by Lisa Kleypas
"Someday you will tell me," she said with a little grin. She made a move as if to rise from the chair, and Kev's hand shot out to grip her arm. Surprise flickered across her face.
"You said you would stay," he said roughly. Her free hand came to the one clamped around her wrist. "I will. Be at ease, Merripen. I'm only going to fetch some bread and tea for us. Let me go. I'll come right back." Her palm was light and warm as it rubbed over his hand. "I'll stay in here all day, if you wish."
"They won't let you."
"Oh yes, they will." She coaxed his hand to loosen, gently prying at his fingers. "Don't be so anxious. My goodness. I thought Gypsies were supposed to be merry."
She almost made him smile.
"I've had a bad week," he told her gravely.
She was still busy trying to detach his fingers from her arm. "Yes, I can see that. How did you come to be hurt?"
"Gadjos attacked my tribe. They may come for me here." He stared at her hungrily but forced himself to let go of her. "I'm not safe. I should go."
"No one would dare take you away from us. My father is a very respected man in the village. A scholar." Seeing Merripen's doubtful expression, she added, "The pen is mightier than the sword, you know."
That sounded like something a gadjo would say. It made no sense at all. "The men who attacked my vitsa last week were not armed with pens."
"You poor thing," she said compassionately. "I'm sorry. Your wounds must hurt after all this moving about. I'll get you some tonic."
Kev had never been the object of sympathy before. He didn't like it. His pride bristled. "I won't take it. Gadjo medicine doesn't work. If you bring it, I'll only throw it on the-"
"All right. Don't excite yourself. I'm sure it's not good for you." She went to the door, and a thrill of desperation shook Kev's frame. He was certain she would not come back. And he wanted her near him so badly. Had he the strength, he would have leaped from the bed and seized her again. But that wasn't possible.
So he fixed her with a sullen stare and muttered, "Go, then. Devil take you."
Winnifred paused at the doorway and glanced over her shoulder with a quizzical grin. "How contrary and cross you are. I will come back with bread and tea and a book, and I will stay as long as it takes to get a smile from you."
"I never smile," he told her.
Much to his surprise, Win did return. She spent the better part of a day reading to him, some dull and wordy story that made him drowsy with contentment. No music, no rustling of trees in the forest, no bird-songs had ever pleased him as much as her soft voice. Occasionally another family member came to the doorway, but Kev couldn't bring himself to snap at any of them. He was full of ease for the first time he could ever remember. He couldn't seem to hate anyone when he was so close to happiness.
The next day the Hathaways brought him to the main room in the cottage, a parlor filled with worn furniture. Every available surface was covered with sketches, needlework, and piles of books. One couldn't move without knocking something over.
While Kev half-reclined on the sofa, the smaller girls played on the carpet nearby, trying to teach tricks to Beatrix's pet squirrel. Leo and his father played chess in the corner. Amelia and her mother cooked in the kitchen. And Win sat close to Kev and worked on his hair.
"You have the mane of a wild beast," she told him, using her fingers to pull apart snarls, then combing the tangled black strands with great care. "Hold still. I'm trying to make you look more civi-oh, do stop flinching. Your head can't possibly be that sensitive."
Kev wasn't flinching because of the tangles, or the comb. It was that he had never been touched for so long by anyone in his life. He was mortified, inwardly alarmed… but as he glanced warily around the room, it seemed no one minded or cared about what Win was doing.
He settled back with slitted eyes. The comb tugged a little too hard, and Win murmured an apology and rubbed the smarting spot with her fingertips. So gently. It made his throat tight and his eyes sting. Deeply disquieted, bewildered, Kev swallowed back the feeling. He stayed tense but passive beneath her touch. He could hardly breathe for the pleasure she gave him.
Next came a cloth draped around his neck, and the scissors.
"I'm very good at this," Win said, pushing his head forward and combing the locks at the back of his neck. "And your hair wants cutting. There's enough wool on your head to stuff a mattress."
"Beware, lad," Mr. Hathaway said cheerfully. "Recollect what happened to Samson."
Kev's head lifted. "What?"
Win pushed it back down. "Samson's hair was his source of strength," she said. "After Delilah cut it, he turned weak and was captured by the Philistines."
"Haven't you read the Bible?" Poppy asked.
"No," Kev said. He held still as the scissors bit carefully through the thick waves at his nape.
"Then you're a heathen?"
"Yes."
"Are you the kind that eats people?" Beatrix asked with great interest.
Win answered before Kev could say anything. "No, Beatrix. One may be a heathen without being a cannibal."
"But Gypsies do eat hedgehogs," Beatrix said. "And that's just as bad as eating people. Because hedgehogs do have feelings, you know." She paused as a heavy lock of black hair fell to the floor. "Oooooh, how pretty!" the little girl exclaimed. "May I have it, Win?"
"No," Merripen said gruffly, his head still bent.
"Why ever not?" Beatrix asked.
"Someone could use it to make a bad-luck charm. Or a love spell."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that," Beatrix said earnestly. "I just want to line a nest with it."
"Never mind, darling," Win said serenely. "If it makes our friend uncomfortable, your pets will have to make do with some other nesting material." The scissors snipped through another heavy black swath. "Are all Gypsies as superstitious as you?" she asked Kev.
"No. Most are worse."
Her light laugh tickled his ear, her warm breath bringing goosefiesh to the surface. "Which would you hate more, Merripen… the bad luck, or the love spell?"
"The love spell," he said without hesitation.
For some reason the entire family laughed. Merripen glowered at all of them but found no mockery in their collective gaze, only friendly amusement.
Kev was quiet, listening to them chatter while Win cut layers in his hair. It was the oddest conversation he'd ever witnessed, the girls interacting freely with their brother and father. They all moved from one subject to another, debating ideas that didn't apply to them, situations that didn't affect them. There was no point to any of it, but they seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously.
He had never known people like this existed. He had no idea how they had survived this long.
The Hathaways were an unworldly lot, eccentric and cheerful and preoccupied with books and art and music. They lived in a ramshackle cottage, but instead of repairing door frames or holes in the ceiling, they pruned roses and wrote poetry. If a chair leg broke off, they merely wedged a stack of books beneath it. Their priorities were a mystery to him. And he was mystified still further when, after his wounds had healed sufficiently, they invited him to make a room for himself in the stable loft.
"You may stay as long as you wish," Mr. Hathaway had told him, "though I expect that someday you'll want to strike out in search of your tribe."
But Kev no longer had a tribe. They had left him for dead. This was his stopping place.
He began to take care of the things the Hathaways had paid no attention to, such as repairing the holes in the ceiling and the decaying joints beneath the chimney stack. Despite his terror of heights, he did new coat work on the thatched roof. He took care of the horse and the cow, and tended the kitchen garden, and even mended the family's shoes. Soon Mrs. Hathaway trusted him to take money to the village to buy food and other necessities.
There was only one time that his presence at the Hathaway cottage seemed in jeopardy, and that was when he had been caught fighting some
village toughs.
Mrs. Hathaway was alarmed by the sight of him, battered and bloody-nosed, and had demanded to know how it had happened. "I sent you to fetch a round from the cheesemaker, and you come home empty-handed, and in such a condition," she cried. "What violence did you do, and why?"
Kev hadn't explained, only stood grim-faced at the door as she berated him.
"I won't tolerate brutality in this household. If you can't bring yourself to explain what happened, then collect your things and leave."
But before Kev could move or speak, Win had entered the house. "No, Mother," she had said calmly. "I know what happened-my friend Laura just told me. Her brother was there. Merripen was defending our family. Two other boys were shouting insults about the Hathaways, and Merripen thrashed them for it."
"Insults of what nature?" Mrs. Hathaway asked, bewildered.
Kev stared hard at the floor, his fists clenched.
Win didn't flinch from the truth. "They're criticizing our family," she said, "because we're harboring a Rom. Some of the villagers don't like it. They're afraid Merripen might steal from them, or place curses on people, or other such nonsense. They blame us for taking him in."
In the silence that followed, Kev trembled with undirected rage. And at the same time, he was overwhelmed with defeat. He was a liability to the family. He could never live among the gadje without conflict.
"I will go," he said. It was the best thing he could do for them.
"Where?" Win asked, a surprising edge to her voice, as if the notion of his leaving had annoyed her. "You belong here. You have nowhere else to go."
"I'm a Rom," he said simply. He belonged nowhere and everywhere.
"You will not leave," Mrs. Hathaway astonished him by saying. "Certainly not because of some village ruffians. What would it teach my children, to let such ignorance and despicable behavior prevail? No, you will stay. It is only right. But you must not fight, Merripen. Ignore them, and they will eventually lose interest in taunting us."
A stupid gadjo sentiment. Ignoring never worked. The fastest way to silence a bully's taunts was to beat him to a bloody pulp.
A new voice entered the conversation. "If he stays," Leo remarked, coming into the kitchen, "he will most certainly have to fight, Mother."
Like Kev, Leo looked much the worse for wear, with a blackened eye and a split lip. He gave a crooked grin at his mother's and sister's exclamations. Still smiling, he glanced at Kev. "I thrashed one or two of the fellows you overlooked," he said.
"Oh dear," Mrs. Hathaway said sorrowfully, taking her son's hand, which was bruised and bleeding from a gash where he must have caught someone's tooth with his knuckle. "These are hands meant for holding books. Not fighting."
"I like to think I can manage both," Leo said dryly. His expression turned serious as he gazed at Kev. "I'll be damned if anyone will tell me who may live in my home. As long as you wish to stay, Merripen, I'll defend you like a brother."
"I don't want to make trouble for you," Kev muttered.
"No trouble," Leo replied, gingerly flexing his hand. "After all, some principles are worth standing up for."
Chapter Three
Principles. Ideals. The harsh realities of Kev's former life had never allowed for such things. But constant exposure to the Hathaways had changed him, elevating his thoughts to considerations beyond mere survival. Certainly he would never be a scholar or a gentleman. He spent years, however, listening to the Hathaways' animated discussions about Shakespeare, Galileo, Flemish art versus Venetian, democracy and monarchy and theocracy, and every imaginable subject. He had learned to read, and even acquired some Latin and a few words of French. He had changed into someone his former tribe would never have recognized.
Kev never came to think of Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway as parents, although he would have done anything for them. He had no desire to form attachments to people. That would have required more trust and intimacy than he could summon. But he did care for all the Hathaway brood, even Leo. And then there was Win, for whom Kev would have died a thousand times over.
He would never degrade Win with his touch, or dare to assume a place in her life other than as a protector.
She was too fine, too rare. As she grew into womanhood, every man in the county was enthralled by her beauty.
Outsiders tended to view Win as an ice maiden, neat and unruffled and cerebral. But outsiders knew nothing of the sly wit and warmth that lurked beneath her perfect surface. Outsiders hadn't seen Win teaching Poppy the steps to a quadrille until they had both collapsed to the floor in giggles. Or frog-hunting with Beatrix, her apron filled with leaping amphibians. Or the droll way she read a Dickens novel with an array of voices and sounds, until the entire family howled at her cleverness.
Kev loved her. Not in the way that novelists and poets described. Nothing so tame. He loved her beyond earth, heaven, or hell. Every moment out of her company was agony; every moment with her was the only peace he had ever known. Every touch of her hands left an imprint that ate down to his soul. He would have killed himself before admitting it to anyone. The truth was buried deep in his heart.
Kev did not know if Win loved him in return. All he knew was that he didn't want her to.
"There," Win said one day after they had rambled through dry meadows and settled to rest in their favorite place. "You're almost doing it."
"Almost doing what?" Kev asked lazily. They reclined by a clump of trees bordering a winterbourne, a stream that ran dry in the summer months. The grass was littered with purple rampion and white meadowsweet, the latter spreading an almondlike fragrance through the warm, fetid air.
"Smiling." She lifted on her elbows beside him, her fingers brushing his lips. Kev stopped breathing.
A pipit rose from a nearby tree on taut wings, drawing out a long note as he descended.
Intent on her task, Win shaped the corners of Kev's mouth upward and tried to hold them there.
Aroused and amused, Kev let out a smothered laugh and brushed her hand away.
"You should smile more often," Win said, still staring down at him. "You're very handsome when you do."
She was more dazzling than the sun, her hair like cream silk, her lips a tender shade of pink. At first her gaze seemed like nothing more than friendly inquiry, but as it held on his, he realized she was trying to read his secrets.
He wanted to pull her down with him and cover her body with his. It had been four years since he had come to live with the Hathaways. Now he was finding it more and more difficult to control his feelings for Win.
"What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" she asked softly.
"I can't say."
"Why not?"
Kev felt the smile hovering on his lips again, this time edged with wryness. "It would frighten you."
"Merripen," she said decisively, "nothing you could ever do or say would frighten me." She frowned. "Are you ever going to tell me your first name?"
"No."
"You will. I'll make you." She pretended to beai against his chest with her fists.
Kev caught her slim wrists in his hands, restraining her easily. His body followed the motion, rolling to trap her beneath him. It was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself. And as he pinned her with his weight, felt her wriggle instinctively to accommodate him, he was almost paralyzed by the primal pleasure of it. He expected her to struggle, to fight him, but instead she went passive in his hold, smiling up at him.
Dimly Kev remembered one of the mythology stories the Hathaways were so fond of… the Greek one about Hades, the god of the underworld, kidnapping the maiden Persephone in a flowery field and dragging her down through an opening in the earth. Down to his dark, private world where he could possess her. Although the Hathaway daughters had all been indignant about Persephone's fate, Kev's sympathies had privately been on Hades' side. Romany culture tended to romanticize the idea of kidnapping a woman for one's bride, even mimicking it during their courtship rituals.
"I
don't see why eating a mere half-dozen pomegranate seeds should have condemned Persephone to stay with Hades part of every year," Poppy had said in outrage. "No one toid her the rules. It wasn't fair. I'm certain she would never have touched a thing, had she known what would happen."
"And it wasn't a very filling snack," Beatrix had added, perturbed. "If I'd been there, I would have asked for a pudding or a jam pasty, at least."
"Perhaps she wasn't altogether unhappy, having to stay," Win had suggested, her eyes twinkling. "After all, Hades did make her his queen. And the story says he possessed 'the riches of the earth.'"
"A rich husband," Amelia had said, "doesn't change the fact that Persephone's main residence is in an undesirable location with no view whatsoever. Just think of the difficulties in leasing it out during the off-months."
They had all agreed that Hades was a complete villain.
But Kev had understood exactly why the underworld god had stolen Persephone for his bride. He had wanted a little bit of sunshine, of warmth, for himself, down in the cheerless gloom of his dark palace.
"So your tribe members who left you for dead…," Win said, bringing Kev's thoughts back to the present, "… they're allowed to know your name, but I'm not?"
"That's right." Kev watched the brindling of sun and leaf shadows on her face. He wondered how it would feel to press his lips to that soft light-tricked skin.
A delectable notch appeared between Win's tawny brows. "Why? Why can't I know?"
"Because you're a gadji." His tone was more tender than he had meant it to be.
"Your gadji."
At this foray into dangerous territory, Kev felt his heart contract painfully. She wasn't his, nor could she ever be. Except in his heart.
He rolled off her, rising to his feet. "It's time to go back," he said curtly. He reached down for her, gripped her small extended hand, and hauled her upward. She didn't check the momentum but instead let herself fall naturally against him. Her skirts fluttered around his legs, and the slim feminine shape of her body pressed all along his front. Desperately he searched for the strength, the will, to push her away.