Between a Rake and a Hard Place

by Connie Mason

  “It’s tolerable,” she said. “But I do still prefer the sidesaddle.”

  “It’s always good to know what you like, but what will the lady try now?” Jonah cocked his head at her, as if that would help him penetrate her thoughts. “I’d guess sea bathing in the nude, but we are headed in the wrong direction. The Channel is back that way.”

  Serena laughed. “Is that wishful thinking?”

  “Yes.”

  It was only a single word, but he said it with such barely contained fervor, warmth surged over her entire body. For a moment, she imagined how it would be, leaving her discarded clothing on the pebbled beach and dashing into the surf, bare as a peeled twig, with an equally bare Jonah at her heels. The sun kissing every bit of her. The saltwater flowing over her skin, caressing her secret places. Jonah adrift with her in that decadent watery world. Floating together, skin on skin, the kindly sea bearing them up. Would they kiss and sink and lose themselves in the rapture of the deep?

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Jonah interrupted her highly improper—and probably inaccurate since she’d never actually seen a naked man—musings.

  “They are worth far more than that.”

  “The thoughts of a dedicated sybarite always are.”

  “A sybarite? I am no such thing.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re adventurous, sensual, and willing to go to great lengths to experience new things. If the dictionary were illustrated, by rights your picture should appear beside the word.” He tipped his hat to her. “And please know I say these things with the greatest respect for your accomplishments in the field of pleasure seeking.”

  Serena sat taller in the saddle, hoping a more upright posture would demonstrate an upright character. “Just because I want to experience more of life than most young ladies of my station do, it does not make me some sort of voluptuary.”

  Serena nudged her mare into a trot beside the silver stream of the river. Clumps of birch and alders clung to the banks, dipping their toes in the shallow water. The air was alive with the fresh breath of newly sprouted green growing things.

  “How else would you explain your list of forbidden pleasures?” Jonah’s mount kept pace with her. “I’ve never known anyone who set such concrete goals for new experiences. I commend you for it, Serena. But if life has taught me anything, it is that we must acknowledge who we are.”

  She reined her mare to a full stop, and Jonah drew to a halt beside her. “So you think I must admit I am a self-centered sensualist.”

  “No. But it wouldn’t hurt for you to recognize that you are a passionate woman.”

  The heat of his gaze sizzled over her, and all that was feminine in her responded with moist warmth and a low ache. She gave herself a stern mental shake.

  “I’ll have you know that not all of the items on my list have to do with sensual things. Some of them are simply new ideas, things in intellectual and spiritual realms that I wish to explore.”

  “Such as?”

  Serena decided she might as well tell him since otherwise she’d be imagining frolicking with Jonah in the surf and he might get her to actually admit it. “I’ve always wanted to know what lies ahead—haven’t you?” And never more than now, when a possible royal match was still in the offing. “If you must know, we are on our way to a gypsy caravan where I intend to find someone who can tell my future.”

  He cast her a dubious look. “If a gypsy, or anyone else for that matter, could truly foretell the future, they’d be appointed one of the king’s privy counselors, not gallivanting around the countryside in a painted wagon.”

  “This is my list of pleasures, not yours, Jonah,” Serena said as she reined her mare into a walk alongside the river. “I didn’t ask for your company. Turn back, if you wish.”

  Instead, he came even with her again. “Even supposing someone could tell you honestly about your future, are you sure you want to know?”

  Yes. Was the royal duke going to make an offer for her? If he did, would she still accept? Why did she drift to sleep each night with Jonah’s face hovering before her eyes? Why did she feel hollow as a gourd when he was nowhere to be seen and so jittery on the inside when he was? If someone, anyone, could tell her what was coming, what to do, and how to slip this infernal Gordian knot her insides seemed to be tangled up in, she’d be pathetically grateful.

  “I don’t fear tomorrow,” she said. “I want to know.”

  “Then know this. The future is not fixed. You choose it for yourself, Serena.”

  The plaintive sound of a single violin wafted over the rise ahead of them.

  “There’s the encampment,” Serena said. “If you’re too afraid to have someone read your palm, I’m sure the gypsies have horses they want to sell.”

  She dug her heels into the mare’s flanks and left Jonah in the dust behind her.

  Sixteen

  Our English lords have been accused of being “games mad.” While it is true that gambling to excess has become the hallmark of a gentleman of title and property, the wagers themselves give us insight into upcoming developments in Polite Society.

  For example, currently the odds at White’s and Boodles’ are weighted sharply in a certain German princess’s favor in the Hymen Race Terrific. However, we note with interest that a relative of Lady S. has wagered that the English miss will triumph over the sister of Prince Leopold. It is also telling to note that a certain baronet believes she will not.

  Who will be proved correct? Only time—and pressure is mounting on that front, we assure you—will tell.

  From Le Dernier Mot,

  The Final Word on News That Everyone

  Who Is Anyone Should Know

  The gypsy camp was cleaner than Serena expected and far more pleasantly aromatic. Pots of stew filled with some unidentifiable meat, which she suspected probably wandered there from her father’s flocks, bubbled before every caravan wagon. Cardamom and sage and other spices she couldn’t identify wafted in the air.

  The gypsy men greeted them as they first rode into camp. The young ones were so darkly handsome, if they’d only been outfitted by Brummell they’d have turned every feminine head at Almack’s. The older men were hawkishly featured with only a little silver streaking their hair, but all of them were built with wiry strength. As she expected, they had a string of ponies for sale that they were eager for Jonah to see.

  The women pretended not to understand her until they heard the jingle of coins in her reticule. Then she was ushered to a wagon decorated with garish orange stripes and introduced to a woman named Nadya.

  “A thousand welcomes, my lady.” The woman’s dark curly hair hung below her multicolored kerchief to her waist. Several strands of golden chains with coins affixed to them looped her neck. Serena had heard that Roma women wore their wealth. If that necklace were truly gold, then Nadya was undoubtedly the queen of this tribe. The woman opened the door to her wagon and bade Serena enter. “Come. We make the tea.”

  Because the interior of the wagon was well organized and surprisingly bright considering the only source of light was the window built into the door, Serena found it cozy rather than merely small. Rows of drawers had been built into one side, and a fold-down bunk was propped up on the other. A table, sturdily nailed to the floor and topped with a brightly colored cloth, hugged the far end of the wagon. Nadya waved a be-ringed hand toward one of the two chairs. The tea things, complete with a steaming kettle, were already laid out.

  “How did you know I was coming?” Serena asked in surprise. There was a spherical object covered with a silk scarf on one of the shelves. Had the woman watched her approach in a crystal ball?

  Nadya followed the line of her gaze, laughed, and shook her head, setting her loop earrings glimmering. “Do not be amazed. I did not know it was you. I saw only that someone would come.”

  The gypsy woman made short work of slicing coarse barley bread and offering pots of jam to go with it. Then she poured two cups of the strong, spicy-smelling tea. Wh
ile Serena nibbled at the repast, Nadya told her that her family appreciated the way the marquis had allowed the gypsy troop to camp unmolested on his land over the years.

  “Your father, he is a good man and holds what is entrusted to him with an open hand. He treats the Roma well and for that, he will be rewarded.”

  Might as well cut to the heart of the matter. “Will he be rewarded by having a grandchild who will wear a crown?”

  “Ah, now we come to it. You are not here simply because that handsome fellow you came with wants to buy a horse. And you have been thinking about what it is you wish to ask. Good.” Nadya began to clear off the table. “Finish the tea. I must see your cup. No, no. Hold it with two hands. The more you connect with the cup, the more you concentrate on your questions, the clearer will be my vision.”

  Serena usually took her tea with milk and two sugar lumps, but Nadya had offered her nothing of the sort. She wrapped her fingers around the cup and drank the bitter dark liquid. Though she tried to suppress it, she couldn’t help but grimace at the taste.

  “That tea blend, she is special. Is from my grandmother’s grandmother and so on, handed down from the beginning,” Nadya said. “Is good, no?”

  No. But Serena didn’t think it would be polite to say so, so she simply nodded.

  “There is small bit left, yes? Then give to me.” Nadya held out her hand and Serena put the cup into it. The gypsy woman flipped the cup upside down onto a saucer and turned it quickly three times in a clockwise direction. Then she picked up the cup and stared into it intently.

  “What do you see?” Serena asked after several minutes had passed.

  “Zztt! The spirits, they do not like to be rushed.” Nadya turned the cup this way and that, her dark brows drawing together in a frown.

  Serena shifted on the hard wooden chair. She wondered suddenly if Nadya had seen something she didn’t want to share with her. An accident that would befall her father. A lingering illness in her future. Perhaps Jonah had been right when he warned that it was good not to know too much about what was coming.

  “What is it? What do you see?” Serena asked as she bunched her riding skirt in tightly clenched fists.

  Nadya set the cup down and closed her eyes. “This crown which you seek, I have seen it often in the Hall of Dreams. It floats above a child not yet formed. ‘Power,’ says the rain. ‘Wealth,’ whispers the wind. ‘Honor,’ chants the sea.” Her enormous dark eyes opened and she stared at Serena as intently as she’d stared at the cup. “So it is for those who hold pride of place in the annals of the Children of Men. After such, all the world follows. But these things are meaningless until you answer one question.”

  “What?”

  “What says your heart?” Nadya asked.

  Oh, for pity’s sake, the woman was no help at all. “You see nothing in my cup, do you?”

  Nadya smiled, but it was not a pleasant one. “In truth, you could not bear all I see.”

  A cold lump of dread congealed in Serena’s belly, but curiosity burned alongside it. She had to know what Nadya could tell her.

  Nadya turned and rummaged in the bottom drawer next to her chair. The gypsy woman pulled out a length of cloth and held it up before her. It was a wretched mass of multi-colored threads, hues blurred or fighting each other. Knots snarled in bunches, dotting the surface in no discernible pattern.

  “Life, it is like this cloth, my lady. So often it seems choked with problems without reason. We clash with those we hold closest to our hearts. We tear and wound those we should mend and heal.”

  Serena found herself drawn in by the woman’s melodious voice and sensible sounding words.

  “The Weaver chooses each thread with care. Each soul will have some sorrow, no matter what choice is made. In each life, there is some joy, however small. But if we were to look ahead and see it all at once, it would wash over us like a pitiless sea.”

  Nadya crumpled the cloth and let it drop to her lap. Then she reached across the table and took Serena’s hand, holding it palm up. She traced the line that curved from below Serena’s forefinger around the mound at the base of her thumb. “You have a long lifeline with many years ahead, but not even you would I tell the hour or manner of your death. It is too much for the human heart to bear.”

  Superstitious shivers passed over her.

  “And so I ask you again, my lady, how will you spend the long march of years allotted to you? What says your heart? Will you give it up for a crown?”

  “It’s not as simple as that.” Serena drew her hand back and folded it with the other one on her lap to keep Nadya from feeling her tremble. “There are expectations of me, people who are depending upon me to make the right decision. Sometimes, one is not allowed to please only one’s self.”

  Nadya laughed, a full-throated yet musical sound. “And yet you intend to fulfill all the items on your list, do you not?”

  Serena’s eyes flared. “How did you see my list? Was it in the cup?”

  This time, the gypsy woman’s smile was friendlier. “I saw them all, all the little pleasures, all the longed-for adventures you hold in your heart, even the one you fear to write down—to lie with a man simply because you wish it. But your list, it was not in the cup.”

  “Then where?”

  “Some knowledge, it is in the air.” Nadya waved a hand toward her low roof. “I do not know from where the knowing comes or why it chooses to come to me. I must not question. I only know I must screw my courage each time to pluck the knowing down with both hands.” She leaned toward Serena. “As you must gather your courage to make your own choices.”

  “Now you sound like Sir Jonah.”

  “Ah, yes. The handsome one who looks at horses but thinks only of you.”

  “Really?”

  “Listen to your heart. It knows these things already.” The woman’s expression went suddenly somber. “In your cup I have seen a gate, an opportunity. You must choose whether to go through it. There is also an arch.” She picked up the cup and showed it to Serena. With a long fingernail, she traced the curve of tea leaves. “The arch, it is decorated, you see, which foretells of high honor and a coming wedding.”

  “Then the royal duke will offer for me.” Her father would be in raptures. She ought to be overjoyed too, but against all expectation, her heart tumbled to her toes.

  “That remains to be seen,” Nadya said as she pointed to another clump of leaves in the cup. “Here you see a forked line. A decision, it is in your future. And the hourglass so, next to the lip of the cup, says the time, it is drawing near.”

  Serena squinted at the tea leaves, trying to see what Nadya saw, but it was all just lumps and swirls to her eyes. “Is there…Is there anything in there about Jonah?”

  “Do you wish there to be?”

  Serena worried her bottom lip. She hadn’t known him long and yet the idea of not having him in her life was beginning to be insupportable.

  “And now we come to the difficult part,” Nadya said. “The Weaver of all life casts down many threads to us. Which strand we take up, which we tossed away, how we decide to knot or befoul or create something beautiful with those we use—it is up to us. We have been given a gift. A terrible and wondrous gift. Over and over again, we must choose.” The gypsy woman picked up the discarded cloth from her lap again. “You must choose.”

  This time Nadya presented the other side of the cloth to Serena. Her breath caught in her throat at its shimmering beauty. The horrible knots and mismatched threads on the backside were fitly joined into a glorious pattern, all shot with silver and gold, on the front.

  “I warned you before, my lady, that I would not tell you all I see for you. It is too hard to know some things are coming. Life, it must be lived looking forward, but it may be understood by looking back.” Nadya spread the cloth on the table between them. “So it is, my lady, when we come to the end of our lives, we look back and see that the difficult things, even the ugly things, work together to create something bea
utiful. If we choose to make it so.”

  The woman folded the cloth carefully and handed it to Serena. “A gift, to remind you that life is filled with things you cannot yet see.” Then she stood.

  Apparently, the tasseomancy session was over. Serena emptied the contents of her reticule into the shallow bowl on the table and tucked away the precious cloth. Even though she was leaving with more questions than answers, she wished she’d brought more coins. She thanked Nadya and climbed the fold-down stairs out of the wagon.

  Serena stopped at the base of the steps. Jonah was standing with a group of gypsy men, probably talking about horseflesh and the comparative merits of one breed over another. His hair was dark enough to blend in with the others, though he stood half a head taller than the tallest of them.

  She waited for that fluttery feeling, the one that started in her belly every time she looked at Jonah, but it didn’t come. Instead, there was a warm glow in her chest as if she’d swallowed a live coal.

  She started to walk toward him, but Nadya stopped her with a hand to her forearm.

  “One thing more, my lady. I think it is in your heart that some things do not require choice. That you may be a greedy child and have both cake and pie as you please.”

  The gypsy woman looked pointedly at Jonah. “You must remember that others, they too have a choice. And it is in my mind that you may not have both this man and the crown you seek.”

  Seventeen

  We note, with barely concealed tittering, that the Prince of Wales has been to his tailor once again. However broad they try to make his shoulders by piling on epaulettes of enormous size, a haberdasher’s accessory cannot conceal so many gustatory sins.

  Clothes may make the man, but unfortunately they cannot make a Prince Regent.

  According to reports, Lady S.’s new ball gown for the much ballyhooed upcoming fête at Wyndebourne is cut in a daring French style. We wait, with unconcealed anticipation, to see if the modiste’s craft can produce a royal duchess.