A Much Compromised Lady

by Shannon Donnelly

  However, she had set her will against his own.

  And he simply could not allow her to do that.

  Which meant he would have to hunt her down. And the next time she turned her face up to him, it would not be with eyes shut tight and her mouth set, as if offering herself as a sacrifice. No, it would bloody well not be so. He wanted an image of her wanton and passionate, her body burning as his now simmered.

  Blast her, but she had left him in an uncomfortable state, and that would have to be remedied. There was, after all, nothing that the Earl of St. Albans could not have if he so desired it.

  But a voice inside mocked his thoughts with a sly, doubting memory of the things he had once wanted which had turned to dust when he had reached for them.

  Oh, yes, you can have anything—anything that is made of vice and sin and earthly pleasure.

  Quite stupidly, some small part of him still ached for the ghostly follies of his youth—the other things for which he’d once upon a time had fancied. He could recall being very young and inventing memories of the parents he had never known. This wistful longing was very like that.

  His mouth twisted at such childish desires. Someday he really would find a way to destroy that last part of himself, which still clung to this miserable nostalgic weakness. It really was a most uncommon nuisance to be plagued with that blasted emptiness. And he wondered with detachment if to obliterate that hole inside him might mean that he would have to destroy himself in the process. He rather suspected so.

  Of course, his departure from this life would be no great loss to the world, but it rankled him that it would cause a good deal of celebration in some parts of London. He did so hate to give his enemies any satisfaction.

  However, such gloomy thoughts did not become a spring morning, when birds sang like blissful idiots, and there was a pretty armful to find with an amusing game of fox-and-hound to play.

  With that in mind, he rose and summoned the landlord in a better mood than he would have anticipated.

  It took the better part of two hours to make himself presentable. He vowed a dozen times during that time never again to travel without his own servants. What had seemed in London a nuisance of an entourage following him became now a much desired necessity. He ignored his ruined blue coat, choosing instead a brown one from the light trunk he had had packed by his valet before he had left London a week ago. It took him six lengths of linen to tie a decent cravat, and he had to clench his back teeth to keep from muttering the oaths that filled his mind. But he would not lose his temper, despite being short of rest, badly dressed by his own exacting standards, and frustrated by his gypsy’s disappearance.

  The only thing he could be grateful for was that the landlord’s son had not cut him while shaving him.

  At least, he thought as he sat down to a meal in the private parlor downstairs, the landlord set an excellent table. A pottery jug held ale—strong and dark. And upon the dark wood table sat a goodly sized beef haunch. Thick slices of ham lay upon a pewter plate, and hot bread that smelled of heaven, had been carved into thick slices and left with a plate of fresh butter and a bowl of gooseberry jam. Simple fare, but it could almost make this forsaken hostelry reputable.

  He ate well and spent his time leisurely gazing out the window to the village of Littlebury, now bathed in mist, and thinking of his Gypsy.

  It was all Gypsy stories that she had given him last night, he was certain of it. And yet...and yet...the curse of his own honesty thrummed in his chest like the shimmer of a bell that had been struck. He had learned the hard way how to detect a lie. And he had learned to beware of those who used the illusion of virtue as a way to justify their sins. They were far more dangerous than any honest sinner.

  But which parts of her story had been the truth, and what had been invention? She was very good at blending the two. Which meant that she had had a good deal of practice at it.

  That thought roused a smile from him, and a stir of anticipation. What would she say when next he saw her? More lies? More tantalizing mixtures of truth and nonsense? He had no doubt that he would see her again. It mattered not where she hid. And it mattered even less if she were wed, for vows were made to be broken. It was why he avoided them.

  Well, if she honestly did want something from Nevin, perhaps he would help her get it.

  He frowned again.

  Had that part been lies? It was possible that the robbery was no more than a way for her to cast herself into his path. He had certainly had other females attempt to gain his notice for their own purposes. An earl’s coronet was a rather tempting prize, even if it came attached with a devil as black as he.

  But, no, that did not feel right. He knew a few women capable of such twisted machinations, but he would wager the hundred guineas he had won at Newmarket this past week that she had simply leapt to take advantage of opportunity.

  What could she really want from Nevin? What really lay in that box, if there was such a box?

  The jingle of harness and the stamping of horses in the yard roused St. Albans from the puzzle his Gypsy had posed. Curious, he rose and went to the window.

  A heavy black coach stood in the stable yard, a gold crest upon the door, with seal bay horses being put into harness. Outriders in the somber dark blue of Lord Nevin’s livery stood beside their mounts, talking idly with each other in the warming morning.

  What ridiculous pomp. And altogether too tempting.

  Putting on a pleasing smile, St. Albans sauntered outside to await Nevin’s appearance.

  He passed the time by critically surveying Nevin’s team— too short in neck and too narrow, but flashy enough with their matched white stockings. He would not have given even one of them room in his stables.

  Finally, Nevin came out of the inn, and St. Albans nodded a good morning to him.

  The older man scowled, but St. Albans was far too accustomed to such black stares to take any notice.

  “Did you ever find your Gypsy wench?” St. Albans asked, casually pulling out his snuff box and speaking loud enough for grooms and servants to hear. As he expected, Nevin’s face reddened at the innuendo that Nevin’s reasons for wanting to find a Gypsy girl last night were far from proper. The man’s self-righteous pride really was far too easy a target.

  Nevin’s mouth pulled down, accentuating the deep lines that bracketed his lips. “If you mean the thief who ransacked my rooms, I am certain she had aid in escaping justice. But I plan to lay a complaint with the magistrate before I quit the district. I am certain the law will not be kind to those who help such criminals.”

  Unmoved by this not-so-veiled threat, St. Albans selected a pinch of snuff and asked, “Ransacked? Now there’s a strong word. Tore your room apart, did she? Why, she must be a veritable Amazon. No wonder you were so anxious to find her.”

  Nevin’s face darkened to the color of his burgundy coat. He really ought not to wear such a color, St. Albans thought, looking over the heavy coat with its gold brocade which would better suit the last century. Nevin was such a stick to abide by court dress that was more suited to the Queen’s drawing room.

  “You are insulting,” Nevin growled, his fists clenched.

  St. Albans allowed his stare to travel up and down the man’s too-formal attire. The fellow prickled like a hedgehog, but something dangerous lay under that prickling. Something savage. It roused a like sensation in St. Albans.

  Fixing a cold stare on Nevin, St. Albans drawled, “Always so satisfying to achieved a goal. Do you now feel compelled to call me out? If you do, I should mention that I never duel before noon. So tiresome to have to shoot a man before breakfast, but I thought we were speaking of you and your thief. What did she come for that you turn so prickly—the family jewels?”

  Nevin’s jaw worked, and St. Albans’s smile widened into something almost genuine. There really was nothing better than to make oneself an irritation to those who were too smug in their delusions of righteousness.

  For a moment, he really thou
ght the man would turn away. Nevin was one of those who disdained dueling as barbaric—such nonsense, of course.

  But the fellow hesitated, his chin still jutting forward, and a stubborn look in his eyes as if he could not let go of this, as if he had to make others see the truth of the matter as he saw it. “I have no idea what she could have wanted—other than whatever money or gems she might have found. That’s the way of those Gypsies.”

  He spat the word out as if it was an unpleasant taste, and St. Albans had to check a spurt of anger. He took a breath, and took a rein on his temper, and illumination clicked into place.

  Good heavens, the man actually has something to hide. Fear had flickered at the back of Nevin’s pale gray eyes. And a touch of shame, for which he would probably die before admitting.

  St. Albans recognized the emotion at once. He always committed his sins in public, for it was impossible to carry shame for something the entire world knew. But what shameful sins did Nevin hide?

  Smiling, St. Albans flipped closed his snuff with his thumb and slipped the carved ivory box into his waistcoat pocket.

  “I suppose those Gypsies look for whatever plump pocket is near. Yet, it is quite amazing then that she went to your rooms, and did not bother with the guineas I left in mine. Do you think that mysterious Gypsy sense told her that you traveled with something far more valuable?”

  Nevin’s scowl deepened and turned away, as if the conversation was over.

  “It’s Retribution,” St. Albans said.

  His expression startled, Nevin swung around to glare at St. Albans, that faint shimmering fear back in those pale eyes.

  How satisfying to score a point, St. Albans thought, now thoroughly enjoying himself. There seemed to be some truth to his Gypsy’s story, after all.

  “Retribution,” he repeated. “The horse that won those coins for me at Newmarket. Quite an amazing animal. By Aston, out of Forgetful.”

  Nevin’s eyes blazed and his mouth curved into something close to a snarl. St. Albans held still, waiting. How close to home had he struck?

  With his expression souring to disdain, Nevin’s heavy chin lifted. “You’re a damned wastrel, and a disgrace to your name.”

  “Oh, I waste nothing. I assure you of that.”

  Scowling, Nevin opened his mouth as if to say more, but a shout from one of the grooms drew his attention.

  “Ready, m’lord.”

  With a last contemptuous glance at St. Albans, Nevin stalked away. His servants bowed before him, lowered the steps before he reached them and put them up again with a jumpiness that spoke of insecurity in their positions. With a coach horn blowing imperiously, and outriders leading the procession, the heavy coach lumbered forward.

  An impossible cavalcade to miss. And any fool—or Gypsy—could track and follow that parade. Well, that certainly made clear how his Gypsy came to take note of Lord Nevin. But just what had she come here to steal from the man?

  It would take some work, unpleasant as that was, to discover the truth. However, he would console himself with the fact that his Gypsy would make it up to him someday. She would—in one fashion or another.

  * * *

  Glynis watched her mother lay the cards upon the thick, gold Turkish carpet. Even though her mother could not see, she still knew the pattern of the cards, for she had been laying out cards since she was a girl herself. And she knew the cards by the feel of them, by the edges and nicks and the painted images on the old deck.

  They sat on the ground, red pillows under her mother, but Glynis preferred the hard earth. She liked the connection to land, and she liked to feel the hum of it through her bones, and she loved the reassurance it gave her. The land would always be there. The seasons came in order. The world turned as it should. Those things she trusted. All else she regarded with deep suspicion.

  Even the cards.

  Too often they disappointed. In fact, all her life had seemed to be heartache after trouble. But it would not be like that forever. No. This year everything was changing. This year the wheel turned, and their lives would change. For the better—or for the worse.

  She wanted that change, for the hope it brought that she might at last be able to have a real home. A cottage in a village was all she had ever wanted. A place to live, where she was known and where she knew others. Christo wanted far more, but a house would be enough for her. A respectable house in a respectable village. And she wished for it with such a yearning that at times she feared it would never happen.

  And at those times her mother insisted on pulling out the cards, telling Glynis, “The card will show where trouble lays. When you know the path, it is easier to walk with courage.”

  I know where trouble lays, Glynis thought, her mouth pulling down with annoyance. But she did not mention again the gaujo she had met.

  It had been nearly a fortnight since her encounter with that gaujo and Francis Dawes. She had told Christopher and her mother only a sketch of what had happened: her attempt to steal the box, how she had hidden in the Earl of St. Albans’s room, and how she had given up her clothes in order to slip away. Christo’s expression had darkened at that, and Glynis had thought it would be a very good thing if he and that earl never chanced to meet.

  Her mother had also frowned at the story, her sightless eyes clouded. Her mother still seemed a young woman, a little thickened by age, but still strong. Still vibrant. However, that day her face turned as gray as the streak that ran through the inky blackness of her hair. For a moment, Glynis could only see the lines worn on her mother’s narrow face. Ah, she warned us not to act just yet, and it did not go well.

  But her mother had only shaken her head, as if accepting an inevitable truth. Turning away, she had ordered her faithful Bado to pack the camp.

  Having her mother say nothing—not even a rebuke for ignoring the council she had given her children—was far worse than any lecture. Glynis still cringed inwardly as she thought of the disappointment on her mother’s face. She was such a bad daughter. But then she was bad at most things, except for her light fingers and her dancing.

  Those talents seemed so little in this world.

  Since then, they had traveled a good distance, stopping tonight outside the village of Epping. It was closer to London than Glynis recalled ever going before, and she knew that her mother—and Christo—were thinking of the great house in London. Lord Nevin’s House, where Francis Dawes now lived.

  However, it was not the proximity to him that had had Glynis fussing with the campfire that night, making it and then remaking it three times before she had lit it. And it was not the warming, longer days, with a hint of summer in the night breeze that left her restless. It was the thought that her gaujo lord might be near.

  Shifting uncomfortably now, Glynis glanced around the small glade where they had stopped. Anything so she did not have to look at the cards being laid down. She did not want to see what they might say. They might tell her too much truth.

  Bado and Christopher had pitched the tents in the clearing of a stand of maples, and the trees were newly leafed in fresh green. Their pony—Kralisi—cropped grass nearby, her front legs hobbled, but ‘Lisi never wandered far.

  The two men had gone to a horse fair, and now Glynis wished she had gone with them. Only she might have been tempted into breaking her vow on how she must now use her skills to restore what they had lost. She might, instead of thinking of the future, have thought of the present and the small fare in the pot tonight and liberated a few coins from some fat farmer’s pockets.

  Ah, well, soon Christo would be back with broken and ill-used horses that could be fattened on summer grass and retrained, and sold for a good profit. Bado knew how to whiten a horse’s teeth and file them so ten years looked like five. And Christo could teach a horse clever tricks that impressed a gaujo into paying more.

  She wished she had such abilities, and not the curse of light fingers and a silent step. But her gift had sometimes been all that had kept them fed. She prayed n
ow her gift might be what could change the course of their lives.

  With a quiet sigh, she glanced up to the sky, just turning purple at the top with the gathering night. Someday, she vowed to the first star she glimpsed. Someday I shall have a cottage with a cow and a garden, and I shall never have to steal again. And I shall belong someplace. And Christo will—

  “You don’t listen, Chei!”

  Glynis straightened with a twinge of guilt. Her mother only used the Romany for daughter when she was irritated.

  Running her touch over the ace of spades with a still elegant hand, her mother said, “Preparation is needed. There is power to overcome obstacles, but only if you do not give into bitterness. There is more at stake here than the material.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Glynis dutifully stared at the cards. It was like this always. With the cards, her mother saw things. She only saw cards. And only heard cryptic advice. Why could the cards simply say, “Do this!” or “Do not do that!”

  Her mother turned over the next card, laid it down and read it with her touch.

  “The king of spades,” she said, her voice still clear and as strong as a young woman’s, but her tone hushed. “The highest card, and yet this one can bring failure as well as success. He is the ‘law,’ and yet his life is one of uncertainty in dealings with others. He is betrayed. The choice is his to touch the world for good, or to sink to evil. Be cautious with this one. For as he has been harmed, so will he give back to others—he will betray you.”

  Chewing on her lower lip, Glynis stared at the card. Who did the card stand for? For Francis Dawes? For that earl? For someone yet to come into her life? Someone in London?

  Looking up, she stared into her mother’s sightless gaze. “Who is he?”

  Her dej began to gather the cards, and gave a small shrug. Her black shawl slid off the black of her dress. For as long as Glynis had memories, her mother had worn black. Even though she was young enough to have married again, she wore black for the dead husband she loved still.

  “You will know,” she told Glynis. “God gives you knowledge when you need it. Have patience for now.”