The Present (13 page)

It was too much to hope, really, that they would continue to get along perfectly, yet a few days or weeks wouldn't have been too much to expect—rather than the time it took them to walk downstairs that morning.

Thinking back on it, Christopher allowed that he could have been more tactful. But guarding his words was simply not his habit, especially among his friends. Who else, after all, would he feel like bragging to about his splendid acquisition than his closest friends?

Walter and David were that, but he could have wished they hadn't appeared in the hallway below just as he was coming down the stairs, Anastasia's hand in his, though she was a few steps behind him. And both men couldn't help but notice them, of course, when that flashy gold skirt of hers was like a beacon in the dark.

"What's this?" David asked, eyeing Anastasia, though his question was for Christopher. "So that's where you went off to last night?"

"Taking her back to her camp?" Walter surmised, then with a grin, "We'll come along."

"Not exactly," Christopher corrected. "I'll take her later to collect her belongings, but she'll be staying with me from now on. She's agreed to let me keep her."

"Oh, I say, d'you think that's wise, Kit?" David asked. "She's not exactly typical mistress material."

Anastasia yanked her hand out of Christopher's at that point, but with David's remark in his mind, he barely noticed. "What has typical got to do with it?" he asked. "I've had 'typical,' David, and lose interest in it in a matter of days, same as you do. Which certainly won't be the case with my Anna here. Besides, I didn't ask her to be my mistress to introduce her to society, so it hardly matters whether she's typical or unique, now does it?"

"Er, not to be the bearer of dire tidings, old chum," Walter remarked. "But I'd say your Anna is about to take your head off—metaphorically speaking."

Christopher spun around just in time to receive a resounding slap across his cheek and watch Anastasia hike her skirt and run back up the stairs. "What the devil was that for?" he called after her.

But she didn't stop, and a moment later he heard the door slam shut to his room. The entire house likely heard it, actually.

"Bloody hell," he muttered.

Behind him, David was tactfully coughing into his hand, but Walter was outright chuckling. "No, indeed, nothing typical about that a'tall. Though it might help you to know, Kit, that she began frowning as soon as David introduced the subject of mistresses."

"Sure, blame it on me," David grumbled.

Christopher ignored his friends and marched back to his room. The door wasn't locked against him. He found Anastasia stuffing a few things that had been left out of her satchel back into it.

He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. He wasn't angry, but he was certainly annoyed, and not just a little confused. A mistress had no conceivable reason to get upset at being called a mistress.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "And why the devil did you hit me?"

She paused long enough to glare at him. "I did not take you for a fool, Christopher Malory. Do not pretend to be one now."

"I beg your pardon?" he replied stiffly.

"As well you should," she snapped. "But you are not forgiven!"

"I wasn't asking to be. If I said anything wrong, I'm bloody well damned if I know what it was. So why don't you tell me what you objected to, then perhaps—perhaps, mind you—I will apologize."

Her face flushed furiously. "I take it back, Gap, you are a fool." She marched toward him. "Get out of my way. I am going home."

He didn't move away from the door. He did grab her shoulders to keep her in front of him, though he refrained, just barely, from shaking her.

"You aren't going anywhere until you at least explain yourself. You owe me that much."

Her lovely cobalt eyes flared. "I owe you nothing after what you just did!"

"What did I do?"

"You not only let those men insult me, but you stood there and did exactly the same thing. How could you speak of me like that? How could you?!"

He sighed at that point. "Those are my closest friends, Anastasia. Do you think I wouldn't be proud to show you off to them?"

"Show me off? I am not a toy. You didn't purchase me. And I am not your mistress!"

"The devil you aren't," he snapped, but then ho paused and frowned. "Don't tell me I forgot to ask you last night. That's why I went back to your camp. Why else would you be here, unless I asked you and you accepted?"

"Oh, you asked me," she said in a soft, furious whisper. "And this was my answer."

For the second time, she slapped him. His face turned quite red this time, and not just from the slap. Now he was angry.

"Do not hit me again, Anna. It was a natural assumption for me to make, that you had agreed to be my mistress, particularly since I woke up to find you lying naked in my bed. Blister it, you even said you agreed. I distinctly remember you saying so this morning. What the devil did you agree to, if not that?"

"You have only to recall what I told you was the only way you could have me, and you'd have your answer. I'm not your mistress, I'm your wife!"

"The devil you are!"

It was probably because he looked so horrified that she shoved her way past him and out the door. That he was utterly horrified was why he stood there in complete bemusement, rather than try to stop her. He just couldn't believe that, drunk or not, he would so totally ignore the strictures of his class. A marquis did not marry a common Gypsy, well, not so common, but still a Gypsy, well, half Gypsy, but still ... it just wasn't done.

She was obviously lying, a ruse to trick him into thinking that he'd married her, and she'd been able to do it because he got so sotted with drink last night that he couldn't remember what he'd done. Of all the bloody nerve, and especially when he only had to demand some proof and she'd have to fess up that she'd lied, since there wouldn't be any proof. He would have thought she was more intelligent than that, to think she could get away with it. Some of his fast-rising rage stemmed from disappointment in her.

He went after her. She'd already left the house. He just barely spotted that bright skirt disappearing into the woods quite some distance away. It was too far for him to catch up to her on foot, though, so he ran to his stable.

She was no more than halfway to her camp when his stallion came galloping up behind her and was yanked to a rearing stop a bit in front of her. She ignored him and the beast and continued her march, merely veering around him. It was an easy matter to move the horse in front of her again, and again, until she got the idea and stopped.

He extended a hand to her, to lift her up. When she just stared at it, he explained, "I took you away from your camp last night, I'll return you to it today. It's the gentlemanly thing to do."

She snorted. "How convenient, to play the gentleman only when it suits you."

That was a serious insult that had him retaliating in kind. "I wouldn't expect a Gypsy to grasp the intricacies of the nobility."

She raised a brow at him. "Is that a roundabout way of saying that the intricacies of common courtesy are beyond the grasp of the nobility?"

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"Don't bother. I already mentioned that you won't be forgiven, didn't I?"

He gritted his teeth. "That's a blasted phrase that requests an explanation when delivered in that tone, not a request for forgiveness!"

"Is it indeed? When a simple 'what' would have gotten the point across without causing confusion? Another one of those subtle 'intricacies' understood only by you lordly types, I suppose?"

He rolled his eyes and said in a weary tone, "You are being obtuse, Anastasia."

She matched his tone and added a sigh. "And you are being dense, Lord Englishman, or have you not grasped yet that I have nothing further to say to you?"

He stiffened. "Very well, but before we part, I would like to know how you thought you could possibly convince me that I had married you."

"Convince you?" She laughed unpleasantly. "There is probably a paper in your coat pocket with our signatures on it, unless you managed to lose it last night. But then you could always ask the Reverend Biggs—I believe that was the name he supplied. You threatened to beat him to within an inch of his life if he didn't marry us, and poor man, he quite believed you. So do whatever needs doing to unmarry us. There will be no need to inform me when it is done, since I have no doubt whatsoever that you will see to it posthaste."

She was able to walk away from him again, because again, she'd rendered him quite beyond speech.

She wasn't going to cry. He was an insensitive beast, an arrogant wretch, and as he might put it, a "bloody" snob. But she wasn't going to cry. She had seen his confusion and wanted to help him. She had seen his pain and wanted to heal it. She had seen his emptiness and wanted to fill him with happiness instead. But she hadn't seen that he could be so foolish as to put the opinions of others before his own needs. She hadn't seen that he would sacrifice his own happiness because "it just wasn't done."

It was appalling, to have been so wrong about him, and worse, to let her own emotions take over. Her heart wasn't supposed to get so involved—yet. She shouldn't be devastated that he couldn't stand the thought of being married to her, when she'd known from the start that he felt that way—when he wasn't drunk. Drunk, he let his heart guide him. Drunk, nothing was going to stand in the way of what he wanted, certainly not his silly "it just wasn't done."

Anastasia entered the camp blindly, her mind too filled with misery to notice Nicolai until he caught her arm and painfully jerked her around to face him. His fingers would leave bruises. She was always left with bruises whenever he touched her.

"Where did you spend the night?" he demanded.

She should have been wise enough to lie, especially since he looked quite furious, but with her emotions in such turmoil already, it was defiance that reared its ugly head. Chin raised, she answered, "With my husband."

The slap was not unexpected. Even the brutality of it that sent her to the ground was no more than typical of Nicolai. Anastasia tossed her hair out of the way and glared up at him balefully.

"Perhaps you did not hear me correctly, Nico. I was with my husband, the Gajo I married last night, the Gajo who will see you end up in an English prison if you ever lay a hand on me again."

He looked suitably uncertain, as she had hoped he would. He even paled slightly at the mention of prison, since most Gypsies would rather die than be locked up for any length of time. Yet he still doubted her, and with good reason.

"You are promised to me!" he reminded her. "You would not dare marry another."

"Promised to you, but not by me, never by me. You were never my choice, Nico, nor would I have ever agreed to marry you. I would have chosen anyone other than you, whom we both know I hate. Yet I chose for love instead, yes, love, a concept you know nothing about!"

He would have hit her again if she weren't lying on the ground, out of his immediate reach. And they had gathered an audience, not close, but just about everyone in the camp was listening and watching, including his father—including Maria, who was approaching them as fast as her old bones allowed. She did not usually witness Anastasia's confrontations with Nicolai. This one had her enraged.