Mine Till Midnight (17 page)

Cam shrugged. “It’s freedom.”

Westcliff shook his head. “If you want land, you have the means to purchase large amounts of it. If you want horses, you can buy a string of Thoroughbreds and hunters. If you want—”

“That’s not freedom. How much of your time is spent directing estate affairs, investments, companies, having meetings with agents and brokers, traveling to Bristol and London?”

Westcliff looked affronted. “Are you telling me in earnest that you are considering giving up your employment, your ambitions, your future … in favor of traveling the earth in a
vardo?
”

“Yes. I’m considering it.”

Westcliff’s coffee-colored eyes narrowed. “And you think after years of living a productive life in London that you would adjust happily to an existence of aimless wandering?”

“It’s the life I was meant for. In your world, I’m nothing but a novelty.”

“A damned successful novelty. And you have the opportunity to be a representative for your people—”

“God help me.” Cam had begun to laugh helplessly. “If it ever comes to that, I should be shot.”

The earl picked up the silver letter seal from the corner of his desk, examining the engraved base of it with undue concentration. He used the edge of his thumbnail to remove a hardened droplet of sealing wax that had marred the polished surface. Cam was not deceived by Westcliff’s sudden diffidence.

“One can’t help but notice,” the earl murmured, “that while you’re considering a change in your entire way of life, you also seem to have taken a conspicuous interest in Miss Hathaway.”

Cam’s expression didn’t change, the barrier of his smile firmly fixed. “She’s a beautiful woman. I’d have to be blind not to notice her. But that’s hardly going to change my future plans.”

“Yet.”

“Ever,” Cam returned, pausing as he heard the unnecessary intensity of his own voice. He adjusted his tone at once. “I’ve decided to leave in two days, after St. Vincent and I confer on a few matters regarding the club. It’s not likely I’ll see Miss Hathaway again.” Thank God, he added privately.

The handful of encounters he’d had with Amelia Hathaway were uniquely troubling. Cam couldn’t recall when, if ever, he had been so affected by a woman. He was not one to involve himself in other peoples’ affairs. He was loath to give advice, and he spent little time considering problems that didn’t directly concern him. But he was irresistibly drawn to Amelia. She was so deliciously serious-minded, so busy trying to manage everyone in her sphere, it was an ungodly temptation to distract her. Make her laugh. Make her play. And he could, if he wished. Knowing that made it all the more difficult to stay away from her.

The tenacious connections she had formed with the others in her family, the extent she would go to take care of them … that appealed to him on an instinctual level. The Rom were like that. Tribal. And yet Amelia was his opposite in the most essential ways, a creature of domesticity who would insist on putting down roots. Ironic, that he should be so fascinated by someone who represented everything he needed to escape from.

*   *   *

It seemed the entire county turned out for the Mop Fair, which according to tradition had been held every October the twelfth for at least a hundred years. The village, with its tidy shops and white and black thatched cottages, was almost absurdly charming. Crowds milled about the distinctive oval village green or strolled along the main thoroughfare where a multitude of temporary stalls and booths had been erected. Vendors sold penny toys, foodstuffs, bags of salt from Lymington, glassware and fabrics, and pots of local honey.

The music of singers and fiddlers was punctuated by bursts of applause as entertainers performed tricks for passers-by. Most of the work-hiring had been done earlier in the day, with hopeful laborers and apprentices standing in lines on the village green, talking to potential employers. After an agreement was made, a fasten-penny was given to the newly hired servant, and the rest of the day was spent in merrymaking.

Merripen had gone in the morning to find two or three suitable servants for Ramsay House. With that business concluded, he returned to the village in late afternoon, accompanied by the entire Hathaway family. They were all delighted by the prospect of music, food, and entertainment. Leo promptly disappeared with a pair of village women, leaving his sisters in Merripen’s charge.

Browsing among the stalls, the sisters feasted on hand-sized pork pies, leek pasties, apples and pears, and to the girls’ delight, “gingerbread husbands.” The gingerbread had been pressed into wooden man-shaped molds, baked and gilded. The baker at the stall assured them that every unmarried maiden must eat a gingerbread husband for luck, if she wanted to catch the real thing someday.

A laughing mock argument sprang up between Amelia and the baker as she flatly refused one for herself, saying she had no wish to marry.

“But of course you do!” the baker declared with a sly grin. “It’s what every woman hopes for.”

Amelia smiled and passed the gingerbread men to her sisters. “How much for three, sir?”

“A farthing each.” He attempted to hand her a fourth. “And this for no charge. It would be a sad waste for a lovely blue-eyed lady to go without a husband.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Amelia protested. “Thank you, but I don’t—”

A new voice came from behind her. “She’ll take it.”

Discomfiture and pleasure seethed low in her body, and Amelia saw a dark masculine hand reaching out, dropping a silver piece into the baker’s upturned palm. Hearing her sisters’ giggling exclamations, Amelia turned and looked up into a pair of bright hazel eyes.

“You need the luck,” Cam Rohan said, pushing the gingerbread husband into her reluctant hands. “Have some.”

She obeyed, deliberately biting off the head, and he laughed. Her mouth was filled with the rich flavor of molasses and the melting chewiness of gingerbread on her tongue.

Glancing at Rohan, she thought he should have had at least one or two flaws, some irregularity of skin or structure … but his complexion was as smooth as dark honey, and the lines of his features were razor-perfect. As he bent his head toward her, the perishing sun struck brilliant spangles in the dark waves of his hair.

Managing to swallow the gingerbread, Amelia mumbled, “I don’t believe in luck.”

Rohan smiled. “Or husbands, apparently.”

“Not for myself, no. But for others—”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll marry anyway.”

“Why do you say that?”

Before replying, Rohan cast a look askance at the Hathaway sisters, who were smiling benevolently upon them. Merripen, on the other hand, was scowling.

“May I steal your sister away?” Rohan asked the rest of the Hathaways. “I need to speak with her on some apiary matters.”

“What does that mean?” Beatrix asked, taking the headless gingerbread husband from Amelia.

“I suspect Mr. Rohan is referring to our bee room,” Win replied with a grin, gently urging her sisters to come away with her. “Come, let’s see if we can find a stall with embroidery silks.”

“Don’t go far,” Amelia called after them, more than a little amazed by the speed at which her family was abandoning her. “Bea, don’t pay for something without bargaining first, and Win…” Her voice trailed away as they scattered among the stalls without listening. Only Merripen gave her a backward glance, glowering over his shoulder.

Seeming to enjoy the sight of Merripen’s annoyance, Rohan offered Amelia his arm. “Walk with me.”

She could have objected to the soft-voiced command, except this was probably the last time she would see him for a long while, if ever. And it was difficult to resist the beguiling gleam of his eyes.

“Why did you say I would marry?” she asked as they moved through the crowd at a relaxed pace. It did not escape her that many gazes strayed to the handsome Roma dressed like a gentleman.

“It’s written on your hand.”

“Palm-reading is a sham. And men don’t read palms. Only women.”

“Just because we don’t,” Rohan replied cheerfully, “doesn’t mean we can’t. And anyone could see your marriage line. It’s as clear as day.”

“Marriage line? Where is it?” Amelia took her hand from his arm and scrutinized her own palm.

Rohan drew her with him beneath the shade of a bulky beech tree on the edge of the green. Crowds milled across the cropped oval, while the last few swags of sunlight crumpled beneath the horizon. Torches and lamps were already being lit in anticipation of evening.

“This one,” Rohan said, taking her left hand, turning it palm upward.

Amelia’s fingers curled as a wave of embarrassment went through her. She should have been wearing gloves, but her best pair had been stained, and her second-best pair had a hole in one of the fingers, and she hadn’t yet managed to buy new ones. To make matters worse, there was a scab on the side of her thumb where she’d gashed it on the edge of a metal pail, and her nails had been filed childishly short after she’d broken them. It was the hand of a housemaid, not a lady. For one wistful moment she wished she had hands like Win’s, pale, long-fingered, and elegant.

Rohan stared for a moment. As Amelia tried to pull away, he closed his hand more firmly around hers. “Wait,” she heard him murmur.

She had no choice but to let her fingers relax into the warm envelope of his hand. A blush raced over her as she felt his thumb nuzzle into her palm and stroke outward until all her fingers were lax and open.

His quiet voice seemed to collect at some hidden pleasure center at the base of her skull. “Here.” His fingertip brushed over a horizontal line at the base of her little finger. “Only one marriage. It will be a long one. And these…” He traced a trio of small vertical notches that met the marriage line. “It means you’ll have at least three children.” He squinted in concentration. “Two girls and a boy. Elizabeth, Jane, and … Ignatius.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Ignatius?”

“After his father,” he said gravely. “A very distinguished bee farmer.”

The spark of teasing in his eyes made her pulse jump. She took his hand and inspected the palm. “Let me see yours.”

Rohan kept his hand relaxed, but she felt the power of it, bone and muscle flexing subtly beneath sun-glazed skin. His fingers were well tended, the nails scrupulously clean and pared nearly to the quick. Gypsies were fastidious, even ritualistic in their washing. The family had long been amused by Merripen’s views on what constituted proper cleanliness, his preference to wash in flowing water rather than soak in a bath.

“You have an even deeper marriage line than I do,” Amelia said.

He responded with a single nod, his gaze not moving from her face.

“And you’ll have three children as well … or is it four?” She touched a nearly imperceptible line etched near the side of his hand.

“Only three. The one on the side means I’ll have a very short betrothal.”

“You’ll likely be prodded to the altar by the end of some outraged father’s rifle.”

He grinned. “Only if I kidnap my fiancée from her bedroom.”

She studied him. “I find it difficult to imagine you as a husband. You seem too solitary.”

“Not at all. I’ll take my wife everywhere with me.” His fingers caught playfully at her thumb, as if he’d caught a wisp of dandelion thistle. “We’ll travel in a
vardo
from one side of the world to the other. I’ll put gold rings on her fingers and toes, and bracelets on her ankles. At night I’ll wash her hair and comb it dry by the firelight. And I’ll kiss her awake every morning.”

Amelia averted her gaze from him, her cheeks turning blood-hot and sensitive. She moved away, needing to walk, anything to break the flushing intimacy of the moment. He fell into step beside her as they crossed the village green.

“Mr. Rohan … why did you leave your tribe?”

“I’ve never been quite certain.”

She glanced at him in surprise.

“I was ten years old,” he said. “For as long as I could remember, I traveled in my grandparents’
vardo.
I never knew my parents—my mother died in childbirth, and my father was an Irish
gadjo.
His family rejected his marriage and convinced him to abandon my mother. I don’t think he ever knew she’d had a child.”

“Did anyone try to tell him?”

“I don’t know. They may have decided it wouldn’t have changed anything. According to my grandparents, he was a young man”—he flashed a brief, mischievous smile in her direction—“and immature even for a
gadjo.
One day my grandmother dressed me in a new shirt she had made, and told me I had to leave the tribe. She said I was in danger and could no longer live with them.”

“What kind of danger? From what source?”

“She wouldn’t say. An older cousin of mine—his name was Noah—took me to London and helped me find a situation and a job. He promised to come back for me someday and tell me when it was safe to go home.”

“And in the meantime you worked at the gaming club?”

“Yes, old Jenner hired me as a listmaker’s runner.” Rohan’s expression softened with reminiscent fondness. “In many ways he was like a father to me. Of course, he was quick-tempered and a bit too ready with his fists. But he was a good man. He looked out for me.”

“It couldn’t have been easy for you,” Amelia said, feeling compassion for the boy he had been, abandoned by his family and obliged to make his own way in the world. “I wonder that you didn’t try to run back to your tribe.”

“I had promised I wouldn’t.” Seeing a leaf fluttering down from an overhead tree branch, Rohan reached upward, the clever fingers plucking it from the air as if by sleight of hand. He brought the leaf to his nose, inhaling its sweetness, and gave it to her.

“I stayed at the club for years,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Waiting for Noah to come back for me.”

Amelia chafed the crisply pliant skin of the leaf between the pads of her fingers. “But he never did.”

Rohan shook his head. “Then Jenner died, and his daughter and son-in-law took possession of the club.”

“You’ve been treated well in their employ?”

“Too well.” A frown swept across his forehead. “They started my good-luck curse.”