Claiming the Forbidden Bride (13 page)

And if he occasionally dreamed of something very different from all of those, he would endeavour to keep those dreams—which could become nothing else—to himself.

R
hys spent one night at his godfather's country estate after he left London. As he set out for home the following morning, his brother's bay again seemed almost as eager as he. Their solitary ride along sunken lanes that ran under the cathedral-like branches of the beech trees, their beauty shrouded in the morning mist, epitomized everything he'd missed about England during his long absence on the Continent.

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, it also reminded him of the days he'd spent in the Gypsy encampment. The closer he came to the area where he'd first encountered Angel, the more difficult it became to deny his feelings for her mother. Or the troubling thoughts that had haunted him after the raid.

Nadya had refused to answer his questions about her ‘daughter,' but he knew that the fair-haired child did not share her blood. Could the mystery surrounding the little girl's origin be at the root of the hatred he'd seen at work the night of the raid? If so, then they both were still at risk.

It was only as he skirted one of the villages scattered on the downs that he realized he might be able to track down
and then question at least one of the participants of that attack. There couldn't be that many Olivers living in these hamlets near the original encampment.

Most of the villages would be small, consisting of fewer than two dozen families. In each, he had no doubt he could find a gossip willing to point out any man of that name.

Once Rhys had seen that man with his own eyes, he would know whether or not he was the one who'd been pummelling Andrash that night. And if so, he thought with a sense of purpose that replaced the one his London sojourn had destroyed, he had some pummelling of his own to do.

 

No Oliver resided in either the first or second settlement Rhys visited, but in the latter someone had sent him to a nearby village where, they said, a certain Oliver Burke lived. Once there, he received direction to Burke's cottage from the first person he encountered.

The man he'd sought was sitting on a stool outside his thatch-roofed croft, smoking a pipe with a neighbour who leaned indolently against its stone wall. If there had been any doubt in Rhys's mind he'd found the right Oliver, it would have disappeared at the shock in the villager's eyes when he recognized his visitor.

Rhys dismounted in the lane and then, holding the reins of the bay, walked toward the two. He wasn't able to identify the second man as someone who'd been involved in the raid, so he turned his attention to the first, on whose jowl he could see a yellowing bruise. One Rhys was certain he'd inflicted.

Burke had forgotten to draw on the pipe he held as he'd watched Rhys approach. His gape-mouthed stare made it clear the Englishman he'd encountered in the Gypsy camp was the last person he had expected to find on his doorstep.

‘Oliver Burke?' Rhys made his inquiry in a tone that had once been reserved for disobedient subordinates.

The man swallowed. His florid face flushed a deeper crimson, but his reply was full of the same kind of bluster he'd displayed during the raid. ‘Who'd be asking for him?'

‘Major Rhys Morgan. Of His Majesty's 13
^th
Light Dragoons.' Rhys had used his rank deliberately in an attempt to create some perceived authority for his mission. ‘I'm seeking information about a recent attack on the Rom encampment in Harpsden Wood.'

The neighbour straightened, seeming to shrink away as if trying to distance himself from such an act. Even if the bully Rhys had encountered that night refused to recognize his right to ask questions, the reaction of the man with whom he'd been sharing an evening smoke indicated that the rest of the villagers would probably acknowledge it.

‘Don't know nothing about any raid.'

‘I
know
you were there.' Rhys said without a hint of uncertainty. ‘I saw you. I heard someone call you by name. That's how I found you.'

‘You be mistaken, friend. I haven't been in the Wood in more'n a year.'

‘I have no intention of disputing the point. All I want to know is
why
you went there last week.'

‘You be mistaken,' he said again. ‘Whoever you saw weren't me.' Burke raised his pipe to take a draw. If not for the tremor of his hand, the act might have been effective. As he blew out the cloud of bluish smoke, he shook his head. ‘Got nothing to tell you 'cause I know nothing about no raid.'

‘I wonder which of us the magistrates will believe.'

The man's mud-coloured eyes went dark with a sudden
fury. Then his face hardened, because he knew the answer to that as well as Rhys.

‘They be thieves, the lot of them. Honest folk got a right to protect their property.'

‘Is that what you were doing? Protecting your property by burning theirs?'

‘You never saw me light no fires. I'll call you liar if you say you did.' Burke shook his pipe to emphasize his point.

‘I saw you drive a woman and a child from their home and then pursue them into the forest.'

‘What concern be that of yours? The wench your woman? Is that why you were in their camp?'

‘I was injured, and she cared for me. I owe her my life.'

Something changed in the beefy face. ‘You went to the Rom for healing?'

‘How I came to be there isn't under discussion. How you came to be there, on the other hand…'

‘I told you. I wasn't.' The man had reverted to his original denial.

For a moment Rhys didn't react. Then, just as a malicious amusement had begun to dawn in the mud-coloured eyes, he hooked his toe under the bar at the front of the stool Burke was sitting on and jerked it from under him. The man fell backward, hitting his head on the stone wall of his own cottage.

The neighbour took the opportunity to bolt. Rhys wondered briefly if he'd gone for help. If so, he had even less time to acquire the information he'd come for.

He reached down with his right hand to pull Burke upright by the sturdy homespun of his shirt. Twisting the cloth more tightly between gloved fingers, Rhys threatened, ‘Tell me why you went to the camp that night, or I swear to you, I'll knock your head against that wall again.
And I'll keep knocking until you'll beg me to let you unburden yourself.'

If Burke had expected him to abide by any kind of gentlemanly standards, he would soon realize his mistake. After all, the villager was still a dangerous man. He was strong as an ox and had proven himself to be without scruples. And he was almost twice Rhys's weight.

‘Now tell me why you were there.' Rhys tightened his grip in preparation for carrying out his threat.

‘A swell paid me,' Burke croaked.

The information wasn't what Rhys had been expecting. For a moment, it caught him off guard.

‘Who?' he demanded.

‘Never told me his name.'

‘What did he tell you?'

‘To go to the Rom camp…and make trouble.'

The hesitation before the last indicated he was lying.

‘And you took it upon yourself to decide what kind of trouble that would be?' Disgusted, Rhys threw Burke back against the wall.

Hands against the ground, the man pushed himself upright. ‘Look here, you,' he began, trying to regain his former bluster.

In response, Rhys picked up the stool he'd overturned and, holding it by one leg, swung it back as if intending to use it. ‘I'll crack open your head if you lie to me again.'

For the first time since the confrontation began, the bully visibly cowered.

‘Who sent you?' Rhys demanded, pressing his advantage.

‘Never told me his name.' When Rhys again threatened with the stool, he lifted his forearm, holding it in front of his face. ‘That's the truth. I swear to you.'

‘You don't know him, but you were willing to do his bidding. At some risk to yourself and the others.'

‘He paid me.'

‘How much?'

‘Five guineas. And enough for drink to convince the others.'

To put them in the right frame of mind, Rhys thought bitterly. ‘And what did he pay you to do? Exactly.'

Burke's eyes considered his face and then the raised stool. ‘Find their healer and burn her out.'

Although his instincts had told him there had been some personal animosity involved in the violence he'd witnessed that night, hearing those words chilled Rhys to the bone. All the fears for Nadya's safety that she herself had belittled came flooding back.

‘Kill her, you mean?' he demanded sharply.

The man shrugged. ‘He just said to burn her tent to the ground.'

That's why so many of them had been set to the torch. And why the two caravans, which should have been their real targets, had remained untouched.

‘You didn't bother to ask why?'

‘Wasn't none of my concern, now was it?' Burke's cockiness was beginning to return.

‘If I wanted to find the man who paid you, where would I look?'

Burke shook his head. ‘Never seen him before or since.'

‘You saw him then. When he gave you the money. Tell me about him.'

Burke shrugged again. ‘Like yourself.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘Wore a neckcloth. High boots. A beaver. And the way he talked, a' course.'

It made no sense. Why would a gentleman wish to harm Nadya? Unless Rhys's first suspicion had been correct.

‘And the child? What did he tell you about the girl?'

Burke shook his head, his puzzlement seeming sincere. ‘Never said a word to me about naught but the healer.'

‘And the rest of what happened? All cover for the murder you were about?'

‘That's not all on me. They were up for it. Abram's cow took sick right after the Gypsies come back to the Wood. Everybody knows they bring bad luck. Animals sicken. Babes, too. Crops fail. No good ever came of letting them close.'

Nadya had been partially right in what she'd said that night. Any accusation, no matter how ridiculous, was enough to set off the kind of rampage Rhys had witnessed. This man might have been paid to instigate that attack, but with enough liquor, his fellows had had no qualms about joining in his mischief.

‘I ought to kill you now.' Without his conscious volition, his arm cocked the stool again.

‘Here, now,' Burke protested, his forearm poised once more to ward off the expected blow. ‘Don't do nothing you'll come to regret. You and me can strike a bargain.'

Rhys laughed. ‘What do you have to bargain with? You claim not to know the name of the man who paid you.'

‘I don't. I swear it. But mayhap I can find it out.'

‘How?'

The man's shoulders rose again in a shrug, but he didn't lower the protecting arm. ‘Go back where I met him.'

‘And where was that?'

‘The Bull and Bear.'

The Bull and Bear was an inn near Wargrave. According to the loquacious innkeeper at Buxton, it had a reputation for bad ale, damp mattresses, and travellers who awoke in the morning with sore heads and empty pockets.

‘And what would a “swell” be doing in that rathole?'

‘Looking for rats,' Burke said shrewdly.

He was right. Where else should a gentleman go to find someone willing to undertake his dirty work?

‘What makes you think he'll come back there?'

‘Don't know as he will. What I
do
know is I'm the only one who can sniff him out for you if he does. You give me your direction—'

‘And you'll come and tell me if you see him again?' Rhys laughed. ‘What kind of fool do you take me for?'

‘One who's interested in why someone would want to get rid of a Gypsy. Or have I got that wrong?'

He didn't, of course. That didn't mean Rhys trusted Burke to provide him with any information he might stumble upon.

‘I'll give you two days to discover his name.'

‘What if he don't show up in that time?'

‘Someone at the inn is bound to know him. It will be up to you to discover that person.'

‘What's in it for me if I do?'

‘More than he paid you.'

‘More than five guineas?' The thought created an avaricious gleam in the mud-coloured eyes.

‘If your life's worth more than that to you.' Rhys set the stool down. ‘Because I promise you that your life is what it will cost if you fail.'

Burke's gaze held on his a long time before he nodded agreement. Rhys had no way of knowing whether he would carry out the mission he'd been given. He might choose to disappear instead, but his property here argued against that.

For some reason he had believed Burke's claim not to know the name of the man who'd sent him. That assess
ment was based on nothing more solid than having dealt with a great number of men under stressful situations.

Yet those same instincts had served Rhys well during his years in the Army. All he could do was trust to them now.

I
n the turmoil of everything that had happened the past weeks, poor Angel had suffered the most. From the days Nadya had spent caring for Rhys to the terror of the raid and through the tribe's forced relocation, the little girl, who had few emotional reserves to begin with, had experienced the kind of disruption that would have proven a disaster only a few short months ago.

Other than her obvious distress on the night of the attack, she had somehow managed to weather those storms, which had shaken even the adults. Nadya knew, however, that the fragile fabric of trust she'd worked so hard to create must, to some extent at least, have been damaged.

With Rhys and Stephano both gone and the injuries the tribe had incurred during the attack now healing, she had directed her full attention to reassuring Angel that nothing had changed about the love that would always be her due. Every sunny afternoon found the two of them in one of the meadows near the clearing where the
kumpania
was encamped.

Today Nadya had spread her shawl over the grass. She sat, the book in her hand forgotten, watching her daughter
run in ever-increasing circles around her. Angel was apparently pretending to be a bird, arms spread wide in the autumn sunshine.

Too few fine days like this remained before the rain and the cold would drive them back inside, Nadya thought with a sigh. And there, despite all her attempts at exorcism, the ghost of a tall, fair Englishman still haunted her.

As she had so often during the last week, she tried to change the direction of her thoughts. She turned her head, looking at the nearby beeches whose leaves had begun to shade toward bronze with the drop in temperature.

After a moment, her eyes returned to the field before her. For an instant her heart faltered, until she spotted the small figure she sought. Angel was no longer running in circles. Instead, as straight as an arrow's flight, the child headed toward a solitary horseman who had just appeared on the horizon.

Nadya scrambled to her feet, shading her eyes with her hand as she tried to make out his identity. Not Stephano. The gloss of the horse's hide wasn't midnight black.

By that time she, too, had begun to run, her longer stride eating up the distance between her and her daughter. At some point she realized that the rider had spurred his mount, so that he, too, was racing toward the little girl.

And despite any effort she could make, he would reach her long before Nadya could.

Her every instinct screamed danger. Rhys's questions about Angel echoed in her head as she ran.

The rider pulled up just as it seemed the flashing hooves of his mount would strike the child. He dismounted almost before the bay had stopped, scooping up the laughing child to toss her high into the air.

The afternoon sun glinted off chestnut hair, tousled now
by the small fingers that gripped it.
Not Stephano
, Nadya thought again, although Angel's reception had been as enthusiastic as that normally reserved for her uncle.

Nadya's steps had gradually slowed with each realization. Now she walked, trying to control her breathing as she combed trembling fingers through her own disordered curls.

Not only had Angel's recognition preceded her own, the child's surety about her reception seemed unhampered by doubt or misgivings. Nadya's was not. She had sent Rhys away, knowing in her heart that, in spite of what she felt for him, it was best for both of them.

Now, after she had begun to gain some small measure of peace with that decision, he was back. Looking at her as if he, too, were unsure of his welcome.

As the man and child watched her approach, Nadya fought to remember all the good reasons Stephano had given her for sending the Englishman away. Seeing Angel's arms wrapped confidently around his neck, none of them seemed convincing.

‘At least she wasn't running toward an edge this time,' Rhys said as he smiled at her.

‘What are you doing here?' Her question sounded almost hostile. Certainly unwelcoming. Nothing that mirrored the emotions clamouring in her breast.

Rhys's smile faded. He set Angel down, and she immediately began circling them, arms once more outstretched as if in flight. He watched a moment before he looked up at Nadya.

She'd almost forgotten the effect he had on her senses. Temporarily as mute as her daughter, she could think of nothing to say that might mitigate the harshness of her question.

Not until he answered it. ‘I came to warn you.'

‘To warn me? About what?'

‘I located the man who led the raid. His name is Oliver Burke.' He looked as if he expected it to mean something to her.

She shook her head, uncertain what response he'd expected.

‘You don't know him?' he prodded.

‘I don't think so. Should I?'

‘He says he was paid to instigate the villagers into attacking the camp.'

‘
Paid
? By whom?'

‘He claims not to know the man's name. Only that he's a gentleman.'

‘But…' She shook her head again. Rhys was acting as if the information should mean something to her, and it didn't.

‘He says the man instructed him to burn your tent.'

That tracked with the questions they'd asked of Andrash. Yet none of it made sense.

‘But…why? What possible reason…?' The question faltered at what she saw in his face.

‘All he was told was that you were to be “burned out.” He claims not to have been given a reason.'

Despite the slurs she and her people had suffered through the years, despite the misgivings both Rhys and Andrash had already expressed, for the first time in Nadya's life she was faced with the sure knowledge that someone meant her harm.

‘Won't you tell me now about Angel?' Rhys asked softly.

‘She's my daughter. That's all you need to know.'

‘But not your blood.'

‘Is that what makes a child belong to someone? Their blood?' she demanded fiercely. ‘If that's what you believe, you know nothing about the love a mother feels for her child.'

‘You're right. I don't. But I do know about men's hatred. I'm trying to protect you from whoever planned that assault. I can't do that unless you tell me the truth.'

‘I'm not your concern. Neither my safety nor my life.'

‘Why not? You saved mine.'

‘I absolve you of whatever indebtedness you feel because of it. You owe me nothing. Leave it alone, Rhys. Leave us alone.' She turned, intending to pick up her daughter and carry her back to camp. Where they belonged.

Rhys gripped her elbow, pulling her around to face him. ‘Does Angel belong to someone else, Nadya? Did you take her because you wanted a daughter? Is that what you're afraid of?'

‘You think I stole her?' Furious, she wrenched free. ‘That's what Gypsies do, isn't it? You heard those stories at your nursemaid's knee, didn't you? Along with the other fairy tales she told you.'

‘If not that, then what? What's this all about?'

‘Nothing. Nothing that's any of your concern.'

‘You made it my concern when you asked me to help Andrash. And when you trusted me enough to put Angel into my arms.'

She couldn't argue with that. She had drawn him more deeply into the events of that night. How could she now pretend he didn't have the right to ask these questions?

‘Whatever they wanted had nothing to do with Angel, that I promise you.' Even that was a concession she resented having to make. She shouldn't have to deny his accusations. He should know her better than that by now.

‘Since you seemed to be their primary target, how can you be so sure that it had nothing to do with her?'

‘Because Angel belongs to me.'

His lips tightened. ‘Saying she belongs to you doesn't
change the fact that she isn't your daughter. All anyone has to do is look at her to know that. She isn't yours, Nadya. Lying doesn't change that reality.'

‘I'm not lying. She's mine, Rhys, because I bought her.'

His silence lasted so long she could hear the sound of Angel's skirts brushing against the tall grass as she circled them. A bird called from the nearby woods. And still he didn't speak.

‘You…bought her?' Rhys finally repeated, his eyes full of disbelief. ‘You can't buy a child. Not an English one.'

‘It would be different, I suppose, if she were a blacka-moor? Or a Rom?'

‘But she isn't,' he said, ignoring the question at the heart of her argument. ‘She's English. An English child. You can't own her as if she's some…piece of chattel.'

‘I can if I outbid everyone else.' Even now she felt the horror she'd experienced as she'd watched that frenzied bidding.

‘Are you saying someone put Angel up for auction?'

‘Her father. And the other bidders were all men, Rhys.' His face had begun to change, but now that she'd started, she couldn't prevent the flow of words. Or the memories they evoked. ‘As he said, what else is she good for? She can't learn a trade. She can't follow instructions. She can't even become someone's servant.'

She watched the realization of what had been about to happen to Angel dawn in Rhys's eyes. His reaction was the same horror that had driven her to outbid them all, spending almost the entire amount the sale of her father's gems and precious metals had brought.

And she had never begrudged a shilling of it.

‘So whatever the motives behind the attack,' she finished quietly, ‘believe me, it had nothing to do with Angel. I can
assure you her father was more than pleased with the bargain he'd struck.'

‘Where?'

‘What can that matter? It's finished. He isn't sending anyone to search for me. Or for her. If anything, he's looking over his shoulder, afraid I'll be sorry of my bargain and try to return her when I find out she's both deaf and mute.'

His mouth closed, his lips tightening against the emotions those images had evoked. His gaze found the child, still lost in her fantasy world, oblivious to the argument of the two adults she circled.

‘Then why?' he asked, his eyes coming back to meet hers. ‘Why would someone have sent Burke—'

‘I don't know. Maybe…'

‘What?' he demanded when she paused.

‘Magda's the one who deals with the
gadje
. Maybe someone had us confused.'

‘But you're the healer.'

‘A
drabarni
can also be one who deals in potions. Maybe…' She shrugged.

‘May I talk to her?'

‘To Magda?' Despite the seriousness of his expression, she smiled at the idea. ‘She won't talk to you. But I can tell you Magda would be flattered to believe someone has a grudge against her.'

‘And pleased to hear that because of it, they were out to harm you?'

‘No, of course not. I'm not sure she'd believe that, even if I told her. Magda places too much emphasis on the role fate plays in our lives.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘If you fight against what's supposed to happen, you risk not only your future, but your health and happiness.'

‘Surely she wouldn't believe you're fated to come to harm.'

It was difficult to explain to someone like Rhys her grandmother's fatalism. If Magda had an enemy, she would avoid any situation in which that person might take advantage of her or do her injury. But she would also believe that enemy had been put in her life to test her courage or her wits. Or even to cause her to follow a certain path or drive her to a particular action.

‘She wouldn't want that, but to Magda, everything happens for a reason. Even bad things.'

‘Then ask her if she has any reason to think she's created an enmity strong enough to cause someone to want to harm her.'

‘I'll talk to her,' Nadya promised.

She would, if only because she valued Magda's counsel. And also because what Rhys had told her put Angel at risk.

She turned to locate the little girl, realizing for the first time that she was no longer pretending to fly. Instead she was sitting cross-legged on the ground, holding one of the beech leaves up to catch the rays of the sinking sun.

‘We have to get back before Magda begins to wonder about us. Are you returning to your godfather's?'

Rhys shook his head. ‘Actually, I was on my way home when I realized that I might be able to locate Burke, simply by asking a few questions.'

‘Home? To your brother's house?'

‘I'll break my journey at Buxton tonight, but yes, I'm returning to Edward's. I'll escort you back to camp first.' He nodded toward the bay, contentedly cropping grass.

‘I don't think that's a good idea.'

‘Your half-brother's still there?'

‘Stephano left shortly after you. It isn't that. It's…
Andrash heard Stephano send you away. If you come back, it will seem as if I'm disobeying him.'

She had ignored Stephano's orders to get rid of the
gaujo
before, but those had been given in private. At the time, she had believed the health of her patient should come before a stricture she couldn't see any reason for. Now, for her own peace of mind, it would be better if Rhys were gone.

‘I won't stay. Not if it will make things difficult for you. After what Burke told me, however, I'll feel better if I see you safely back.'

‘We've come here every day since you left,' she protested. ‘No one's bothered us. Why would today be any different?'

‘Maybe they don't know where you're camped. That isn't to say whoever hired Burke doesn't have someone looking.'

If she'd been alone, Nadya would have continued to refuse. But Angel's safety was more important than her feelings about this man she'd already admitted was beyond her reach.

Rhys walked over to where the little girl was still examining the effect of sunlight on the webbed tissue of the fallen leaf. He stooped, balancing in front of her, exactly as Stephano had done.