Edith Layton (9 page)

Meg shifted; her back was growing stiff and starting to ache. It had been a hard day’s riding, and trying to sit upright with her skirts tucked securely around her ankles was hard. That was probably why gypsy women wore layers of skirts, she realized. Her own slender gown was much more difficult to manipulate in order to keep her dignity while sitting on the ground.

“Here, have a drink,” Johnny said, passing her a wineskin. “You look tense. This will ease your day’s woes.”

Meg looked at Daffyd. He shook his head. “She can’t drink from our wineskin, you know that.”

“So old-fashioned?” Johnny jeered.

“So worried about Tante. She’d have our heads for it. Worse, she’d ban us from her caravan. And then where would we be? If you want, and she does too, you can pour some into her cup. Meg, you can drink that. But there’s coffee, too. Johnny’s brew is lethal stuff, just take a little.”

Johnny poured Meg another jot of the clear liquid. She drank it cautiously. It smelled like flowers and made her throat burn, yet after a moment she found it eased her cramped limbs.

“So, why are you here, brother?” Johnny asked again.

“I might ask the same of you,” Daffyd said. “And I will.”

“Me?” Johnny said with a laugh. “The usual. I’m resting up before I leave again. I had a good rig running up north, that is, until it went bad. I thought I’d make myself vanish for a while. There aren’t any emeralds in Yorkshire, but there’s gold in having folks believe it. And you? Come, why are you suddenly here among us again?”

Daffyd laughed derisively. “
Us
? Coming it strong, Johnny. You’re only one of ‘us’ when the law’s on your trail. It isn’t after me. The fine lady asked a favor and I need to find out more than the law knows.”

Johnny whistled. “Thought you weren’t going to have anything to do with her?”

“Aye,” Daffyd said. “So did I. But I reckon a favor done by me will be like a mote in her eye. Anyway, the earl asked me, too, and I’d never say no to him.”

“Never going to forgive her, are you?”

“Not likely,” Daffyd agreed. “So. She’s asked me to find a young chit; an heiress who ran away and is trying to ship out with a lover in tow. There’s a fiancé, a hothead youth, pursuing. Redbreasts, too. Heard anything about it?”

“I have,” Johnny said simply. “What’s in it for me?”

“Gelt,” Daffyd said simply, and then added, with a grin, “and my undying thanks.”

“Oh, that will buy me an abbey,” Johnny said. “But I’ll take the money, and thanks.”

“The information first,” Daffyd said decisively.

“Of course. It’s yours when we leave tomorrow.”

“Leaving?” Daffyd asked, one eyebrow going up.

“Have to. Folk hereabouts are getting the wind up their tails. We been here for a fortnight, and that’s too long. Any chicken wanders off and it’s our fault, you know the way of it. They’ll be coming to turf us out soon, so we’re moving on tomorrow.

“We know about the runaways,” he went on. “Well, who better? If anyone takes a path off the beaten one, we’d notice. The pair you want have been seen. And used. They’ve paid good money for bad advice, and would be at sea already if they hadn’t been sent wrong so often. There’s more money in running them in circles than steering them straight. I’ll set you straight on their trail though, when we leave tomorrow. For tonight, rest, relax. So, pretty maid,” Johnny said, turning to Meg, leaning on an elbow and looking up at her. “You a mute? Or just shy?”

She looked at Daffyd.

He tilted a shoulder in a shrug. “Here, and now, you can talk as much as you like, if you want. Johnny knows what’s good for him,” he added enigmatically.

“I wouldn’t vex my little brother,” Johnny said. “No more than I’d trouble you, miss,” he added in an upper-class accent. “I just wanted a little decent conversation to while away the night. And yes,” he said, noting her expression, “my brother isn’t the only one who can talk posh. So, my dear, who are you?”

She looked at Daffyd again. He seemed exquisitely uninterested. He sat a little apart; his arms locked around his knees, as though in his own private world.

“I’m Margaret Shaw,” she said. “The runaway was my charge. I was her companion. So I want to find her. If I don’t, I’ll never get a reference, and will lose my employment.”

“Ah, damnation,” Johnny said with a sigh, rolling over on his back. “And here I thought you’d brought me a woman of fortune, Daffy. Still,” he added, with a brilliant smile, “you did bring me one of beauty and intelligence, so I won’t complain.”

“I was not brought for you!” Meg said in annoyance. “And so you can save the honey for your breakfast biscuits.”

“And spirit,” Johnny said with admiration. “Well done. Peace, Miss Shaw. Let’s just have a nice evening together. Here, have another jot of juniper to keep off the dew. And don’t sip. It’s made to go down quick.”

Meg took a swallow, and found warmth spreading through her stomach. It made her feel warmer and more comfortable immediately. She took another swallow and felt even better. And then she heard music. Lively, bright, and enticing music. Her head shot up.

“You’re in for a treat, Miss Margaret,” Johnny said. “We’re having a
patshiv
, celebrating the gathering of families. There’s dancing tonight because we’ll be off on the road tomorrow, and who knows when there’ll be such a meeting again? So, we’ve the fiddles, guitars, tambours, a squeezebox, and a man who’s a treat with the flute.”

Meg craned her neck to see what was happening at the other campfires. The music was winding through the night, making her feel restless and excited all at once.

“Sorry, but we’re not welcome at their fire, Margaret,” Johnny said from her elbow, as he filled her cup again. “You, certainly not. You’re an outsider. Daffy isn’t all Rom. And me, because I’ve been a bad lad, by their lights. But why worry? They can’t fence in music. Enjoy, Miss Maggie, enjoy.”

“That stuff is strong,” Daffyd remarked from out of the dark. “Not for ladies. You’d be wise to ask for some coffee instead, Meg.”

“Are you going to let my brother decide everything for you, Miss Meg?” Johnny asked her.

“He is my host,” Meg said in what she thought was politic fashion. “I don’t feel like having coffee now. May I drink this?” she asked Daffyd.

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I offer it,” Johnny said. “But see?” He took a large swallow and grinned. “Why be such a kill sport, brother?”

“That’s only my advice, not an order,” Daffyd said.

“So, be merry, Miss Meggie,” Johnny said. “Don’t think you can trust me, brother?” he asked Daffyd with a wide grin as he poured some more for Meg. “Or don’t think you can trust her with me?”

“She can do as she pleases in this,” Daffyd said. “I trust her instincts.”

“Well, then!” Johnny said merrily, “Let’s have some fun, Miss Meggie.”

She did. She drank more, sat back, listened to the music and Johnny’s banter, and laughed, often. The firelight was warm, the night was cool, and she was enjoying herself. She wasn’t used to much company and not at all to such merry male companionship. She wished Daffyd would join in, and then became a little annoyed when he did not. She was obeying his wishes, after all. She wasn’t walking in front of him, or talking without being spoken to, and didn’t know why he was so silent, and why his silence seemed so disapproving.

She began to sip more of the lovely juniper drink because it didn’t feel hot going down anymore. She laughed at every amusing thing Johnny said. Occasionally, she’d look over at Daffyd. But he sat still as a stone, and all she ever saw was the firelight reflecting in his eyes as he looked at the campfire
where the music and dancing was. She began to resent it.

“Come,” Johnny finally said.

She looked up to see him standing before her, holding out a hand. He’d discarded his bandana and she saw his strong tanned neck as the night breeze blew his night black hair back from his lean, dark face. His teeth were startling white as his billowy shirt as he smiled down at her. He looked, she thought, exactly as a handsome young gypsy should.

“Where?” she asked.

“Nowhere,” he said. “Only dance with me. Here.”

“But I can’t dance like a gypsy,” she said, suddenly feeling very sorry for herself. “I can waltz, though I’ve never been asked to, but I’ve taught it to girls in my charge. I can do the minuet, and the polonaise, and the Sir Roger de Coverly, and any number of country-dances. But I can’t dance like a gypsy. Well,” she said sadly, plucking at her plain gray skirt, “I haven’t got yards and yards and…” She shook her head, aware there were too many “yards” in her sentence and managed to go on. “…yards of red and yellow and green skirts, like a gypsy lass has, either.”

“No matter,” he said, holding out his hand.

She took it, and was pulled, and was surprised to find herself suddenly standing, dizzy, feeling empty and light and little sick to her stomach all at the same time.

“Here!” Johnny said, and began clapping his hands in time to the gypsy music, while stepping lightly all around her.

She couldn’t keep track of his movements as he circled her, laughing and dancing. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to sit down again.

“Come, Maggie,” Johnny said, and pulled her into his arms.

She also didn’t feel so very merry anymore. Johnny’s body was too hot against her, his smile was too bright and too close, and he held her much too close. She tried to pull away.

“What’s this?” he asked, looking down at her, holding her even tighter as she struggled. “Fainthearted at the last minute?”

“Faint stomach, I think,” she heard Daffyd say in a dry voice. She suddenly saw him beside her, and wondered where he’d been for so long. “She isn’t used to drinking, brother. I’d let her go, and step back, if I were you. Because if she doesn’t dirty your shirt in a minute, I’ll flatten your nose instead.”

Johnny let her go.

“Oh, Daffyd,” Meg moaned, one hand on her forehead, as she tried to keep the world from spinning around her, the other on her stomach to keep it in place. “I’m going to be so sick.”

“Of course you are,” he said, as he led her to a darker spot, away from the caravan.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” she groaned.

“Can’t learn anything if you’re stopped before you try it, can you?”

She had no reply. She was too busy being sick.

M
eg opened her eyes, and wished she hadn’t.

She closed them, but it was too late. The light was too bright, the colors too vivid, and her head and stomach protested too much. She lay still, caught between shame and sickness. Then she opened her eyes again and discovered she was not alone.

She shot upright. Her stomach protested. She gasped. That made the woman standing by her bed scowl. She was a short, squat, middle-aged woman with a round face, olive skin, gold earrings, and a ferocious frown. Her garments were more colorful than Meg’s eyes could bear. That, and the frown directed at her, made Meg close her eyes again.

But her brain began working. It was morning light.
She was in bed in the gypsy caravan, so this must be the gypsy woman whose caravan it was.

Meg forced herself to sit up. “I beg your pardon,” she said immediately. “You must be Daffyd’s aunt. I am Margaret Shaw. I didn’t mean to take your bed, but you weren’t here and I wasn’t thinking when I was put to bed…that is to say, I didn’t know when I was put here…”

The woman’s eyes opened wide, to show they were fine, dark, intelligent, and appalled.

“No!” Meg said at once, waving her hands in denial because her head hurt too much to shake. “I didn’t
do
anything. That is, except for drinking that juniper drink Johnny offered me. But then I got very sick. I remember that…and yes, I remember Daffyd steering me in here.” She stopped, appalled, realizing how that sounded.

She looked down at herself with fearful trepidation. “See?” she said in triumph. “I’m fully dressed! Not even unbuttoned.”

The woman’s dour expression hadn’t changed.

“I know things can be done with gowns on,” Meg went on desperately. “At least, so I’ve heard. But I didn’t! I’d know it. I haven’t forgotten anything, I wish I could. I was so sick. But I didn’t do anything immoral. Just stupid. I drank too much juniper. Please forgive me.”

The woman sniffed, turned her back, and walked away.

Meg scrambled out of bed, the aftereffects of the juniper forgotten in the embarrassment of the mo
ment. “Please forgive me,” she babbled. “I never meant to disturb you, or to be here at all.”

The woman didn’t turn around. Meg realized she probably didn’t speak English.

“I’ll just go out and wash up, and be gone,” Meg mumbled anyway, looking around for her slippers.

“No,” the woman said in clear English accents. “Stay here. There’s water in the basin. If you have to make any, wait for dark or use the pot under the bed. Don’t put your head out the door. There is shame enough.”

“But Daffyd said we’d be on our way this morning,” Meg protested.

“Daffyd,” the woman said without turning around, “does not know everything.”

“Well, that will be news to him,” Meg grumbled as she got to her knees to search for her slippers.

“So, you are not in love with him?” the woman asked with interest.

“No,” Meg said. She fished beneath the bed, and found her fingers didn’t encounter anything but the cool sides of a porcelain chamber pot.

“But you are his woman?”

“No!” Meg said, and shot upright. She suppressed a groan at the stab of pain she felt, and insisted, “I’m not! I’m merely traveling with him in order to find the whereabouts of my charge, who ran away. That way I can get my position back, or failing that, at least be able to get another. I’m a governess-companion, you see. Daffyd’s looking for her, too. We joined forces, but nothing else.”

She felt her face grow hot as she added, “He told Johnny I was his woman, and I didn’t protest because he said I was to say nothing. But I’m not. And I tell you, if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve only days left in which to find my charge, I’d have walked off and left him right after he said it. If,” she added meticulously, “I hadn’t been so weary after riding all day. And if it hadn’t been nighttime. And if I knew where I was and where I was going. I’ve done a rash thing, but I’m not a fool.”

The woman stared at her. Then she smiled. “Good. To be
that
one’s woman is to be a fool. He isn’t fully Rom, but he is in his desires. He’s a rover. You don’t look like the sort he’d take up with anyway.”

Meg didn’t know whether to be flattered or hurt, but before she could decide, the woman continued, “Wash,” she said. “I’ll give you something to drink to set your head straight. Then you may talk with him. But not in here. There are always eyes watching and he may not visit with you. It would ruin his reputation entirely. Taking up with a
gaje
is bad enough, bringing her here and showing her off would be worse. I’ll take you into the wood, you can talk there.”

“Thank you,” Meg said, wondering what reputation Daffyd had left to lose. “And then, whatever comes, I want to leave. Not that I don’t appreciate your hospitality, but I don’t belong here.”

The woman smiled. “That’s true. But neither does he.”

“You just said he was like a Rom.”

“Because he wishes to be. He doesn’t know what he is,” the woman said. “Nor can I tell him, because it is not yet decided. Your slippers are at the foot of the bed. Wash. You will see him when the time is right.”

The gypsy woman put her finger to her lips and grasped Meg’s hand. “Come, and move fast,” she whispered. She poked her head out her caravan door, and quickly stepped down the stair.

Meg followed. It was a warm morning. She heard birdsong, the sound of voices, the jingling of harnesses and traces, horses moving in the distance. But she didn’t dare look anywhere but at the woman she followed. They paced quickly into the nearby wood, and then walked on the leaf-strewn forest floor for what seemed like a half hour.

They stopped only once, at Meg’s urgent request. She saw a likely looking copse of bushes, and asked the gypsy woman if she could have a moment of privacy.

“You sick?” the woman asked.

“No,” Meg said. “I just don’t like chamber pots.”

The woman seemed amused. She waited. When Meg returned, they marched on.

Finally, the woman stopped. She looked around, listened, and finally nodded. “Good,” she said in a low voice. “No one is watching. The camp’s breaking, no one has time for spying. Stay here. He’ll find you.” Then she turned and hurried back the way she’d come, leaving Meg alone in a cool, green
glade, feeling lost, like a child in a fairy story who had wandered too far from home.

The glade was a small clearing in a wood filled with trees, their leaves showing only the faintest flush of autumnal rust. The day was blooming summer warm, intensifying the scent of acorns, leaf mold and late brambleberries defying the calendar. Blue asters flourished on a sunny slope nearby, but the place where Meg waited was floored with thick, soft moss. It was altogether a beautiful place, she’d have appreciated it more if it weren’t far from anyplace she wanted or needed to be.

“You’re better this morning,” Daffyd said.

Meg whirled around. The moss had muffled his approach. He stood in his shirtsleeves, as his half brother had been last night. But Johnny had been laughing. Daffyd looked calm and enigmatic, and as wickedly handsome as ever. He didn’t need starlight or firelight to enhance his looks, Meg thought with a little sigh.

She’d washed her face and brushed her hair, but still wore her crumpled, worn gray gown. Last night he’d seen her most vilely ill. Life was, she thought, sadly, not very fair.

“I’m better,” she said. “But that’s not a hard thing to be.”

“Jug bitten was all you were. You had enough blue ruin to make any man stagger. It just took a while to get to you.”

“Blue ruin?” she asked. Her eyes widened. “That was
Geneva
?”

He nodded. “Sky blue, Mother’s milk, clap of thunder, flash of lightning, strip me naked. Cheap homemade Geneva, the stuff of dizzy dreams and a worse stomach. But you seemed to like it.”

“It tasted like flowers,” she said bleakly, “hot flowers.”

He smiled.

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

He shrugged. “I thought it might be what you wanted. Johnny’s a beguiling devil.”

“What? It was the taste of the gin, not your half brother’s urging that made me drink it.” She paled. “Did you think otherwise?” Her voice went up, “Did
he
?”

Daffyd leaned against a tree trunk, crossed his ankles, and snatched a leaf off the tree overhead. “Aye.”

“Aye to what?”

“Both,” he said, looking down at the leaf. “I thought you knew he was trying to seduce you. I thought you were cooperating.”

“
Cooperating
?” she gasped.

“Laughing at everything he said, drinking his liquor like it was nectar. Why shouldn’t I think so?”

“Because…” She sputtered. “Because I wouldn’t. I didn’t. I don’t. So you let me drink myself silly because you thought I wanted to…be with Johnny?”

He nodded. “It was a possibility. Nothing against your morals, Miss Shaw, but I don’t really know you, do I? And Johnny’s a very seductive lad.”

“Well, know this,” she said, her hands clenching to fists at her side. “I would
not
do that. And…and filling a woman with liquor and grabbing her? That’s not seduction!”

He cocked his head to the side and studied her, his eyes catching the tint of the asters behind him. “No? It’s true I don’t know that many proper females. What’s your idea of seduction, then?”

“Well…” She hesitated. She knew, of course. She went to church. She’d read novels. She had a vague idea of situations involving soft music and sweet words, false promises, delicate touches…and liquor. Her cheeks colored. That seemed to amuse him. It infuriated her. “Never mind,” she said. “I just do.”

He was far too amused for her comfort. “Who is that woman who took me here? Is she your aunt?” she asked quickly.

“No. My grandmother.”

“She looks too young to be that.”

“Not to me. Gypsies marry young.”

“But why didn’t she introduce herself to me? Oh,” Meg said, abashed. “She thinks the worst of me and doesn’t want to know me, I suppose. I don’t blame her. Can we leave, please?”

“We will, in time. She doesn’t think the worst of you. She just doesn’t want to think of you at all.”

“Why didn’t she let you come into the caravan to talk with me?” Meg asked curiously. “She said something about you not being able to because of your reputation. Preserving it, I mean.”

He nodded. “She spoke true. It’s not the time I spent in the clutches of His Majesty she worries about. Even an honest gypsy is considered criminal by the good folk of England. But I’m barely tolerated here because of my mixed blood. Poor Keja is shunned now, too, though she’s gypsy back to the Ark. She’s only allowed to travel with the family because she’s a healer and they need her. Even so, she has to keep to the rear of their train. That’s because of her son: my father. He disgraced the family, and now his sons continue to. Me, because I’m a half blood and a bastard. Johnny, because he chooses to walk his own path and it’s often a crooked one. Criminals bring too much attention to the camp for comfort.”

“But I don’t understand. If you’re already in disgrace, why does she worry about your reputation?”

“Because she still has hopes for me. That’s why she doesn’t want me seen with a
gaje
, a non-gypsy woman, here in camp. That would sink me once and for all. She wants me to marry. She thinks if I marry a good gypsy girl, I’ll be taken back to the heart of the family.”

“Oh,” Meg said, feeling a little deflated. “Well, that makes sense. Why don’t you?”

“Because I don’t want to be taken back into the heart of the family. And because I don’t want a fourteen-year-old bride.”

“What?”

“The best ones are taken by the time they’re fifteen,” he explained. “I told you. They believe in mar
rying young. And forever. My father didn’t, the forever part, that is. He liked the young well enough. Actually, he liked any female well enough. He betrayed Johnny’s mother long before he met my mother, and so she left him. A hard man on mothers, my father. Keja was the best thing that happened to me. Because of her, with all that’s happened to me, I still appreciate women. But my father returned to the caravan when I was seven, and so I had to leave her. I ran away.”

He snatched another leaf from the tree and paid attention to it as he spoke. “Men are the law here. I suppose they are everywhere in England. So Keja had no say in my punishments when I was a boy. My father was a hard man on his sons, too. I saw him dole out punishment to Keja when she stood up for me one day. If he’d done it again, I’d have had to kill him. So I left, and took my chances in London. I survived.”

“But didn’t your mother have any say in the matter?”

“My mother left me soon after I was born.”

Meg struggled for the right words for what she hoped wouldn’t be the wrong question.

He understood. Because she hadn’t asked, he could tell her. “My mother was—is—as I said, a lady born. She ran away with my father like the lady in that old song. Gypsies know that song, too, but they sing it differently. Their version is the true version. It has the gypsy beheaded by the nobleman. They don’t blame the lord for what he did. Only they’d not have only beheaded the rascal who stole the wife,
they’d have tossed the straying bitch out if she dared try to crawl back home.

“My mother must have known her husband wouldn’t do anything to her. When she decided she had enough of my father she left him and returned to her highborn lord. He took her back. I suppose my gypsy half is stronger, because that shocks me. I’ll never understand the nobility.”

“And you?” Meg asked quietly. “Why didn’t she take you with her?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I was too much baggage for her. I don’t blame her. After all, she knew her husband would let her come back. Whether that was because he was a fool, or in love, or didn’t want scandal, I’ll never know. He’s long dead. But he wasn’t a capon. He had some ballocks. He wouldn’t have also taken her bastard by another man, and a gypsy, at that. I doubt she ever told him I existed.”

He looked up to see Meg looking anguished. He scowled. “But don’t weep for me. I prospered, like the wicked usually do.”