Temptation of the Warrior Page 6

  When the constables received no cooperation, they took the liberty of splitting up to wander through the camp. They used their batons to lift piles of rags, rugs, buckets…whatever debris they found lying about, as though Jenny might be hiding underneath. As unobtrusively as possible, she joined an old woman near a fire, crouching down beside her. The woman handed her the pipe she was smoking. Jenny took it between her teeth, but did not pull any of the acrid smoke into her mouth.

  The children generally made pests of themselves. The old woman with the pipe began to scratch herself. So did Rupa, who sat on a thick tree stump near her own caravan. All the other Gypsies, who stood observing the proceedings, joined in, scratching their heads, their armpits and groins.

  Their tactic worked. The constables were clearly unnerved by the prospect of taking home fleas or lice, and with the added nuisance of the begging children, the two men quickly took their leave. They admonished Bardo to bring the criminal teacher to Bresland if they ever came across her.

  Jenny might have laughed aloud at such blatant aspersions on her character, but the implication of the constables’ visit was grim. The headmaster had accused her of thievery. Hadn’t he done enough to her over the years? Since she’d grown up, he’d left her alone physically, though his verbal insults had never stopped. She did not understand why her departure rankled so much. She’d have thought he’d be glad to see the last of her.

  She tried to recall if she’d mentioned Darbury to anyone at Bresland. If someone had gone into her room and looked through her things, he might have found her letter from Darbury. But surely that was unlikely, so Usher would have no idea where to look for her. Once she went into Carlisle, no one would be able to find her.

  With the constables’ visit, Jenny felt a renewed urgency to get going. Moving at the Gypsies’ slow pace was not going to serve her well. Yet if the authorities persisted in looking for her, she might be better off hidden here in plain sight.

  “You shake your head, missus,” said Bardo. “You steal from school?”

  Jenny denied it passionately. “Of course not! The headmaster is a hateful, vindictive…” She clenched her teeth at the thought of all those dark and dismal years at Bresland. No child should have to bear such mistreatment, yet the pupils at Reverend Usher’s school were forgotten innocents. It seemed that the headmaster answered to no one. Jenny firmly believed that he should be thrashed for his cruel practices, yet a beating would hardly teach him the error of his ways.

  “The headmaster is angry that I left the school. I am certain he only wants me back in order to have the last word.”

  Bardo shrugged. “He is gajo, no?” As though that explained everything.

  Kaulo brought the chart of letters to Jenny and handed it to her. “I have learn letters,” he said, dismissing the constables’ visit as inconsequential. “Now I read. Show me.”

  “My nephew has big hurry to know gajo ways,” said Bardo, tossing an indulgent grin in Kaulo’s direction. “We keep him happy. Have more lesson.”

  Jenny went along, even though she thought Tekari Kaulo should not be indulged quite so much.

  Matthew knew he must be asleep, but he could not pull himself away from the all-too-real images and the urgent voices in his dream.

  “You must make haste!” cried the beautiful, young, red-haired woman dressed in a flowing tunic of àilean green.

  Matthew pulled her into his embrace and allowed her to weep against his chest. The dream room looked vaguely familiar, with walls paneled in rich, dark wood, and windows that spanned from floor to ceiling, looking out over tall, rugged cliffs. Huge, magnificent birds with sharp beaks swooped over the water in search of prey.

  He did not want to leave the place, yet he knew he could not delay. He had to go quickly. Ana and the others needed…

  His head pounded, and the pain blinded him. Whatever it was that they needed, he could not see it. He could not understand why Ana was weeping, only that he felt her unbearable sadness to the depths of his soul.

  But he knew not why.

  “Matthew.”

  He opened his eyes, and the images of sleep left him, replaced by the sight of his lovely Jenny in her colorful Gypsy clothes. She sat down beside him, her brow furrowed with worry. “You’ve been sleeping for hours. And not peacefully.”

  His mouth felt dry, but the rich aroma of something delicious brought him fully awake.

  “Rupa gave me some soup and bread.”

  It seemed as though he’d just eaten, yet his stomach growled with hunger. He sat up carefully to avoid jarring his head. Surely it should feel better by now. If only he could remember the words that would heal it…

  Jenny propped him up with a thick bolster, but he could hardly focus his eyes on her while he tried to remember the dream. It had seemed so real. Why had he been embracing the beautiful stranger who had not seemed like a stranger at all? He felt as if…

  He closed his eyes and tried to recall the woman’s features, what he’d felt for her, and why she’d been weeping. “Do I have a sister?”

  Jenny seemed startled by the question, but Matthew assumed ’twas likely due to the abruptness of it. “No,” she replied.

  Then who was the red-haired woman? He had called her Ana. Was she even real?

  Matthew decided she could not possibly be. The dream was just a result of his cracked head, no matter how real it had seemed. He was not going to mention it to Jenny. ’Twould only upset her, knowing he’d dreamed of another woman.

  He ate the soup and tried not to think of the dream woman and her urgings to make haste. “Have your students learned their letters?”

  Jenny nodded. “For the most part. Kaulo is quicker than Bardo.”

  “He’s younger. Sharper eyes.” Matthew reached over and smoothed a pretty yellow curl behind her ear. “But I doona care for the way he looks at you. Doesna the man realize you are mine?”

  She looked away. “I pay him no mind. Soon we’ll be leaving and never see him again.”

  Matthew narrowed his eyes and looked at her. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, Matthew.” She stood abruptly and walked to the door of their caravan. “I’ll just be glad when we can leave these people and go on our way.”

  Did she always wring her hands so nervously? Matthew didn’t think so. She was keeping something from him. “Tell me again where we are going. I canna seem to remember.”

  “To Carlisle,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation.

  “And what do we do there?”

  “Nothing yet. We’re…going to…” She came and sat beside him again. “Does it matter right now, Matthew?” She took his bowl and set it on the table. “Perhaps it would be best if you regained your memory first, before you have any new problems to worry about.”

  “Problems? Is something wrong?” It would certainly explain the urgency he’d been feeling ever since awakening here in this wagon.

  “No! No, nothing is wrong. But, Matthew…I don’t think we should talk about anything but this.”

  “This?”

  “The here and now,” Jenny explained. “Anything more is obviously too trying for you.”

  “Aye.” He allowed himself to be swayed since he wanted to think only of Jenny and the soft skin of her throat, the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her hip. Had he ever been so enamored of any other woman?

  He drew her down beside him, so that they were nearly lying together on the bed. “I’d rather think of naught but us. Come and lie with me, wife.”

  He kissed her gently, and felt his body change. Desire hardened him, made him pulse with need. He pressed a soft kiss to her ear and nuzzled her jaw. “I know why I married you, lass.”

  Her pale gray eyes went dark as she pulled back, gazing at him with bewilderment.

  He laughed at her expression. “’Tis because you are so sweet. You worry over me and take good care of me, Jenny. I’d have been a fool to let you get away.”

  He want
ed to know everything about her, but every time he tried to think things through, the pounding in his head worsened and his few fleeting memories disappeared. ’Twas best to do as Jenny had said, and dwell in the present, at least for now.

  Pulling her close, he kissed her again and removed the pins from her hair, seducing her slowly. Matthew felt her reluctance, but he was certain ’twould take but little to convince her that their bed play would do no damage to his ailing head. In fact, he felt much better now. Her massage had worked wonders.

  “Tell me how we met.” He pressed his lips to her cheek, then her chin. “Was your hair curling down ’round your shoulders?” He moved his mouth to her neck, then lower while he slid his hands down to her hips. “Were you wearing a bright silken tunic that day, or your black gown with its prim, white lace collar?”

  Her breathing changed, and he felt her body soften toward him. He pulled the ties on the Gypsy blouse and slid it off her shoulders, then ran his fingers across the bare expanse of her back. She moved slightly, allowing him to fit her body into the space between his legs. Matthew moved against her, enjoying her surrender. He rose to take her lips in a sensual kiss, spearing her mouth with his tongue, his cock hard and ready to do the same.

  He slid her skirt up and ran his hand over the smooth length of her legs, then cupped her sweet bottom. She made an inarticulate sound of arousal, and he knew she yearned for another climax like the one he’d given her early that morning. But this time, he planned to be inside her when it happened. He pressed a kiss to her jaw, then moved down to her neck, and on to her breast. When he slipped the blouse and chemise from her shoulder, her breast came free, and he swirled his tongue ’round the nipple as she arched her back.

  A loud explosion outside shocked them out of the moment. Jenny scrambled away from him, breathing hard, her eyes clouded with confusion and dismay. Aye, he felt it, too, especially when she stumbled to the door and grabbed her cloak. “Wait here!”

  She moved so fast it made his head spin. For the moment, he remained where he was, puzzled and frustrated.

  Jenny could not look back or she would be too tempted to stay with Matthew. Fastening her cloak on her way down the caravan steps, she ignored her wobbly knees and followed the sound of voices to the center of the camp, where all the Gypsies seemed to have gathered. She noticed several new caravans at the periphery of Bardo’s camp, and that a number of strangers had gathered by the fire.

  Rupa stood smiling near the edge of the crowd, holding a small, barefoot child on her hip. Jenny went to her, refusing to think about what had just occurred inside the caravan. She’d lost herself in Matthew’s touch, in his sensual caresses.

  Which was well and good for a wife. But she was not Matthew’s wife. She did not even know his true name! At any time he could regain his memory, and then—

  She closed her eyes and stood still for a moment, gathering her wits. That was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it? For Matthew to recover so that she could leave him to his own devices and go off to pursue Harriet? She tamped down her chagrin at the thought of leaving him. She was a practical woman and knew that a liaison with Matthew would come to no good.

  She spoke to Rupa. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  The woman smiled broadly. “Tsinoria have come.”

  “Tsinoria?”

  Rupa nodded. “Our kompania Lubunka. They…” She gestured toward the new caravans. “Tsinoria. We have much…er, fun and…foods—feasting—once brides chosen.”

  Rupa’s explanation was far from adequate, but Jenny observed the embracing and cheek kissing of Bardo’s clan with the newcomers, and concluded it must be a reunion of sorts. The Tsinoria must be another company—kompania—of Gypsies. Two young boys tossed something into the fire, causing another series of small explosions, startling Jenny.

  She looked up and saw Tekari Kaulo staring at her from the other side of the fire, and recoiled at the expression in his eyes. She could not tell if it was disdain or pure lechery. Either way, he made her vastly uncomfortable, and she wished Matthew were close by.

  Jenny pulled her cloak tightly around her and averted her eyes, troubled by her unfounded and unhelpful reliance on Matthew. There would soon come a time when he would regret the moment their paths had crossed. He would realize she’d lied to him and used him without consideration for his own situation.

  “Many marriage soon,” said Rupa.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tsinoria and Lubunka,” the woman replied, her words thickly accented. “Our kompania, their kompania. Soon old men choose good Tsinoria wifes for sons.” She set her child down on his feet and allowed him to run with the older children. The barefoot toddler did not seem to mind the cold ground, yet Jenny’s feet were chilled inside her shoes. She did not understand these people and how they survived their primitive hand-to-mouth existence. Few of them spoke English except for the phrases they needed to beg for money. None could read, and Jenny had noticed no livestock or stores of food anywhere. Yet Rupa had managed eggs and a thick soup.

  She looked back at Rupa, who seemed happy and content in spite of her unstable style of life. “Fathers choose brides for their sons?”

  “’Tis fathers’ place to…to make match.” Rupa nodded toward Tekari Kaulo. “My cousin soon take Tsinoria wife. He need…”

  He needed a thrashing, but Jenny said nothing as she waited for Rupa to find the word she sought.

  She hadn’t realized that Kaulo was Rupa’s relative, too. Now that she knew it, she saw the resemblance, but their personalities could not have been more disparate. Rupa’s warmth and friendliness were directly opposite to Tekari’s cold yet aggressive demeanor. Jenny dreaded the moment she would have to sit down with him for their next reading lesson.

  “He need settlement. Family.”

  “Ah…settlement.” Perhaps he would not be quite so abrasive once he had a wife, but Jenny did not believe that whatever drove Tekari Kaulo would be entirely remedied by an arranged marriage. There was always a burning impatience in his dark eyes, and his wiry body seemed perpetually poised for a fight, or perhaps for flight.

  Jenny just hoped she was long gone when he exploded.

  “Mr. Bardo is your uncle, too?”

  Rupa nodded. “But I have father still. Tekari’s—he die long ago. Fighting gajo with knife. He son now to Guibran Bardo.”

  The Gypsies built two more large fires between the rows of caravans, and Jenny went along with Rupa to her wagon rather than going back to the one where Matthew awaited her. She could not go back, not until he was asleep and she could enter without disturbing him.

  Without having to deal with the wholly improper pull of attraction that raged between them. Jenny knew that her avoidance was cowardly, but there didn’t seem to be any other way in the small camp, especially not with Tekari lurking nearby, his presence always threatening.

  Other activities sprang up around the camp, giving it a festive air. All the women seemed to have tasks to perform, and many returned to their own caravans to prepare a welcoming meal for the newcomers. Rupa started to brew coffee at her own small fire. She pointed toward one of the far caravans where a group of men stood talking to one another as they poured liquor from a bottle into cups and drank jovially together.

  “My husband. Name Pias Petrulengo. Very tall, but not so tall like your man.”

  Jenny doubted there were many as tall as Matthew. Or as strong. She’d seen the thick muscles of his arms and chest, and the powerful sinews of his legs. Yet he’d touched her so gently, as though he…cherished her. The same way her father had cared for her mother.

  Jenny quickly squelched that painful memory. Thinking of happier times served no purpose but to make her feel miserable about all she had lost. She turned her attention to Pias, who stood drinking with his cronies, laughing and clapping one another on their backs. Small children ran circles around the adults, happily greeting the newcomers. The reunion was clearly a time of celebration.

&nb
sp; “They talk of women. Pick brides.”

  “Now? They’re choosing wives for their sons now?”

  Rupa nodded. “Sure.”

  Jenny supposed it wasn’t so very different from the way fathers in her own society chose spouses for their sons and daughters, though English girls were often able to accept or reject the proposed suitor. She wondered if the Gypsy girls had anything to say about the husbands chosen for them.

  “They choose with ears not eyes,” Rupa said.

  “I don’t understand,” Jenny said, wondering if there was some ritual that involved blindfolding one of the parties.

  “Pretty not always best,” Rupa said. But Jenny was not so sure that Rupa’s words were true. Mr. Ellis had chosen Clara Tremayne, whose dark beauty could not be concealed by Bresland’s dowdy gowns and caps. Yet she was as harsh and unyielding with the children as Reverend Usher himself.

  “Men…er, listen. Know who makes bad noise.”

  “They choose for temperament?”

  Rupa furrowed her brow, clearly unfamiliar with the word.

  “Temper,” Jenny said. “Character.”

  “Ah yes. Husband want good temper.”

  Surely not all Gypsy women possessed easy temperaments. And what about the men? Jenny knew they could not all be fair and considerate husbands. “Who looks after the bride’s interests?”

  “You speak fast. What means this? Interests?”

  Jenny covered Rupa’s coffee tin and put it back on the shelf beside the caravan steps. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, but she wondered which unfortunate girl would become wife to Tekari Kaulo. The very thought of sharing her life with such a man made her shudder.

  “You see. Tomorrow you see Gypsy way is good.”

  Jenny considered what kind of husband she might choose for herself if she did not know better. Not one like Mr. Ellis, who had listened to Reverend Usher’s lies and decided she was not a biddable female, being much too opinionated for a woman. As though she should hold no opinions but his.

  In the eyes of the law, a wife’s property became her husband’s, to do with whatever he pleased. Her children belonged to him. His word was law. Jenny knew that life on her own would be better than existing under some man’s thumb.