Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy

by Donna Lea Simpson

  “Did he say why he was here?” Anne asked.

  “Yes. Oh, yes. He said he was here to kill you, lady,” the woman said, and closed her eyes.

  Ten

  “To kill me?” Anne gasped.

  “I’ll kill him first, before he’ll ever get his hands on you again,” Tony said, his tone filled with grim fury. “Where did he go? Do any of you know?”

  The old woman opened her eyes again, and with a sly look, said, “I can’t seem to remember. Perhaps I know, but I am so weak, and have suffered so much with this gajo sickness.”

  Anne took some more coins out. “I have a feeling silver will help her memory,” she murmured to Darkefell.

  “No!” he exclaimed, putting his hand over hers. “You give them a boon just by letting them stay on your land. They owe you, not the other way around. They should be grateful, and do whatever—”

  “Shut up, Tony,” Anne said, seeing the gypsy’s malevolent stare.

  There was stony silence for one long minute.

  “Do not ever speak to me that way, my lady,” he said, rising to as much of his height as he could in the confines of the cart, which rocked at his weight shifting.

  “I am sorry, my lord,” she said stiffly, staring up at him. “But you must allow me to deal with matters on my own property as I see fit.”

  “It is not your property, Anne,” he bellowed.

  Florrie whimpered, wide-eyed.

  “Tony!”

  “When will you understand that?” he continued. “Your brother won’t even inherit, so you won’t have a home to—”

  “Stop!” Anne said, beginning to get angry herself.

  “Get out, you angry man,” the old gypsy lady said, rising in her bed as much as she was able and pointing one quavering finger to the open flap. “Get out and leave us women be.”

  He bowed his head and said stiffly to Anne, “I will await you outside, my lady.”

  “He is angry,” Florrie said as the flap fell closed again. “Will he beat you?”

  “Beat me?” Anne asked, her eyes wide with astonishment.

  “Yes. Is he not your betrothed? He has the right to beat you for such disrespect. You should never speak to him that way, for he is the man, and you are his woman.”

  Ridiculous, Anne thought. And yet if she was Tony’s wife, then he would have the right to beat her if it pleased him, even if he never used the privilege. It was true by English law, and clearly also by gypsy custom.

  “Do not frighten the woman, Florrie,” the old lady said, easing herself back down on her bed.

  “I’m not frightened, madam,” Anne said, her tone grim.

  “But it is so,” the younger gypsy said. “Is it not, Mother?”

  “Yes, it is so,” she said wearily. “It is not right in my heart, but it is so.”

  Anne said, leaning forward, “It is so for us all, all of us women. If I married him, then he’d own me, body and soul. Would I quiver every time he raised his voice like that? I won’t live that way.”

  “You would not have to, you know.” Her dark eyes gleaming, the old woman raised herself back up on one elbow and said, “If he displeased you, you could always kill him.”

  Shocked, Anne was speechless.

  “It could be done,” she said, then laughed, a cackle of sound that echoed in the close confines of the cart. “I could show you how,” she said, with a sweep of her hand toward the bunches of herbs and mysterious bottles.

  Try as she might to stifle it, laughter bubbled up within her and Anne held one hand over her mouth as she surrendered to hilarity. Then she gave in and laughed until she wept. Women everywhere, among every people, found ways to deal with difficult men, it seemed. In her own reading she had come across the cautionary tales of Anne Hamton, who poisoned her husband in 1641, and Anne Welles, who also murdered her spouse, lacing her husband’s food with “a strong deadly poyson” in 1592. Darkefell would be wise to consider marriage to a woman named Anne, it seemed, for they were a deadly species.

  As she sobered, she gazed at the woman and said, “I will keep that in mind in case I should ever need that most valuable information.” Was Madam Kizzy dramatizing herself? Anne wondered. Or did she really know how to kill a pesky male? For one brief second she thought of all the folks suffering stomach complaints, but the gypsy could not be responsible, for she had almost died herself. That was not the answer to the mysterious illness.

  Once the old lady’s cackling laughter had subsided, Anne asked, “Did the man you spoke to say how he intended to kill me?”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Sorry, lady. He only said he would hurt you how you hurt deepest. I did not understand him.”

  “Why did you not tell me this before?” Anne asked. “We let you stay here, my father is your friend; why did you not tell me this when we spoke last, or even before?”

  The old woman opened her eyes again and looked troubled. “I was angered. Your father is a good man. Our people have known this for many years. But he let those gajo in the village lie to him. He said we had to go away.”

  “He was just trying to keep the peace with the villagers.”

  “It was not my worry if the fat man wanted to hurt you, I thought then.”

  “So why did you tell me now?”

  Madam Kizzy met her gaze directly. “You are a woman. Women everywhere, we are treated the same. Your man, even he speak harshly to you. Women are a tribe, like gypsies, and we help each other.” She grasped Anne’s hand in a strong grip. “You have been kind to us. I was wrong not to tell you before, and I am sorry, believe me.”

  Anne squeezed her hand. “Thank you for telling me. Now that we know he’s around, we can, perhaps, catch him. Are you telling me all, holding back nothing?”

  “Holding back nothing,” she said wearily.

  ***

  He’d lost his temper, goddamnit. Darkefell paced back and forth on the edge of the gypsy encampment, near where Golden was tied, trying to understand himself, why he had shouted like an idiot at Anne. It had begun with the smirking twist of her lips when she saw him being held by those two gypsy fellows. She had been laughing at him. But she’d laughed at him before, and he hadn’t minded.

  He stopped dead. Ah, but he had been in on the joke before. This time he was powerless, and felt less than himself in her eyes. He turned toward the old gypsy woman’s cart, anxiously watched the flap, waiting for Anne. He’d seen contempt in her eyes when he reprimanded her for her tone toward him. But her defiance wasn’t what he was used to. No one spoke to him in such a manner, not even his mother.

  He paced some more, but paused once, hearing laughter coming from the gypsy cart. He reflected sourly that the laughter likely had to do with him, and he deserved it. One of the gypsy men offered him tobacco, but he shook his head and resumed pacing. When Anne finally pushed aside the curtain doorway and stepped down from the cart he froze, unsure how to greet her. To be fair, he understood why she was angry with him, but he was angry, too. It seemed they were at some kind of threshold; how would they handle this quarrel?

  Her gray eyes were gleaming when she approached him. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Am I to understand that my trip to find the doctor was a useless trip?” he said, rooted to the spot. She was not going to lead him around as if he was her cat. “The gypsy whose case was so grave is, after all, well? And was your behavior in there a foreshadow of things to come?” He was being an ass. He knew it, and yet he was still angry, humiliated, needing to stand his ground. Bewildered how to handle someone who would neither be controlled nor manipulated, he was at sea, adrift in uncertainty.

  She turned, slowly, her expression neutral. “The gypsies assure me that the pregnant woman will likely be all right, and they would not have allowed the doctor in even if you had been successful in finding him, but I did not know that when I sent you on your mission. It was all I could think to do.” She paused and watched him. “As far as if my behavior is a foreshadow of thi
ngs to come, I could ask the same of you. I won’t be cowed by you, Tony, nor by anyone. If you insist in interfering in my business, then I will tell you to shut up. Perhaps that was impolite, unnecessarily harsh, even, but I needed to handle that as I saw fit. I know better than you how to deal with gypsies.” She paused and one corner of her lip twitched. “However angry we are at each other, though, I do not expect you to beat me, as the gypsy woman suggested you might do.”

  “Beat you?” That did it; that thawed his feet. He strode over to her and took her arm. “Beat you? I would sooner club myself senseless.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She bit her lip, but ended up laughing, lightly, a brittle sound. “The younger gypsy woman told me if we were betrothed it was your right to beat me, but the old lady said if you troubled me, I could always murder you.” She paused yet again, and with meaning, said, “I told them we were not betrothed.”

  She pulled her arm from his grasp, wincing a little, and walked away.

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me,” he shouted, feeling helpless to control her.

  She turned slowly and regarded him. “I urge you to temper your words, sir. We’ve seen that we do not always agree on what I may say or do in your presence, but while we are unmarried you cannot tell me how to behave. Now, we have much to do. On to Farfield Farm, unless you have forgotten that there is another person sick from whatever contagion or illness is wandering through my community.”

  He followed her and took Golden’s reins from a young gypsy lad who had cared for the gelding. When he grabbed Anne about the waist to throw her up to the saddle, she felt stiff and unyielding in his arms. He tried to master his anger as he circled the horse and leapt up behind her. He pulled her to him and set the horse to a trot as Anne waved farewell to one of the gypsy women.

  “Now,” she said, “what was that display about, sir?” she asked, peering up at him in the sunshine as they set out in the direction she pointed.

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “You behaved like a boor back there. I won’t put up with that, Tony. If you understand nothing else about me, you must know this: My objections to marriage are based in a large part upon the knowledge that once married, I will lose more than my name. I lose almost all control over my life, my body, my mind, my decisions. If you still intend marriage with me, then you have done yourself a disservice today in showing me what I can expect. I will not be bullied, nor will I be ordered about. Despite what law and custom says I will be my own woman always.”

  He took in a deep breath, staying silent as he raised Golden to a canter. The animal was responding better after some strict control, but one could not use a lady the same way, expecting her to yield to the bit. If he had learned anything about women from observing his mother, he should understand that.

  And yet, some women appeared to expect that authority, to wish for it. He had feared that kind of yielding maiden, the kind who would never question his authority, never challenge him, never fight back when she perceived him wrong. He dreaded becoming a petty tyrant, accustomed to being obeyed mindlessly, all the while encouraging with his behavior the undermining of real authority that went on within such household dictatorships.

  For he had seen the subtle ways Lydia controlled John, with tears, feigned illness, hysterics, swooning. John had praised his wife to Tony as a sweet-natured young lady, soft, yielding, trusting, but in subtle ways she got exactly what she wanted, be it a pretty new dress or being allowed to accept an invitation her husband disdained. She encouraged the servants in petty rebellion, too, by asking them to covertly obey her while appearing to answer only to him. He saw it all, but would not interfere between them. He would never stand for that in his own household. He put his arms around Anne’s waist. She would never use him that way, never resort to underhanded trickery.

  “The gypsy mother seems to be recovering,” he said, schooling his tone to be neutral.

  “I’m encouraged. I hope to find the same of Mrs. Jackson at Farfield Farm.”

  “I interfered back there, Anne, and I apologize.”

  “I realize that you don’t know the ways of gypsies. But our family has been dealing with them for many years. They are good workers, when they work, honorable by their own view, but have been known to steal, though they never would from their own people. Information is to be sold, not given away, and so for an offering of silver, I get what I want, and they do, too. I try my best not to judge them too harshly, though I question their ways ofttimes.”

  “I bow to your superior knowledge.”

  “Good.” She gazed up at him. “Now, admit that you were humiliated by being taken unawares by those two hefty gypsy men, and I’ll think you a true man, able to admit your shortcomings.”

  He shook his head, but couldn’t help it; a laugh burst out from his lips. “All right, all right! It was not that, though, just so you know I am not so weak as to pin all sense of my masculine power on my ability to defeat untold numbers of assailants. It was the smile on your lips when you saw me helpless. I suppose I care more than I dare admit what you think of me.”

  She leaned against his chest and said softly, “Tony, you must know, I may be entranced by the physical aspects of our … our friendship, but I do not account bodily strength as of more than moderately a part of manhood. Even if you lost the use of your limbs, that would not send me away from you.”

  His heart thudded and he hoarsely said, holding her tight against his chest, “Anne, we must talk.”

  “I know, Tony, I know; but not right now. This tangle of troubles—the illness, Hiram Grover, Julius—it is all stealing my thoughts. What shall we do?”

  “I know nothing of the illness. But as for the other, I would say that we must begin some kind of systematic search for Hiram Grover. The gypsies have seen him, we suspect he has stolen clothes and food from villagers, so he must be hiding somewhere close by. But where?”

  “I will have Sanderson gather some of the men and begin with a search of every corner of every building on Harecross Hall property, as well as that of Wroth Farm.”

  “Put out the word to others, too, even villagers, to check their barns, stables, sheds, any place he might keep concealed and moderately comfortable. Even if they don’t find him, they may find some sign he has been there.”

  “I don’t understand at all, Tony,” she said, looking up at him. “Why would Hiram not just leave the country? Why stay just to avenge himself against us in this foolish manner?”

  Darkefell pondered that. “As long as I have known Hiram Grover, he has always tried to force upon the world at large a vision of himself as more than he is. He was never satisfied with being Hiram Grover, gentleman farmer. He could have done well for himself if he had settled for modest success as a vintner or wine merchant. There are many things that would have suited him, but instead, the moment he inherited he began a concerted effort to raise himself up in a world intent on keeping him in his place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He wanted not only great wealth, thus the attempt to make a fortune in the slave trade, but he wanted status. For years he spent foolishly on attendance at court, gifts to courtiers, trying to flatter the king with addresses, all in the hopes of securing a knighthood. He wanted to be Sir Hiram. He curried favor with my father, who could not abide him, and then with my mother when my father was gone.”

  “None of that explains why he stayed in England and why he plagues us now. It just makes no sense.”

  “Killing Cecilia Wainwright made no sense,” Darkefell said grimly. “Hiring William Spottiswode to slaughter sheep to make it look like we had a werewolf at Darkefell Castle made no sense. He is beyond any kind of sense we can understand, and I can only think deep resentment has driven him mad. Perhaps his sanity was always precarious.”

  They rode in silence for a while, the sparkling sunshine bathing the meadow with golden light as larks swooped overhead, their liquid song more exquisite than any opera singer’s so
prano. Kent was a lovely place and Harecross more beautiful than most corners of it. Darkefell worried that Anne was so deeply entrenched she would never want to leave her home. “Anne, when this is over, will you talk to me about marriage? We need to—”

  “Look,” she said, pulling away from him and pointing toward a green valley ahead of them, “that’s Farfield Farm!”

  He choked back all he wanted to say, the flood of words that jumbled in his mind. How could he be so self-assured in every other area of his life, but to her he couldn’t say all that he felt? Sometimes he seemed to find just the right words, and at other times, he struggled.

  He focused on the farm, a small cottage constructed of pale stone outlined with red brick, with several outbuildings. A powerful-looking young woman was hanging linens on the line in the laundry yard to one side, while a thin elderly man split wood. Darkefell raised Golden to a canter again, and they approached. Both man and woman looked up.

  When he brought the horse to a halt in the bare yard near the cottage gate, Anne slipped down and called out, “Mr. Jackson, is your wife any better?”

  He bowed, as he eyed Darkefell and removed his hat, saying, “She’s a mite bit better, milady.”

  “Good. This is his lordship, the Marquess of Darkefell, a guest at Harecross Hall.”

  The man bowed low as Darkefell looped the gelding’s reins over a post.

  “We’re going in to see Jamey, but I’ll check on Mrs. Jackson first.” She strode through the gate, down a path toward the front door, and entered, Darkefell following.

  Once inside, Darkefell let Anne go ahead to the woman’s chamber, and heard murmuring. Evidently the lady was awake. He looked around at the small dim kitchen, rush seats by the hearth, a pot bubbling over the fire. On the windowsill were numerous glass pots filled with strange (to him) ingredients. He had been in his tenants’ cottage before, but perhaps because of his status, never in the kitchen. It seemed so gloomy and small to him. How did they stand it in winter, when the weather confined them indoors much of the time? The door opened, and the woman he had seen hanging laundry, a strongly built girl with a colorful kerchief over her blonde hair, came in, ducking her head in embarrassment when she saw him standing in the middle of the room.