by Sahara Kelly
He found soft lips brushing his face and his neck, and hands running over his sweat-slicked chest.
“It’s astonishing. My heart is full of you, Viktor. So quickly and you’re everything now.” Madelyne’s tongue found a bead of sweat on his collarbone and licked it. “All of you, your body, your music, but most of all…” She laid her hand over his still-pounding heart. “what’s in here.”
Viktor sighed in contentment. “It happened to me too, Madelyne, five seconds in the moonlight and I knew you would be mine,” he whispered.
She snuggled close. “So tell me about those scars.”
*~~*~~*
Madelyne struggled into the costume that Viktor had given her, tightening the cords that closed the loose blouse and shaking the brightly colored skirts around her calves. She hadn’t asked where they’d come from, why a man should have an assortment of women’s clothing in his caravan, or if anyone had worn them before her.
Even the red leather boots matched the embroidery, a little loose on her small feet, but they’d serve the purpose.
Viktor was harnessing the horse to the caravan traces, and they were about to leave this damned forest. Forever, Madelyne hoped.
The sunlight streaming in through the small windows had nudged them from each other’s arms before she’d had chance to learn Viktor’s secrets, but she fully intended to hear the whole story once they were on the road.
“How does it fit?” Viktor peeked in through the door.
“You tell me. Have I got it right?” She pirouetted, letting the full skirts swirl around the tops of her boots.
Viktor grinned. “You are beautiful in anything. Or nothing. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look less like a gypsy.”
Madelyne pouted. “Well, for heaven’s sake. I’ve got the clothes on.”
“It’s all that golden hair, love. And those dark blue eyes of yours. We gypsies have angels too, and I’m guessing that they look just like that. But you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb unless we do something about it…hold on a moment…”
He rummaged in the clothing trunk and produced a white scarf, edged with gold flowers. “Here. Stuff your hair up underneath this and tie it tight. For today, at least, we want to attract as little attention as possible. By tomorrow, we’ll be far enough away for you to relax a little.”
“And will you relax a little?”
“Me? I’m relaxed.”
Madelyne snorted as she tied the scarf tight and tucked a few errant curls out of the way. “You’ve been fidgeting around this morning like a nervous filly. I want to leave too. I’m ready. What are we waiting for?”
Viktor’s eyes burned. “Not a damn thing. I can’t wait to get going, head north, and settle this business.”
Madelyne followed Viktor from the caravan into the dawn and clambered up beside him on the front seat.
“North?” She asked the question as he clicked up the horse and the caravan rolled off over the bumps and onto the narrow lane that bordered the forest.
“North.” Viktor glanced at her. “I intend to marry you at the earliest possible moment, and I have a couple of friends a few days’ journey from here who will be happy to help. Once you’re mine, nobody can touch you, Madelyne.”
She allowed a wicked grin to curve her lips. “Except you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Except me.”
She sighed and rested her back against the hard wooden slats. “Sounds very nice to me.”
“Me too.”
The lane widened and the fields rolled past as the sun rose into a clear blue sky. Madelyne kept her eyes downcast for the first few miles, hoping that a gypsy caravan and its occupants would not occasion much comment from the field workers or farmers that they passed along the way.
Viktor’s attention was focused, alert, and she could almost feel the tension in his spine as they made their journey through the countryside towards their goal of freedom.
And each other.
“You know, Viktor…” Madelyne broke the silence. “I’m probably going to be an awful wife.”
A surprised chuckle erupted from Viktor’s throat. “What on earth makes you say that?”
“Well I don’t know the first thing about gypsy life. I’ve never cooked over an open fire, I can’t play any kind of instrument, and there’s so much I have to learn about you, and this caravan and…oh…everything…”
Viktor grinned. “Um, darling, I have a confession to make.”
Madelyne frowned at him. “Oh God. Don’t tell me you have another wife somewhere.”
“No. Good God, no. I’ve never been married, never even thought about it until I met you, and certainly have never asked another woman to share my life. You’re the first. The only…”
Madelyne knew she was smirking, and couldn’t help it. She was almost drunk with the combined joys of love and freedom, and right this moment if Viktor had told her he had a dozen other wives she probably could have forgiven him.
Well, perhaps not that. But her heart sang as the horse’s hooves pounded along, and whatever Viktor wanted to share with her, it couldn’t possibly destroy her happiness.
“So you were going to confess something?”
“Um. Well, it has to do with who I am.”
Madelyne blinked. “You’re Viktor.”
“Yes, I am.” He paused. “But you never asked me my last name, and to be honest I was so busy loving you that I forgot to tell you.”
“All right. So tell me now.”
Viktor cleared his throat. “Well, actually, I’m Viktor Istvan Karoly.”
“Karoly…hmmm. That’s a nice name.” Madelyne rolled it around in her mind. “Mrs. Viktor Karoly. Madelyne Karoly. Yes.” She turned to him. “I like it.”
“Uh…you won’t be able to use it in exactly that way, love.”
Madelyne frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Well…you’ll be correctly known as Countess Karoly.”
Her vision swam for a few moments as the world turned upside down and then righted itself again. “You’re a Count?”
“Yes.”
“A real, title-holding Count?”
“Yes.”
“A member of the aristocracy Count?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
“Good God.”
Viktor grinned at her. “Does it matter?”
Madelyne gasped for air. “I…uh…no. I suppose not. But a Count?”
“Um, you’ve said that several times now. Could we perhaps move on?”
“Well certainly.” She sat upright. “Perhaps we should move on to exactly how a Count comes to be masquerading as a gypsy and running away with a very lowly and socially unacceptable woman.”
Viktor slowed the horse to a walk. “I’ve never masqueraded as a gypsy, Madelyne. I am a gypsy. First and foremost. And I’m not running away from anything, I’m running towards my future. With the woman I love. Who happens to be beautiful, elegant, sadly mistreated, and the person I intend to spend the rest of my life worshipping.”
Madelyne thought about that. “Worshipping?”
“Absolutely.”
“All the time?”
“As often as possible.”
“Oh.” A grin passed across her face. “Does this worshipping involve us, together…um…naked?”
“Oh yes. Without question.” A matching grin lightened Viktor’s face and he urged the horse onwards.
“Very well then. I can adjust to that. Even Countesses need worshipping, I suppose.”
“They most definitely do.”
Madelyne snuggled close and rested her head on Viktor’s shoulder. “I’ll just have to get used to the idea, then. But Viktor…” She paused.
“Yes, love?”
“Tell me about it? Tell me how it all came to be? How did you all come to be together, and…I need to know about those scars…”
Viktor sighed. “It’s a long story, Madelyne. It began years ago when Europe was upside down, armies wer
e fighting, men were dying at the whim of generals who thought nothing of sacrificing valuable lives for a few yards of land…”
She slipped her hand onto his knee.
“Go on…”
“There were a few young men, love. All trying to live, to survive the devastation of war. They came together one night at a small inn tucked away in a quiet hillside village…”
*~~*~~*
As Viktor began telling his story to Madelyne on the road leading north, Pyotr was pulling up his exhausted horses and watching the early sun dapple the leaves of several willows that dangled low beside a stream.
He’d ridden hard, and loved every minute of it.
The challenge of finding his way over and around obstacles, laying down wild and improbable trails, and crisscrossing his path several times to confuse his pursuers had fired his senses and spurred him on. He was many miles from Eventyde now, and knew that the men who followed him would either have given up or were hopelessly lost. He was good at what he did.
He’d had enough practice in France.
His mind darted briefly to a similar nighttime ride, when he’d laid another false trail. That one had resulted in the rescue of an entire family from the approaching armies that would have left no survivors.
He grinned. A job well done, indeed.
His horse’s flanks were heaving, and even the second horse was sweating at the end of the rein he’d tied to his saddle.
It must be close to eight o’clock now, and Pyotr figured he could certainly let his mounts drink and rest for a bit. He eased the thirsty beasts to the edge of the river and lifted his leg over the saddle, sliding to the ground with a sigh of relief.
As he did so, a branch above him groaned, cracked and fell.
Right on him.
He narrowly avoided the solid lump of willow, but not the body that followed it.
The horses neighed and shook their heads, jangling their tack as Pyotr tumbled onto the bank. He rolled quickly and found himself on top of a slight form, staring down into a pair of very surprised green eyes.
They blinked at him.
Short tufts of red hair stuck up around a milky white face, which was scattered with freckles. There was one particular freckle…a star-shaped freckle…
The green eyes widened and the full lips beneath sucked in air.
He knew those eyes. He knew that freckle…
“Good God. Freddie?”
The mouth worked and a choking gasp broke free.
“Peter?”
Pyotr
Chapter One
The Honorable Frederica Howell struggled to free herself from the heavy body squashing her into the riverbank and tugged her breeches back into some kind of order.
Inwardly, she was cursing, using every lurid word she’d ever heard and inventing a few more.
Of all the people in all the world, she had to go and fall on him.
Peter Maloney. Or Lord Chalmers now, she supposed.
He stared at her, still sitting in a heap on the moss with mouth agape, looking every bit as delicious as he had the last time she’d seen him.
It must have been at least six years ago.
Of course, he’d not had that full moustache then, and his hair had been shorter, perhaps a little darker. But now he looked like the answer to every maiden’s dream.
She used the pretense of straightening her shirt to study him from under her eyelashes.
His shoulders were broad, his body lean, and his eyes still that whiskey brown that sometimes turned to amber in the sunlight. He’d aged, as had she, but time had been kind to him, turning him from the young man she’d tumbled madly in love with to a grown man she could…she could what?
He stood, brushing off his breeches, and still staring at her. A frown gathered between his brows.
“Is this some prank of yours, Freddie? What the devil do you think you’re doing dressed like that? It’s extremely improper. And what on earth happened to your hair? It looks like it’s been attacked by a rabid badger.” His voice was disapproving, as was his expression.
Freddie’s temper flared hotly.
“You impertinent lout. How dare you frown at me like that? And where the hell have you been for six years?”
She closed the distance between them and poked him in the chest. Hard. “It’s none of your business where I’ve been, what I’ve done, or whether badgers attacked me or not. You stupid…man.”
Peter stood his ground. “Look, we’ve got to be more than forty miles or so from Lyndham. And you drop out of the sky on top of me dressed like a…like a…what the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?”
“I’m not supposed to be anything. And you’re supposed to be out of the country. Permanently. Why don’t you just keep on going until you reach the ocean, find a boat, and sail off to wherever you were?”
She turned her back to him and looked around for the floppy felt hat that had fallen from her head while she was falling on Peter.
“Does your mother know you’re here…dressed like that?”
Freddie stilled.
The water rippled past them and the horses nickered softly as they grazed on the grass growing nearby. “My mother’s dead.”
The words tumbled out into the silence between them, and she heard Peter’s steps as he neared her.
She pulled away. If he touched her now…
“Your father?”
She nodded. “Him too.” She moved again, keeping a distance between them.
“Freddie, I’m sorry. What happened?”
Oh now he was all sincere and sympathetic. Freddie tried to lash up her temper again. “What does it matter to you? In case you’ve forgotten, you’re in exile, Peter. You could probably be arrested just for standing here. So why don’t you move on before I summon the constable and make sure that happens.”
“It matters, sweetheart.”
Damn. He was too close. She could smell the mixture of horse and man, and it was lethal.
She sighed. “Look, I haven’t got time to go into any of this right now. It was a surprise to see you again. Glad you’re well. Don’t let me keep you from wherever it is you’re off to. Enjoy the rest of your life.”
She crammed the disreputable hat on her head and turned towards the path only to be brought up short by a firm hand at her elbow.
“I don’t think so. Not until I find out why my childhood friend is dressed like an urchin and lurking up a tree.”
*~~*~~*
Peter swung Freddie around to face him and barely restrained a gasp at the mixture of pain and fury blazing from her eyes.
“Freddie…Freddie, tell me. What the hell’s going on?”
He kept his hand firmly around her arm, feeling the bones beneath his grip. Damnation, she was too thin. Too pale. Something was seriously amiss.
She lowered her lashes, veiling those expressive green eyes.
He wanted to shake her. “Don’t hide from me. You can’t hide from me. I will know the truth, Freddie. Come on, sit down here and tell me. I can’t believe you won’t take ten minutes to just sit and catch up on old times.”
She glanced around and again Peter felt the tension in her, the urge to flee. He’d seen it and felt it often enough in his travels through battle-scarred villages to recognize it for what it was. A lethal blend of adrenaline and fear. Mixed in with a healthy dose of defiance. Probably more than a healthy dose in Freddie’s case, since he knew her temper of old.
“Please?” He let his grip soften and his hand stroke her arm soothingly.
She shivered a little and nodded briefly. “Ten minutes.”
“Good girl.”
He urged her to a nearby log and sat her down, taking a seat next to her and reaching for her hand. He was a little surprised to find that she allowed it, and even more surprised to feel the rough calluses and hard spots that had no business marring such delicate skin.
“Start at the beginning, sweetheart. Your parents…what happened?”
&
nbsp; Freddie sighed, then straightened her spine and stared across the river. Peter had the distinct impression that she was looking at her past, not the scenery.
“It was the winter after you left. There was some kind of illness in the village. My mother insisted on helping where she could. She came home unwell and was gone within the week. My father was distraught, and no more than a month later he was gone too.”
The words were short, bald, and unemotional, but Peter knew what pain they must have been hiding. He squeezed her hand in sympathy.
“I’m so sorry, love. It must have been a terrible time for you.”
She made a sound between a snort and a sob. “Yes.”
“Go on. What happened then? Did your cousin send for you?”
Peter remembered the older man, Geoffrey something-or-other. He’d have been the logical person to take care of Freddie.
“Yes.”
Damn. She wasn’t telling him anything. “And?”
“And he arrived at the Chase, moved in with his family, and I became…”
“Became what?”
“Their maid. Their children’s tutor. Their housekeeper. The sort of general person who does everything and gets nothing in return.”
Peter bit his lip. It wasn’t an unusual story, but he knew Freddie. It must have been incredibly hard on her. To see her home taken over by another, and to relinquish her position as daughter of the house to another. To have to suppress her natural instinct to lead, to organize, to charm and laugh with those around her.
“That was not good, was it?”
She snorted. “You could say that.”
“So what happened next?” He was going to have to drag each and every detail out of her, but he intended to hear the whole.
“My cousin’s daughter found herself a suitor.”
“That’s good.” Come on, Freddie. Tell me, for God’s sake.
“Unfortunately, this man discovered that he had more of a partiality for redheads than blondes. I was ‘dismissed’.”