The Gypsy Duchess

by Nadine Miller

  Devon shuddered. “What a fiendish idea—but how perfectly apropos when we’re dealing with a fiend like Quentin. Just how do you plan to deliver the ‘gift’?”

  “Happens there’s a slaver takin’ on supplies off Plymouth on the sly and Michael and me knows the captain. Meanest snake as ever drawed a breath. For fifty quid the fellow would deliver his own grandma into the jaws of hell.”

  “But there’s where you come in, my lord.” Michael shifted in his chair. “Blackjack and me is willin’ to do our share of the dirty deed, but we’re a bit short of the ready right now.”

  “My coffers are yours, gentlemen,” Devon said, pouring his two partners in crime another around. “Just let me change clothes and visit my safe. Then it’s off to the best night’s work the three of us will ever do.”

  Elizabeth’s wedding day dawned as bright and beautiful as any bride could want. Moira was happy for her, but as for herself, her spirits were so low, the sky might as well have been blanketed with the blackest of rain clouds.

  Devon had been gone four weeks, and every day had been longer and lonelier than the last—a portent, she suspected, of the long, lonely years ahead of her. She didn’t even have Charles’s gentle company to cheer her as he was still at the gypsy camp, and Alfie was worse than no company at all since he was almost as lonely and despondent as she. To top it all, just when she needed him the most, Blackjack had mysteriously disappeared and taken Michael Keough with him.

  True, Elizabeth visited almost every day, but she was so wrapped up in her wedding plans, she could talk of nothing else—which only served as a heartbreaking reminder to Moira of the few brief hours of happiness Devon and she had shared.

  Still she was grateful for one blessing. Elizabeth had made no serious objections when she withdrew her offer to hold the wedding breakfast at White Oaks. In truth, the bride-to-be had looked vastly relieved. An understandable reaction. Not even a vicar’s daughter was so naïve as to believe the local gentry would attend a function hosted by a gypsy.

  She had, however, remained adamant on one point. No amount of argument could convince her to release Moira from her promise to attend the wedding.

  Now, sitting beside Alfie in the ducal coach on the way to the church, with Jamie Keough at the reins, Moira found herself wishing she had held out against Elizabeth’s entreaty. With each passing mile, her dread of the upcoming hour increased. This same Cornish gentry had shunned her four years before simply because she was an outsider. She could well imagine the reception they would accord her as a gypsy.

  Half an hour later, she had the proof of her foreboding. Head high and back straight, she marched into the ducal pew of the small village church just minutes before the ceremony began. A scrubbed and shining Alfie trailed behind her, and together they took their seats to the accompaniment of a cumulative gasp which started with the Dowager Countess of Langley in the next pew and traveled the entire assemblage.

  Whispers rustled around the nave like dry leaves swirling in a windstorm, and Moira felt Alfie’s fingers twine in hers. “Pay them cacklin’ hens no mind, yer grace,” he said. “They’re just scratchin’ around in their own dirty droppings.”

  Moira smiled to herself. Leave it to Alfie to put things in their proper perspective. A moment later, a movement at the front of the church caught her attention and she looked up just in time to see the Marquess of Stamden, in an elegant moss-green satin top coat and breeches, and behind him—her heart thudded painfully—the Earl of Langley, in coat and breeches the color of burnished gold.

  Devon’s eyes instantly sought hers and his smile outshone the massive bank of candles gracing the altar. Moira’s pulse pounded through her veins. For a long, breathless moment his gaze held hers, then he turned to face the vicar and she exhaled the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

  The rest of the ceremony was a blur. As if in a dream, she watched Elizabeth come down the aisle in a rose satin gown with pink lace overlay and matching roses adorning her hair. Dimly she heard the vicar’s voice rich with emotion, and the strong, clear answers from Elizabeth and her marquess. Then as the happy couple faced their guests for the first time as man and wife, she tightened her grip on Alfie’s hand and together they slipped out a convenient side door.

  Alfie was already in the coach ahead of her when Moira head a familiar voice call her name. She turned to find Devon striding purposefully toward her. “Where are you going?” he asked. “The wedding breakfast is at the vicarage and Elizabeth will be distressed if you fail to attend.”

  “I promised her I would be at the wedding. Nothing more.”

  Devon searched her face with grave eyes. “Very well. Perhaps it is for the best. Charles is anxious to see you and even as we speak, Blackjack and Michael Keough are returning him to White Oaks.”

  “Charles is at White Oaks?” Moira’s pulse quickened. “But is he safe there, my lord? You yourself said he was in less danger from Viscount Quentin at the gypsy camp.”

  “He is safe from Quentin anywhere now,” Devon answered with a mysterious smile. “The viper’s fangs have been removed. More than that I shall not say. But knowing Blackjack as I do, I suspect you will hear his version of the story soon enough.”

  Moira’s mouth dropped open. “Are you saying you’ve disposed of Quentin once and for all?”

  “More or less—but not all on my own. Blackjack and Michael Keough played a big part in it. I wish to God that Wellington had two such inventive fellows helping him put Bonaparte to route.” Devon smiled. “But enough of such talk. We’ve better things to discuss, and discuss them we shall when I call at White Oaks this afternoon.”

  “You plan to call at White Oaks?”

  He laughed. “Of course, my love. Now that Stamden’s and Elizabeth’s wedding is out of the way, I’m eager to start planning ours.”

  Moira stared at him, dumbfounded. “Are you mad? I thought we settled this a month ago. How many times must I tell you I cannot marry you?”

  “But everything has changed,” Devon said in the patient voice of one explaining something to a somewhat obtuse child. “Quentin was the only valid problem we faced; all the rest were inconsequential.”

  Moira tightened the ribbons of her bonnet as a sudden gust of wind caught it. “Is it inconsequential that just moments ago, my very entry into the church set the local gentry buzzing like a hive of agitated bees? Or that if I were to attend the wedding breakfast I would wreak havoc with Elizabeth’s table arrangements since not a soul would condescend to sit within ten feet of the despised Gypsy Duchess.”

  She caught her breath. “And we are in what you have laughingly termed ‘the wilds of Cornwall.’ Be logical my lord. Think what would transpire should I attempt to invade London society now that my ancestry is common knowledge. And, as my husband, every door in London would be closed to you as well. I doubt even your friends, Wellington and Castlereagh, would come to your defense.”

  Devon looked genuinely puzzled. “I had no idea you were such a student of logic, my love, nor that you were desirous of joining the London social whirl. The two seem strangely at odds with each other, considering the intelligence level of most of the socially elite.

  “But if that is what you want, the solution is simple. The ton is like a herd of mindless sheep. They follow blindly wherever their social arbiters lead. A judicious hint in the right ears about your connection to the King of Spain and you will be the most sought after original in London society within a month.”

  “I have no connection to the King of Spain,” Moira said indignantly, “and I will not purport I have. I am sick unto death of pretending to be something I am not—and there is no place for what I am in your life. Why can’t you accept that an alliance between us is impossible?”

  “Very well then, we shall have to find another way to bring you into vogue,” Devon said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “A logical way, since you have such a bent. A gift of my bay stallion to the Regent perhaps, in exchange for a ball
in your honor. The fat scoundrel has had his eye on Windstorm ever since I acquired him.” He sighed dramatically. “Pity though. I was rather partial to that charming fairy tale about the King of Spain.”

  “Damn you, Devon St. Gwyre!” Moira glanced at her handsome tormenter in hopeless frustration. “Must you make a joke of everything?”

  “I’m afraid so, love. After a fortnight in the company of Blackjack and Michael, I doubt I shall ever be serious about anything again.”

  “Well, you’d best take my refusal seriously, my lord, because I am resolute about that. For the last time, I will not marry you; I cannot marry you.” Moira crossed her fingers behind her back. “I do not even want to marry you for we would not suit at all.”

  “You do not want to marry me? We would not suit.” Devon paled noticeably beneath his tan. “Forgive my foolish presumption,” he said stiffly. “I have been laboring under the illusion that you loved me even as I loved you. I see now I was mistaken. If you did, you would have the courage to fight for our love and the faith to believe it could survive any obstacles the world might put in its way. For, in truth, all your logical reasons why we should not marry are inconsequential, to my way of thinking, compared to the joy we might have shared as man and wife.”

  He made a quick, graceful bow. “Adieu, little coward. I will trouble you no more.” So saying, he turned abruptly and strode down the gravel path to the vicarage and the wedding breakfast of his two friends.

  Moira was never certain how she managed to hold her tears at bay during the ride back to White Oaks. But she did—at least until she was safely behind the locked door of her bedchamber.

  She had parted from Devon before and the separations had been painful, but never as painful as this. There had been something terribly final about this latest parting.

  He had called her a coward.

  Couldn’t he see she had made her difficult decision, not for herself, but to save him from his own folly? But of course he couldn’t. Only someone who had never been an outcast would regard acceptance by his peers as “inconsequential.”

  Now it was over. Done with. And she would learn to live with the loneliness, the emptiness, the feeling that the sun would never shine again.

  But not just yet. Not while the pain was still so fresh, the grief so raw.

  For the first time in her life, Moira allowed herself the luxury of feeling sorry for herself. Throwing herself across her bed, she sobbed as if her heart were broken. As indeed it was.

  All day long she stayed locked in her room.

  Cook brought a cold luncheon at noon, but Moira sent her away and bade her see that Charles and Alfie were properly fed.

  John Butler rapped discreetly at two o’clock and offered to have the footmen bring up a soothing hip bath, though he knew full well she’d already bathed that morning.

  At four o’clock, Blackjack pounded on the door, “It breaks me heart to hear you wailing so, mavourneen, for you’ve never been a weepish kind of woman. If ‘tis that scoundrel Devon St. Gwyre has brought you to this, you’ve but to say the word and I’ll shoot his eyes out, fond as I am of the lad.”

  “Go away and leave me be,” Moira sobbed. “And don’t you dare shoot Devon. He’s done nothing wrong except ask me to marry him under English law.”

  “And you turned him down?” Blackjack used an expletive she’d never heard fall from his lips. “Then expect no commiseration from me, you foolish woman. ‘Tis your just deserts you’re reaping. The pity of it is a fine loyal lad like young Devon has to suffer for your pigheaded stupidity.”

  Moira returned to her weeping with renewed vigor, but for the first time a small, niggling doubt about the wisdom of her decision began to creep around the edges of her mind.

  When the small ormulu clock on her mantel struck seven, she pulled herself together, splashed water on her tearstained face, and made her way to the nursery wing to tuck the boys in bed. The fact that she was suffering didn’t excuse her from her responsibilities.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to greet you when you came home,” she said as she ruffled Charles’s shaggy black hair and kissed his sturdy brown chipmunk face—a face so different from that of the fragile little boy of a few months ago.

  “That’s all right, Mama. You were busy crying.” Charles eyes drifted shut. “That’s cause you’re a girl; Tío Juan said girls get scared a lot.”

  The words were like a knife twisting in Moira’s heart. So now her favorite gypsy cousin and her beloved stepson thought her a coward, too.

  Alfie was still wide awake when she approached his bed. “The nipper’s growin’ up,” he said sadly. “Guess he’ll be going off to one of them fancy schools the toffs goes to soon.”

  “I imagine so. That’s what young dukes usually do.”

  “Does that mean I got to go back to bein’ a soot boy? If so, I’d best quit eatin’ right now. I’m way to fat to be poked down a chimney.”

  “Oh, Alfie!” Moira dropped a kiss on his forehead. “What a silly thing to say. “You’re family now. Charles and I both love you too dearly to ever let you leave us—except when you go to school yourself, that is. Do you think you can face that?”

  “School? As easy as a cat can lick its paw.” Alfie’s eyes shone like two gemstones in the gathering dusk. “I can handle anything comes along now I got somebody wot loves me.”

  Out of the mouths of babes. Was that what Devon had been trying to tell her? That it was the love and support of the woman he loved that gave meaning to his life—that the acceptance of shallow-minded strangers truly was inconsequential as far as he was concerned. What a fool she had been to throw away the precious gift of love he offered. What a blind, unfeeling fool. How Devon must despise her.

  Sick at heart, she crept back to her own chamber to find a fire crackling merrily in the fireplace and a candle burning on the bedside table, thanks to the ever vigilant John Butler.

  Depressed and exhausted, she stretched out on her bed, but sleep eluded her. Would she ever see Devon again? Would he give her another chance now that her eyes had been opened? She pressed her fingers to her aching temples. Why should he? Time and time again she had cruelly rejected his pleas for just such a chance. For once Blackjack was right; she was reaping the just deserts of her own pigheaded stupidity.

  The fire burned low; the candle guttered. Oblivious to the passing hours, she stared in dry-eyed misery at the ornate canopy draped above her bed. Then all at once she heard it—a scratching sound outside her window.

  Moments later the head and torso of a man appeared in the opening; instinctively, she rolled to her side and unsheathed the knife strapped to her calf. Had Devon been mistaken? Were Quentin and his thugs still a threat?

  Silently, she slid to her feet, crept across the shadowed room and, knife raised, lunged at the intruder. Instantly strong fingers gripped her wrist and twisted the knife from her grasp. “Damn it, Moira, watch what you’re doing. I’ll break my neck if I fall off this ladder.”

  “Devon?” Moira gaped at the figure clad in rough farmers’ garb who’d swung a leg over her windowsill. “Why are you crawling through my window?”

  “What else was I supposed to do? Blackjack said you’d locked you door and wouldn’t let anyone in. Said you’d been wailing like a banshee ever since you returned from the wedding.” He peered closely at her. “Obviously he was telling the truth. Your eyelids look like you’d stuffed them with goose down.”

  “If you’ve gone to all this trouble just to insult me, you could have done that standing outside my door,” Moira said, clasping her hands together to keep from throwing her arms around him. Whatever his reason, he was back and she felt dizzy with relief…and hope.

  Devon swung his other leg over the sill. “I did not come here to comfort you, madam, I came to kidnap you—something at which I have become quite proficient in recent weeks, what with one thing and another.”

  “Kidnap me? Are you mad?”

  “I must be. There is certai
nly no logic to it. I can think of a dozen women I could have simply for the asking, while you are more trouble than a barrel of those hedgehogs your gypsy grandmother delights in stewing up.

  “Nevertheless, illogical though it may be, I want you and only you. And you may as well stop fighting the inevitable, for I mean to have you one way or another.”

  He drew a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “The choice is yours. Vicar Kincaid and this special license I’ve been carrying around since I returned from London or Gretna Green and over the anvil.”

  “You are mad,” Moira declared, though secretly her heart was singing. She sniffed. “And not only mad—you’re bosky as well. You smell like the hold of a smuggler’s skiff.”

  “I am not bosky—well, maybe a little, thanks to your father and Michael Keough who were good enough to see me through my hour of need.” Devon raked her with eyes that looked slightly out of focus. “In truth, it is a wonder I am not completely foxed, all things considered. What a coil. I am madly in love with a woman who loves me madly but refuses to marry me for reasons I cannot even understand. It is more than any man should have to endure.”

  He walked to the door, removed the key from the lock, and dropped it down the neck of his shirt. “Ergo, we are not leaving this room until you agree to marry me—one way or the other. gypsies may kidnap their brides after the wedding; we Englishmen are a more logical breed—we kidnap ours before.

  Moira watched him with shining eyes. “If you had an ounce of that logic you are spouting in that stubborn head of yours,” she said with mock severity, “you would know there is nothing the least bit logical about a peer of the realm marrying a gypsy.” There, she’d done it—raised one last objection to the insanity he proposed. The gods could ask no more of her.