Maggie Mae took a slug of home-brewed whiskey from a rough wooden cup sitting near her. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then offered the cup to Joanna. Joanna shook her head and waved the cup aside. Rotgut poteen from the Traveller stills wasn’t going to ease her pain. It went too deep for that.
But Maggie wasn’t finished with her. “And there’s another thing. Just one look at the little lass and you can tell she has Outsider blood, and probably blue blood at that. No Traveller ever had such fine little features, even yerself. Oh, I know, the girl’s the spit of ye in a lot of ways,” said Maggie, seeing Joanna was about to protest. “Like those witch’s eyes ye both have. But she’s as white-skinned and delicate as a fairy sprite, like one o’ them fancy ladies. And her hair’s not true black like yours. More like the mane of a dark roan horse. And the airs she puts on, when she’s feeling well! A right proper little miss, is our Hannah. Figure her pa, whoever he was, had the same airs and graces. We Travellers don’t like that in our young ‘uns. Ain’t fittin’ for our way o’ life.”
Hannah began to cough violently again. Maggie Mae started to put the cup of whiskey to the child’s mouth, but Hannah pushed it away. When the coughing fit subsided, both women sat silently for a while. Joanna absent-mindedly combed through her own long, black hair with her fingers.
“Maggie Mae, you’re the closest thing to a mother that I’ve ever known. And a lot of what you say is true, though it’s bitter truth to me. But you’re wrong about one thing. He didn’t run because of the baby. He never even knew that we made one together. And I plan to keep it that way.”
Chapter 1
A Very Disappointing Son and Heir
Nine Years Earlier
Rowland Albertson, 9th Duke of Gresham—who, like his eight ducal forebears, was the proud possessor of ancestral estates in England, Scotland, and Ireland, not to mention a rather disastrous property venture in the colonial West Indies—surveyed his only son and heir, Christopher, with something approaching dislike.
How could he, a man of widely acknowledged political and pecuniary savvy, and the boy’s sharp-nosed, sharp-witted late mother, together have produced such a fool?
He couldn’t deny that at the age of twenty, the young Marquess of Clydekill was a fine-looking specimen, demonstrating the successful good breeding of generations of noble, untainted family lines. Standing a few inches above six feet without his riding boots, he had broad shoulders and slim hips that could carry clothes in a manner Beau Brummell would envy.
The young man’s hair was a dark mahogany, the Duke’s own best feature in his youth. His glittering hazel eyes were his mother’s, but without the calculating shrewdness that had marred her beauty. He moved with the easy, unaffected grace of a fine young colt. In short, he was as handsome a young man as one was likely to meet in any noble’s drawing room in London or Bath.
But why was he such a blasted fool? The boy had always been soft-hearted, always nursing little birds with broken wings back to health and such nonsense. No runt of a litter of pups ever starved with Christopher playing mother to it.
To make more of a man of him, the Duke had hired a boxing tutor, pugilism being all the rage among fashionable young bloods, and good bodybuilding exercise besides. Admittedly, Christopher took to the bodybuilding aspect of the sport, and his long reach and powerful muscles soon had him winning every match.
But the damned idiot then takes pity on his opponent and calls the match a draw. He can’t bear humiliating someone weaker than himself.
Christopher loved to ride—he had a way with horses, even unbroken ones. He could put a wild horse through its paces, just out of the horse’s love of him. But he would never use the whip.
“I don’t need to, Father,” he had said once.
Well, of course he didn’t. But that wasn’t the point. Didn’t he ever feel the pleasure of smashing something, of breaking a creature’s will, just because it felt so damned satisfying to do it?
His father despaired of him. What would become of the Dukedom of Gresham and all its holdings here and abroad, once the 9th Duke lay with his ancestors in the family crypt? Perhaps the future 10th Duke would hand it out piecemeal to every poor soul with a sob story to tell.
No, that couldn’t happen, the current Duke reflected with relief. The entire estate was entailed. It could not be broken apart. It always had to be bequeathed in toto to the first male heir. Christopher would have no choice but to pass the entire Dukedom to a son of his own. But he needed to marry to accomplish that goal.
In this, too, the young Marquess seemed determined to defy his father’s wishes.
“All that I am asking— No, I take that back. All that I am requiring of you is that you attend the London Season this autumn. You’re twenty, and it is time to settle down. Leave Oxford—two years of ‘varsity is enough for any well-bred man, and in any case, you don’t aim to become a parson or a don, do you?”
The Duke answered his own question, a habit of his. “No. Your destiny, m’boy, is someday to be Duke of Gresham. Meet a young filly you can marry and breed with. Preferably one with a large fortune. It’s your only real duty in life, and you can’t escape it, no more than any of us could at your age.”
“I’m not interested in wasting time dancing at London balls. Or in marrying, for that matter,” Christopher responded woodenly.
“ ‘pon my word, young feller-me-lad, you’ll be telling me next that you don’t like gels. Well, strictly between ourselves—” and here his father gave Christopher a coarse wink, “—I personally don’t care whether you like gels or boys, or sheep or horses, for that matter. Just father a son on a rich wife, and then you can take your pleasures wherever else you like.”
“I like girls as much as the next man. But why does she have to be rich? Doesn’t love come into the equation at all for you, Father?”
The Duke snorted. “Love? Gad, the worst marriages in the world all start with true love, and then go downhill from there. Forget love. For people like us, wedding and begetting are strictly business propositions. These days, the great families can’t rely on just their ancient status to stay afloat. They need massive transfusions of new capital. And marriage is the cleanest and most dignified way of bringing money into the family.”
“Don’t we have enough? Most people out there manage to survive on a mere pittance.”
“Enough? It’s never enough. Christopher, do you have the slightest idea how much it costs to run all these estates? The people who work for us are demanding wages these days, unlike the old times when they served out of loyalty. They eat us out of house and home—they cost us more than they produce for us. And look at the world we live in. Every few years, another famine in Ireland, and the bastards use it as a reason to withhold our rents. How about the West Indies—do you know how much gold we lost when the slaves on our rum plantation revolted last year? They damn near burned the whole place to the ground, and all our stores with it.”
“We should have kept in mind that rum is flammable,” Christopher observed drily.
“Oh, you’re a wit, you are. A half-wit, more like. Laugh while you can—these’ll be your own problems soon enough. Unless you marry well.”
The London Season is the best show of prize females there is. If he can’t find someone rich that’s to his liking there, with his title and prospects and good looks, there’s something wrong with him.
“In the meantime, boy, humor me and try to learn just a bit about how the Dukedom is managed, will you? I’m sure they didn’t teach you that at Oxford.”
Christopher explained to his father that he already had a plan to accomplish just that. He said that the problems on their Irish holdings, in particular, tore at his heartstrings. Mothers and babies were being turfed out of their cottages for their inability to pay rent. They took to the road and had only grass to eat, till they and their children starved to death.
“Father, I’d like to take a few of my friends and go to the family estates in Co
nnaught—perhaps set up soup kitchens in the old family castle. I think we should review the rent rolls and see if fairer rates could be managed, given the crop failures. When I become the Duke, I’ll have to take your seat in the House of Lords, Father. Maybe by sharing my observations about the Irish problem with Parliament, I could make my own contribution to the realm.”
His father exploded. His face grew purple with rage. He wondered whether the boy had brought on an apoplectic attack. He worriedly clutched at his chest.
“S-s-s-soup kitchens?” Gresham spluttered. “By Gad, Christopher, you’ll be the death of me yet. Get out of my sight before I thrash you within an inch of your worthless life.”
Christopher turned to leave his father’s presence. “Wait,” the old man said. “Wait. If you want to help with useless rabble, why don’t you give Brown, the estate manager, a hand clearing that Traveller crowd out of our woods? Every year, they come and camp here. Poach our grouse and game. Steal our horses. Put spells on our cows so they give sour milk. Pagan filth, that’s what those people are.”
“They don’t do any real harm, Father,” the young man said quietly. “They gather here for a few months each year, getting ready for the county livestock fair. Then they head to other parts before autumn sets in. They’ve been doing it since practically the beginning of time, apparently.”
“Next you’ll be telling me they have as much right as we do to be on this land.”
“Well, they were here longer than us—before the Normans, before the Angles and the Saxons, some say even before the Romans. You might say we’re the trespassers.”
A damned fool, that’s what my son is. Too much book learning and not an ounce of common sense.
“Help the estate manager run that filth off our lands. I’ve told Brown that any man, woman, or child among them that steals our game will be publicly horsewhipped, and if they’re repeat offenders, I’ll start cutting off the thieves’ hands. It’s my legal right. The Prince of Wales hinted when I was last in London that he might visit us here during the autumn hunting season. If that happens, it will be one of the greatest honors of my life. And yours, too. Do you think I’d want His Royal Highness to run short of sport, just to keep that lot’s bellies full? Or for him to encounter such vermin while riding in our forests? I don’t think so. Now get out, Christopher, I’m sick of the sight of you.”
Chapter 2
The Awakening
The young Marquess left his father’s study willingly. In truth, he was not in a bad mood, despite his father’s hectoring. He was rather used to the Duke’s ugly bluster. And in any case, he was cheered by the wonderful secret that he tended in his heart, where no one could see it or take it away from him.
For years, Christopher had a friend that his father, had he known, would never have approved of. She meant the world to him. Her name was Joanna, and she was a Traveller.
She was two years younger than he was. Every summer since Christopher was fourteen, the two children had met and played in the forest surrounding the Gresham estate, during the few short months the Travellers camped there.
The first time he encountered her, he thought she was a wood nymph or fairy sprite rather than a human child. Small and slight, she had black gypsy hair that hung almost to her waist. Framed by the veil of raven hair, her eyes were startling: one a warm golden topaz, the other a glittering jade green.
Funny, all those years, I never thought of her as a girl. As my comrade, my twin, a mysterious spirit as close to me as my own soul. But never as a girl.
Girls were like Christopher’s sisters, the Lady Daphne and the Lady Henrietta. Girls simpered and blushed. Girls had delicate constitutions that could not be subjected to rough sports. Girls had sensitive feelings that could not be subjected to coarse language.
Girls spend most of their time standing before the looking glass and worrying about whether their hair is done in the latest fashion or their clothes designed in the latest mode.
Girls were hemmed in on every side by Society’s rules and restrictions: they could not talk to a boy unless a chaperone was present. When greeted by a man, a girl could only offer her hand for a prescribed number of seconds. If a man rose to offer her a seat, she could not sit down while the seat was still warm from the man’s contact with it.
In short, girls are boring idiots. Ergo, Joanna is not really a girl.
Joanna as a young teenager could hoist her skirts and shimmy up a tree or a rock as fast as he could. Joanna could snare animals for food, or catch trout in the stream using a pointy stick. Then she would roast the fish, skewered on the same stick, over a campfire she built herself. Nothing had ever tasted better to Christopher.
Joanna could curse like a sailor without a blush. In Christopher’s opinion, it was rather charming in such an innocent child. There was no harm in it.
Joanna is the brave, brash younger brother I always wished I had. She is the best buddy a fellow could ever spend time with.
In truth, Christopher had been a lonely little boy. He hadn’t realized how lonely he was, though, until he no longer was. He hadn’t known that no one in his life understood him, until someone finally did. Joanna felt like a part of his very self. He’d cut his own arm off before he’d ever hurt her.
Two years had passed since he had last seen the mischievous little sprite. Christopher had left for Oxford when he was eighteen, and he had no way of communicating with her since then. The Travellers didn’t give forwarding addresses to the Royal Mail.
Then yesterday, the townspeople were all commenting that it must be summer, because the gypsies had come back, regular as clockwork. Christopher’s heart rose within him, as if in a wordless song.
He slipped away from the ducal manor house and checked the hollow old tree where as children they had left each other notes. A balled-up bit of paper was waiting. “Christy, I’m back, are you? The ravine tomorrow at midday. J.”
She hasn’t changed at all.
At least, I really hope she hasn’t changed.
As it happened, though, she had changed so much he hardly recognized her. She had grown a couple of inches over the last couple of years, as had he. She was entirely different, somehow.
The soft, pliable, slightly plump face of childhood had been overlaid with a grown woman’s features. Her face was thinner, her high cheekbones more pronounced, and the shadows below her cheekbones more interesting.
Her lips were no longer cute in their pouty fullness. Now they were luscious, redder somehow, like moist, delicious fruits ripe to be bitten and sucked. Her marvelous eyes glowed, not with the childlike merriment of old, but with some deeper, more mysterious female knowledge.
And her figure. Christopher swallowed hard, looking at her. Her makeshift clothes hung differently on her. There were curved parts of her that strained the very fabric of that old dress now, as if they sought to rip through their bindings into the caress of eager hands.
Her waist nipped in delightfully. Her shapely ankles under the patched gown had been sculpted by a master. Her long legs seemed made just to be parted by a man’s hungry hands.
Christopher noticed all these things about her, things he had never cared to notice about a girl’s body before.
“Joanna?” he said.
Then Christopher felt suddenly ashamed of himself. He was not an innocent—he had been out in the world, and had heard men talk about women in just this way. Lusting after them like animals. This is my best friend. It’s disgusting to think this way about her, even for an instant.
As he wrestled with these thoughts, she just stood there, looking at him.
In the old days, he would have run up and given her a mighty hug, clapping her on the back like a brother. He felt constrained, now. One did not greet a goddess by clapping her on the back. Her unexpected beauty paralyzed him completely.
“Christy?” she answered, saying that precious nickname used by her, and only her. He noticed that she, too, did not race forward for an embrace.
&
nbsp; Their world had turned upside down. They had lost childhood’s innocence, and they now saw each other through the eyes of a man and a woman.
“I missed—”
“I thought—”
They spoke at the same time, and their words stumbled over each other. They started to laugh. He thought, then, that maybe all would be well.
“You go first,” Joanna said generously. Or perhaps she wanted to gauge his feelings before she took any risks?
Christopher struggled. This was hard, very hard. Just close your eyes and pretend you’re talking to the old Joanna. Just plunge in. You used to be able to tell her anything.
“It’s been so long, Joanna. I missed you so much when I was away at school. You’re my very best friend, and I had no way of reaching you. I thought maybe you’d forget me.”
“Moron,” she said. If he kept his eyes closed, she sounded young and cheeky, just like the old Joanna. “I was so lonely. Among the Travellers, there was no one I could talk to, the way we always used to talk. I was angry you were gone so long!”
“It was the same for me. You think there was anyone at Oxford, or when I took my European Grand Tour last summer, that I could talk with like we talk? You don’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
“You’re all grown up now, Christy. You’ve been to places I’ll never see—Oxford and Europe—why, I’ve never even been to London. You’re going to find me pretty boring now.”
“Boring? Joanna Bagley, you’re the most exciting person I know! Don’t you remember, when we were children, we said when we grew up we’d travel all over the world together, having adventures?”
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