My Own True Love (17 page)

Beng nudged him. "You giving me a grandson soon, Calderash?" he asked gruffly. "You good for at least that?"

"I'm good for it," he answered. There was quiet laughter from everyone but Sara's father. He still had no liking for his son-in-law, though he couldn't deny Toma his place among the
rom baro.

Sara began to play, the music sad and sweet. It had become an evening ritual; Sara would play, and sometimes the women would dance. Evan often joined her with a battered old mandolin and Vastarnyi on violin, and several of the women would add to the rhythm with tambourines. He sighed contentedly as he gazed around the small camp, his senses lulled by music and firelight.

"How you going to give me grandsons sleeping under your wagon?" Beng asked, interrupting his pleasant mood.

He felt the other men's gazes settling on him, waiting for an explanation. He met Beng's eyes. "A woman is
mirame
when she bleeds," he reminded him. "We all sleep under the wagon once a month."

He threw a disgruntled look at Sara while Beng counted ostentatiously on his fingers.

"I think my daughter maybe threw you out of the wagon," he said, wiggling his fingers. "Tell her she can come back to her tent if she wants."

He wasn't going to argue with the man. How he lived with his wife was no one's business but his own.

If she spent most of her time scouting ahead for the caravan, it was his concern. And if he crawled under the wagon to sleep because the tension that sang between when they were alone was too much for him when she kept telling him no, it was also only his concern. Just because his body ached for her and the increasingly cold water in the streams where he bathed wasn't helping any didn't give anyone cause to bring the subject up.

After a considerable silence while the music played on and the men waited to see if he'd reply to Beng's comment, Andrei finally brought up the subject of whether or not they should set up the circus.

Beng was against it, of course. Debate got underway quickly. Even as Lewis took the lead in the discussion he could feel Sara all around him. Her soul was in her music and her music covered him, guitar notes falling like a rainstorm around him.

Things had to go his way and he was silver-tongued enough to make sure they did, but every moment he spent with the gypsy men he was thinking of the gypsy girl not so far away.

******************

"I thought I'd spend some time with Molly and Beth," she answered. She would have moved away, but he took her arm and pushed her ahead of him into the wagon. She nearly tripped over the guitar.

"Hey!" she complained as he pushed it out of the way with his foot. He pushed her onto the bed and stretched out beside her without bothering to light the lantern. "Are we' due for another wrestling match?"

she questioned sarcastically as he pinned an arm across her breasts.

His eyes glinted at her out of the dark. "No." His mouth came down on hers.

She resisted the probing of his tongue for a moment; then her will deserted her and her lips opened for him. His kiss left her hot and eager, but she groped for words as he moved to nuzzle her throat. Her fingers tangled in the silk of his hair. She didn't know if it was a caress or if she wanted to pull him away.

This was happening too quickly, and he was too much in control. "Oh, no," she said, pulling on his hair.

"Not now." He lifted his head to look at her face. "Not ever," she added. "Get out of here."

"Your father wants a grandson," he answered. He kissed the base of her throat. "I think you should give him a grandson."

"You said you weren't interested in having children."

His hand reached down to stroke slow circles on her abdomen. "I changed my mind." He began inching up her skirts.

"Stop that!" She tried to slap him away. "I'm not your wife," she reminded him.

He hadn't forgotten, not in whatever compartment of his mind logic lived, but the emotions that ruled his day-to-day life were in charge at the moment. He felt like Toma, and Toma wanted his wife. "Never mind the baby," he said. "I want to make love to you."

She rolled away from him, and fell onto the floor with a loud thud. "Ouch!" He busied himself with his clothes while she got up and fumbled with lighting the lantern. Sara turned around and gasped. Her dark eyes went round as buttons. Color flooded her cheeks.

Perhaps she'd never seen a naked man before. He gestured down the length of his body. "Now you see why I'm called the Magnificent," he said with a guileless smile.

Sara dropped her face into her hands and began to shake. With laughter. Toma laughed with her.

"Stop being cute," she ordered when her laughter subsided. She raised her head to look at him. "Okay, I'm impressed," she admitted.

He beckoned her. She shook her head. "Please?"

She put her hands on her hips. She tried to keep her gaze on his face, but it kept flicking up and down his compactly muscled—magnificent—body. "Lewis Morgan," she demanded, "what has gotten into you?"

He rested his chin on his hand and looked up at her from under thick black lashes. "The problem is what hasn't gotten into you." He sat up, and snatched her around the waist so quickly she barely realized he'd moved until she was sprawled on top of him.

"Lew—" His kiss stopped her words. It went on for a long time and she was just as hungry for it as he was. She'd kissed her way down his chest and was beginning to flick her tongue across one of his tight little nipples when she noticed what she was doing. She raised her head to look at him. The look of uncontrolled pleasure on his face made her want to go right back to what she'd been doing. This had to stop, right now, or there wouldn't be any stopping at all. She saw a bite mark she'd made on his throat and touched it in surprise. With his eyes closed he put his hand over hers then brought her hand up to kiss her fingertips. The soft touch of his lips on the pads of her fingers sent a jolt of fire through her.

She was aching with need when she rose from the bed a second time. He groaned and reached for her, but she backed quickly to the door. She was outside and running to Molly's wagon before he could get off the bed. He shouted after her, but she heard no sounds of pursuit. How could her body be such a traitor? she asked herself as she hurried through the quiet camp.
And don't give me any of this own
true love nonsense,
she warned the ring as she reached Molly's
bardo, because I won't believe it.

* * *

"Oh, nothing," was the falsely innocent reply.

//
you start whistling I'm going to smash you between a couple of rocks.

"Aren't we just full of sweetness this morning?"

Shut up.

"You should have stayed with him."

She wasn't going to talk about it. She sat up and scrubbed her hands across her face. She had not slept well. When she had finally slept it had been accompanied by shockingly erotic dreams. Shocking even by her late-twentieth-century standards. They'd all featured Lewis, of course. The slime.

The slime came sauntering out of their
bardo
and toward her as she made her way across the camp. It was just barely dawn but many a cook fire was already lit and people were moving about purposefully. A baby was crying in one of the wagons, drowning out early morning birdsong. She noticed that Lewis was wearing a wide-sleeved, sky blue shirt opened to the waist, with a matching headband holding a heavy wing of black hair out of his eyes. She was reminded of how he looked the first time she'd seen him.

Except that when they met in the center of the camp he looked tired, and his eyes were full of wariness.

He took her arm and silently led her back to the wagon.

Inside, he stood in front of the door and pointed to the bed. "Sit," he ordered.

Sara did, gingerly, on the very edge of the bed. She looked nervously up at him.

"Don't worry," he told her. "I'm not going to touch you."

Actually, she hadn't been worried about that at all. She could tell he had something other than sex on his mind. "You look like Lewis Morgan, not Toma."

"I'm glad you can tell the difference."

"What's up?" she asked.

"It's time you went back to work," he answered.

So they'd decided to set up the circus after all. They could stand to earn some money and they'd heard the mood around Paris was festive at the moment. "The natives should be generous," she said.

She was reaching for the guitar when Lewis said, "I'm not talking about music."

The coldness of his tone froze her blood; the only warm spot on her whole body was where the thrumming ring circled her finger. She looked up slowly. Lewis looked as if he were made out of stone, hard and unmovable. For a moment Sara was paralyzed by fear; there wasn't enough air in the tight confines of the wagon. Then she shook the fear off, refusing to give in to it. "The ring is being weird, you're being weird. What's going on here?"

Lewis had been up all night, thinking, or at least trying to think. He'd reached the most important part of his mission only to be lulled by the mindless life of the road and distracted by roaring lust for the girl who was his pawn. The night had been spent in hell and he was in no mood to argue with the mad wench this morning. "You're here to perform a robbery, not play the bloody guitar. That's why I brought you here and that's what you're going to do." He folded his arms and glared angrily at her outraged expression. "Don't say a word. Just do as you're told." He ran his thumb warningly across the hilt of the knife on his belt.

Sara snorted with laughter. "Yeah, right. I'm terrified."

Lewis's shoulders slumped. "Sara!" He shook a finger at her. "I should beat you."

She crossed her arms and mocked him with a glare of her own. "You wouldn't know how to start."

"I've treated you more kindly than you deserve, little thief. It's time you repaid—"

"I'm not a thief."

He felt like beating his head against the sturdy wooden wall. They were going to have one of their mad discussions after all, weren't they? He did spin around and pound a fist against the door; then he turned back to her. "It worked out beautifully until you went insane. I wish you'd stop being insane and let me get on with my assignment."

She gazed at him, looking almost amused, almost serenely calm, almost as if she sympathized with him. "What's worked out beautifully?" she asked. "Take it step by step, Lewis Morgan."

"What?"

"I want to know.how we got to this place, you and I. And why?"

He sat down beside her. "Why? Why do you want to know?"

"I'm forming a theory."

A theory. He blinked. Why was it she often sounded better educated and more sophisticated than he was? "Why can't you just be a simple gypsy burglar?"

"Why can't you be a simple Rom acrobat?" she countered.

"Point taken," he agreed with a sigh. "How did we get here?" He didn't know why he was talking to her, other than that it seemed better than arguing with her. He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. She didn't resist. When she was snugly fitted beside him he went on. "It's all been fortunate coincidence," he told her. "I learned my acrobatic skills and the language from some gypsies who were impressed onto a ship I served on. I was fifteen and agile as a monkey and—"

"What about the Calderash girl?"

"It was a lie to frighten you."

"Thanks."

"I disguised myself as a gypsy once or twice when I began to work as a spy. When my current assignment required traveling first to France and then to Bororavia I was lucky to discover a circus of Bororavian gypsies anxious to return to their homeland. Traveling with them seemed the perfect way to cover my movements. But they didn't want to accept me even if Sandor was willing to work with me. But coincidence was still in my favor." He squeezed her shoulder, feeling far more affection than he knew he should. She made a noise somewhere between a pleased murmur and a request for him to continue. "I knew I would need an expert thief to help with part of the assignment so I set out to find the best cracksman in London. My investigations led back to the gypsy circus and the prettiest girl in the tribe, the girl I'd already been considering marrying so I could be accepted by her people. My plans all fell neatly into place. The rest you know. Pure coincidence, all of it."

Sara pulled away from him and sat rubbing her fingers as she often did. She was smiling. "It wasn't coincidence."

"It couldn't be anything else, sweetheart."

She held up her hand. "Oh, yes it could. We're not dealing with coincidence; we're dealing with magic."

He slapped his hand forcefully against the mattress. "I'd hoped you were having a lucid spell."

"I think spell might be the operative word here," she said agreeably. She wiggled her fingers.

For a moment Lewis thought he caught the sparkle of an orange stone on her finger. He reached out, but they both jumped in surprise as a loud banging sounded on the back of the wagon.

Lewis had just gotten to the door when Beng flung it open. "Sara!" her father called nervously.

"Soldiers are here looking for you. Hide!"

"Soldiers?" Lewis questioned. Fear twisted in his gut. He turned back to Sara. "Why?" She shrugged.

"What did you do?"

She didn't know why anyone would be looking for her. "I didn't do anything!"

"This is no time to argue with the Calderash," Beng said. He glanced over his shoulder. "They're coming this way."

Lewis grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Were you seen robbing a house after you ran away last night?"

"What? No! Let go of me!"

He should never have been lulled into believing her protests of innocence. If she'd ruined his mission...

"We've got to hide you."

"I hate it when you act like a jerk," Sara told him as she kicked him in the shin to get him to let her go.