Gypsy Heiress (24 page)

“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” said Brockhaven. “Especially considering the passion you’ve expended in a slow burn about it.”

“Once was enough,” Vincent replied. “But I told you already, not enough to die for. Of course, there were times when I’ve been hit with a mood—when Bella’s spared no effort to throw herself at you in public, for example—and I did reflect that I might not be desolated to hear that you’d broken your neck.” He gave Brockhaven a crooked smile. “So much for that. We have to think of Liza, don’t we? Here she is, with a broken leg, and we’re at a standoff, neither of us trusting the other with her.”

“Why a standoff? I have the firearm,” Brockhaven reminded him suavely. “What do you have to hear from me?”

Vincent shifted against the boulder. “Have you dishonored her?”

“No.”

“Tell me you won’t,” said the older man.

Brockhaven’s hand came to rest on the back of my head. “You have my word on it,” he said, his fingers moving down the length of my hair, then in a slow circle on my back. The mood became contemplative, silent, with both men staring at the ground. I was so tired, and Brockhaven’s thigh was so invitingly close to my cheek that I let my head droop against him, realizing far in the back of my mind that it was a rather shocking thing to be doing. He made no objection to it, though, just continued to stroke my hair, and when some moments had passed, he spoke to Vincent again.

“So. What do you think we should do about you?”

There was a short hesitation before Vincent replied, “I think, go to America. The New World. Land of Opportunity. Would that be far enough for you? It will take me a few days to make arrangements—get a draught from my bank, meet with my man of business. I’ll cut things to the bare minimum, of course. America.”

“A good place for you. You know what will happen, if you come back to England?”

“Terrible things,” said Vincent. “You really don’t need to enumerate them, my dear.” His gaze dropped to me. “Would you let me kiss her good-bye?”

“No. Good-bye, Vincent. Farewell.”

“Good-bye, Alex.” He was still looking at me. “God bless you, little one.” He turned and disappeared quietly, wraithlike, into the night.

Alex lifted his hand to the back of my neck, continuing his massage. “Still alive down there?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I said and looked up at him.

“You know,” he said, “I think he’s really in love with you.”

“He’s a very strange man,” I said. “Do you understand him?”

“Oh, yes… too well. Don’t be afraid. If he says he’s going to go, he’s going to go.”

“Yes, I know that. I can’t help feeling sorry for him.”

“I suppose not,” he said, smiling. “Maudlin wench that you are. Do you hear that?”

I lifted my head, and looked toward the forest to see the gypsy youth emerge from the foliage riding bareback and without a bridle on a white horse with an exotically long mane and tail. Reaching us, he slid agilely from the horse and said to Brockhaven, “The man has gone—Vincent?”

“Yes. He won’t be back. What did you do with his wife?”

“I took her to the camp. One of our women will see her home.” The youth’s lips tightened. “A barbarous thing. If she were my woman, I would never have let her get so bad that I’d have to feed her to a wolf. What ailed her husband?”

I could see that Brockhaven was amused by the youth’s worldly air, though he didn’t show it with a smile. “He was too indifferent to her to care. She touched only his pride.”

“Some men are like that,” said the youth. He shook his head, and his long hair moved smoothly in the black breeze. With a gentle movement of his hand, he indicated me. “Does she know yet?”

“No,” said Brockhaven. “I waited. I thought your father might want to tell her himself.”

“Not he,” said the youth, shaking his head and smiling. “He would weep too much. He’ll weep anyway, when he sees her.” Bending down to my level, he said to me in flowing Romany, “Liza, I’m the son of your uncle. My name is Trenit. Two years ago, this man, Lord Brockhaven, came to the camp of my father and asked if we knew what had become of a young man, Charles Compton, heir to the Marquisate of Chadbourne, who had eloped many years past with a young gypsy woman. The young lord told us that he wished to find Compton because Compton had become the owner of a great property, and if that property went unclaimed, it would remain in the pocket of Compton’s niece and her husband, who were exploiting the peasants there to starvation.

“There was nothing my father could tell your young lord, for we too were without knowledge of what had become of Charles Compton. It began before my memory, Liza, when your mother came before the elders of the tribe eighteen years ago and told them she would marry Charles Compton. There was a great dismay because your mother was much loved. The future they saw for her with the spoiled son of a wealthy gorgio was one of heartbreak and abandonment. Your mother had great pride and anger toward the elders, anger that those who claimed to love her would have so little faith in her judgment. She said she would leave, and no one believed her. Her mother, afraid of the foretold bitter ending, went with her. It was a heavy blow for the tribe, and most of all for my father, who lost at one time both his sister and his mother.

“For many years, the tribe searched for their missing daughter, but your mother and her husband had gone to Europe, and the wars of Napoleon came, and it became impossible to trace their path.”

“I thought no one cared,” I cried out wretchedly. “So many years… I was sure that my mother was rejected by her tribe.”

“It was a stupid disharmony, Liza, not a rejection. The elders meant to show love and protection in telling your mother not to see Charles Compton. It was a great misfortune that they were blind to his high character, blind to your mother’s adult intelligence. You must forgive them, dear. It is hard for the older ones to see their babes grow up.”

“Yes,” I said softly, thinking of the years I had together with my grandmother and my father, of the love Grandmother had given to me and to my father, and the sadness she had kept locked inside her, parted as she had been, from her people and from her son. Having to choose between son and daughter, she had sacrificed everything to aid the most needy.

“I don’t say these words to make you cry, lambkin,” said Trenit. “Scratch not your open wounds.”

“I shall try not to,” I said, wanting to win his respect with a show of courage. Hardly daring to hope it was true, I asked him, “Did you come to Edgehill because of me?”

“Two years ago,” he answered, “before the young lord met with us, he had talked with other tribes, and after we left he was to talk with many more. He made a pact with my father to communicate anything either of us learned about your family, and we are here because Brockhaven has kept his word.”

In my childhood I had had a rare, lovely dream that I would be found by my mother’s tribe and accepted. I had never believed that such a thing might be possible, and yet tonight it was as though I had entered that dream. Logic and time had lost their pretense of importance. The black nightmare of the wolfs cellar melted into the prickling happiness of being led into the camp on the white horse, and being set down into the loving arms of my uncle Pulika.

What a man he was! An immense spirit, with hands so wide that each could have lifted a good fat hen, and yet they held me as with the maternal tenderness of a young mother. His hair was shorter than Trenit’s and more straight; a kerchief pulled it back from his broad, supple-skinned forehead. Best to me were his eyes, for I had seen them for so many years on my grandmother. They were oval, piercing, and incisively humorous, and he shut them frequently, or sometimes opened them wide to add emphasis to things that he said.

Before I even said “Greetings, Uncle,” he had scooped me up and was showing me off to the crowd of gypsy men and women who gathered around us, grinning and exclaiming. My uncle beamed like a proud father displaying his firstborn son and asked everyone, even those too young to remember, if I wasn’t the image of my mother. I caught a glimpse of Brockhaven standing quietly while Trenit translated the turbulent gush of Romany to him. My guardian was smiling, and I wondered if he was thinking that Lady Gwendolyn said so often that I looked exactly like my father.

The wife of my uncle was tall, and important, which is the gypsy way to describe a beloved person’s heaviness of frame. She kissed me, pinched my cheeks, and right away gave me one of her heavy gold bracelets before she made Uncle Pulika set me by the fire so she could cover me in blankets, pour water over my hands to get them clean, and give me food.

I asked her not to trouble herself but was overborne, and my uncle and I talked while a heavy iron cauldron was set on a tripod over the flame, and the air thickened with sizzling fat and the scent of garlic. The noise and the smells awakened the chickens, who came to cluck irritably in the glow of the fire and the old half-lame rooster strutted underfoot, looking as if he were not sure whether or not he should go stand on the wagon tongue and do his duty for the tribe by crowing.

Trenit’s wife was a girl no more than sixteen, with pretty, delicate features, a determined chin, and a well-advanced pregnancy. She came to pat my hand, offer me the use of her own bowl and cup to eat from, and call me sister. She would have sat down at my side, but a cry from her wagon stopped her. Off she went to fetch her son and Trenit’s, plunking the howling toddler on Trenit’s lap with a wink and a smile at her mother-in-law, while she came to help chop onions into the cauldron.

There were so many things to say that I had no time to be shy, and to wonder if I was making a good impression or whether I was talking too much or too little. Lord Brockhaven had told them a great deal, and I was glad I was spared the awful task of telling my uncle that my grandmother had died. We were left with the happier things to discuss—where we had traveled, how we had lived, and the places we had visited. I told about Edgehill, and Lady Gwendolyn and Ellen, the girl who loved gypsies, and everyone agreed that she must be very smart and admirable. Through it all, I had the fun of seeing Trenit, with Lord Brockhaven’s help, trying to keep amused the cross, sleepy baby.

We talked about Vincent too, and I was surprised how much Lord Brockhaven had confided in my uncle, for Brockhaven seemed to have told him even that he had fears for my safety. I learned that it had been the wolf’s howl that had brought Brockhaven and Trenit to the hilltop to investigate. It had been decided that two men, walking quietly, would be less likely than a group to scare away the creature, if it were free, for Brockhaven had been still here at the camp, talking with my uncle.

To eat was a stewed goose, seasoned with sage, thyme, and marjoram, and mixed with apple bits and currants; on the side were cold nutmeg meatballs and paprika on mashed chick peas in sesame oil. Poor Brockhaven! My aunt was too hospitable to let him go unfed, and I saw that he knew too much about gypsy etiquette to do anything so boorish as refuse her, so he had to eat. This couldn’t have been made any the easier for him, because he had surely seen the way Aunt had cleaned out the cauldron before cooking in it—one wipe with a piece of old bread. The baby had been playing horsie on Brockhaven’s knee and the little thing gave an angry shriek when Trenit pulled him away so that Brockhaven could take his food. With amusement, I watched as Brockhaven made the baby happy again, fishing in his pocket and producing for him a pocket watch in a gold case.

After the meal was not such a good time for me, since everyone began to talk of my leg and seeing that it was set. Brockhaven wanted me to have a gorgio doctor; my uncle held that it would be better handled by old, yellow-eyed Santinia Smith, their medicine woman; and I wanted no one to touch it at all. It was my leg, but as you can imagine, it was my opinion that was the least regarded. For ten minutes Brockhaven was firm. I was going to see a doctor, and that was that, though my uncle hollered and railed and said that he wasn’t having a stupid hulk of a gorgio doctor making hocus-pocus over his niece and probably leaving her with one leg shorter than the other in the end. Members of the tribe, began to roll up pantlegs and pull up sleeves to show this arm and that limb that Santinia had treated and see, it was perfect and straight, wasn’t it?

I’m not sure whether it was the drama of this testimony that convinced Brockhaven, but he finally agreed to let the medicine woman fix my leg. With many expressions of pity and concern, I was carried to a thick pile of eiderdowns before a wagon set well off from the cluster. I don’t remember much of the bone-setting except that it was very painful and, while I have always felt sorry for people with broken legs, I could afterward say that my sympathy increased tenfold. When Santinia was satisfied that the bone was laying just as it ought, she bound the leg with knitbone, made me a reassuringly foul-tasting infusion, and left me to rest by a small fire while she went back to report to my uncle and Lord Brockhaven.

I watched sleepily from the distance as people heard the news that I was doing very well, and in twos and threes began to return to their beds. The camp grew quiet, the chickens settled back to roost in the wagon spokes, and Trenit’s wife tenderly picked up her baby son, who had drifted off to sleep on his father’s shoulder. Trenit got wine, and sat with Brockhaven and Pulika and several of the elders by the fire. My eyes shut, and the lullaby of night noises from the forest courted my weary soul into a light sleep.

It was still dark when a gentle pressure on my forehead called me back from slumber.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.” It was Brockhaven’s voice, and I rolled on my back to see him sitting on the eiderdown beside me, settled as though he’d been there for some time. He said, “You were so restless that I was afraid you might have a fever. Your skin’s cool, though, thank God.”

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. “My uncle?”

“He lay down to try to get an hour or two of sleep.” He drew up his knees, and rested his arms across them. A small fire still glowed in a shallow pit beside us, and reflected in the sensuous curves of Brockhaven’s hair with long red tears.

“I never knew,” I said, “that you owned a pocket watch. A pocket watch. Imagine.”

I could see I had taken him by surprise. “Dear me. What’s wrong with a pocket watch?”

“It seems so—”

He grinned. “Go on. It’s too late to back off.”

I smiled drowsily at him, wishing he was sitting closer. “Middle-aged. Staid. It’s not the kind of thing one thinks of as belonging to a shocking sort of person. Where did you get it?”

“The squire gave it to me when I came into the title. Woe betide me if I forget to carry it too. Every time the man sees me, he asks me peremptorily what the time is—and if I don’t have the watch to pull out, his eyebrows shoot to his hairline. Are you in much pain?”

“Terrible. I think I’m going to have to bite on your handkerchief.”

“Too late. The baby’s kept it after playing hide the watch.”

My lips curled into a rather silly smile. “Light-fingered lot, we gypsies. We start young too.”

“I’ll say you do. Good Lord, your cousin Trenit and that—child he’s married to. Do you know that your uncle considers you an old maid?”

“I’m sure he’s right. I’m feeling quite past my prime tonight. Is this Santinia’s wagon? Is she asleep inside?”

“Yes and no. It’s her wagon, but she took her eiderdown and a shriveled potato half—”

“That’s a lamp. You take an old cotton bit from an apron and soak it in lard—”

“Well, it wasn’t soaked in rose water, let me tell you.” When I had finished giggling, he said, “Anyway, off Santinia went to sleep in the forest near the ruins. She says she wants to listen for the mandrake.”

I made a wise expression and put up one finger. “For the chest!”

“So she said. Tell me about the mandrake; or is it something too esoteric to convey to the weaker gorgio intellect?”

“No. But would you mind? The position of my leg has become uncomfortable and I’d like to move it over—oh, thank you. That’s much better. You have such a gentle touch, my lord. Let me see. The mandrake.”

“It’s some kind of a root, so I gather.”

“Quite right. On the surface of the ground, mandrake has a small flowering vine but its potency lies in the root. The adult mandrake root has the exact shape of a human body.”

“Really? The exact shape, you say?”

I sighed. “Try to explain anything to a gorgio. I’m not talking off the top of my head, you know. I’ve
seen
them. Lord Brockhaven, what are you thinking about, whenever you stare at me like that? I’ve wondered about it a lot.”

In a perfectly normal tone of voice he said, “When I stare at you like this, I’m thinking about what a marvelously beautiful girl you are. Don’t heed it a bit. The mandrake?”

It took me a moment to find my tongue and then I stammered, “Y-y-yes. Well. The mandrake root—the male mandrake root, that is—”

“Do they come in sexes? How rash of them. But pray, continue.”

“I’m trying to! The male root sends out tentacles that run vinelike through the ground in search of a female mandrake. It often takes a long time. Years, in fact.”

“Shy creatures, are they, the females?”

“Very shy. When the male does find a female, their vines begin to intertwine, and the male and female move through the ground until they are close together, and then they mate, just as humans do. Sometimes you can dig them out of the ground in that position and… will you stop laughing? It’s the truth! Just because you haven’t any experience in the matter is no reason to—Oh, please don’t! Everyone will wake up! If you think I’m funny, what were you, eating gypsy food? I’ll bet you fed it to the dogs when no one was looking!”

“Not at all,” he retorted genially. “This wasn’t the first time I’ve eaten with your people, you know. You’re probably thinking that I object to the kettle’s only being cleaned with a bread crust? That doesn’t bother me in the least! If I might be permitted one tiny criticism—it would be nice if your uncle hadn’t used that particular cauldron to water the horses.”

Indignantly, yet mindful of keeping my voice low, I said, “Why not! It’s perfectly acceptable for a man to take his food where a horse has drunk, as long as the horse is healthy. It’s not like it was a dog or a cat…! My lord?”

“What is it, sweetheart?” He lifted one of my hands where it lay on the quilt and placed it between his own, his thumb stroking lazily over the curling lines of my palm.

It was not easy to speak with him touching me and calling me sweetheart in just that voice.

“Have you really been wishing Ellen and Robert would marry? Could that be why you invited Ellen and Lady Gwendolyn to come to Edgehill?”

“Partly,” he admitted. “Gwen knew, of course. My brother and Ellen are the kind of headstrong, passionate children who would be ruined by marriage to the wrong partner, and I’m afraid that the wrong partner would be anything less than each other. Robert’s finally begun to fall in love with her, have you noticed? He doesn’t know it yet, perhaps, but soon.”

I gazed into his face, and into the finely shaped eyes that seemed to me the most intelligent and the sanest I had ever seen. There were so many things he cared about—he, a man who had never been taught to care. He gave so much kindness in his own way, though he had received so little when he had been very young and vulnerable. His manhood and the graces of his character had been hard-won in the preying teeth of the corruption and the cruelty that he’d known.

He left me to stir life into the sullen red coals of the fire. Coming back to the blankets, he said thoughtfully, “Let’s send Isabella to Italy. What do you think? She has a pair of great aunts from her mother’s side living in Florence.”

“Do you think she’ll agree to go?”

“She’ll have to after tonight. Santinia left you a—God knows what it is! She said I was to give it to you if you woke. Would you like it?” He stretched out his hand to the wagon steps, half hidden by the high grass, and picked up a tin cup. I heard the splash of a thin liquid as he brought the cup to his own lips, and took a sip. He grinned.

“Brandy. And French, at that.”

He put the cup in my hand and I sat up, turning the cup around in my hands in what I hoped was an inconspicuous movement, so that my lips would rest on the same spot his had. I knew the taste; my grandmother had given it to me whenever I had a cold, and though I hated the flavor, I took two gulps of the burning fluid, and then a third. I gave him back the cup, and said plaintively, “I’m cold.”

He set down the cup and put my arms under the quilt, pulling it high around my neck and tucking it under my shoulders. I waited until he was finished before I said, “I’m still cold.”

He touched my cheek, then started to get to his feet. “I’ll go to your uncle and see if I can find you another quilt.”