Ian returned his attention to hastily saddling his horse. Teeth clenched, he grated, “You have exactly fifteen minutes to gather your belongings and get off Somersfield lands.”
He pointed to Ben. “Venture within twenty miles of Somersfield again and I’ll have charges brought against you—after you’ve felt the lash.”
Ian swung his gaze to Gerard. “You’ll see to it, and notify the magistrate?”
Not that notifying Sir Doyle amounted to a whole lot. The man was an incompetent, dishonest buffoon.
Nodding his head, Gerard spit again. “Aye, yer lordship, with pleasure. Never took to the boy. Her ladyship insisted I hire the corn-faced lad. Distant relative, she said.”
He snorted. “Get on with ye, then, ye bloody cur.”
Tell-tale moisture darkening the front of trousers, Ben scurried to do Gerard’s bidding.
Hours later, after making numerous inquiries, Ian located the Romani encampment. Sitting atop a hill, he peered down on the deceptively peaceful scene. He was unarmed except for a dagger concealed in his boot. In his haste to reach Vangie, he hadn’t thought his plan through with his usual logic. Truth be told, he didn’t have a plan.
He’d been befogged with fury and worry. It was only within the past half hour he had begun to think rationally again. He couldn’t very well ride into the encampment and demand they hand over his wife. Could he?
The Roma were notorious for both their hospitality and their skill with knives. He wiped his brow with his forearm as his gaze swept the encampment once more. What had Vangie told them? Would he be received as friend or foe?
He released a gusty breath. It mattered not. They had something of his. Something he’d not leave without.
He highly doubted the fiercely loyal, and occasionally hot-tempered, gypsies would see it his way. He oughtn’t to have come devoid of reinforcements, but it was too late to remedy the oversight now. Perhaps riding into the camp unaccompanied would be less threatening to the leery travelers. Perchance it would work in his favor.
Ian sent a silent prayer heavenward that it be so. He’d done more praying since meeting his wife, than he had the whole of his life prior. Shaking his head, he grunted. He was becoming soft.
No, love was subduing him.
He smiled. Ah, the truth will out.
Pericles took a couple prancing steps. Ian patted his neck. He didn’t doubt there’d been a short nail or two impaling the horse’s back beneath the saddle when he’d tossed Ian weeks ago. Poor beast.
Standing in the stirrups to stretch his legs, Ian froze.
One broken curricle wheel.
His rump hit the saddle with a sharp thud.
Two thrown riders.
Pericles side-stepped and snorted his displeasure.
Three random robbery attempts.
Job’s own luck? Coincidence?
Not bloody-well likely.
Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Lucinda had always been obsessed with power and position. Her erratic behavior and even more irrational speech this morning pointed to one thing; she meant him harm. An image of Vangie’s pale face in the south tower loomed to the forefront of his mind.
Not only him, but Vangie.
Confound it all. “How could I have been so blind?” he muttered aloud.
Because, altogether foreign sentiments had crept into every fiber of his being. Fiend seize it. They’d muddled his good sense and distorted his sound judgment, making him impervious to everything but winning his beautiful wife’s affections.
Rot and rubbish?
Not anymore, the devil take it.
Love was indeed hazardous.
Pericles snorted and impatiently shifted his stance as if to say, let’s get on with it, shall we?
“Aye, my friend, let’s be about it then.”
Ian clicked his tongue while giving a light twitch of the reins. Pericles lunged forward eager to run, but Ian held him to a slow canter, still mulling over his epiphany.
The pieces snapped neatly into place now. Lucinda’s intent at last became glaringly apparent. His stepmother sought to secure through any means, what in her unhinged mind she thought of as rightfully belonging to her. Another nasty niggling taunted the recesses of his mind, but he dismissed it as the Romani camp loomed before him.
His practiced gaze efficiently scanned the clearing. Vangie wasn’t in sight. A score of brightly painted wooden caravans and several simple tents were arranged beneath the towering trees. An equal number of laughing children and barking dogs played beside the wagons or cavorted throughout the encampment.
Two larger vardos, one at either end of the glen, drew Ian’s attention. A handsome woman sat within the opening of one of them, watching him with keen, assessing eyes. She tilted her head when their gazes met, almost as if she were greeting him across the distance.
In a roped-off area near the river, two score horses and mules milled about. Several nickered upon catching Pericles’s scent. The stallion shook his head and neighed a greeting. Ian took in the magnificent horseflesh. Tattersalls boasted horseflesh no finer than some of these the Roma possessed.
He made a mental note to pursue that avenue later.
He returned his gaze to the encampment. Several men and women were engaged in various activities along the river’s edge. Others were gathered in small groups around fires, while some of the men smoked pipes or strummed mandolins and violins.
A few Roma were settled against the massive tree trunks playing cards. Conversations ceased, even the children stopped their joyful antics, when he rode to the center of the camp. As a single entity, the Roma turned their dark, expressive eyes to stare at him.
Four men separated themselves from the others, including the gypsy who’d taken Vangie behind him on his horse hours ago. Who the devil was he? A relative? A would-be-lover? Jealousy ripped a jagged course through Ian.
Steady old chap. Keep your head.
A distinguished looking man, his hair peppered with gray and sporting a neatly trimmed mustache and beard, approached him.
The Roma bowed. “Sastimos, Lord Warrick, I am Yoska Bailey.”
So, they had been expecting him. No surprise there.
Yoska made a sweeping gesture, “I am bandolier to these noble people. Please, won’t you dismount, and join us in a cup?”
Ian gave a sharp nod, then dismounted, the whole while searching for any sign of Vangie. It was futile. If she was here, and from the greeting he’d just received, he’d wager Somersfield she was, she was hiding.
“I’ll see to your horse, your lordship.”
The lad reaching for Pericles’s reins looked vaguely familiar. “Thank you. He could use a drink. . .”
“Milosh, my lord.” The boy gave him a toothy grin before leading the stallion away.
Ah, he was the boy Vangie spoke to in Brunswick. Ian watched him. The lad knew what he was about. Pericles would be fine. Ian turned his gaze to the man who’d carried Vangie off.
“Where’s my wife?”
Smiling, his white teeth a stark contrast to his dark skin, Yoska chided gently “In good time, your lordship, in good time. Come, sit with us,” he invited.
Moving in the direction of the other, larger vardo, he said, “My nephew, Besnik, brought Zora to us.”
Ian met Besnik’s hard, unyielding stare. There was no contrition in his black eyes.
Perplexed, Ian scowled. “Zora?”
Smiling, Yoska explained, “Evangeline is Zora’s Gadžo name, her Christian name. All Roma have one.”
Indicating the two other men trailing behind them, Yoska said, “The brothers Zimmar, Nicu and Tobar.”
Each man inclined his head, though, they like Besnik, said nothing.
At the vardo, Yoska indicated a stool with a wave of his hand. “Please, have a seat, my lord.”
He waited until Ian was seated, then he sat on another stool. “Eldra, bring lavina.”
A stunning young woman leaned from the wagon. She smiled se
ductively at Ian. The loose neckline of her canary-colored blouse gaped, exposing her heavy, swinging breasts. One of the gypsies . . . Nicu? . . . frowned at her blatant display, before lifting impassive eyes to Ian.
“Aue, Dai, at once,” she murmured in a husky, accented voice.
The woman Ian had seen upon first entering the clearing approached. Though middle-aged, she was still beautiful.
She greeted him in flawless English. “I am Simone Bašavel Caruthers, my lord, Zora’s grandmother.”
He stood, then bowed. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Madam Caruthers. Vangie speaks of you often.”
Madam Caruthers angled her head. He met her fathomless, penetrating gaze. Why did he feel like she was assessing him? Weighing him against something unsaid?
Eldra descended the wagon’s steps, balancing a jug and wooden mugs on a tray. She sashayed the few steps to the men and handed each one a mug. Tugging the stopper from the jug, she filled the cups, leaving Ian’s until the last. Bent over him, she offered another tantalizing view of her full breasts. She smiled a blatant invitation as she poured his dram.
Ian kept his gaze trained on the vardo behind her, very aware of the five pairs of eyes assessing him. Eldra’s bosom was mere inches from his nose, her heavy perfume filling his nostrils. He angled away from her and took a healthy quaff of the beer.
Madam Caruthers said something in Romanese. Eldra straightened abruptly. A pout on her full lips, she glared at the older woman. With a huff and a shrug of her bare shoulders, Eldra strutted from them, swinging her curvy hips. She joined a group of giggling women. They kept sending sidelong glances in Ian’s direction.
He met Madam Caruthers’s eyes. “My wife is in your wagon?”
Ailsa came bounding across the clearing. Dipping Ian a hasty, half-curtsy, she panted, “Madam, my lady asks for you. She’s in an awful way. It’s not her bruised ribs or one of her megrims either.”
“It’s as I feared.” Madame Caruthers closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. “May God, be merciful.”
Opening them once more, she sent Ian an indecipherable look before she hurried to her wagon, then climbed nimbly inside.
He swung his gaze back to the quartet. They watched him with hooded eyes. Worry niggled unrelentingly. “Gentlemen, I won’t be kept from my wife any longer.”
Setting his cup aside, Ian moved purposefully in the direction of Madam Caruthers’s vardo.
No one tried to stop him, and he was thankful. A brawl wouldn’t endear him to Vangie’s family and clan, but he would not be deterred again. He slowed his steps as he neared the wagon. Just how did one go about seeking admittance to this miniature home on wheels?
Yoska appeared by his side. Ian suppressed a start of surprise.
“You bid permission to enter, though they’ll not likely grant it, just yet.” It seemed Yoska’s black eyes held a secret he’d not willingly share with Ian.
Confound it all. Could all Roma read minds? He was beginning to think so. It was uncanny . . . unnerving.
He traveled the few remaining steps to the vardo. He could hear rustling around inside. Was that a woman weeping softly? Vangie?
“Madam Caruthers?” Hesitant, he spoke quietly.
Several moments passed before the door finally opened, and Ailsa poked her tousled head out.
“My wife?”
“Um, yer lordship, I’m to bid you—” She slid her gaze over her shoulder, then sucked in a bracing breath before forging on.
“You needs to cool your heels, and rest your arse over yonder ‘till the princess bids you come.” The maid slanted her head at a grove of trees behind the wagon.
Rest his arse? Princess?
Chapter 28
Ian wasn’t sure which statement shocked him more.
With those brash words, Ailsa retreated inside the wagon, closing the door with a firm thud.
The camp resumed its activity, though there was an unmistakable aura of heaviness looming over it now. Ian wandered to the maple trees situated some distance behind Madam Caruthers’s vardo. The Roma left him to himself, though whether as an act of courtesy or ostracism was unclear.
He relaxed against a tree, alternating his gaze between the encampment and the wagon. What was happening inside? Was Vangie seriously injured? Surely Madam Caruthers would have told him if such was the case. Unless Vangie had told her Lucinda’s lies. And Madam Caruthers believed them.
God’s blood. He should have sent for a physician the moment he arrived. He straightened, intending to pound on the wagon door until he had an answer.
Patience, wisdom whispered in his ear. He slumped against the tree. The devil take it, he’d yet to master that virtue.
Dusk settled over the clearing, and the smell of food being prepared for the evening meal permeated the temperate air. Ian’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since breaking his fast early this morning. He shifted his stance away from the gypsies. Placing his shoulder against the tree, he stared at the strip of water meandering along the shallow embankment.
This morning . . . so much had transpired since then.
He’d awoken with his arms wrapped around his incredible wife. His heart filled with an unfamiliar happiness, he’d slipped from their tousled bed. Standing nude, he’d been content to stare at Vangie for several minutes.
He grinned. She had been sleeping soundly, curled on her side, her mouth parted. Every few minutes, she’d make a soft sound in her throat. Was she dreaming of the vigorous night they’d spent together? Exploring each other’s bodies, reaching untold degrees of ecstasy, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before?
He’d tried to introduce her to lovemaking gradually. “Sweeting, I don’t want you to be shocked or disgusted.”
“Pish, posh, Ian. God created this glorious gift for husband and wives.” She said this while climbing to lie atop him.
“I don’t understand why people whisper about it like it’s something wicked or sinful.” Peering into his eyes, a naughty glimmer in hers, she said, “I expect you to teach me everything you know.”
She proved to be a very good pupil, completely uninhibited and eager to try whatever provocative idea he suggested. He hardened at the sensual memories, a smile hovering on his mouth.
“My lord?”
Ian swiveled to face Madam Caruthers. Engrossed in his musings, he hadn’t heard her approach. She appeared drained. In the deepening dusk, he stared at her. Was sorrow etched on her face and mirrored in her eyes?
“Vangie? Is she all right? Was she badly injured when the horse tossed her? Should we send for a physician?” He cursed inwardly. Why hadn’t he insisted someone go for a leech immediately?
“She suffered some bruised ribs. . .”
Ian released his breath in a whoosh. “So it’s nothing serious? There’s no need for alarm?”
“Lord Warrick,” Madam Caruthers laid her hand on his arm, “she lost the babe.”
Ian gawked at her, his mind gone blank, not comprehending her words. He refused to believe what he’d heard. Shaking his head, he tried to dislodge the buzzing in his ears.
“The babe? There was a babe?” he rasped, barely able to form the words.
“She didn’t tell me.” Agony tore him asunder. He whispered hoarsely, “Why didn’t she tell me?”
Madam Caruthers’s sympathy filled eyes shimmered with tears. “Zora didn’t know she was with child.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It happens sometimes, especially with the first.”
Ian’s head reeled. Disbelief, fear, and absolute rage toward Lucinda thrummed through him. Then complete and utter devastation for his wife.
“I want to see her.”
Madam Caruthers tilted her head and studied him for a long, disquieting moment. What was she looking for? Her lips curved into a sad, half-smile. “I thought you would.”
Slipping her hand into the crook of Ian’s elbow, she began leading him to her vardo.
“My lord,”
“Please, call me Ian.”
“Ian, Zora . . . Vangie, is desolate. She needs time to heal, physically and emotionally.” She peered into his eyes, the evening shadows making it impossible to read her expression.
“Please, permit her that. Don’t make any decision right now, no matter what she says.”
Surprised by her vehemence, Ian nodded.
She squeezed his arm. “Promise me, Ian.”
In the darkness she couldn’t see his curt nod. “I promise, Madam Caruthers,” he answered solemnly.
“We’re familia now, Ian. Please, call me Simone.”
Family? She considered him family? The notion didn’t cheer him as it might have when he arrived earlier today.
“I give you my word, Simone. I’ll be patient with my wife.”
God willing.
“I’ll allow you some privacy then.”
With a graceful angling of her head, and a swirl of her colorful skirts, she wandered to a nearby wagon. A fire burned merrily before it. Ailsa was seated near the dancing flames talking animatedly to Besnik.
The gypsy raised his head to stare at Ian. Across the distance, their gazes clashed. Ian saw accusation blazing in Besnik’s eyes.
Turning, Ian climbed the narrow stairs to the wagon’s entrance. He opened the door and was taken aback at the caravan’s deceptively roomy interior. A lantern hung from an iron hook on the ceiling to the left of the door. It cast a soft glow on the still form huddled beneath a vibrant quilt. The bed looked more like a folding shelf. It was practical and efficient given the close confines of the vardo.
Vangie’s back was to him. Was she awake?
Even though the door swung shut without a sound, Vangie knew the moment Ian stepped inside. Two steps, then he stood beside her. The stool beneath her bed scraped as he scooted it out. He bumped the bed when he sat. His legs would be at an awkward angle due to the cramped space in the wagon.
Where was Puri Daj? Why had she allowed him in?
The Viscount's Vow Page 22