A Much Compromised Lady (21 page)

“Why, yes. That more or less sums it up,” he
said. And then, as if to prove her opinion of him correct, he
strolled into the room, his robe billowing around him.

He looked faintly amused by her outburst—and
arrogantly assured of himself. Ah, but she hated that smug smile of
his, as if he found a secret joke in all of this. She did not want
him to think of her as a diversion, and as a...

Looking away from him, she stopped her
thoughts. Ah, but what was she doing? She did not want this
gaujo
to think of her as anything. It must not matter to her
if he chose to regard her as a Gypsy, a thing for his sport—and not
a woman with feelings that could be wounded.

Taking a deep breath, she glanced back at
him, chin lowered, mouth set with the determination not to
care.

He stood unnaturally still, his expression
unreadable, and Glynis clenched her fists, as if she could hold
back the hurt that welled in her. This man thought of her as a
chase to enjoy. She must remember that.

St. Albans’s stare remained on her a moment
longer before he turned to her brother. “I do hope that you at
least did not leave your...what was it, ah, yes, your
tshuri
stuck into any of my staff. It is the very devil to train them into
their place, and such a bother to replace them.”

Christo shifted, tucking the box under his
arm. “Don’t worry,
gaujo
. I saved my knife in case we
met.”

“How thoughtful of you.” He glanced at the
box, and shifted his glittering, hard stare to Glynis. “The
infamous box? I begin to understand now. This means your use for me
is at an end, does it not?”

She lifted her chin. “Yes, I suppose it does,
gaujo
.”

He came towards her, something hot lurking in
his eyes, his movements sinfully graceful. Mouth drying, her arms
fell to her sides and she just stopped herself from falling back a
step. He would not intimidate her.

But what did he plot now?

His smile twisted. He took her hand, his own
so much warmer than hers, his touch certain and strong. “You may
relax, my dear. I merely wish to tell you that I have enjoyed our
association, and I shall bid you goodbye.”

Her jaw slackened.
Goodbye?
What did
he mean by that?

He kissed her hand, his breath warm and his
lips soft. She studied his face for some sign of devilment, some
indication of his thoughts, but she saw nothing other than a dark
glimmer in his eyes which meant that that too quick mind of his was
turning.

He let go of her and then strode for the
door.

A knot clenched around her throat.

Ah, but he was not really going. This was
just a trick of his. Was it not?

At the door, he paused, and Glynis’s eyes
narrowed. She had known it. This one did not have it in him to
think of others before he thought of himself. This was just some
plan of his.

But the knot tightened, and she hugged
herself.

What if she was wrong?

He smiled and said, “You Gypsies believe in
luck a great deal, do you not?”

Still watching him, she nodded. “
Bok
is bad luck. Good luck is
kushti bok
.”

“Well,
kushti bok
, my dear.” And with
his crooked smile, he swept a bow, turned and walked out.

“Wait!”

Glynis stopped, horrified at the word that
had burst from her. She had even moved forward a step, and she only
just stopped the impulse to reach out as if to stay him.

Christo stared at her, looking as if he
wanted to slap a hand over her mouth. She almost wished he had. But
that awful moment dragged on and she thought, a sick feeling in her
stomach, St. Albans had not heard.

This was no trick.

He would not return.

But he did. He stood again in the doorway,
his expression disinterested, those green eyes sparkling in such a
way that it reminded Glynis of childhood tales of dragons who
guarded treasure hoards—and who liked to dine on maidens.

“I...I...” Swallowing hard, she let her
stuttering fade. Ah, but she wanted him to go away. She had since
the beginning. Christo had their father’s box, so why not allow
this
gaujo
to go, so they could leave his house?

She glanced around, desperate for the reason
why she had called out. There
had
to be a reason!

Scowling now, Christo shifted and tucked the
box under his other arm.

Glynis let out a breath. Ah, of course. There
was a puzzle yet to work through. That was why she did not want him
to go. Her momentary panic came from a need she had almost not even
recognized. That was all. It was just that they still had a use for
this clever
gaujo
earl.

Turning to St. Albans, she said, “There is
one thing, yet. Since you are so good with finding your way into
any place...” She gestured to the box.

Christo pulled back, twisting slightly as if
to hold the box away.

And so she told him in a silent, glowering
stare,
Well, why not ask him? Can you open it?

Christo’s mouth pulled deeper. He glanced at
St. Albans, suspicion in his narrowed eyes. Turning back to Glynis,
his body stiffened and he held the box away from her as well.

Glynis glared back at him.

Watching the silent exchange between brother
and sister, St. Albans slowly eased into the room. His Gypsy still
defended him, it seemed.

And she had called him back.

His departure from the field had been a
gamble. And there had been six agonizing heartbeats of silence in
which he had doubted himself. His palms had actually broken into a
sweat, something he could not recall happening since his first day
at Eton, when he had stared at a sea of strange faces and felt
himself alone in their midst.

However, the Earls of St. Albans did not
doubt anything, particularly not themselves. So why had anxiety
raced through him? Nothing, after all, had been at risk. If she had
not called out, he would have found another way for their paths to
cross again.

But it had mattered to him that she did call
to him.

It mattered also now what lay inside that
blasted box. Was it proof to gain her respectability, or the lack
of such which he could use to coax her, as an illegitimate
half-Gypsy, into becoming his mistress?

She took a deep breath, and St. Albans braced
himself as his Glynis went to her brother and gently took the box
from him.

Glynis held the box in both her hands,
grateful it was heavy enough to keep her grip steady.

At last. At long last. Inside lay the key to
Christopher’s rightful inheritance. And hers. Now they could have a
future. A home. Respectability.

She looked up from the box and to St.
Albans.

He stood close by, his eyes narrowed so they
seemed almost like cat’s eyes, flickering green with that
disdainful expression of his. He looked dangerous in his flowing
dressing gown, his white lawn shirt open at the throat to reveal
the hint of muscles that lay under his polished exterior. He looked
as if he had just come from his bed to her. His mouth curved into
the cynical twist she knew so well. The one that kept others
away.

Pressing her lips together, she glanced down
at the box again. Cunning carving decorated the rich rosewood. The
red and gold tones in the wood had been worked so that the hewn
dragon seemed almost to breathe as she tiled the oblong box. More
carving, rich and intricate and ancient, marked its pattern on her
palms as she clutched the box.

She looked at St. Albans, her lips parched,
her throat tight. If she opened the box, she gained her future.

But what of St. Albans? He had no use for a
respectable lady—not even for a wife.

With a muffled curse, she pushed aside such
thoughts. No use to long for what could not be.
Dej
had
taught her that. But she could act on what must be.

She held out the box to St. Albans. “It has a
secret latch. We do not know how to open it. Can you?”

For an instant, his mouth crooked even higher
on one side.
He will refuse
, she thought, disappointment
seeping into her.

In the next instant, he was at her side, his
hands covering hers to take the box from her.

“Please, allow me,” he said, his tone
drawling and sounding dreadfully bored.

She hesitated one last moment, her mind
telling her not to trust him with this treasure. But this one knew
things. This man one could do things. If anyone could open this
box, he could.

Letting go, she released the box into St.
Albans’s grip.

He stood there, the box in his hands, turning
it over. He pulled back the iron lock and opened the lid.

“I emptied that already,” Christo said,
sounding irritated.

St. Albans lifted one eyebrow. “So I see.” He
glanced at Glynis, and took the box over to the marble flooring
that formed a square around the fireplace. By firelight, St. Albans
angled the box, studying it.

Either it had a very thick bottom, or there
was indeed a secret compartment, St. Albans decided. Blazes, but he
hated puzzles such as this. As a child, he had burned his aunt’s
wooden puzzles. He had not been able to get any of them to fit, and
so, embarrassed by his failure, hating the things, guilty for his
own inadequacy, he had shoved the lot of them into the fire. That
had solved them quick enough.

But that uncomfortable sense of inadequacy
had remained, even after the flames had died.

It was back again.

Well, he knew but one method to solve this
new puzzle.

Gently, he put the box down upon the floor,
the bottom up, the lid still open, so it arched there upon the
marble. With a fast move, like a saber cut, he grabbed and lifted
the poker from beside the hearth and brought its weight crashing
down on the rosewood.

Wood split with an echoing crack, and the
force of the impact vibrated in St. Albans’s arm. Silence—tense and
shocked—held the room for an instant.

Dropping to her knees, Glynis reached out to
the broken box, her fingers trembling. She drew her hand back
before it touched wood. Her brother started forward, muttering
curses in his Gypsy tongue, and St. Albans, leveled a stare at him,
one that made the Gypsy’s step falter and stop.

At least he has some sense
, St. Albans
thought, eyes still narrowed and jaw clenched. He was quite
prepared to use the poker on the fellow if that knife appeared. But
Glynis’s anguished words drew his full attention.

“Christo, there’s nothing!”

St. Albans glanced down.

His Glynis knelt on the floor, a mottled
pheasant feather in one hand and a childishly scrawled map in the
other. The box, its secret compartment now cracked open, spilled
loose a lock of red-blond hair tied with a yellow ribbon, and a
tuft of ancient fur. And the truth of it struck St. Albans at
once.

All of it had been a lie. A Gypsy
swato
. A tale invented by a woman to comfort herself with
illusion. And to send her children on a devil’s errand.

Sympathy stirred in him for his Gypsy. She
had had to learn the truth at some point, but disillusionment was
always such a brutal thing.

Turning, he busied himself with putting the
poker back with the fire irons, controlling his movements with
extra care. He bent down to his Gypsy, took her hand and lifted her
to her feet.

She looked at him, tears trembling on dark
lashes, her hands clutching at this inadequate inheritance from her
father.

“
Dej
said he must have kept their...”
Her voice faded into a sharp intake of breath, as if she were
trying to hold back her anguish.

St. Albans’s back teeth tightened. There were
times he wished he could throttle that mother of hers. But his
Gypsy would forget this moment. He would make her forget.

Surly and silent, her brother came forward to
stand over the cracked box. He scooped up the paper that Glynis had
allowed to fall back to the floor. “Nevin,” he said, staring at the
village drawn onto the map, his voice flat and empty.

Glynis straightened. “Do you think it was
meant to lead us—”

“There is nothing here,
phen
! This is
a boy’s map. Look at the writing. There never were any marriage
lines. We have been wrong from the start.” He threw the paper back
on the floor.

The bitterness in his voice deepened as he
spoke, and an unexpected empathy stirred in St. Albans. He knew how
it was to have the world shown suddenly stark and bare, revealed
for the mockery it was. The fellow’s anger about it would have to
go somewhere. However, he did not want it going anywhere near his
Gypsy.

Letting go of her, St. Albans started towards
the bellpull to summon a servant and see about rooms for the
fellow. But the gypsy started toward the door, and St. Albans
checked his own steps.

“Christo? Where are you going?” Glynis
said.

“To do what should have been done long
ago.”

St. Albans went to his Glynis at once,
reaching her just as her brother stopped, one hand on the doorknob.
His dark eyes glittered, hot and dangerous. The man looked in a
mood to do something foolish, something that only a young man with
festering anger could do.

A profound gratitude settled in St. Albans
that he was long past this age of being driven by his emotions. But
he wondered what this fellow had in mind—and he thought he had a
good idea of what he’d do in this Gypsy’s place. It was not going
to be anything pretty—or legal.

Glancing from his sister to the
gaujo
lord, Christo clenched his fists. The hurt ached inside him so hard
that the world blurred. There had been a marriage. There had been!
But the empty box mocked his belief.

Well, he was done trusting. Done with
listening to advice from his mother’s dreams. Done with this
useless waiting.