Gypsy Heiress

by Laura London

  I hadn’t the faintest idea why he had developed this frightening interest in my parentage, my skin tone, or my medallion. The most alarming possibility was that the medallion might hold some secret significance of which I was unaware. When I had asked my father the meaning of the figures in the tiny coat of arms engraved upon it, he had made a conspiratorial wink at my grandmother, and said it was his, that he was making of it a present to me and that that was all I needed to know. I could see that my father had been wrong.

  The rounded neckline of my blouse was of the kind that could be tightened or loosened by means of a drawstring.

  Still watching me, Brockhaven looped the tied end of the string around the tip of his index finger.

  “How are you made where the sun doesn’t touch?” he said.

  I was stiff with distress, but still managed to back away from him.

  “Take her arms, Rob, and hold her.” My arms were clamped in an implacable grip.

  Then, ignoring my frantic misery, Brockhaven drew the strand toward him to release the drawstring’s knot. My blouse slid down with the swift silence of a falling cloud to bare my shoulders and came to rest tenuously on the tips of my breasts.

  The cramped quarters of a traveling wagon would afford little privacy were it not the way of the gypsies to exercise discretion in personal matters. Modesty of dress assumed a heightened importance and for me to be so exposed before a stranger was so mortifying that it amazed me that the shame did not strike me dead on the spot.

  In my ear, I heard Rob’s voice. “That,” he murmured, “is lovely.”

  If Brockhaven agreed with his brother, there was nothing in his expression that said so. Little beyond clinical detachment was to be seen on his face. He stroked the snowy surface of my breast. The sensation made me shiver involuntarily.

  Brockhaven said, “It happens also to be white.”

  Not knowing where the path of his thoughts were leading, I tried instinctively to block it.

  “I come from a light-skinned family,” I said defensively. “Some gypsies are light, some dark. It’s the same with the English.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “The same.” He looked away from me and gazed out on the stretch of greensward that lay outside the window. Then, as though recalled to the mundane tasks at hand, he turned back and retied the string of my bodice, drawing it up with the same brisk, adult efficiency one might use to tie a child’s nightshirt. When it was done, he looked at my face again and said abruptly, “Who fathered you?”

  My heart refused to take a rhythm, my mind to form a defense. Lord Brockhaven’s eyes sharpened as he observed my agitation.

  “Don’t you know?” he asked in a tone calculated to insult.

  I was stung into answering, “My father was the best of honorable men.”

  Brockhaven’s smile was mocking. “And has this paragon a name?”

  “Taisio.” My answer increased the ironic twist to Brockhaven’s lips.

  “A gypsy name,” he drawled, his blue eyes scanning my face for each nuance of feeling. “But had he another?”

  He had, of course. I had heard my grandmother use it to him twice, no, three times, in moments of anger. It was a gorgio’s name, an Englishman’s name, and those three slips of my grandmother’s tongue had been the only spoken acknowledgment in all my growing years that my father had not been born a gypsy.

  Children learn in more ways than the direct teaching of their parents. I had always wondered why I traveled alone with my grandmother and father without friends or family. To ask was to be called a silly lambkin, along with the mock-indignant query as to whether or not they were good enough company for me. Then one night, sitting around a fire made with rain-damp wood, Grandmother had talked to me as she so often did of the Romany ways. She happened to say that if a gypsy girl ignores the wiser counsel of her father in choosing her husband from among the Rom, and instead seeks a gorgio as her mate, the tribal elders will mark her forever as an outcast. It was weeks before I picked that lesson from the many and applied it to my own situation. And when I did, the recognition came gradually and without a shock, and I accepted it as an inescapable tenet of life. My mother, who had died at my birth, had been cast out for choosing my father, and Grandmother, rather than be parted from her daughter, had chosen to be exiled from the tribe with her; later, she had raised her grandchild. I knew less of the gorgios, but though my father never talked of it, I wondered if he too had been cast out of his family for taking a gypsy bride.

  All this I knew, and yet I had never spoken of it. My impulse was to hide it from Lord Brockhaven as one conceals a blemish from critical eyes. I shook my head, denying that other, thrice-heard name of my father’s.

  Robert walked in an arc in front of me, regarding me in the way a gypsy assesses a horse for sale.

  “She’s lying,” he said. There was a controlled excitement in his tone. “You can see it in her face. What do you think she knows?”

  “Very little. That’s why she’s so afraid,” said Brockhaven. To me he said coolly, “Sit down.”

  A gypsy maid with the smallest pretentions to virtue would never consider sitting alone with male strangers; if she was able physically to stand, it was clearly a mistake to increase the intimacy of the situation by sitting. I stood as I was.

  The Earl of Brockhaven was not accustomed to having a direct command disobeyed, and it did nothing to sweeten his temper. White and blue flames flickered in his eyes. In two rapid strides, he closed the space between us and clamped his hand on my upper arm. He was a full head taller than me, so I had to put back my head to look at his face. When he spoke, his voice was neither loud, nor harsh, but there was an edge of suppressed temper to it that few would have cared to ignore.

  “There appears to be a defect in your hearing that I hope will be corrected by the time I repeat myself.” He paused. “Sit down.”

  I did as he commanded, though I moved like a sleepwalker.

  Brockhaven leaned back, resting the heels of his hands on a highly polished mahogany desk.

  “You are aware, I believe,” he continued, “that whatever the theory of British law, in the practice of it I may do virtually whatever I want with you, including giving you to my brother. If all I want from you is to have my curiosity satisfied, then it would be in your best interests to do so. I want your father’s name.”

  I could only hope that if I told him this one thing, he would let me go in peace. Our gazes held position like two carriages meeting on a narrow bridge. Finally I gave in, and cracked the tension with a single word.

  “Compton.”

  I heard Robert take a quickly indrawn breath. “Compton. My God!”

  “His first name,” Brockhaven rapped sharply.

  I had not anticipated such a forceful reaction. My voice shook as I answered him. “Compton is all I know.”

  “Does she have the look of him, Alex, do you think?” said Robert.

  “Perhaps… I only saw him once, you know; and a child’s memory?” Brockhaven shrugged. “Some years ago Lady Mary showed me a miniature, too, but it was a poor likeness. The girl’s eyes are the same. Fragile. Emotional.”

  I turned my face, distressed that he could so easily penetrate the mysteries of my spirit. Unhappily, I asked him, “May I go?”

  Brockhaven’s lips formed a grim line. “No. Where’s your father?”

  “He died five years ago.”

  The brothers exchanged glances.

  “Your mother?” asked Brockhaven.

  “She died when I was born.”

  Robert frowned and threw himself into a chair opposite me. “All those years,” his voice puzzled. “Why do you think he never came back, Alex?”

  Brockhaven indicated me with a glance. “What of the little one, Rob? You knew the old Marquis! Would you have come prodigaling home, expecting him to dangle your half-bred brat on his knee?”

  Rob shrugged. “Infants are easily abandoned; they have such a difficult time following one home.”<
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  “It would seem that Compton had a conscience,” said Brockhaven dryly. He looked an inquiry at me as I murmured “Marquis?” in a bewildered voice.

  “Marquis of Chadbourne,” he said. “Do you know the name?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked. I shook my head again. “Any other family?”

  “My—grandmother died three weeks ago. She was the only one.”

  “Who’s had the care of you since then?”

  “I’ve been alone, traveling with the wagon, with the horses, as we’d always done. Why do you care?” I asked. “Why does it matter?”

  Brockhaven went to the bureau and returned with a small glass of wine which he held out to me.

  “At the moment, my interest in you is… Historical would be an appropriate word. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”

  “I don’t understand you,” I said helplessly, not taking the wine.

  “Nevertheless, that explanation will suffice for now.” Brockhaven lifted my good hand and curled my fingers around the glass. “Drink. So you won’t swoon a second time.”

  This time I had no illusions that he would be indifferent to my disobedience. I took two sips of the mellow wine, feeling it warm my fear-wearied body. No, he was not the man to let me faint, not until he had finished his endless questioning. How dearly I was paying for my charity to the mokada jook. Poor creature, perhaps it was an unlucky animal, as Grandmother had said, like the cat and the snake.

  Robert leaned forward slightly. “But why did you travel here, of all places? Have you been here before?”

  “Never. In spring we usually go north to the horse fairs where Grandmother sets a tent in the crowd and tells fortunes. But this year Grandmother changed our route.” I stared into the wineglass. “It was after the day we polished the harness brasses. She was very tired and went early to bed. She’d never done that before. Ever. The next morning she changed the route and said we should come this way.”

  Brockhaven took the glass from my slack fingers and set it on the side table. “Grandmother died, and I followed the route. But it ended at a river not a mile beyond here.” My face changed, the melancholy replaced by terror. “Does it end here because I’m to be hanged?”

  Some measure of my agony may at last have touched Brockhaven, for he took my hand, spread my fingers using his own, and with exquisite tenderness touched his thumb along my palm.

  “Don’t be foolish, gypsy girl,” he said, his voice amazingly shed of its earlier harshness. “You can see you have a very long life line. Surely your grandmother has told you that?”

  “She did, but it was a joke,” I said, wondering how he knew enough to identify the life line. “Gypsies don’t tell the fortunes of other gypsies. ’Tis only a trick to make money from the greedy gorgios who wish to see the future hidden for them in God’s heart.”

  The earl’s blue eyes shone suddenly with the tolerant amusement he might have felt toward a nipping puppy. “Have you teeth, then, little rabbit? I’m glad. You won’t be so easily eaten alive.” He closed my fist in his own. “Where’s the money come from since Grandma died? I don’t care what it was; just tell me the truth.”

  My blood began to throb under the skin covered by his fingers. “I sold one of the gold pieces Grandmother had hidden under the wagon’s loose floorboard.”

  “Did you sell anything else? Your body, perhaps?”

  It was an insult past bearing. Even exhaustion could not rob me of the energy to tear my hand from his and stand erect, though I could feel tears shimmering on my eyelashes.

  “No!” I said, “Oh, no! Never! For you to suggest such a thing is…”

  He cut me off. “Yes, yes. I’ve trampled your honor in the dust. Spare me your phrases of adolescent melodrama. Your answer might have been otherwise if you’d had time to run out of gold pieces. It’s as well for you that you didn’t. It’s easier to present an unwanted heiress when she’s an innocent girl. The more seasoned you are, the more likely they are to think we’ve staged your appearance.”

  “Who are they?” I cried in helpless bewilderment. “Staged what? I don’t understand what you mean!”

  “I know.” He gave me a smile that would have brought more than one celebrated beauty to her knees. “Relax and trust me.” One glance at my answering expression made Brockhaven’s smile twist into a grin. “Very well, don’t trust me. The fact is that you have no say in the matter.”

  And that I found, to my indignation and distress, was the sum of what he intended to tell me. The earl took a seat at a small writing table, set a sheet of paper on its mirror-bright varnished surface, and began to write. Without looking up, Brockhaven addressed his brother.

  “Rob, I’m going to ride into Chipping tomorrow to talk with Chadbourne’s lawyers.”

  Rob started to laugh. “God, you’re quick. Who are Chadbourne’s lawyers?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out when I get there.” He dipped the pen again and continued writing as he talked. “I’ll leave the girl with you. Keep her locked up when you’re not with her, or she’ll probably run off and we’ll have the very devil of a time finding her. And don’t tell anyone why she’s here.”

  “Servants’ll talk.” Rob leaned one hand on the desk.

  Brockhaven sighed, sat back, and looked at me with his detached, appraising stare. “Damn. That’s right. We’ll simply have to let them think that she’s here as your plaything.”

  Robert threw back his head and laughed. “Under lock and key. Oh, my shattered reputation.”

  Brockhaven smiled at his brother. “Never mind, child. You’ll be acquitted when I get back and we’ve placed her in the hands of her guardian.”

  “Who do you think that will be?” said Robert.

  Brockhaven gave a smile indicative of inner satisfaction. “I don’t know. All I know is that it won’t be Vincent.”

  Robert looked at his brother with understanding in his gray eyes. “And how surprised cousin Vinny will be, won’t he?” He picked up the sheet Brockhaven had been writing on, and read it before handing it back. “Just hurry back to Edgehill before the girl takes it in her head to scream out the window and the whole county finds out she’s here. I don’t want to be the one to introduce the wench to Vinny and Bella.”

  “Oh, no, my dear. I reserve that pleasure for myself,” said Brockhaven, his lips curved into a smile. “If the chit gets hysterical, I’m sure I can rely on you, Robert, to find some way to hush her.”

  Chapter Two

  Having lived my life in the open, close to the sky and the earth, not having slept, eaten, or passed my time in a building of any sort, being closed inside four walls was a suffocation for me. It would have been difficult for me to adjust even if I had willingly come to live there; to be imprisoned was almost beyond bearing. Only fear that violent means might be used to quiet me kept me from throwing myself against the door and sobbing to be released.

  Back and forth I paced the floor of the small room. It was a pretty enough prison, its windows hung with white cotton curtains printed in red dots. A neatly made bed stood in the middle, but I was used to sleeping on a feather mattress laid under my wagon. There was fresh water on the table in the pitcher and basin set, but I was used to the bracing sweetness of cold spring water. And when a disapproving maidservant brought me a dinner of lamb and boiled potatoes, the taste was unfamiliar. I couldn’t swallow more than a bite, hungry though I was.

  I had time and more to ponder all that had transpired in the reading room. There was little doubt that Brockhaven had conceived the incredible notion that I was in some way related to this Marquis of Chadbourne, who seemed a man of cruel and tyrannical disposition. No two qualities would have been further from my father’s nature. Bizarre coincidence must be responsible for any similarity that existed between me and the girl that the Earl of Brockhaven thought I was. And why had the Earl refined so much on the scraps of information I had given him? While Comp
ton might not title as many folk as Smith or Miller, it was hardly what one could call a rare name.

  I pulled the medallion from my neck and studied it. It was old and rather crudely carved. On its face a Saracen in flowing robes held his sword aloft as he danced between a pair of bushes heavy with roses. On the back were scratched two words: “on alone.” I knew it was gold and therefore of value, but I had always assumed that there must have been hundreds, maybe thousands, struck from the same mold.

  By the time the mighty gorgios’ lawyers had pursued these scanty tidbits of evidence, they would likely inform the earl that I had nothing to do with any marquises and Brockhaven ought to do his civic duty and turn me over to a sheriff without delay.

  These joyless musings were interrupted by the arrival of a footman and the housemaid, who came to clear away the dinner tray. The good woman observed at once that scarcely a bite had been taken. Her expression grew even more disapproving, and she read me a stern lecture on the disastrous effects on the body of skipped meals, punctuated by grim examples of skittish young women who had refused their dinners and woke up the next morning with every hair shed from their heads and eyelashes sparer than hairs on a pig’s butt!

  I was not sorry when the maid was distracted by a glance out the window.

  “Look there!” she said, shaking her head in dismal satisfaction. “Clouds are stackin’ up like hay piles in September. It’s sure to turn colder so we’d best be layin’ in a fire.”

  The accompanying footman was dispatched to procure firewood, which he agreed to do though pointing out to the room in general that it really was the under footman’s job to bring wood. The maid took the opportunity to explain to me that I was lucky to be incarcerated in a Christian household where the inhabitants felt bound by the laws of charity to provide a fire for all company, be they thieving heathens or no.