The dogs discovered their arrival first and hurtled down upon them, furiously barking. Roderic and Luca quieted them with a harsh command, but could not subdue the shouts and screams of welcome as the presence of Rolfe, the boyar, hereditary ruler, was discovered. The gypsies crowded around, trying to touch him. He accepted their homage with every sign of pleasure and enjoyment, slapping the men on the back and kissing the women who flung themselves into his arms.
With scant ceremony but much affection, he was led to the place of honor on the richest of the rugs before the fire. Roderic was placed at his right and Mara was pressed down beside the prince. The man who led the band in Roderic's absence, a rough fellow with a craggy face and straight black hair covered by a kerchief, was seated on the boyar's left so that they might consult together. Juliana was welcomed and seated beyond the gypsy leader. Luca took the place beside her. Michael procured a chair from a nearby caravan for Grandmère Helene, setting it down next to Mara and dropping down beside it; the others found seats where they could.
Wine was poured and handed around. A mandolin was put into Roderic's hands. The music of gypsy violins began softly, rising into the night. Wild and sweet, it spoke of life and love and freedom of the spirit. Roderic picked up the counterpoint, the notes falling mellow and pure from his fingers.
Mara had thought to be diverted, perhaps amused. She found instead that she was content. Above her was the open sky with its tiny pinpricks of stars. The night and the winter wind were held at bay by the caravans and the roaring fire. The wine was raw and new but good, warming her inside. The music was soothing and, at the same time, exciting in an unexpected fashion. But it was the gypsies themselves who affected her most. They might be curious, but they did not intrude. They accepted her as she was, without question, without judgment. She was there. It was enough.
Around her, the others were also leaning back, smiling, drinking. It was only as the tension slipped away that she realized how tightly strung they all had been. It was as if beneath the careful masks they displayed they were in grim anticipation of some further cataclysm. For tonight they could relax, could believe as the gypsies did that life was life, and no matter how it was lived, it was far better than death. It was this that Roderic had tried to tell her that night he had found her in the Seine. His words had hardly registered then in her distress, but now they echoed clearly in her mind.
Listen carefully, ma chère, and heed me well: There is no fate worse than death...
There had been something more, but she could not quite bring it to mind. No matter. The words held a certain power, and she cherished them.
Into their circle toddled a small girl not much more than a year old. Her hair grew in soft, feathery, dark curls over her head, and her eyes were deep black and laughing. Behind her came an older girl of five or six scolding like a mother as she tried to head the child off.
The little girl, hardly more than a baby, stumbled on the edge of the piled rugs, falling toward the fire. Roderic thrust out a hand to catch her, clutching a handful of skirt by which he swept her, one-handed, into the curve of his arm. He put his mandolin aside and tossed the child up so that her startled whimper turned into a radiant chortle of joy.
"A tender morsel, but too precious for roasting,” Roderic said.
The baby grabbed at his hair, tangling sticky fingers in its gold strands while placing a very wet kiss on his nose. He discovered the damp condition of the gown he held and heaved a resigned sigh.
"Drooling and encroaching, incontinent and inconveniently affectionate. It's a mystery how the human race has survived."
Mara, watching him patiently disentangle the small hands and cuddle the child, nuzzling her tender neck, felt a foolish smile curve her mouth at this unexpected insight into the prince of Ruthenia. Why she should be happy or surprised, she could not tell. They had spoken of babies, she and Roderic, on the night they met, but there had been little to indicate that he liked them. Or was good with them.
When it was ready, the food was delicious, seasoned with herbs and garlic, the fat crisp, brown and crackling, the meat succulently tender. The bread, baked in the coals, was crunchy and tasted faintly of smoke, a perfect accompaniment. It was all washed down with more wine, after which they, at least those who were guests, wiped their greasy fingers on rough toweling that had been dipped in water scented with vetiver.
They were still eating when a troop of horsemen approached. Silence fell as the uniforms they wore were identified. It was the gendarmes. The gypsy leader cast aside the turkey leg he held and rose to his feet. With Roderic, who was already standing, he walked to where the mounted police had stopped.
It was a matter of a stolen horse, or so ran the whisper around the caravan. The gendarmes wished to search for the animal and the thief. The gypsies had nothing to hide, of course they did not. Let the police enter. Give them food and drink. Play, dance, sing.
Roderic, as courteous as if in his own salon, directed the men to places on the rugs. Wine and roast pork were brought and put before them. The music rang out loud and gay. A young woman carrying a bright red scarf embroidered in gold ran from the edge of the circle and began to whirl, scarf flying, around the main fire. The cadence of the dance was picked up by the gypsies as they began to clap in time to it. The dancer's eyes gleamed and her smile flashed as she turned and stamped and undulated. The coins strung in a necklace about her neck clashed. Faster and faster she danced until with a crashing discord she flung herself down before the gendarmes and Roderic. There was a burst of applause that quickly died away as the music began once more. It was a slow and sensual melody in a minor key, and the movements of the dancer as she rose were smooth and controlled, timeless in their seductive power. She danced for the gendarmes, trailing her scarf across their faces and over their shoulders, but, most of all, she danced for Roderic.
The prince's smile remained polite, but there was appreciation in his eyes. Watching him, Mara felt her stomach knot inside her. She looked away. Demon sat begging at her feet, his eyes anxious. She handed him the pork rib she held and wiped her fingers, then picked up her cup and drank deep. The race of the wine in her blood was half pleasurable and half painful. Her contentment was gone. It was not hard to find the reason. She was jealous.
She had been forced to seduce a prince and had made the mistake of falling in love with him. It was a stupid thing to do, stupid and useless and humiliating. He was from a different world, a world of privilege and power and careful alliances. Even if they had met under normal circumstances, because of the slight family connection, it would have been unlikely that they could overcome the differences in their stations. After her betrayal of him and the scandal that she had brought upon them both, it was impossible. The best that she could hope for was to prevent him from learning how she felt and so salve her pride.
She looked away from Roderic and her gaze fell on Luca. The gypsy sat with his arm resting on the top of a drawn-up knee and his attention upon the face of Princess Juliana. The firelight flickered over his dark features, limning in orange-yellow gleams the naked emotions that hovered there. Because Mara felt the same longing that she saw reflected in the gypsy's eyes, she recognized it at once. The newest member of the cadre was in love with Roderic's sister.
The dance continued. Now a gypsy man signaled for slower music and began to move to its rhythm. With majestic sureness, he posed and strutted, circling the crowd gathered around. At last he chose a woman, beckoning, his smile enticing. She joined him, and together they glided, turning back to back with arms extended, whirling suddenly to be face to face, coming close, springing apart, holding perfectly to the heartbeat pulse of the music. With their hands on each other's hips and passion in their eyes, they moved in a ritual of suggestive courtship, advancing, retreating. The music quickened; faster they danced, and faster still. Until, abruptly, the man pulled his chosen woman into his arms and swept her through the crowd and into the darkness beyond.
The night progr
essed. The gendarmes, growing maudlin on strong wine, began to sing, and the gypsies joined in. They sang old peasant songs and the lyrics from the most popular operettas; arias from the operas of Donizetti and Bellini; and risque ditties from Left Bank cabarets. By the time they had run out of songs, the horse thief had been forgotten. In any case, so great was their feeling of comradeship that when the gypsies offered once more to let them search, the gendarmes declined with fervor. Shortly thereafter they rode away to make their report to their superior.
The children were put to bed. Grandmère Helene nodded off in her chair. Roderic took up his mandolin once more and began to play a soft and haunting tune. The violins picked it up, the sounds blending, rising, falling, passionately pleading, heart-stopping in its sweetness.
The music seemed to reach inside Mara, to touch the ache in the center of her chest. Driven by an urgent need to escape it, she drained the last of her wine and rose to her feet. She pushed away from the circle about Rolfe, skirting a cook fire and following the enclosing line of caravans. She came to an opening between them and eased through it. Beyond was windswept darkness, lit here and there by a scattering of fires where more gypsies were encamped. It was cold away from the fire. She drew her cloak around her, shivering.
From the caravan just beside her came the sweet smell of hay. Though it had solid sides and the same curved top as the others, it had no back. Wisps of hay, apparently fodder for the horses raised by the band, spilled onto the ground. It would make a soft seat and the caravan's walls would offer some protection from the wind.
She had been seated for no more than a few minutes when the music that had so disturbed her died away. The relief was intense. Allowing her muscles to relax, she leaned back upon the hay piled up behind her. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to think, trying to recapture some of the careless philosophy of the gypsies. Life is life. Each moment is a gift. Enjoy.
The bed of the caravan creaked at a shift of weight. The hay rustled. Mara opened her eyes to see the shape of a man outlined at the end of the caravan. With a smothered cry, she threw herself to one side, ready to slide past him.
"Don't be frightened. It's only me,” Roderic said.
Slowly, she subsided, though her heart was jarring in her chest. “What do you want?"
"You should not wander away alone. Some lusty gypsy might take it as an invitation."
"He would be wrong."
"But the discovery could come too late."
She could not quite make out his face in the dimness, though she could see the faint white shimmer of his uniform as he moved to let himself down beside her. His form bulked large, making her acutely aware of him as a man and of their isolation.
"I must rejoin the others,” she said quickly.
"There's no hurry since you are no longer alone. Of course, if it's fear that impels you—"
"I'm not afraid of you.” Wary, distrusting, but not afraid.
"Then why do you avoid me?"
"I don't!"
"You have left my bed—"
"You could hardly expect me to stay!"
"Why? Because my usefulness to you was at an end? Because there was no one to force you? Because propriety has been restored? Because King Rolfe might frown? Or is it because I used fear as a weapon to gain your cooperation, and you cannot forgive it."
"All those things,” she answered in defiance.
"Then take them in order and tell me why they have validity."
"You know why!"
"I only know that the memory of you burns in my mind, violet blue and shimmering with the iridescence of pearls. I know that I want you, that there is no kingdom that will suffice if you are not in it. I long to touch and to hold you, to taste the honeyed essence of you..."
To stop the flow of his words, she said, “You want a woman. The gypsy dancer will undoubtedly please you just as well."
"You noticed.” There was satisfaction in his tone.
"How could I not when you were positively doting on the command performance? How could anyone?"
"You were jealous."
"I was not!” She pushed away from him, trying to get out of the caravan. He caught her arm, hauling her toward him with such quickness that she landed on her back in the hay.
"You were,” he said softly as he leaned above her, pinning her arms beside her. “You want me."
"No!"
"Yes. You remember as I do the silken nights and the mornings that came too soon."
"No,” she whispered, but it was a lie.
He did not bother to answer, leaning instead to press his lips to hers. He molded their smooth and tender surfaces to his own, gently trying the sensitive line where they came together until they parted to permit him entry. He took that permission unhesitatingly, exploring in sensual wonder the fragile inner surfaces. Warm and flavored with wine, their mouths clung, then slowly she raised her arms to lock them behind his head.
Life was life and must be lived. Yesterday was gone and tomorrow was no more than a shadow. Tonight was the only certainty, the present moment all that was guaranteed. It could not be wrong to take the pleasure it offered and make of it a bright memory for the future, if there was a future. She loved this man. No matter what he might have done, she could not deny the quickening of her blood or the aching fullness of her heart that only he could bring. Drowning in languor and fatalism, Mara pressed closer to Roderic's hard length.
Their bodies sank into the thick hay. Its fragrance surrounded them with the intimations of summer and warm sun. It rustled quietly as they moved, a soft but prickly bed. The wind made a soughing sound around the edge of the caravan's curved top and touched their skin with chill fingers so that they burrowed deeper into the hay.
Roderic's lips burned along the curve of her cheek, the turn of her jaw, the tender arch of her neck. He reached to gather her skirts, drawing them higher until his hand touched her knee. He pushed the mass of skirts and petticoats higher, and she made a soft sound in her throat as she felt the warmth of his hand through the thin material of her pantalettes. He spread his fingers over her abdomen, spanning its flat width, then in a swift movement leaned to press his face into that firm softness. Gently, insidiously, he parted her thighs, searching for and finding the slitted crotch opening of her pantalettes. She felt the slight roughness of his fingertips at the most sensitive point of her body, and then the warm exhalation of his breath, the heat of his mouth.
Pleasure, a vital and perilous rapture, swept in upon her with such force that it took her breath. Awareness receded and yet, at the same time, expanded until she was not sure she could bear it. Never had she felt so alive, so vital. She was a part of the night and the music and the wild freedom of the gypsy camp, of the chill winter wind, and also of the man who held her. The blood raced in her veins and her heart swelled to bursting, jarring as it beat against her ribs.
She gripped his shoulder with her hand, clasping tight, kneading, stroking. Her lower limbs felt heavy, the muscles taut. Her skin glowed with heat. Inside her was a quickening, burgeoning sensation. She wanted, needed, to feel his strength against her, within her. She wanted to encompass him, to take him deeper and deeper still, until he was a part of her and she a part of him, without differences of rank and station, female and male. Without end.
She pushed her hand between them, slipping the frogs of his uniform jacket from their clasps. He shifted to help her. They opened their clothing, drawing the edges aside, lowering those garments that were most constricting. They came together then with the shuddering inevitability of magnet and iron, face to face in the whispering, sweet-scented hay. Their limbs entwined, they pressed close.
"Mara,” he said, an entreaty and a benediction, then with a powerful twist of his hips he entered her, plunging deep.
Caught in the passionate compulsion of the joining, Mara moved with him, against him. Together they strove with the blood pounding in their veins and their breathing deep and hard. Their skins were moist, burning
to the touch. Their lips met in a kiss devouring in its ecstasy. The tumult stretched, gathered, flowed, swept in sudden grandeur toward the inevitable explosion.
It burst upon them, silent and glorious, seductive in its magic. They let it take them, close-held, into grateful beatitude. With entwined limbs and soft caresses, they drifted and came, slowly, to rest.
It was some time later that a cold wind touched them. With reluctance, they eased apart, sitting up, adjusting clothing. Finished, Roderic reached to help Mara, doing up the tiny buttons of her bodice as she smoothed her hair. Halfway through his task, he bent his head to press his lips to the deep valley between her breasts.
It was at that moment that Rolfe stepped into view. He placed one foot on the footboard of the caravan, speaking in dulcet tones with an undercurrent of steel.
"What crude pastoral joy, tumbling in the hay. It lacks polish, finesse, and even common sense, but can be sublime in a scratchy fashion. I trust the experience was memorable, for it will be the last."
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14
Revolution was in the air. Not in nearly sixty years had the mood of the people been so angry, their dissatisfaction with the present government so vocal. They were also, and most overwhelmingly, bored. They looked back on the days of the empire under Napoleon and sighed for the past glory of France, forgetting the blood of the flower of French youth that had been spilled to secure it and the enormous sums it had cost. The heads of the aristocrats of the Old Regime had been loped off in the Place de la Concorde and good riddance, but, ah, what days those had been when the Sun King had ruled from Versailles and all the world had journeyed there to pay homage to La Belle France!
Royal 02 - Royal Passion Page 26
