Julie Anne Long

by The Runaway Duke

  “Business?” Rebecca said slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “Does this have to do with . . . with your past, Connor?”

  “With my past, wee Becca,” he said softly. “And with our future.”

  She fixed him with a penetrating stare. Connor met it valiantly.

  “Business where? And how long?”

  “Just a few days, wee Becca. We will travel with the Gypsies as far as Cambridgeshire. And then we will go to Scotland straight away to be married.”

  His eyes were full of promise and entreaty, begging her silently not to ask any more questions.

  Rebecca looked away from him for a moment, gazing out across the camp, as though mulling his words.

  At last she returned her gaze to him.

  “All right,” she said reluctantly.

  Connor released the breath he’d been holding.

  “There is one more thing, wee Becca. While we travel with the Gypsies, we must observe their . . . proprieties. Which are, I’m afraid, much like your own dear mama’s proprieties.”

  “Which means . . .”

  “You will ride with Leonora in her cart, and I will ride horseback with the men. And at night, you will stay with Leonora in her tent, and I will stay with Raphael.”

  Unease prickled the back of Rebecca’s neck. Martha’s words echoed in her mind: He looked at you as one would look at a sister. It was ridiculous, really, she knew: no brother would look at his sister the way he was looking at her now . . . a look that she could almost feel on her skin, a look almost as hot as his hands. Still, every moment of her adventure had been spent with Connor so far. And though he would be but a few yards away from her at night, she already felt bereft.

  “Why can’t I ride horseback with you?”

  “Are you asking why you canna ride astride alongside me and a pack of strange Gypsy men, wee Becca?” he asked mildly.

  She took his point. Still . . .

  Connor saw her stricken expression and made a sound, half laugh, half moan.

  “Believe me, wee Becca, it will be the longest two days of my life.”

  She gave him a weak smile.

  He wanted to touch her, kiss the weak smile from her lips, kiss her senseless. But Gypsy eyes flitted toward the two of them regularly, even as everyone seemed to be bustling about the camp packing the wagons. And he had promised Raphael there would be no scandal.

  So Connor smiled, too, a smile she could normally have wrapped around herself like a soft blanket.

  But it was clear from her expression that for Rebecca, at the moment, his smile wasn’t nearly enough.

  The little caravan consisted of five carts brimming with Gypsies and Gypsy belongings, flanked and followed by Gypsy men on horseback, Connor among them on his gray horse. The men shouted to each other in jesting tones, their teeth winking like chests of diamonds in their swarthy faces. The women laughed and called to each other, teasing, instructing, shushing the children, who wiggled and fought boredom by driving their mothers to distraction. Rebecca sat between Martha and Leonora, who had the reins to the wagon. She felt like an island amid an eddy of Gypsy conversation.

  A cart was approaching the caravan from the opposite direction on the road. In it sat a man and a woman, farmers possibly, dressed in what was probably their finest clothing. Perhaps, Rebecca thought, they are on their way to visit relatives, or to dinner with the vicar. Rebecca prepared to nod as they passed, a reflex of her breeding, expecting a polite nod from the woman in response, perhaps a doffed cap from the man.

  But the woman’s eyes remained fixed on the road in front of her, as though the entire caravan of Gypsies was invisible, or as though she wished them so. The man met Rebecca’s searching eyes, and a chill unfurled down her spine at the contempt she saw there. His cap remained on his head. He held Rebecca’s eyes for a moment, then leaned slowly, pointedly, over the side of his cart and spat as he passed them.

  Shaken, Rebecca looked at Leonora, who was gazing contemplatively at the road ahead of her.

  “Do you mind it?” Rebecca blurted to her.

  “Mind it, Gadji?” Leonora asked distantly.

  “Rebecca,” Rebecca corrected. “Do you mind how he looked at you?”

  Leonora turned to Rebecca in mild surprise.

  “They are . . . what is your word? Jealous,” Leonora said. “The Gorgio do not understand our way of life. They cannot imagine living where they please, and moving when they please. They prefer the shackles of big houses and land. They do not understand us, and it frightens them, and fear makes them cold.”

  “Perhaps it is also that Gypsies steal,” Rebecca said, somewhat defensively, conscious that the “they” to which Leonora referred included her. Immediately regretting her words, she swiftly turned to Leonora to gauge her reaction.

  Leonora was grinning broadly.

  “Ah, but stealing is wrong to your people, not to ours. If ye’ve so many things that you canna keep them from being stolen, then surely ye’ve too many things? And is it not right to share? It is merely another difference in . . .”

  “Philosophy,” Rebecca completed for her.

  “Yes,” Leonora said triumphantly, pleased with this odd little Gadji’s grasp of things Rom.

  Rebecca was both appalled and strangely enchanted by this exotic point of view. She imagined repeating Leonora’s words to the vicar. The thought made her smile and crane her head for a glimpse of Connor. He was riding behind the cart, and his head was thrown back in laughter, probably at something hopelessly male and profane that Raphael had said.

  Hmmph. There he was, she thought, riding in the summer sun, having what looked to be the time of his life, while she was relegated to this jouncing cart and . . .

  Well, if she was being completely honest about it, she wasn’t exactly miserable. In fact, if it weren’t for the presence of Leonora’s owl-eyed daughter, she would be having the time of her life. Leonora had been genuinely enthralled by the story of Connor’s musket-ball wound, and she had been full of praise for Rebecca’s decision to bind the wound instead of stitching it closed, which could have led to infection. Rebecca was thoroughly enjoying basking in the unfamiliar rays of near motherly approval.

  Their conversation then careened between wounds and effluvia and herbs for the rest of the morning. It was about as close to heaven on earth as Rebecca had ever come in her life—with the exception, of course, of the moments spent in Connor Riordan’s arms.

  None of it, however, seemed to be endearing Rebecca any further to Martha.

  As Rebecca and Leonora chatted, Martha was busy with mending; shirts and skirts and trousers were heaped in a basket on the seat next to her in the cart. Despite the rattle and jounce of the cart, her needlework was exemplary—one tiny, even stitch after another. Her lips were pressed tightly together, however, and she drove the needle into the cloth with motions that bore more resemblance to stabbing than sewing.

  “You do that very well,” Rebecca told Martha, feeling magnanimous in the glow of Leonora’s praise.

  “Aye,” Martha said matter-of-factly. “I sing very well, too. And I can dukker best of all.”

  Clearly modesty was not among the proprieties Gypsy mamas taught their daughters.

  “But can you play the pianoforte?” Rebecca found herself blurting. As far as Martha knew, Rebecca could play like Bach himself, and she was suddenly prepared to lie, lie, lie if it would help in any way to stem the flow of Martha’s insane self-assurance.

  But Martha stopped stitching for a moment and gave her a gently incredulous, pitying look.

  “Why would I want to play the pianoforte?”

  An excellent question, Rebecca saw now, especially since Gypsies didn’t typically have drawing rooms in which to entertain guests with pianoforte tunes. She could feel her face growing warm.

  “What does dukker mean?” she asked, instead of answering the pianoforte question.

  “Yer palm,” Martha said. “I can read yer future in yer pa
lm. I will dukker for ye later.” She said it in a conciliatory manner, as though offering a treat to a feebleminded child.

  Rebecca surreptitiously turned her hand over and gazed down at it. Perhaps the lines that hatched across it were a sort of Gypsy hieroglyphics. Imagine if everyone was born with a map to their entire life in their hand . . . Does it say, Rebecca wondered, that I will one day be trapped in a Gypsy wagon with an insufferable Gypsy girl?

  “Martha does sing very well,” Leonora said, perhaps feeling guilty for showering praise on another young woman within earshot of her daughter. “Perhaps ye’ll hear her one day.”

  “That would be lovely,” Rebecca lied. “What kinds of songs do you like to sing?” she asked Martha, hoping, probably in vain, to impose a sort of drawing-room pleasantry on the conversation.

  Connor rode up next to the cart just then, his cheeks ruddy with sun and good spirits.

  “Songs of love,” Martha said, throwing her shoulders back to display her round bosom at its best advantage. “I sing songs of love very well.”

  Connor looked at Martha, startled, and frowned faintly, perplexed. He opened his mouth as if to say something to her, then closed it and nodded politely to her and to Leonora before turning his attention toward Rebecca.

  “How are you finding your trip, wee Becca?”

  How was she finding her trip? Pity she couldn’t think of a word that meant both “wonderful” and “horrible.”

  “Oh, it’s . . . it’s lovely,” she said lamely. “Not a single highwayman in sight. When will we stop?”

  “When we arrive.” But then something in her face must have told him that she was not in the mood for glib answers, because he gently amended his answer. “We will stop in a few hours more, wee Becca. Just before sundown. Raphael knows of a place to camp. Near a town.”

  “You need to rest, Connor,” she said awkwardly, when what she wanted to say was I love you.

  “Aye,” he agreed softly, “I do. Thank you for looking after me.” And when he smiled down at her, his expression said I love you, too. For a moment, Leonora and Martha and all the Gypsies dropped away, and they were aware only of each other.

  Martha cleared her throat.

  “I will dukker for you tonight, Rebecca.” She stabbed her needle one last time into the trousers.

  The town was barely a town at all, a few little houses and storefronts. The caravan rode down the center of it just as the sun was sinking in the sky. Rebecca watched as Raphael rode toward a meadow at the outskirts of the town and motioned to the rest of the caravan with his hand; this was where they would be stopping for the evening.

  Swiftly, tents were erected, a fire built, pots and pans extracted from the baggage in preparation for supper. To Rebecca’s tired eyes, it was like watching a tightly choreographed dance; each Gypsy seemed to know their role and performed it deftly.

  She stepped down from the cart, ecstatic to be on solid ground again. Strangely, riding in a cart for hours was far more grueling than riding a horse, she thought; one almost becomes an extension of a horse, one could adjust to the rhythm of the animal’s body. But with a cart . . . well, one merely suffered a cart. Her body was stiff in ways she never felt from riding on horseback.

  Across the camp, Connor was sliding from his horse. Whatever envy she may have felt about his day on horseback vanished when he paused and touched his forehead against the saddle briefly, as though waiting for a dizzy spell to pass.

  She was next to him in an instant.

  He turned to her when she placed a hand to his arm. Even in the rapidly purpling evening light, she could see his face had gone ashen.

  “Connor—”

  “I’m merely tired, wee Becca.”

  “You are still somewhat weak. You should—”

  “I am NOT weak.”

  And though Rebecca knew the edge in his voice had been honed by exhaustion and injury and frustration over the events of the past few days, she still flinched.

  Connor was instantly the picture of contrition. He drew in a deep breath, and began again.

  “Wee Becca, forgive me. I am more weary than weak; please believe me. I merely need to sleep. I am sorry to worry you.”

  “Will you see Leonora about your arm?”

  He sighed. “Oh, aye, if it will make you feel better.”

  “It will make me feel better,” she said firmly.

  He smiled crookedly. “Then take me to her, wee Becca, by all means, so we can get it over with and I can spend the rest of the evening sleeping.”

  Leonora unwound Connor’s bandage with a sense of solemn ceremony, as though she were unveiling a public statue.

  In a nod to modesty, Connor’s shirt, now woefully bloodstained and haphazardly mended, remained draped over his uninjured arm and shoulder. Martha, unsurprisingly, had watched the unbuttoning of his shirt raptly, and was now tracking the progress of the unwinding bandage with the same held-breath fascination. Rebecca had to admit there was a certain prurience to the proceedings; even she had felt a certain heightened anticipation as Connor’s bare skin came into view, and she already knew exactly what that skin looked—and smelled and tasted—like. But the slow revelation of Connor’s gorgeous contours was also like watching someone else unwrap a gift that rightfully belonged to her. A gift certainly not meant for Martha’s eyes.

  Why was the bloody girl allowed to remain in the tent at all? It seemed unlikely that Rom proprieties were lenient enough to allow unmarried girls to ogle half-dressed male strangers. Perhaps Martha had spent many an hour watching the dressing and undressing of men, young and old alike, while her mother poked and prodded and healed them. Rebecca wondered whether Martha’s fascination with Connor had to do with a curiosity about men that remained unfulfilled . . . or one that was all too fulfilled.

  Leonora grunted appreciatively when the wound was at last exposed, and motioned for Martha to hold the lamp higher so she could look at it more closely. Martha moved in nearer to Connor, her bosom perhaps a hairsbreadth away from his shoulder, and lifted the lamp. If Connor so much as exhaled, his arm was certain to brush against at least one large round breast.

  Rebecca sent Martha a look that could have mowed down Napoleon’s front line. Martha ignored her. Connor, happily, seemed oblivious of any bosoms at the moment.

  Leonora gently touched the edges of the wound, and Rebecca leaned in for a look. It was still oozing a little, but the edges were pink, not red or angry or swollen, and no streaks radiated from it, which meant no poisoning of the blood. Leonora peered into Connor’s eyes, examined his fingernails, felt his pulse, all of which Connor submitted to with a certain stoic amusement.

  Rebecca watched Leonora, her heart hammering in anticipation of a verdict.

  At last, Leonora turned to her, smiling.

  “Well done, Rebecca. We will clean it gently once more, apply a salve of—”

  “Saint-John’s-wort,” Rebecca and Martha said simultaneously, Rebecca sounding eager, Martha sounding bored.

  “—yes, Saint-John’s-wort, and then we will rebind the wound. Ye’re lucky to have such a talented healer for a fiancée,” Leonora clucked to Connor.

  “I know,” Connor said proudly.

  But Rebecca hadn’t heard him at all.

  Healer. Leonora had called her a healer! Elation nearly sent her out of her shoes. She felt as if she had just been knighted.

  Connor was watching her face, a soft smile playing at his lips.

  “Aye,” he repeated warmly, “she is very talented.”

  This time she heard, and she turned to beam at him.

  From behind Connor’s head, Martha lowered the lamp and scowled.

  Leonora swabbed the edges of Connor’s wound, applied the salve of Saint-John’s-wort, and wound a length of clean bandage around his arm.

  “Now, try to use yer other arm, not your injured one, for a few days. And if you feel feverish, come to me.”

  “He needs to rest,” Rebecca said proprietarily.
r />   “He needs to rest,” Leonora confirmed, smiling at her.

  “And as I need to rest,” Connor said, smiling, rebuttoning his shirt, “I will thank you ladies for your attentions, and bid you good night.”

  He made bows all around. As he backed from the tent, he caught and held Rebecca’s eyes in a tenderly smoldering gaze, and then he was gone. It took all of her self-control not to run after him.

  “Now, Gadji,” Leonora said briskly, “I have work to do to prepare my medicines, and I wonder if you would like to help. Supper will be brought to us when it is ready.”

  Rebecca could scarcely believe her good fortune.

  “Oh,” she breathed. “Yes, please.”

  Martha gave a nearly inaudible snort.

  Leonora fished about in the trunks and extracted several of the dark bottles Rebecca had seen earlier, which were nestled in a bed of straw to prevent breakage. A little more rooting about in the trunk yielded a mortar and pestle, some folded muslin, several little cloth bags pulled shut with string, and startlingly, a bottle of whiskey.

  “Martha, if you would bring the lantern here,” Leonora said. Martha did as bid, albeit sluggishly. A soft corona of light pulsed about the trunk.

  “So we can see our work,” Leonora murmured. She fussed with her things a moment more, lining up the bottles, opening the bags to sniff the contents. Rebecca waited impatiently.

  “Now, these herbs have been in their bath of whiskey for one course of the moon—”

  “Why whiskey?” Rebecca said.

  Martha sighed loudly. Leonora shot her a quelling look.

  “The healing power of the herbs is drawn into the whiskey, and then we can use it for medicine for a very long time. These are strong medicines, for strong ailments, when a tea will not do.”

  “Tinctures,” Rebecca and Martha said at the same time, Rebecca eagerly, Martha sounding exasperated that anyone could be so ignorant about healing.

  “Tinctures,” Leonora repeated, agreeing. “They have been in their bath of whiskey, and they are now ready to become medicines. We must pour them through the muslin to catch the herbs. What is left behind in the pitcher is the medicine, like so.”