The Gypsy Duchess (19 page)

She shivered dramatically. “They were the strangest creatures imaginable—with dark skin and black hair and garish, bright-colored clothing that didn’t look at all clean. Why they didn’t even speak proper English. Mama hid us children in the cellar until Papa ran them off. Tell me, your grace, how could one ever dare trust such people as that?”

All eyes turned to Moira for a reply to Elizabeth’s question. She struggled to gather her wits sufficiently to phrase an answer but before she could utter a word, Michael Keough spoke in her place. “ ‘Tis my belief Blackjack trusts this one band of gypsies because he has close—you could almost say personal—ties with them. Is that not right, your grace?”

Moira heard the warning in his voice that told her she must do something drastic if she hoped to contain the young hotheads. He obviously knew the truth of her heritage—probably had known it for a long time, since he was the only man she had ever heard her father call his friend, and he was challenging her to divulge her secret to save her gypsy relatives from certain slaughter.

She took a deep breath and raised her hand for silence. “Michael is absolutely right,” she said. “My father knows he can trust the gypsies because his father-in-law, my grandfather, is their king, and despite rumors to the contrary no Spanish gypsy would ever harm a child. We consider children to be life’s greatest treasures.”

A stunned silence followed her startling announcement. Elizabeth’s face went white with shock and though her lips moved spasmodically, no sound emerged. Moira waited for someone else to say something but her entire staff appeared to be struck as dumb as Elizabeth. Everyone, that is except Alfie. Eye’s wide with horror, he emitted the one word that pretty well summed it up. “Gor’blimey!”

Moira rose before dawn the following morning, after a troubled, sleepless night. She had spoken to no once since, with a few curt words, she’d ordered her staff back to their duties the previous evening. The maids and footmen and grooms had crept from her presence, eyes lowered to avoid meeting her gaze and even Michael Keough had hung his head sheepishly when he’d apologized for forcing her hand and begged her to understand why he’d done it.

She had contemplated trying to talk to Elizabeth and Alfie, but decided against it. Now, with the first pale light of day brightening the horizon, she decided she was glad she had spared herself that particular agony. She simply penned a brief, impersonal note to Elizabeth explaining she had gone to fetch Charles and leaving her in charge until she returned, and left it at that.

Grimly, she dressed in one of her serviceable black gowns and matching bonnets, made her way to the kitchen to collect a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese, and then hurried on to the stables. The confession Michael Keough had compelled her to make had had one decided benefit. She would not have to face Devon with the truth she had promised him; it would undoubtedly be the first thing he heard when he returned to Cornwall. She wondered how long it would take him to remove Charles from her care. Not long, if he had the same reaction to her news as everyone else. It would be a miracle if she found any of her “loyal staff” still on duty when she returned.

The only person in the stable was a young stall mucker who was curled up on one of the benches. She left him asleep and hitched the sturdiest of the carriage horses to the little tilbury she normally used to drive about the estate while visiting the tenants. It was light and easy to handle, just what she needed for traversing the country lanes between White Oaks and the spot where her grandfather and his followers had made their camp.

The rising sun was in her eyes as she pulled away from the stable and she failed to see the small figure waiting at the edge of the yard until he hailed her. “I wants to go with you, your grace,” Alfie said, shading his eyes with his hand. “It’s only fitting since I was the one wot lost the duke, I should ‘elp bring ‘im back.”

Moira studied his pinched little face and felt her heart twist in her breast “Are you certain, Alfie, considering how you feel about the gypsies?”

“Yes, ma’am if you’ll have me, that is, after wot I said.”

Moira smiled. “I’ll have you, Alfie, and be glad of the company.”

He climbed up onto the seat beside her and they rode in silence for a few minutes before he spoke. “Lud, ma’am, truth is I never actually seen no gypsies in my whole life. Ever thin’ I said about ‘em was ‘earsay, so to speak. I should’ve twigged any story a scuttle-brained flat like the sweep told was pure claptrap.” He stared straight ahead, not meeting Moira’s eyes. “Once’t I thought on it, it come to me gypsies is prob’ly just like regular folks—some good, some bad, and some a bit of both.”

Moira managed to hide her smile. “That’s very astute reasoning, Alfie, and pretty close to the truth. Gypsies are much the same as everyone else—only more so. They laugh louder and cry harder, they love more passionately and hate more intensely and they fight at the slightest excuse.”

She glanced down at the solemn little boy beside her. “And at the first sound of music, they drop everything and dance as if their very lives depended on it. Blackjack calls them ‘dancing fools,’ but I think that’s because he’s jealous. It galls him that even the youngest gypsy child can dance circles around him.”

“Sounds like gypsies has more fun than the rest of us,” Alfie said solemnly. “But I think we’d best find the nipper soon as we can. He’s kinda shy-like. All that laughin’ and cryin’ and dancin’ would probly do the little bugger in.”

“My thought exactly,” Moira agreed, managing to keep a sober face. “In fact, I’m very much afraid a gently bred English child like Charles will find the noise and dirt and general pandemonium of a gypsy camp every bit as terrifying as being kidnapped.”

“My thought exactly,” Alfie said, perfectly mimicking the precise accent Moira had acquired through her years under the tutelage of the old duke. “It’s a good thing I come along. He trusts me, you see, and I can kinda look after ‘im whilst you hobnobs with your grandpa.”

Moira felt sentimental tears spring to her eyes, and her heart swelled with affection for the little street urchin, who had summarily discarded a lifetime of prejudice against the Rom because of his regard for her. The implied compliment was just what she needed at the moment to bolster her faltering ego. She found herself wondering if the regard Devon St. Gwyre had professed for her would stand the test—or would he turn tail and run at the first mention of her connection to the Rom?

Darkness was falling by the time they came within sight of the isolated grove of trees Moira knew to be the campsite of her gypsy relatives, and for the first time since she’d left White Oaks she allowed herself to relax. Except for the few moments when she’d stopped to share her small hoard of bread and cheese with Alfie, she’d been driving steadily since dawn. The sturdy carriage horse was near exhaustion and so was she and Alfie was already dozing in the seat beside her.

She slowed the carriage almost to a halt a short distance from the grove of trees. The familiar noises of the camp preparing for the evening meal filled her ears and a tantalizing aroma of wood smoke and rabbit stew filled her nostrils,. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. The finest chef in the most noble English household couldn’t hold a candle to her gypsy grandmother when it came to seasoning with the herbs the Great Spirit of All Nature provided for imaginative cooks. At the thought of a plate of her grandmother’s
guisado de conejo
, she eagerly urged the horse forward the last few feet to the edge of the grove.

Alfie woke the minute the little carriage came to a full stop and stared wide-eyed at the ring of swarthy, black-haired men, all with knives in their belts, who instantly surrounded it. “Lud Almighty,” he gasped, his fingers clutching Moira’s arm.

“Not to worry, they’re all my relatives,” Moira said, giving his hand a comforting pat as Juan, the eldest of her male cousins, stepped forward.

“Morita! We have been waiting for you,” he exclaimed, a smile flashing across his handsome face. “Your
gaujo
father knows you well. He predicted you would join us before this day ended.” His keen, black eyes surveyed Alfie. “And what is this you bring us? Another of your
pollitos
, mother hen?”

“This ‘little chick’ is my good friend, Alfie,” Moira said, ruffling the hair of the boy beside her. “I take it Blackjack delivered Charles safely then? Is he terribly frightened by his strange surroundings?”

“Carlito frightened?” Her cousin laughed. “The little one has the heart of a lion. I doubt he would fear
el diablo
himself if he came face to face with him. Already he is the envy of all the
niños
in the camp since it is plain to see he has captured the heart of
Deditas de Oro
. Even now he sits on the old man’s knee while they wait for their supper.”

Moira laughed. “And I was worried my fierce gypsy grandfather would terrify him.” She dropped the reins so one of her young cousins could guide the horse the rest of the way into the clearing, and massaged her stiff fingers. “What of his kidnappers? What have you done with them?”

“We tied the
asesinos
with their own ropes and threw them in the back of their wagon. The
gitano
who drives it will deliver them to the press gang we hear is prowling Plymouth now that King George’s Navy no longer dares board American ships to impress their seamen. A few years of swabbing the decks of a British warship should dampen your bumbling cutthroat’s enthusiasm for a life of crime.”

Juan chuckled. “And hopefully the
gitano
, who has been known to sell a farmer his own chickens at twice their value, will get enough money for the wagon to replenish our dwindling supply of salt and flour. I have much hope in that regard, for he has long wished to jump the broom with my youngest sister, and I have promised him my permission if he bargains wisely.

“But enough of such talk, little
mestiza
,” her handsome cousin declared. “You must be exhausted after your long drive and you will need time to rest and regain your strength. Our grandmother has been cooking all afternoon in anticipation of your arrival, and tonight there will be much singing and dancing and playing of guitars to celebrate your return to us.”

W
hite Oaks seemed strangely quiet, almost deserted, when Devon and Stamden rode through the gate at sundown on the final day of their break-neck race from London. Devon’s spirits had risen with each mile that brought him closer to Cornwall and Moira. He was satisfied he had done everything in his power to aid Wellington to defeat the Corsican, now it was time to get on with the business of settling his own future.

Moira had promised to tell him why she believed she could never marry and he would listen with all due courtesy, but he had already made up his mind that nothing she could say would make the slightest difference in his plans. He had found the one woman with whom he could envision sharing the rest of his life—the one woman he could love with every fiber of his being. He had no intention of letting anyone or anything stand in the way of making her his wife.

The door of the manor house burst open as they approached, and a wild-eyed Elizabeth tore down the steps and threw herself at Stamden as he dismounted. Devon stared at his childhood friend in surprise; she looked anything but her usual, tidy self. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair loosened from its pins, her dress wrinkled. “Oh, my lords, thank heavens you’ve returned,” she cried. “I’ve been beside myself with worry.”

Stamden tossed his reins to a waiting footman and put his arm around her. “Calm yourself, my dear. We are perfectly all right.”

“I can see that, my lord, and I’m overjoyed. But everything else is in such a horrid mess.” She burst into tears. “It was a shock, you see. I mean, I never suspected—a gypsy—and on top of Charles being kidnapped and all, it was just too much to take in and I let her leave without saying a word to her. What must she think of me?”

Devon’s fingers tightened on the reins. He had been about to dismount, but his legs suddenly felt as if they would collapse beneath him if he tried to stand on them. “Charles was kidnapped by a gypsy?” he gasped.

“No! No! He was kidnapped by those same two dreadful men who tried to kidnap him in London, but the gypsies have him now—at least I think they do, if Alfie’s story is to be believed.”

“Devil take it, woman, you’re making no sense whatsoever. How did gypsies get involved in this?” Devon asked, dismounting to stand beside his horse. “And where in God’s name is Moira?” He raised his gaze to the group of people in the doorway—John Butler, the housekeeper, the three Keough brothers—everyone except the one person he was looking for.

“She’s gone to the gypsy camp to find Charles,” Elizabeth said between sobs. “Alone. Which I cannot think wise even if her grandfather is the King of the Gypsies, because Alfie and the squire told him the camp was a good day’s journey south of here.” She burrowed her head into Stamden’s shoulder and sobbed even harder. “And she left me in charge, but now Alfie’s gone missing as well and I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you saying Moira is”—Devon swallowed hard—“a gypsy? What madness is this?” But even as he denied Elizabeth’s claim, he realized it answered the question for which there was no other plausible answer. If this final piece of the puzzle regarding Moira was meant to be a test of his love for her, it was cruelly effective. He had just managed to accustomed himself to the idea of an Irish smuggler as a father-in-law. A gypsy grandfather-in-law as well was almost beyond the pale.

He turned to Stamden, whose face bore the same befuddled expression he was certain must be mirrored on his, but before he could speak, Peter silenced him with one of his telling looks. “I think we should go inside and let Elizabeth compose herself so she can start at the beginning and tell us everything that happened before we arrive at any rash conclusions,” he said quietly but firmly.

Devon nodded his agreement, though his heart hammered with rage and despair. Silently, he followed them up the steps, past the group of servant’s gathered inside the entryway and to a small salon on the second floor. At Stamden’s urging, Elizabeth seated herself, folded her hands in her lap, and proceeded to recount the startling events of the past two days in a more orderly manner.

When she came to the part where Moira admitted her connection with the Spanish gypsies, Devon interrupted her to address Stamden. “At least I finally know the reason why she believes she could never marry me,” he said grimly.

“It would seem logical,” his friend agreed. “Can you imagine the scandal that would ensue if it became known the Earl of Langley had married a gypsy? I’m amazed the Duke of Sheffield managed to keep it quiet.” He shuddered. “Think of the trouble Quentin could cause if he got hold of such information.”

“She must have been living in constant terror that her secret would surface and Charles would be snatched away from her.” Devon pressed a hand to his forehead, momentarily covering his eyes. “My poor, brave darling. Why couldn’t she have trusted me with her secret?” He raised his head and met Stamden’s eyes. “It makes no difference. Maybe it should, but somehow it doesn’t. I don’t care who or what she is; I love her.”

Stamden nodded. “Of course you do.”

“And I must find her…and Charles immediately. I can’t depend on a band of gypsies to protect them from that devil Quentin.”

“I agree,” Stamden said. “And I will go with you.”

Devon’s heart swelled with gratitude for the loyalty and affection he read in his friend’s steady gaze, but he shook his head. “Not this time, Peter, though I thank you for the offer. This is one journey I must make alone.”

It took him close to three days to find the gypsy camp. It would have taken even longer if Stamden and he had not pored over the local maps and narrowed the possibilities to three locations. Considering the general animosity toward animosity toward gypsies, they reasoned the camp would be set in a remote wooded area where they would be hidden from the eyes of the unfriendly villagers.

There were only three such locations south of White Oaks; the first two he’d checked showed no sign that a camp had ever been made anywhere near. He reached the third, and most isolated of all, in the early afternoon of the third day, and knew instantly he had found what he sought.

A narrow, rutted trail, just wide enough for a single wagon, led into the trees, and the pungent smell of wood smoke filled his nostrils. Dismounting, he tied his stallion to a sapling at the edge of the grove. He could hear voices talking in a strange tongue and laughter and the sound of children at play.

Deciding it prudent to reconnoiter the scene before bursting upon it, he made his way stealthily through the trees. He had just reached the edge of the clearing when he felt a prick at his ribs and looking down, saw the shiny blade of a dagger in a dark-skinned hand. The gypsy wielding the knife was a head shorter than he and slender as a reed, but Devon had no desire to challenge the swiftness of his reflexes, aware it was just such a situation as this the bard had had in mind when he pronounced discretion the better part of valor. He had already seen an example of a gypsy’s skill with a knife.

“Looking for something,
gaujo
?” the gypsy asked in heavily accented English, pressing the knife a little harder against Devon’s ribs.

“I am looking for my woman,” Devon said stiffly. “Her name is Moira. I was told her grandfather was King of the Spanish Gypsies.”

The gypsy surveyed him with skeptical obsidian eyes. “The
mestiza
is your woman? I do not think so.” He shook his head and the golden rings hanging from his earlobes glittered in the bright rays of the afternoon sun. “Many clever
gitanos
have asked her to jump the broom; she has refused them all. Why would she accept a stupid
gaujo
with no better sense than to try to sneak up on a gypsy camp making the noise of ten donkeys?”

“Devil take it, I was not sneaking up on you,” Devon said, embarrassed that he’d been caught doing just that. “I was merely taking a look to make certain this was the camp where Moira was before I showed myself.”

“What think you, my brothers? Shall I cut out the heart of this golden giant who lies about our beautiful
mestiza
cousin?”

Out of the trees surrounding him, like silent black shadows, stepped three other gypsies, all brandishing knives as lethal-looking as that of Devon’s captor. “Perhaps we should ask Moira first,” the tallest one said, a wicked twinkle in his dark eyes. “Incredible as it seems, it may be the clumsy creature tells the truth. Who knows what strange tastes the woman has acquired living with the
gaujos
.”

With a wave of his knife, the tall gypsy indicated they should proceed into the clearing and Devon had no choice but to obey. A swift glance about the suddenly silent camp told him Moira was nowhere in sight, but a slender, white-haired woman who bore an uncanny resemblance to her was stirring the savory contents of a huge black iron pot that hung from a cross bar over an open fire. Beside her, on a log, sat a young woman with a babe suckling at her breast and beyond her, a group of swarthy men and a mangy-looking yellow dog lounged under a tree watching a dozen or so children at play.

Devon looked again. Under another tree, Blackjack Reardon lay sleeping peacefully and standing apart from them all and looking very much disgruntled was Alfie Duggan.

The smallest of the ragged urchins detached himself from the group and, with the others following, ran toward Devon, arms outstretched. “My lord,” he shouted, “have you come looking for us? Must we go back so soon? Alfie is not happy here, but I like it ever so much.”

“Charles?” Devon caught the bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked youngster and lifted him high in the air. “I need not ask if gypsy life agrees with you!”

“So, Carlito, you know this
gaujo
who comes among us,” the tall gypsy said, sheathing his knife.

Charles beamed. “He is the Earl of Langley, my guardian and my special friend—and Mama’s friend too,” he said when Devon set him back on the ground.

“Ah, then I suppose we shall have to let him live a little longer,” the gypsy declared, baring his strong, white teeth in a wide grin.

Charles giggle. “
Tio
Juan is always teasing. Mama says he sounds fierce but he cannot even bear to crush an ant beneath his boot.”

“And you little one, are telling tales which only those who sleep beneath my wagon should know,” the gypsy said. “Now run tell your mama that a stranger who is also a friend seeks her.”

Moments later Moira appeared in the open doorway of one of the brightly painted gypsy wagons circling the clearing. Devon caught his breath at the sight of her. A vivid red flower nestled in her waist-length black hair and her creamy throat and shoulders were bare above the deep décolletage of the bodice of her equally vivid red dress.

It was the first time he had seen her in anything but her black widow’s weeds and her vibrant beauty was so stunning he felt as if everything inside him had melted and pooled in his groin. He dropped his gaze, only to encounter a pair of trim ankles and ten bare toes beneath a swirl of snowy petticoats. The melting instantly intensified.

He despised public displays of affection, but he couldn’t help himself. As if in a trance, he moved toward her, mindless of the squealing children who scattered before him.

“Moira, my love,” he murmured in a hoarse whisper he scarcely recognized as his own voice and wrapping his fingers around the cool, smooth flesh of her upper arms, he drew her to him in a close embrace.

Moira went into his arms like a bird to its nest. She could scarcely believe it was really Devon. She had been so certain he would turn away in disgust once he knew the truth of her background. Instead, he had searched for her; he had called her his love. For one brief, ecstatic moment a happiness such as she had never expected to know swept through her. She could scarcely breathe for the sheer wonder of it…until reality set in.

Never had anyone looked more out of place than her elegant golden warrior in the colorful squalor of the gypsy camp. Never had she been so aware of the gaudy wagons or the dirt or the smell of garlic and onions mingling with the stench of the animals tethered within the circle of the busy camp. “Why have you come?” she demanded, her voice piercing the silence that engulfed the usually noisy camp.

“He says he has come for his woman, little
mestiza
,” her cousin Juan said with a chuckle. “It appears he has found her.”

Beyond Devon’s shoulder, Moira saw her grandmother put down the long-handled ladle with which she’d been stirring the cooking pot. She walked toward them with her usual graceful dignity and the rest of the gypsies instantly fell back, leaving the three of them alone beneath a giant yew tree at the edge of the clearing.

“So, granddaughter, this is the golden one of whom you spoke with such glowing words,” she said in the mixture of Romany and Spanish the gypsies call the “old language.”

“This is the one. Is he not as beautiful as I claimed?” Moira replied in kind.

“If one is partial to finches; I, myself, prefer ravens.” The old woman’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “But I feel like the old horse that pulls my wagon—in need of a pair of blinders. The fire that leaps between you is enough to singe the eyes of the beholder.”

She turned to Devon and in precise, musical English said, “Welcome to our caravan, stranger. I am
abuela
to the young woman you dare embrace before the eyes of the men of her family. A very rash thing to do.”