and she could not face a world without his goodness in it. People needed a man like him to follow. No, she would not let him falter. But neither could she turn her back on what was rightfully hers.

  “What am I to do, Magda,” she said one night, flopping down on the fluffy blue counterpane in distress. “If I uphold the truth of my story, he is dethroned and I cannot live with myself for causing that. If I deny my story, he will be justified in evicting me and in every negative thought he ever had about me. I will have lived up to any stereotype concocted about the Rom and I will have lived up to any bad impression he may have formed. I will be admitting that I am a fraud, a liar, a cheat, willing to whore myself. I will, as Isabella is fond of saying, “have found my own level” As a man of honor, Giles will have nothing to do with me at that point. That option, too, is unpalatable to me”

  Cate watched Magda pace several lengths of the bedroom, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her chin. “Answer me this,” she said when she spoke at last. “Is it Spelthorne you covet or the man?”

  Cate spoke slowly, watching Magda carefully. “Although you warned me against him, it is the man I’ve come to covet, not the estate”