Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (21 page)

She felt his presence before she saw him, and saw him long before he saw her. Dressed in formal black and driving a quietly elegant one-horse shay, he looked the very image of a man of substance despite the bloodstained bandage on his forehead and the black eye patch. A man of substance, and one who had been attracted to her. His face the night before had told a familiar story. He had seen her dance, and the sight had kindled a fire in his blood. He wanted what all men wanted of her, and, had it not been for the overriding imperative of her vision, she would have slipped away unnoticed, never to see him again.

That he wanted no more than other men wanted of Adriana was a simple explanation Tom would have rejected out of hand. He had dreamed erotically of her, it was true; but, more important, he was intrigued by her reaction to the amulet, and also curious about what she had seen but not had time to say about his future. He was instinctively certain that, for whatever reason, he could reveal his innermost doubts and fears and hopes to her without fear of censure or ridicule.

“Tom? Thomas Gunn Paxton.”

He had thought he'd never forget her voice, but hearing it then was like hearing it for the first time, and the sound shook him to the core. Tom pulled the team to a halt and swung around to see Adriana coming up alongside him. He immediately jumped to the ground and took the hand she extended. “Good afternoon,” he said, the words inadequate to express the way he felt about her. “I'm glad to see you again.”

“And I to see you. How is your wound today?”

“I barely notice it. You did an excellent job, Madame Surgeon.”

Her laugh was soft and throaty, but her smile was quickly replaced by a look of concern. “You must be careful with such injuries,” she said with a glance at his eye patch.

“I know. If anything were to happen to the good one, I wouldn't be able to see at all. And after meeting you, I realize what a shame that would be. Think of all the beauty I'd miss.”

The compliment was one any gentleman would offer, yet Adriana liked hearing it from Tom. “You are a flatterer, sir,” she said, a slight blush coloring her cheeks.

“On the contrary. I speak only the truth. Now, if I may assist you?”

Daylight enhanced her beauty. She wore a long white skirt with green swirls that complemented the bright emerald of her eyes. A dazzling white blouse accentuated the warm honey tones of her skin, and an equally white lace shawl gave her hair the soft depth of a polished chestnut. Numbed, Tom took her arm and led her around the carriage, and as his hand fell to her waist when he helped her to her seat, his touch lingered a moment longer than necessary.

They rode in silence. Graceful homes, the grande dames of New Orleans architecture, lined their way. Spacious and elegant in the immaculately landscaped grounds they dominated, they gave way to the lesser, though still neatly kept, cottages and slave houses of those who served the wealthy. Slowly, the city fell behind them, and after an hour's ride they were alone in the open countryside on a wide path that cut through November-idled fields of cotton stubble.

The area around Lake Pontchartrain was low and marshy, and Tom was reminded of South Carolina in the fall when the air was crisp and clear and the first cold nights had set the trees to turning. Moss dripped from cypress and live oak. Birds of every hue, like living blossoms, flitted from branch to branch and filled the world with song.

It had been a peaceful, tranquil hour, an hour given to the sky and the land, the gentle rocking motion of the shay, and the steady clip-clop of the mare. An hour given to the turning trees and moss and bird song, to the flight of geese, the whisper of wind, the shifting shadows. And an hour given to that silence, deeper than words, in which two people strive to know each other. One elbow touches another. A glance followed, a burst of wood ducks from a hidden marsh. A smile given and returned. All the wondering hours of the long night and morning were forgotten in the sudden mesh of two minds. The thought, unspoken, that there will be time enough for words, but that the magic of this first hour alone will surpass time.

Wordless still, Tom turned the mare off the beaten path, then followed a faint trail to a completely secluded glade of cypress on the shore of the lake and stopped. Lake Pontchartrain lay before them. A hundred yards offshore, a solitary catboat ran across the south wind. A flight of pelicans wheeled gracefully and then, one by one, plummeted comically into the choppy water. “Why, then,
did
you fight?” Adriana asked suddenly, breaking their silence.

“Why? Oh, anger, I suppose. Frustration. One of those crazy urges to lash out—” He stopped and stared at her. “How'd you know what I was thinking?”

Adriana studied his face, saw the merriment in the grin that exposed his even white teeth, and the strength and determination written in the lines around his eyes. “I do not know,” she finally admitted. “Sometimes, not often, with the right person, thoughts come to me as clearly as if they had been spoken. It is a gift.”

“Then you know—?”

“Very little more, for the gift is flawed, thank God.” She shrugged, decided to lie, and then quickly changed her mind. “I have seen in my dreams the amulet you wear.”

“Then that's why you—?”

“Yes. Seeing it frightened me. All I could think of was to run.” She smiled and touched his arm. “I'm glad you asked me to come with you today.”

Tom laughed in an attempt to make light of her unease. “I couldn't let you get away without finishing my fortune. Here.” He held out his left hand. “Want to try again?”

Adriana took his hand, glanced down at it, then looked up and stared into the distance across the water. Calluses. A small white scar crossing his heart line. A broken fate line. All, and more, she remembered vividly from the night before. “There are … troubles,” she finally said in little more than a whisper. “You are a worried man who carries a great load. But—”

“I thought I was concealing my problems better than that,” Tom said with a nervous laugh.

“I'm a Gypsy,” Adriana answered with a shrug. “More important, I'm a woman, and know when a man has much on his mind.” She turned his hand over, held it concealed in both of hers in her lap. “I listen at least as well as I dance,” she said simply.

It was Tom's turn to stare across the water. Strange about lakes. When a lake was too large to be seen across, it might be an ocean for all the casual observer knew. One might think the water went on for thousands of miles, and yet, if one took to the water, one discovered soon enough that land and trees began again just over the horizon. What that had to do with anything, he didn't know, but something, surely. What women had he talked to beyond casual or formal conversations in his life? His mother, of course, when he was younger, but otherwise only Jenny. And there was the crux of the problem. What did he really know of Adriana? How much of himself should he share? He wanted to know her and her to know him, found himself captivated by her beauty and the depth of feeling she displayed in her dancing, and yet at the same time he was plagued by a sense of betrayal of Jenny—and an equally disquieting sense of dishonesty toward Adriana. He wasn't aware how, but thoughts became words, and he was talking.

“My wife died last spring,” he began, “and left me with our twin sons, Joseph and Jason.” A wistful look fleetingly crossed his face. “They're a little over three years old.”

The story was sad, sometimes humorous, poignant, but no more so than myriad others that might be told. Adriana listened intently, sympathized as he spoke painfully of the loss of Jenny, marveled at the strength of their love, and silently admitted her envy, not of Jenny, but that she herself had never been so loved. And as the story unfolded from the couple's meeting in England to their elopement and marriage, from their first idyllic months together to the birth of the twins, it slowly dawned on Adriana that the amulet in her vision might have had nothing to do with Giuseppe or Trevor Bliss, but that it had been meant to lead her to Tom. The revelation left her with mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was dismayed, because vengeance in Giuseppe's name had been so important for so long and her hopes for an ally were dashed. On the other, she liked Tom and found herself hoping that their initial attraction might lead to something more, something she had denied herself since Giuseppe's death.

“… on San Sebastian.”

The name struck like a thunderbolt, and rendered all Adriana's suppositions meaningless. San Sebastian! Getting to San Sebastian had been her single goal ever since Isaiah Hawkins had told her Bliss was stationed there. Her first assessment of the vision's meaning had been correct: Tom had been sent to help her. How else to explain the absurdly improbable coincidence that two strangers should both be bent toward the same tiny spot in the wide world?

“… and nothing will stop me,” Tom swore, his right fist pounding his thigh. “No thing, no person will stop me. I
will
have my sons!”

Adriana had almost spoken, so great was her excitement, but she clamped her mouth shut.

“Well?” he asked, thrusting his hand at her again. “What do you think? What does my palm say? Are they safe? Will I find them and bring them home?”

If she told him about Giuseppe and Trevor, if she asked to accompany him and requested his aid, he would surely refuse her. Coldly, she calculated how she might best change his mind or maneuver him into a position where he could not refuse. As precisely as a navigator plots his course, she determined her own. “I will tell you a secret,” she answered, covering his palm with her hand. “Palms aren't that precise. The adept palmist reads the lines that nature has traced in a palm, and then, through her own insight, leaps from those lines to the person himself. This line,” she said, indicating the life line, “hints how long a life will be, but says nothing of how that life will be lived. This finger, how it is inclined, speaks of the strength of a person, but says nothing about whether that strength will be used for good or for evil. Here we read of love, but whether gentle or tortured we cannot tell.” She folded his hand, counted lines along its edge. “You will have two more children, but whether they will be boys or girls, whether they will live long lives or die at an early age, is not shown. You will marry again, but whether that wife will be beautiful or plain, whether you will love her as deeply as you loved Jenny or merely tolerate her, I cannot tell.” She shrugged. “Do not expect, my newfound friend, too much from a reader of palms.”

“Then you know nothing?” Tom asked, disappointment in his voice.

Adriana shook her head and smiled. “I didn't say that. I said I know nothing
precisely
, and that you shouldn't expect too much. What I do see is happiness and great love, and when I read the person, when I see his strength, his great capacity for love, his determination, his intelligence, and his loyalty, when I feel these qualities through the touch of his hand, I surmise that he will succeed, for fate rarely stands in the way of the man who challenges fate and wills his own success.”

The prediction was heartening, but not what Tom wanted. “And that's it, then? You can only surmise?”

“No. In some ways I can be quite exact.” She hid her brief impish smile by concentrating over his palm. “I see,” she went on, her tone intentionally mysterious, “that we have been sitting in this carriage for two hours, and that our legs will fall off if we don't get out and move around, and that our stomachs will shrivel and we will die of starvation if we don't eat. And is that, Mr. Thomas Gunn Paxton,” she asked, looking up at him, “precise enough for you?”

Tom bridled momentarily, but then, understanding that she wasn't mocking him, allowed himself to relax. “You and Maurice,” he said with a self-deprecating grin, “make quite a pair. Both pulling me out of myself when I get too glum. And do you know what?”

“No. What?”

“You're right. I need a good kick in the seat every once in a while. Come on. Let's see what they packed for us.”

The tension broken, Tom jumped down from the shay, circled the horse, and helped Adriana down. The afternoon had warmed pleasantly. Sunlight cut through the trees and danced on the water. A heron stalking the shoreline fled in ungainly flight. The glade was quiet and warm, a friendly place untouched by the city so few miles away.

The picnic lunch packed by the hotel staff was simple but elegant. A red-and-white checkered cloth served as a spread, on which Adriana set out fried chicken, fresh rolls, a potato salad garnished with cucumber, parsley, and pimiento, and a bottle of white wine, each wrapped in thick towels to keep it warm or cold as needed. They ate ravenously and, when finished, lay back on the soft grass and stared into the trees and sky.

Tom yawned and blinked to keep his eyes open. “That was good,” he finally said, as much to keep awake as to converse. “I feel better.”

“Mmm. I do too.”

A pause, another yawn. “Care to go for a walk?”

Silence, and then a drowsy, “No.”

“I wouldn't either.”

A wren landed on the wicker picnic hamper, regarded them quizzically, and flitted away.

“Adriana?”

“Mmm?”

“I … that is, you …” He found her hand near his and squeezed it gently. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Just listening, I guess. We've only known each other a little while, but for some reason I think you were truly interested. That's rare.”

Adriana propped herself on one elbow and looked down at him. “You are a foolish man, Thomas Gunn Paxton. What else are friends for if not listening?”

Her eyes, deep-green, bored into his and invited an answer. Suddenly uncomfortably aware of how close he was to betraying Jenny, Tom avoided them. “Working,” he answered, trying hard to sound nonchalant. “Fighting, drinking—you know, things like that. Racing horses.”