Claiming the Forbidden Bride (7 page)

‘I don't understand why Stephano would choose their world over ours,' Nadya said. ‘Here he's loved and respected. There…' She shook her head. ‘Whatever success he has will never be enough. The fact that he can never be all those things his father promised eats at his soul. If you encourage him in that, Magda, you'll destroy him.'

‘It's his destiny,
chavi
, and he must follow it. Just as you must follow yours.'

‘I don't want your fortune-telling, thank you. I have quite enough trouble living in the present.'

‘You don't reject what your Argentari grandmother taught you.'

‘She taught me to save lives, to heal and to mend. You wanted to teach me how to cheat and deceive those who are gullible enough to believe that someone can see their future by looking into their palms.'

‘Then you are no different than your brother,
chavi
. You, too, reject your heritage.'

‘You think that's my heritage? No wonder the
gadje
believe we're all thieves and liars.'

‘Does he think that? Your
gaujo
?'

‘He isn't
my gaujo
. And I don't know what he thinks.'

‘Stephano wants him gone.'

‘So he said. And he will be. As soon as he's well enough.'

‘And that day can't come soon enough for you, I suppose.'

Her grandmother's lined face was devoid of expression, but Nadya wasn't fooled. ‘What does that mean?'

‘It's too late to reject what I offer. I've already seen your palm,
chavi
. I saw it the day you were born. Neither it—nor your future—hold any secrets for me.'

Nadya laughed. ‘Whatever you're expecting from it,
Mami
, I hope you aren't disappointed.'

‘I won't be,
chavi
. I can promise you that, if nothing else.'

 

Although Stephano had been in camp less than a day, when Nadya returned from taking the evening meal to her patient, her brother was saddling his stallion. Nadya stopped to run her hand down the horse's silken nose, smiling when the animal pushed against her chest in response.

‘Off so soon?' she asked as she watched Stephano's hands smooth the blanket he'd thrown over his mount's back.

His Romany clothing had again been packed away in the trunk he kept in Magda's caravan. Her half-brother looked every inch the English gentleman once more.

‘Don't pretend you aren't delighted to be rid of me.'

‘Why should I be?' Nadya asked. ‘Your place is here, among people who love you. I know that, even if you seem to have forgotten it.'

Stephano turned, looking directly at her for the first time. ‘I haven't forgotten.'

‘Then why go? They turned their backs on you, Stephano. All of them. No one here has ever done that.'

‘Unfinished business.' His attention was deliberately refocused on the task at hand.

‘And you think you can finish it? Your father's dead. You can't bring him back to life. Or force his family to accept you.'

He laughed at her suggestion. ‘Is that what you think I want? Acceptance? From them? I'm not that big a fool.'

‘Then what do you want? Revenge? Against whom? Your father's murderer was hanged. By the Crown. What possible—'

‘Those who helped to bring about his death don't deserve to prosper.'

Nadya shook her head. ‘You're going to right the world, to set it spinning anew on its axis so that only the righteous prosper? And you think
me
naïve.'

‘I think you know nothing about what I'm doing.'

‘I know it takes you away from your people. And that this quest has cost you—both physically and emotionally. It may even be the cause of your headaches.'

‘If your drugs come with the price of meddling in my affairs, I'm afraid I shall have to do without them.'

‘Other than Magda, I'm the only family you have left. Perhaps that means nothing to you, but it means a great deal to me.'

‘Then wish me well in my undertaking.'

‘I would, if I thought this…whatever it is…would make you well.'

For a moment, he seemed to consider the beech trees, golden in the evening sunlight. When he looked down at her again, his face was more relaxed than she'd seen it in months.

‘If it doesn't,
jel'enedra
,' he said softly, ‘then nothing will.'

Nadya tried to analyze the emotion she heard in his voice. Regret? Or was it despair?

‘What you're doing is dangerous,' she warned.

The line of his lips, once so mobile and quick to smile, ticked upward slightly at the corners. ‘Not to me. Or rather,' he conceded, ‘not only to me.'

‘But since you are the only brother I have, lost to me once and then returned, I don't want to have you lost again.'

‘Then be at peace, little one. Magda assures me this is the only way I shall ever resolve the things that trouble me.'

‘And you believe her?' Nadya mocked.

‘You doubt her gifts because your father's family devalued them.'

‘I doubt her “gifts,” as you call them, because I've seen too many fortune-tellers through the years. I'm not a woman of the
gadje
, willing to be taken in by promises of a meeting with a handsome stranger or of finding untold wealth waiting around the next bend.'

‘Nor am I. Have a little faith, I beg of you.'

‘In you? All you wish. In Magda's fortunes? I'm not that gullible.'

‘And in Jaelle's curse against those who brought about my father's death?' Stephano asked quietly.

‘Our mother gave you to another woman to rear as her son. And when she couldn't cope with her grief over your father's death, she killed herself rather than making a life with me and my father. Do I believe in her curses? I believe that with her death she cursed us both, Stephano. She cursed us not to think love can be true or faithful. She cursed us to value death over life. Jaelle's legacy isn't one I would be proud to claim. Nor should you.'

‘You blame her for making the choice she did. I blame those who drove her to that choice.'

‘But it
was
a choice. My father was a good man. One who loved her. He would have done anything in his power to make her happy.'

‘The only person who could have done that had already been murdered. Those responsible for his death have much to answer for.'

‘And you're going to see to it that they do.' Nadya's voice was flat, past anger and argument.

‘If I can.'

‘No matter what it costs you.'

‘They have already cost me everything I ever valued.'

Despite her determination not to let him see how much those words hurt, Nadya's eyes stung with tears. ‘So revenge is all you have left.'

‘It's enough.'

‘It's never enough. Even our mother knew that, at least at the last.'

Stephano's face tightened. ‘It has to be enough,
jel'enedra
. It's all I have.'

He put his foot into the stirrup and vaulted into the saddle. Then he dug his heels into the eager stallion's side, urging him through the woods toward the road that would lead him to London and back to that other world he inhabited.

 

The child whose rescue Rhys had no memory of came to visit him every day. At first he'd been uncertain about trying to communicate with her, but he'd soon discovered that, in spite of her disability, she was as bright and as eager to learn as his brother's children had been at her age.

More importantly, from his standpoint at least, she seemed to accept his presence in the Romany encampment
without any trace of reservation. Although Nadya's visits had become less frequent since he'd begun to regain his strength, Angel's had increased. Hugging her rag doll tightly, with fascinated eyes she had followed his careful progress up and down the narrow central aisle of the caravan. On the afternoons when the weather allowed it, she joined him on the high seat of her mother's
vardo
, content to play with her baby while he watched the busy camp.

He had even learned some of the finger signs the little girl used in place of words. Those had served as an introduction to other members of the tribe, each of whom took time to greet Angel—and frequently her new companion as well—as they passed the caravan.

Sometimes Rhys imagined that he could see the same question in their eyes that had occurred to him. Was Angel drawn to him, a stranger, because they shared a nationality? Nadya had offered no explanation of the child's origins, and although she referred to Angel as her daughter, during the conversation Rhys had overheard, the man Nadya argued with had disputed that title.

What was clear was that the little girl was both well cared for and dearly loved, not only by her mother, but by the other Rom as well. He told himself that how she had come to be here was none of his concern, but despite his gratitude to Nadya, those niggling questions remained in the back of his mind.

Small fingers tugged at his sleeve, bringing his eyes up from his whittling. It was an art he'd picked up from the batman who'd served him in Portugal. He would never be as skilful as Williams, but he had found that he enjoyed bringing the objects he saw in the wood to life.

The cat he was working on had been so clearly visible in the piece of deadfall he'd noticed that he had borrowed
one of Nadya's knives from inside the wagon and begun to free it. Angel had watched his every stroke. Now, under the insistent command of her fingers, he stopped his carving to hold the animal up in the sunlight.

Exactly as it had the first time he spoke to her, her mouth formed a perfect circle of delight as she identified the creature he'd created. She touched the wood, whose stripes Rhys had incorporated into his mock feline and then pointed toward one of the bender tents scattered around the central clearing. Eyes wide, she turned back to him, her tongue bathing her hand in perfect imitation of a cat.

When he nodded agreement, laughing at her cleverness, she smiled in response. Deciding he couldn't improve on his work enough to make her waiting for it worthwhile, he held the carving out to her. Her smile changed into a look of such amazement and joy that he wondered how many presents she'd been given in her brief life.

Not enough, he decided, watching her careful fingers examine each detail of her new toy. When she finished, she drew the cat to her chest, holding it in exactly the same position as she so often did her beloved doll.

Then, unexpectedly, she leaned forward to put her lips against his cheek. She made some sign he didn't recognize, but took to be an expression of her thanks before she nimbly climbed down the steps of the wagon and ran toward the opposite side of the encampment, where the only other caravan stood.

‘She likes it. And you.'

The comment drew Rhys's eyes to the man who'd uttered it. He was the Rom who'd raised his hand in greeting the first day Rhys had ventured out onto the wagon's high seat.

‘I doubt it will take the place of her doll, but she deserves
more than one toy, I think.' Rhys smiled, lest the man take his words as criticism of the little girl's circumstances.

‘Many more,' the man agreed.

‘And a small repayment for her mother's kindness to me.'

‘Which was given without any expectation of return. Perhaps that isn't the custom among your people.'

‘I'm not sure it is,' Rhys agreed, as he raised his eyes to follow Angel's ascent of the steps of the other wagon.

The old woman who opened its curtained entrance for her bent to admire the carving. Her eyes then followed Angel's finger as it pointed him out. The grey head bowed in Rhys's direction before, with a hand on the little girl's back, the woman directed her inside.

‘You've made a friend,' the man who'd spoken to him said. ‘A valuable acquisition, too.'

‘Angel? For some reason liked me even before the cat.'

‘I didn't mean the child. I meant the other. That's Magda Beshaley, our
phuri dai
. Our wise woman, as you would say. Your kindness to her great-granddaughter may reap more rewards than you can know, my friend. Enjoy the sun.' The Rom touched his hand briefly to his forehead before he continued on his way.

The gesture's origin probably lay in the traditional tug of the forelock, although nothing about it had hinted at servitude or humility. It seemed more like the casual salute one officer might make to another of equal rank. Whatever the English might think about the Gypsies living among them, apparently the Rom did not consider themselves to be a lesser people.

Rhys's gaze focused again on the caravan into which Angel had disappeared. The tone of the Rom's voice when he spoke of Nadya's grandmother expressed a deep respect.

Your kindness may reap more rewards than you can know.

The child's pleasure had been reward enough. Despite Nadya's denial of the indebtedness he felt, Angel's reception of his gift had been more gratifying than he could have imagined.

And whatever question he might have about how the child came to be here would have to remain unanswered. He owed her mother too much to think of causing her trouble.

Or her people,
he thought, his eyes again considering the bustling encampment. The old wives' tales about the Rom were one-by-one being proven false.

Except, he admitted with a reluctant self-knowledge, the ones having to do with the charms of their women. Those he had found to be not the least exaggerated.

T
wo days after Stephano's departure, Nadya's guest professed himself well enough to ride—a proclamation she was on some level relieved to hear, despite her qualms about its accuracy. Although her half-brother had promised to deliver Rhys's note to his godfather, she knew Rhys was concerned that his continued absence might trouble his family.

A feeling she could sympathize with, Nadya acknowledged as she walked across the clearing. Every time her half-brother departed, a knot of anxiety formed in her chest that didn't dissolve until his return.

When she reached the steps leading up to her caravan, she hesitated, trying to put those thoughts out of her head. She had never been able to sympathize with the loss Stephano felt when his English family had rejected him. But now, she, too, had felt the lure of the
gadje
world. All of it embodied in the smiling green eyes of a man who was as much out of her reach as the home Stephano remembered with such fondness was out of his.

Drawing a steadying breath, she climbed the steps, pausing at the top to call, ‘Major Morgan?'

After a moment, the curtain that barred the entrance to the caravan was pushed aside. Rhys had been shaving, the task only half completed.

She tried unsuccessfully to stifle her smile at the effect of his partially lathered face. ‘I can come back,' she offered. ‘Or I could finish that for you.'

The words were out of her mouth before she had fully realized their implications. Shaving Rhys while he was unconscious was one thing. The physical proximity such a service would demand now was quite another.

‘You shaved me before.' It was not a question.

‘Once. You'd been clean-shaven when you arrived. I hated for you to find yourself less than properly groomed when you woke up.'

‘That's why I didn't realize at first how long I'd been unconscious.'

‘Your fever was high enough that you were bound to lose track of the days.'

‘And during all that time you took care of me?'

‘Not alone.' In truth, she had sent for the men to finish undressing him and to help with some of the other tasks his illness had entailed.

Besides, there was no need for him to know the level of intimacy her care of him involved. As a healer, she had long ago lost any sense of embarrassment about the human body, but she was certain that would not be the case for Rhys.

He moved aside, holding the curtain back for her to enter. She laid down his coat, which she and Magda had painstakingly repaired, and turned to find him watching her.

She held out her hand, palm up, for the razor he'd been using. As soon as he gave it to her, she indicated that he should sit down on the edge of the bed.

Working without a mirror—and there was none in this
part of the caravan—it was surprising he'd done as well as he had. Refusing to meet his eyes, she dipped the blade into the basin of tepid water he had placed on the nearby shelf.

When she'd removed most of the soap from the blade, she took his chin in her left hand, lifting his head and turning the unshaven side of his face toward the light. His skin was warm against her fingers. She bent toward him, willing the hand that held the razor not to tremble.

‘You're very trusting,' she said as she made the first stroke.

‘I have no reason not to be. If you meant me harm, there were ample opportunities for it when I was more vulnerable.'

Despite how sick he'd been, he didn't seem the least bit vulnerable to her now. She was aware once more of his size. Of the breadth of his shoulders. Of the determined strength of the jaw she drew the blade along.

She increased the upward angle of his chin, taking off the whiskers beneath it with three careful strokes. Then she turned his head to the right, trying to make sure that area was totally smooth.

Satisfied, she lifted her eyes in preparation for finishing the job and found herself staring into his. She had never realized there were flecks of gold in their clear green depths.

Of course, for most of the time she'd known him, his eyes had been closed. It was no wonder that, surrounded as they were by those long, thick lashes, they were having such an effect on her now.

‘Almost done.' Deliberately she pulled her gaze from his, concentrating on the narrow space between his nose and top lip.

If anything, that area was even more distracting than the line of his jaw or his eyes. Magda would have told her the fullness of his bottom lip signified a passionate nature.
Despite her disdain for the old woman's mumbo-jumbo, Nadya would have wagered that in this instance her grandmother would be correct.

Hurrying now, Nadya rinsed the razor again, refusing this time to meet Rhys's eyes. She was only adding fuel to a fire that should never have been allowed to spark.

Three more strokes, decisively made, and she had succeeded in removing all the lather from his cheek. She stepped back to survey her handiwork, grateful to be able to put even that small space between them.

‘That should do, I think. There's a mirror behind the partition.' She handed him the cloth she'd been using to wipe soap from the blade.

‘Thank you.' Rhys was forced to duck his head as he entered the sleeping alcove.

Although her father had been considered a tall man by the standards of their people, she couldn't remember that he'd ever had to do that. Nor did Stephano.

After a moment, Rhys emerged from the back. ‘Much better than I should have done.'

‘But not, I'm sure, so good as your valet would have managed,' she suggested with a smile.

‘I told you. I have no valet. I'm a soldier.'

‘A soldier who doesn't know hot water can be obtained from a campfire?' she teased.

‘I wasn't sure that was allowed.'

‘Why wouldn't it be?'

He shrugged. ‘It was my understanding that not everyone approves of what you're doing.'

‘Has someone…said something?' She wondered if Magda had told him that Stephano wanted him gone. She didn't believe any of the others would take it upon themselves to turn out someone she was treating.

‘I overheard a conversation to that effect, if you remember. Your father? Or…husband, perhaps?'

Although the last had been casually added, there was a decided undercurrent to the word. As if she were that silly schoolgirl she'd mockingly compared herself to, Nadya's heart rate increased with the realization Rhys was looking for that information.

‘My brother. Half-brother, actually. And head of our
kumpania
. He's undertaken to deliver your note, by the way.'

‘Thank you for seeing to that. Considering how adamantly he wanted me gone, I'm surprised he was willing to do it. Perhaps he felt questions about my whereabouts might have had unpleasant repercussions for your people.'

‘Perhaps. Or he might simply have been feeling more dictatorial than usual the day you overheard him. If you don't yet feel well enough to ride, you're more than welcome to stay.'

Stephano had become slightly less adamant about Rhys leaving immediately. Especially since he'd discovered how influential his connections were, she acknowledged cynically.

‘I've managed to stay in the saddle in worse straits than I'm in today. I owe you for that.'

‘A conversation we've had already, I think. If there is indebtedness, the balance is on my side.'

‘Then consider it paid. And with my most sincere thanks. Do you suppose the morning would be soon enough to suit your brother?'

‘I'm sure it will be.' With Stephano safely away in London, he would never know when the Englishman departed.

‘If you'll arrange for whoever has the bay to bring him around then…' he hesitated. ‘Or tell me where to find him.'

‘I'll have them bring him. And my grandmother and I
repaired your coat.' She stepped across to the foot of the bed where she'd laid the garment. Holding it up for his inspection, she added, ‘Although not perfect, I think it will pass a cursory examination.'

He walked down the narrow aisle to examine their handiwork. When he had, he smiled at her. ‘On a less-than-cursory examination it passes muster. Thank you. And please convey my thanks to your grandmother as well. Did she teach you to sew?'

‘Among other things.' That was true enough. Like her father's mother, Magda had shared much of her store of knowledge. Some of which the Englishman would find exceedingly strange.

Of course, he might have found everything associated with the Rom exceedingly strange. Never having lived among the English, Nadya had no way to compare his day-to-day life to this.

‘Did she teach you all this?' Rhys indicated the shelves piled with the plants, roots and herbs she used in her craft.

‘That was my other grandmother. My father's mother. She was our healer before me. She's the one who taught me about the bark I used to break your fever.'

‘Bark?'

‘Peruvian bark. It's been used for years as a remedy for recurring fever. I wonder that your physicians didn't dose you with it.'

‘I'm not sure they're so well versed in the healing properties of bark.'

‘Peruvian bark.' If he had known her better, he might have realized the softness of her voice indicated anger. ‘If not, then they're as ignorant as their patients about pharmacology. Unforgivable in men who profess to be healers.'

‘Forgive me. I wasn't mocking you. My doctors did
little to treat fever beyond bleeding the sufferer. Or applying plasters. They seemed to feel that one either survived or succumbed, and it wasn't up to them to influence the outcome.'

‘As I said.' His humility had mitigated her anger with him, but not his surgeons. ‘Unforgivable.'

‘Perhaps they weren't as knowledgeable as they should have been in…pharmacology, was it? But I have other reasons to be grateful for their skills.'

He was referring to his shoulder. Even if she found fault with them for their ignorance about the proper treatment of recurring fever, she had to give the surgeon credit for keeping him alive despite the terrible damage that had been inflicted on his body.

‘Grapeshot,' she guessed.

She'd had no experience treating that, of course, but her grandmother had described the grievous injuries it typically caused. Rhys's wounds seemed severe enough to meet the criteria the old woman had set out.

‘If I'd been standing a few yards closer to where it struck…' He let the sentence trail, shrugging fatalistically.

‘You would have been killed.'

‘So they tell me.'

‘Even so, you're very lucky to have the use of your arm.'

He raised his left hand, opening and then closing his fingers into a fist. ‘So they tell me,' he said again, smiling at her.

Despite the seriousness of the subject, she couldn't prevent her answering smile. Then, even as she watched, his slowly faded.

His eyes held hers. And what she saw within them made it impossible to breathe.

She was no green girl in the throes of her first infatua
tion. Nor was she easily beguiled by a charming answer or some other evidence of good breeding and culture. Yet from the moment she'd looked down on his face in the wavering torchlight, she'd fallen under the spell of this
gaujo
, almost as if she'd drunk one of the love potions Magda peddled.

Rhys's lips parted, causing her pulse to race. She waited, anticipating, for him to cover her mouth with his own.

Instead he straightened, swallowing against an emotion he chose not to confess. ‘I'll be ready to leave in the morning.'

That, then, was the reality. He would be gone tomorrow. Back to his world, whose pull she had reason to know was incredibly powerful. Even for someone like Stephano, whose blood was half Romany.

The choice of how she should deal with what she felt was hers. She could continue the politely distant relationship they'd shared up to now. Or she could offer herself to him with no expectation of anything beyond a few short hours of pleasure. From what she had just seen in his eyes, she believed he would not refuse.

And yet, still he would leave. If not tomorrow, then when he'd had his fill of what she offered.

The
gadje
did not make Romany women their wives. At least those in the highest circles of English society didn't. And surely she had learned from her mother the cost of settling for anything less than marriage.

No matter how much she wanted to.

‘I'll have them bring the bay to you then. Sleep well,' she said.

‘Will I see you before I leave?'

‘I'm sure Angel will want to say goodbye.' She had no doubt about that. Her daughter, it seemed, was as enamoured of the Englishman as she.

Rhys didn't respond, and after a moment she realized that whatever they felt for one another had come to this. A small, awkward silence between two strangers.

‘Then…good night.' All she wanted was to be gone. Away from a temptation stronger than any she'd ever known.

‘Good night,' he echoed. ‘Thank you again for everything.'

She shook her head as she turned away, unwilling to repeat the arguments she'd made before. Besides, if there was anything she wanted from this man right now less than his gratitude, she couldn't begin to think what it might be.

 

Rhys lay on his back, eyes wide open, staring up into the darkness. This was the last night he would spend in Nadya's caravan. Tomorrow he would continue his interrupted journey to Keddinton's country estate. A journey he had, not long ago, been elated to begin.

This interlude in the Gypsy camp seemed almost like a dream. Part of that, he knew, was the result of his fever. And the rest…

He couldn't explain the rest. Or rather, he refused to.

He had closed his mind to the strength of his attraction to the Gypsy healer. He had refused to think about it since he'd been capable of making that decision. In the morning he would leave, never to see her or her child again.