by Lois Greiman
He was mocking her. She was sure of it, and though some traitorous part of her was tempted to laugh, she managed to say, “I’m certain you’ll find someone,” in a voice cold enough to freeze blood.
“May I inquire why you wish for Mr. Gallagher to remain behind?”
She studied him as if he were a descendent of some despicable insect. “If you must know, I do not entirely trust him.” That much was true. It was also true that she didn’t entirely trust herself. And how unlikely was that? “What of James?” She had seen the aging shepherd meandering through the flocks on more than one occasion. He was short and red-faced and not the least appealing. James would be perfect.
“His wife has begun her lying in.”
“He’s got a wife?”
He didn’t tell her she was acting the idiot, but she was quite sure he thought it. “Yes, my lady. Hence the lying in.”
“And she’s giving birth?”
“I can think of no other reason for her confinement.”
“Well…” She made an impatient gesture with one hand, but she was losing her haughty edge. Childbirth was not something with which she was entirely comfortable. Drina was Dook Natsia’s midwife, and none usurped her authority. Nor had Savaana ever wished to. She was quite certain Lady Tilmont would feel the same. “That cannot take all day, surely.”
For a moment she thought Gregors might actually laugh at her foolishness. In fact, it was a mystery to her how he could refrain. “I’m afraid it has been known to do just that, my lady.”
She lowered her brows. “Very well, then, what of his eldest lad?”
“Enos…?” He didn’t so much as raise a brow. “…has yet to reach his ninth birthday.”
“Emily?”
“Afraid of horses.”
“Cook.”
He gave her a single blink that spoke volumes. Good God, this man should be a mime. He could make a small fortune on the streets of Paris while being as irritating as he wished. “Perhaps you are unaware that before being convinced to come to Knollcrest, Monsieur LaFont was the chef for the Duke of Elbany.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying, but she guessed it had something to do with the reason Cook would not be driving her to Darlington.
“Very well,” she said, her tone pinched. “Then you shall have to take the ribbons yourself.” She had heard that phrase on the bustling streets of London during one of her performances there and stashed it away for later use. But she couldn’t have foreseen this little eventuality.
“My lady…” His stare was deadly even. “I do not venture out of doors.”
Holy hell. She stared back. Was he serious? she wondered, and realized he didn’t exactly seem the type to enjoy a good jest. “I beg your pardon.”
“And you have it,” he said stiffly, but Lady Tilmont did not back down so easily.
“Are you refusing to drive me to the village, Gregors?”
There was, perhaps, a pause for a fraction of a second. “Yes, I believe I am.”
Even a lady knew when she was beaten, or at least she had to assume so. “Then you must find me a chaperone.”
He was silent for a full three seconds this time. “A chaperone, my lady?”
“Dem it, Gregors, I could have sworn there was no echo in this house last we spoke. I do not approve of the way so many demireps go about unescorted these days, and I’ll not be one of them.”
“Commendable, I’m sure,” he said. “But be that as it may, I fear I have no access to someone suitable for such an—”
“I will have a chaperone, Gregors,” she vowed. “Or you will be carrying the cabriolet to Darlington on your back. Do you understand me?”
Apparently he did because not two hours later a chaperone arrived. She was approximately three hundred years old. As far as Savaana could tell, the lady was totally bald, though most of her pate was covered by a powdered wig the size of a bushel basket. Beribboned and plumed, it sat askance on her oversized head.
Gregors introduced them himself. “Lady Tilmont, may I present Mrs. Edwards.”
Savaana inclined her head and wondered vaguely if the poor old fossil was about to fall dead at her feet, but Gregors seemed oblivious to the possibility of death and soldiered on.
“Mrs. Edwards was the lady in waiting for—”
“My lady!” The old woman’s voice boomed through the house like an errant cannon blast. “I am Mrs. Edwards.”
Savaana opened her mouth to speak, but the other shrieked on.
“I was a lady of the bedchamber for Queen Caroline.”
“Caroline of Brunswick, the Regent’s queen?”
“Not Prinny’s tramp, of course,” Edwards yelled. “George the Second’s lady wife.”
Savaana quickly tried to figure out the implications of that fact but was boggled by the possibilities. Caroline of Brunswick had died more than seventy years earlier. “Well…” She gave the old woman her most refined smile. “Let us be about our business, then.”
Darlington was little more than a bevy of hovels stuck together with wattle and pig manure. But it had a decent dry goods store, which seemed to sell a bit of everything. They stopped there first.
Gallagher had changed from his rough leather breeches into Knollcrest’s gray and black livery. She was quite sure he should look servile in the uniform, but somehow it managed the opposite, making him seem like nobility playing in peasant’s clothing. He handed her down, grinning roguishly. Their fingers met for a moment, but she refused to acknowledge the spark of something that zapped between them. For God’s sake, she hadn’t tumbled out of the turnip cart yesterday, she reminded herself, and tugged her hand impatiently from his grip.
Her grocery purchase took all of fifteen minutes, because, truth to tell, she couldn’t care less if Knollcrest’s larders held nothing more than crickets and dust. But she wouldn’t think of her true reasons for being there. Not yet. For now she would remain firmly in character. She glanced about. A blue bonnet was displayed at a cocky angle on the newel post of a railing near the front of the store. She ran her fingers over its brim.
“’Tis a comely piece,” Gallagher said from behind her.
She gave him a glance over her shoulder. Didn’t drivers usually stay with the damned wagon? she wondered, but had found no reason to insist that he remain there. Even Mrs. Edward had hobbled in and sat nodding away in a corner of the store near the window. Maybe he had merely come in to assist the elderly woman. Then again, for all she knew he might have a penchant for women’s garments. For a moment she imagined him in naught but her cotton drawers.
He raised one brow as if he could read her thoughts, but Lady Tilmont was not the blushing sort. Savaana was certain of it.
“’Twould bring out the color of your eyes,” he said, and she forced herself to meet his gaze.
“As it happens, Smallwick, I rather like the color where it is,” she said, and he laughed.
“’Twould be my pleasure to purchase it for you.”
Savaana glanced toward the shop’s proprietress. She was a middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense look about her. Luckily, she was too busy hanging dried herbs to notice their conversation.
“Need I remind you, yet again, that I am a married woman?” Savaana asked, returning her hard gaze to the Irishman’s.
He shook his head, never breaking eye contact. “I believe that is what the lass in yon corner is for.”
She scowled.
“Wee Mrs. Edwards,” he said, though it was entirely possible her chaperone weighed more than the two of them together. “Did ye not bring her along to keep yourself from the likes of me?”
“Are you implying that I find you irresistible?”
“Aye,” he said, and smiled…irresistibly.
“Well, I do not.”
“Then why bring the enchanting Mrs.—”
“I hired Mrs. Edwards to keep things proper.”
“Did you now?” he asked, and took a step toward her, crowding a little, tho
ugh in truth there was a full two feet of space between them.
“Yes, I did.”
“You know what I find improper, lass?”
“No,” she said, “and neither do I care.”
“Improper and improbable and unimaginable?”
She wrinkled her nose as though offended by his scent, but in truth he smelled of leather and sunlight. “Bathing on a weekly basis?” she guessed.
His full lips quirked up again. “The fact that your husband could leave a fair beauty like you alone after so little time in your bed.” Reaching out, he took her hand in his and skimmed his thumb slowly across her knuckles.
Feelings sparked through her like naughty fireflies, but she refrained from yanking away as if burned. She also refrained from dragging him to the ground like a wolf on a hare. Instead, she lifted her gaze slowly to the busy proprietress, then shifted it regally back to his.
“Unhand me, sir,” she said, though in truth, she could not quite find the motivation to pull from his velvet clasp. “Or I shall be forced to take appropriate measures.”
His dimples flicked into place, and though he moved no closer, she felt as if they shared the very air they breathed. “Such as taking me to your bed?”
The suggestion made a thousand rampant thoughts thunder through her head, but she banished each one. Angry at her own wayward imaginings, she said, “Such as kneeing you in the crotch.”
For a moment he was speechless, and then he laughed. The sound was low and beautiful, rumbling erotically through her soul. The proprietress glanced toward them. Savaana cleared her throat and tugged her fingers from his, though, in truth, their hands were well hidden behind a display of men’s hats.
Still, she glanced nervously toward Mrs. Edwards, who had awaken with a start and a snort. There seemed to be something about the Irishman’s chuckle that brought every woman alive to her senses.
As for Gallagher himself, he was watching her, eyes laughing, making no attempt to move closer, no pretense of moving farther away. “You are not what I expected. That I admit,” he said.
“Oh?” She raised a brow and watched the proprietress distractedly hang a bouquet of borage beside a cluster of dried rosemary. “And what did you expect, Mr. Wickerheimer? Some besotted chit so brainless she would drop into your bed like a wilted daisy petal?”
His lips cranked up another notch. “’Tis not too late,” he said.
“Believe me, it will take more than a few sultry glances to get me to your bed.”
“Would kisses help?” he asked. “For I’m willing to part with a few.”
“Try it and you’ll—” she began, but just then the proprietress wended her way between a burlap bag of fine ground flour and a wooden stand bearing a burnished sidesaddle.
“Is there something that has caught your interest, my lady?” she asked, and Gallagher raised his brows, as if mimicking her question with a glance.
Savaana raised her chin. “This bonnet,” she said. “Would you mind if I tried it on for a moment?”
“Not a’tall, my lady,” the woman said, and taking it from the newel post where it rested, handed it over.
Savaana perched it immediately atop her head. The shopkeeper nodded soberly.
“Very flattering,” she said. “It brings out the color of your eyes.”
Shifting her gaze to the Irishman’s, Savaana refrained from saying where she’d like to keep her color.
“I shall purchase it, then,” she said.
“Very good, my lady. Is there anything else I can do for you while you are in our fair village?”
She glanced about, remembering her persona. “What with the incessant rain of late, I have been rather bored. What have you to alleviate that?”
“Well…we are not London.”
Savaana didn’t bother to comment. Instead, she raised an understated brow.
“But we do have our share of attractions.”
She raised her other brow.
“A troupe of entertainers just arrived in town.”
“Entertainers?” Savaana felt her heart rate pick up.
“Gypsies, I believe. But I hear they’re quite good,” said the proprietress. “One of them is nobility, I believe.”
Savaana kept her expression placid, her tone skeptical. “Nobility in a traveling troupe?”
“Well, you know how Gypsies are. They all believe themselves to be descended from kings. But one of them is said to be a duke.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, the Duke of Natsia or some such.”
Chapter 7
It was nearing dusk when Gallagher eased the quiet chestnut to a halt in a little glen at the north edge of Darlington. A crowd had gathered on a grassy hillock. In the softly muted background, maple trees marched along the curving course of the river. Gold and scarlet leaves fluttered gently against the darkening sky, sweeping in an undulating arc around the north side of the hill, almost reaching the growing cluster of onlookers.
Mrs. Edwards, seated snuggly between Savaana and the Irishman, straightened her ancient back, peering out over the sea of heads. “It appears to be a carnival of sorts,” she said.
“Yes.” Savaana tried to hold onto Lady Tilmont’s haughty demeanor, but it was slipping away, being swallowed by the Gypsy girl that ran wild in her mind.
It was all she could do to retain the carefully cultured voice, to keep from leaping from the vehicle in search of her grandfather. For during the previous night, alone in the dark of her bedchamber, she had come to the only logical solution: Tamas had been her attacker. There was no other explanation. She had thought for a time that perhaps the villain had been someone from Lady Tilmont’s past, but after reviewing the conversation a hundred times in her buzzing head, she was certain Tamas had come to retrieve her.
Savaana had no idea how he had found her. She had informed no one but her grandfather of her plans, and though he had been reluctant to let her go, he understood her need. Indeed, he had supplied her with a small pistol to keep her safe.
As for the remainder of the troupe, she had simply told them she would be gone for a fortnight. She had long known, however, that Tamas foolishly thought of her as his own, his mistress saved for a later date. She had not, however, thought he would threaten her grand father to get her back. Then again, maybe his words hadn’t been a threat at all. Maybe they were a warning. Perhaps Grandfather’s health was deteriorating and Tamas had but come to inform her. She had to find out. But she was not willing to quit the charade, not until it was absolutely unavoidable. There was too much at stake.
But Grandfather was nowhere to be seen. That much was apparent at a glance. Only the caravan was visible. It stood off to their right, nestled in a copse of rowan. Swirls of rich burgundy and muted greens embellished its lavish design. Narrow steps led up to the small, arched door, but the shafts stood empty. El Rey was nowhere in sight. Without her act, he would not be needed, but she longed to see him, to leap aboard his back, to breathe in his homey scent, the very essence of her people.
“I say, there must be a carnival in town,” Mrs. Edwards repeated loudly.
“Yes.” Savaana could feel Gallagher staring at her. Grappling wildly with her image, she got a stranglehold on Lady Tilmont’s snooty nature just as Tamas strode onto the hillock. He carried a trio of knives in one hand, a torch in another, and in that instant he tilted his head back and belched forth a flaming inferno into the darkening sky.
There were gasps of alarm and amazement as he straightened, chuckles as he grinned and greeted the hushing audience.
Savaana’s shudder was not entirely fake. “A shabby Gypsy troupe, by the look of things,” she said.
Mrs. Edwards glared out over the crowd, antiquated hoop lopsided beneath her heavy gown, not hearing a word. “Perhaps ’tis a Gypsy troupe.”
“Perhaps,” Savaana said, and allowed herself to search the grounds, but she recognized no one else. Might Grandfather truly be failing?
A thrush warbled its even
ing song. The torches had already been lit and placed on wooden poles above the ground. A few entrepreneurial towns people had set up booths. One sold mincemeat pies. Another hawked baked apples.
“What did they call themselves?” Gallagher asked. He was still eyeing her, but she refused to squirm.
“Duke something. Though I hardly think him noble,” Savaana drawled, looking at Tamas. “I but thought Mrs. Edwards could use a respite from the jostling of this lumber wagon before returning to Knollcrest.”
“Dook?” Gallagher said, scowling a little. Tamas had thrown the torch aside and begun to juggle wooden handled knives that flashed in the torchlight. “Doesn’t that mean magical in the Rom tongue?”
Savaana stared at him, surprised, but she calmed her heart and raised a quizzical brow. “Tell me, Mr. Wickingshire, are you, by chance, one of their lost brethren?”
He smiled at her snide tone. “Doubtful,” he said. “But I do know the odd word. I think this troupe is called the Magic Gypsies.” He was watching her a little too closely. “Might you be familiar with them?”
She gave a ladylike snort. “Do I look the kind to consort with—”
“Perhaps this is the troupe called Dook Natsia,” shouted Mrs. Edwards. “I’ve heard they’re quite good.”
Gallagher turned from Savaana with a grin, but there was something in his eyes. Something bright and curious. “You’ve a sharp memory, Mrs. Edwards. Have you an unobstructed view from your seat there?”
The elder lady patted his arm affectionately. “I had a dog once, too, lad. Licked himself incessantly.”
He smiled as if the world made perfect sense and lifted his gaze to Savaana’s. “And what of you, my lady? Are you comfortable?”
Tamas had pulled a sword from the scabbard at his hip and was adding it to the twirling cutlery, and though her every nerve was jumping with impatience, Savaana remembered just in time to say something rude. “As comfortable as can be, I suppose, in these rustic circumstances.”
“I could obtain seats for you nearer the front of the throng if you like.”
“At the front?” Where Tamas could see her? Where even his children might recognize her? No. She hoped to make certain all was well with Grandfather while maintaining her adopted persona. Perhaps, if she were truly lucky, her performance at Knollcrest had convinced Tamas that she was, in fact, nothing more than what she appeared to be…a proud baroness caught in lowly circumstances. “And leave me exposed to this rabble?” she asked.
