“I have vowed to get those papers, and I shall. On my father’s memory, I will get them back.”
“And what if I said I would get them back for you?” he asked.
Surprised by himself, he wondered briefly where that offer had sprung from. Of course he had no intention of making good on such a promise. It was not even yet a promise, merely a question. But he did hope that she now would try to use her charms to persuade him to assist her.
However, she did not look as if she contemplated any such persuasion. Folding her arms, she studied him, her mouth pulled down and a skeptical, assessing look in her eyes.
“You? What could you do?”
For a moment, he thought that he must not have heard her correctly. He blinked at her as her words sank in.
What could you do?
The scorn in her tone stung like a wasp’s barb. Of all the...why, the insolent little baggage! Who the deuce did she think she was speaking to? Some...some upstart baronet?
Rolling off the bed, onto his feet, he stalked towards her.
She fell back, her hands falling loose to her sides, and sliding behind her. Her eyes widened, as if she had only just realized her mistake.
A too sizable mistake, he thought, his temper barely in check.
“My sweet misguided Gypsy, either you failed to gain enough information from these tavern wenches, or you have not quite grasped my identity.”
Glaring up at him, she stopped backing up and stood her ground. St. Albans stopped before her, so close he could feel her anger flare in an almost tangible aura of heat.
“Oh, I know exactly who you are! I see your kind every day. A gaujo who thinks too much of himself, who has too much time to find himself trouble, and whose idea of help for anyone is to offer money. Well, keep your coins, gaujo. Some of us work for what we want!”
His fist bunched and he only just stopped himself from taking that elegant neck in his hands to throttle her. No one, but no one spoke to him in that tone of voice. And no one had the right to criticize him.
Keeping his own voice very even and low, he told her, just so that she would be quite clear and not make this mistake again, “My dear Gypsy, I am Simon Alexander Derain Winters, Earl of St. Albans, Baron Winters, Baron of Wexford and Fleet, Knight of the Garter, and there is damn little I cannot do if I so please, including get away with murder. Which I shall be happy to prove to you should you insist on continuing this most unwise discussion. And if you call thieving work, then no wonder you have such a misguided view of the world and my place in it.”
Her glance dropped and thick lashes fluttered low, but then she looked up again, her dark eyes burning, the gold in them glinting hot as coals. Uncertainty also shadowed those eyes.
Under his abraded pride, regret stirred. In truth, he did have too much time for trouble, and he did solve a good many problems with coin. Had he not just been thinking how much she might cost him? However, that was not, he told himself, what he had meant when he had asked what he might do for her.
Blast her, but he would not be acting so badly if she had not started this all by asking him what could he do.
He was the Earl of St. Albans. He had been from the day he was born, since his father was wise enough to break his neck before seeing what kind of son he’d sired. He could do anything he pleased.
And he was not, he thought with gritted teeth, going to listen to the laughter of those ghosts from his past; those things he could not do were things he chose not to. And that was that.
He turned his mind from such ancient losses, but those shadows softened his mood. She did not know him. And he should not be so angry with her for being ignorant. Indeed, it was part of her charm that she did not know him well enough to be cautious enough around him.
“You may apologize now, my sweets,” he said, trying hard to soften his tone. Reaching up, he brushed a dark curl from her cheek. “And then we shall move on to more pleasant things.”
St. Albans’s finger brushed across her skin, warm and tender. And Glynis’s fear vanished like a fire doused by sand. She struggled to find the armor of her anger, but too many emotions had buffeted her tonight. Too much fear, too much of nerves strung tight, too much scorn. She just wanted it over. Fatigue filled her bones and weighed her soul, and she knew suddenly that she was done fighting her own fate.
She had thought mention of marriage might make him lose interest. He had not. She had thought if she gave him a shrewish tongue that would put him off. It had not. And she saw now that she would have to pay the price for the mistake of putting herself into his path.
“Oh, just have done with it,” she told him. She shut her eyes tight and turned her face to him, prepared to endure his kiss, and whatever would follow. He would take what he wanted from her, and she would just have to hope that no child came from this. If it did, she would deal with that, too. She had dealt with so much already in life. What was one more set of burdens?
Staring at the woman before him, the image that St. Albans had tried to blot out for the past six months rose again. The vision flashed in his mind of a golden-haired beauty—the only woman he had ever allowed to escape. And that good deed had done nothing but torment him. What idiot had ever said that virtue was a reward? It had become a blasted curse.
For six months, he had done his best to obliterate the uncomfortable feelings which that one act had stirred within him. So what if that lady had seemed to find love with another. Love never lasted. And that lady and her lord were merely fools, living in a delusion that would shatter someday. Of course, they had made London a boring place to be, for at any moment the pair of them might turn up to remind him that he had given into that idiotic impulse; he had told that lady the truth instead of seducing her into staying with him.
His reward had been nothing but a restless unease that he could not shake.
Ah, those fools would be the ones who someday regretted their folly. But he was bloody well not going to allow the sight of them—happy as only the besotted can be—to ruin his pleasure.
Which was why he was not in London.
Taking his Gypsy’s chin in his fingers, he tilted her face up. This one, he would not let go. Not even if she turned to wood in his arms. He had learned better of himself. He would take what she offered, and enjoy it, and he would bloody make her enjoy it as well.
He began to lower his lips towards hers, but he stopped when his mouth hovered a breath from hers.
Staring down at her closed eyes, he told her, “I mean to have you no matter what.”
He felt her chin move as her throat contracted, and she said, “So have done. And then I will go.”
“What if I don’t want to let you go after?”
Her eyes opened then, wide and alarmed. He smiled. Ah, at last. Better to have her scratching like a wild cat than stiff with martyred submission.
However, the alarm vanished from her eyes, and she smiled. His senses sharpened with warning. What was she planning now? He waited, relief washing through him that she was no blond, blue-eyed innocent. Heaven and Hades save him from such ladies ever again. Far better to have this dark-eyed Gypsy full of too many inventive ideas, a little liar and a thief, and fair match for his own dark soul.
She wet her upper lip with her tongue and tipped her head to one side. “Perhaps then we shall talk more about your helping me—if I help you beforehand?”
St. Albans leaned forward to capture that mouth with his, but a firm hand on his chest stayed him.
“I said perhaps. But do you not wish me to first help from your other clothes?”
He eyed her warily. She tugged his shirt loose from his pantaloons and smoothed a hand over his stomach and up to his chest. Pinpoints of pleasure danced through him.
“Whatever did you have in mind?” he asked with a smile.
“A game. A Gypsy game. You must stand in the middle of the room with your eyes closed. And for every garment I take off, you must take off one, as well. But there is one thing—you must no
t open your eyes until I tell you to. It is bad luck, and I will never trust you if you promise not to look and then do so before I tell you.”
She was at it again. Scheming. He glanced at the chair propped under the door knob. She could not move it without his hearing the scrape of wood on wood.
So why not indulge her?
“Where do want me to stand?” he asked.
She led him to a spot halfway between the bed and the door and asked him to close his eyes. The smile she gave him as she asked had his pulse hammering.
“Promise not to look before I say,” she told him, her mouth pulling into a pout.
“I promise.”
“No, it must be a sacred vow. On your honor.”
“I have little enough of that, my sweets.”
“Then on your family’s name.”
“Oh, very well. I promise, on the name of Winters, that you have the word of the Earl of St. Albans not to look before you say.”
Her hand brushed his chest again, leaving his skin tingling. He closed his eyes and was rewarded with the sound of cloth rustling. Stiff fabric was draped across his naked shoulder.
“That is my corset. Now, in turn, pull off your shirt. But keep your eyes closed.”
He obeyed, and began to think that he could actually become accustomed to such commands from her. For a time, at least. Perhaps he would even keep her with him for a few days, or so. It had been long enough, after all, since he had had any such lengthy liaison.
More cloth rustled, and soft fabric lay across his shoulder. She whispered in his ear, “There is my shift. Now I have nothing on at all. Will you match me before I tell you that you can look?”
It took a few moments for him to strip off his pantaloons. Knitted from fine wool they clung to his legs, but he soon dragged them off and tossed them aside. He did not wear any drawers underneath, and the cool air swirled around his bare skin.
Straightening, he waited a moment for her next command. What would she do before she told him to open his eyes? He liked how resourceful she was. Perhaps they might even enjoy each other’s company a few weeks?
The silence lengthened. Tilting his head, he stretched out his other senses. He had not heard the chair scrape, so she must still be in the room—and yet, it was too quiet. Too empty.
A cold draft wound around his legs.
Opening his eyes, he spun around.
She was gone.
He stood naked in an empty room. The chair stood on its four legs beside an open doorway. Fury pulsed so hot in his veins that he almost forgot his lack of dress and went after her. But the cold air began to cool his body and his head. He glanced down at his naked skin and a smile lifted one side of his mouth.
That little witch. So, she thought she had made good her escape. She thought this was done.
Well, she had not yet learned what it was to deal with the Earl of St. Albans.
* * *
Glynis ran down the backstairs of the inn, her bare feet slapping quietly on the wood and her heart quick as her feet. The door creaked as she pushed it open, but the noise of the tap room muffled the sound. From upstairs she heard nothing, but she knew she had little time.
Under her cloak, the cold swirled up and chilled her skin as she slipped outside. She winced as her feet slipped into mud. A pity she had to leave her shoes under that gaujo’s bed, but she knew when to cut her loses. And she knew when to strive for yet another chance, even when she was ready to give into defeat. Life had taught her that skill. And to enjoy the small favors of this world. Such as the one that the rain had stopped.
The air smelled wet and sharp with the sweetness of early roses and the earthly pong of the stables that lay behind the inn. Overhead, clouds danced, parting to reveal the silver disc of a new moon, and closing again to hide its glow.
Clutching her dress to her naked body, Glynis tightened her hold on her cloak and ran through the squishing mud. She had no regret for her shift and her corset. They were small payment to make for her escape. But her dress was of good wool, and with only three dresses to her name she had risked the few seconds it took to drag it and her cloak out from under the bed. She had left her shoes for fear of the noise they would make. And she had had to use every skill she’d ever honed in slipping into or out from places to shift that chair and turn the doorknob in silence.
Silence now filled the night—the creatures of the woods had taken to their nests and burrows during the storm. She would be wise now to copy them. Her toes dug into cold mud and she let out a breath that she had not even known she was holding. Safe. Almost safe.
With a care not to slip in the mud, she made for the shadows of the woods that lay near to Littlebury’s village green and the Red Lion inn. Silent now, she slipped behind the blacksmith’s shop and from there into the woods. Under the shelter of an oak, she stopped, her back to the wide trunk and rough bark. Her lungs hurt from the cold air, but now she could afford to let out a deep sigh of relief.
With her cloak still over her shoulders, she struggled into her dress, leaving the ties in back loose. As she straightened, a hand fell onto her shoulder.
Startled, she swung around, her fist clenched to strike. But a familiar voice whispered with dry mockery, “Droboy tume, Romale.”
CHAPTER THREE
The greeting, common enough among the Romany eased open Glynis’s fist. Relief warmed through her like the rush of good wine. “Nais tuke,” she whispered back, an edge to her thank you. She added, “For frightening ten years off my life. Why are you not waiting at the stream where we agreed to meet?”
She could not see Christo’s frown, but she knew it must be there on his handsome face. His dark coat—turned up to cover his white shirt—and dark breeches and soft, dark boots changed him into a towered shadow, rather like one of the oaks around them. As always, a sense of calmness came with him. But she knew—and could feel—the restless energy that lay under that surface composure. It was only when she saw Christo with his horses that she ever felt that the quiet of his body also filled his soul.
“You were late,” he said, his voice soft but his words clipped. He had been worrying too much. He always did. “What went wrong? Wasn’t it there?”
She shook her head and glanced back at the inn. Yellow candlelight spilled from the public room on the ground floor. The sound of a man’s guffaw and the scrape of a fiddle being tuned echoed in the night. From the upper story, Glynis glimpsed a chink of golden light as a curtain shifted. Her heart skipped a beat and a shiver chased across her bare arms.
“He had it, just as his servants said he would. But the story will have to wait. Come,” she said, tugging on his coat sleeve for him to come with her into the woods.
He did not move.
With her eyes accustomed to the darkness, she stared up at him. The moon flirted again with the night, appearing from behind her veil of clouds, and gave light to the set of his clenched jaw and the impatience glinting in his eyes.
“Another time,” she pleaded. “We knew this was a gamble, and we have lost. But there will be another time. A better time.”
Wet leaves squelched as he shifted his weight. Please, Christo, she begged him silently. He had not her skills. Oh, he could charm easily enough, and could sell a blind horse to a crippled man. But too often he chose the straight path, no matter what its cost. And ever since they had learned the full truth of their inheritance, she had felt the frustration growing inside him. That lack of contentment had always been there, as it had with her. Now it had a channel inside him, and she had seen it start to change him.
He wanted—as did she—justice for what had been done to their father, to their mother, to them. But at times she feared that, in him, a dangerous need for revenge had started to grow.
Uneasy with such misgivings, she pushed them aside. They had troubles enough without allowing her inventive mind to see more than was there.
“Come,” she said again, tugging on his arm, trying to pull him with her. They could
not risk an open confrontation with Francis Dawes. As Lord Nevin, Dawes had power, and the law with him. To his kind they were Gypsies. Vagrants. Thieves, liars, and outcasts. They had no land, no status, no rights. Dawes could have them arrested and transported for no more cause than his word that they had done wrong. He was a gentleman. A lord, she thought, with bitter scorn. And he had good reason to want them gone from this land. Or better still, to want them dead.
And who would question the death of a couple of Gypsies if a lord named them thieves?
Christopher had to know all of that. But would he allow caution to rule him—for this night, at least?
Reluctant, his steps dragging, he allowed her to turn him from the inn. A few steps later, they were at the stream, swollen from the spring rain. He lifted her over, and jumped across the rushing water, his long legs easily clearing it, and his soft boots barely making a sound on the opposite bank.
Neither of them spoke as they slipped along the wooded path, back to where Dej and Bado waited for them.
Glynis tried to keep her thoughts on stepping over roots and ducking low branches, but her mind kept slipping back to that gaujo. It would be best if they traveled on tonight. She wanted miles between herself and the wicked Earl of St. Albans. But the uneasy feeling tickled along her spine like a spider dancing there that no matter where she went she would see him again.
Lord, how she hated things that were fated.
* * *
By dawn, St. Albans knew with a bone deep resignation that he was going to be less than wise about this.
With a cooler head to rule him, he knew that he ought to allow the girl to slip away. Whatever mischief she was making was her own concern. She was, after all, a Gypsy, and therefore about as likely to behave herself as a feral cat. He had only his dislike of being made her dupe to drive him to hunt her.
Of course, there was also that too tempting form of hers, which had kept him restless and tossing last night. And she had shown sense as well as a cleaver mind—yes, a good deal of sense to run from him when she could instead of giving into his bad intentions.
A Much Compromised Lady Page 3
