Edith Layton (11 page)

“Oh, yes,” Meg said, rising as well.

The woman turned. “Stay. Most of the caravan has gone, the others are too busy preparing to leave to care about what happens here. I will send him to you.”

Meg paced, preparing herself, trying to think of how to act with Daffyd. She refused to act shamed; she wouldn’t try to excuse herself. She wouldn’t mention their embraces at all. She’d simply ask him to escort her to the nearest coaching stop, and then be on her way. Wherever that was.

“Miss Shaw?” a deep voice asked.

She wheeled around to see Johnny standing in the doorway.

He was dressed as decently as any young man she might see strolling along a country lane, in a long jacket, breeches, and half boots. He had a white neckcloth, not a colorful scarf, tied round his neck, and wore a soft floppy hat on his head.

“Keja said I owe you an apology,” he said, bowing.
“And so I do. I didn’t know you had no experience of jacky-gin,” he explained with a grin. “But I meant no harm…although it’s true I hoped it might soften your heart because I was very taken with you.” He clapped his hat to his chest, as though smitten. His eyes sparkled as he added, “And I am very particular when it comes to the ladies.”

She had to laugh, because he was already laughing at himself.

He was pleased. “Oh, I’m of no account and up to no good, and all of that’s true. But I wouldn’t have so much as offered you my hand if I’d thought you were Daffyd’s woman.”

“I’m not!” she yelped.

He shrugged. “As you will. Anyway, I’m glad you don’t bear a grudge.”

“It would hardly matter if I did,” she said simply. “I doubt we’ll meet again.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that, Miss Shaw. And I’ll bet on almost anything. But I wish you well, and hope I see you again, and again. Please, to spare me my grandmother’s cane on my back, kindly say you forgive me.”

She smiled. “I do.”

His dark face suddenly grew serious. “I’m still at your service, you know. Why not? You’re sweet and very lovely, and no fool. And you’re a lady even if not a lady born, which is interesting. I’m your man if you’re looking for fun, because I don’t take much seriously. Now, Daffy, well, he’s had a hard time of it, and it’s made him a hard man. But he’s come out of it
generous, and fair, and you can’t ask more of anyone. He was a good boy and could be a good man. So, if you’re looking for excitement the way his mother was, or wanting an adventure with a rogue of a gypsy lad, then take me, because I have no heart to lose and can show you a good time, with no regrets.”

She stared, then stammered, “But no…that’s not what I’m after…”

“Then good or bad, let the fates decide, and I hope they’re on your side. Travel easy and swiftly, and with luck,” he said, bowed again, and left the caravan.

Meg stood thinking. Johnny had exerted himself for her. He was bright, handsome in his own way, and like his brother, he could be charming when he wished. But unlike his brother, she sensed no hidden depths to him. More important, she didn’t find herself wanting to look for any. When he left she found it hard to remember him. Looking at Daffyd was like staring into the fire or a bright lamp. When she looked away, she found he always left his afterimage burned into her mind.

She was still standing, frowning, as Daffyd ducked into the caravan.

His expression was dark. “He apologized to you?” he asked.

“Johnny? Oh, yes, though it wasn’t necessary.”

“It was. You want me to apologize, too?”

“No,” she said quickly, not pretending to misunderstand. “It was my fault as much as yours.”

He nodded. “So, what do you want to do?”

He was dressed for riding, immaculate and cool as any gentleman out for a morning’s canter. But his dark blue eyes were guarded, and he wore no expression.

She took a deep breath. “I have seven days left. Actually, six and a half now. I want to find Rosalind. That hasn’t changed. I was hoping you could still help me, that is, if what happened this morning can be forgotten.”

His teeth were a sudden slash of white in his dark face. “No, it can’t be forgotten. How could it? Come, Meg, seriously. Can you forget how it was?”

She bit her lip. “No. But it can’t happen again. Surely you see that? Can we go on as we were?”

“Of course not.”

She nodded. “Then can you take me to the next coaching stop so I can go on by myself?”

“That would be folly,” he said. “All right. How about we go on, if not as we were, then with the knowledge of what happened as well as what could happen? That is to say, we go on carefully. I don’t want to be compromised any more than you do, Meg.”

“But no one will fight for my honor,” she said. “I wouldn’t tell a soul, and even if I did, no one would force you into anything.”

“Oh,” he said coldly. “Then you think
I
have no honor?”

She fell silent.

“Look you, Meg. I want to find your runaway too. Remember? You made some good points when you argued to come with me. Now it occurs to me that you
are
the only one who could recognize her no
matter how she disguises herself. You’re still valuable to me. I’ve gotten some interesting news and some new paths to follow. So. Shall we resume our quest? That is, if you can keep your hands off me?”

Her eyes flew wide. “I certainly can!” she cried. “I, after all, was
not
the one who approached you, I only…agreed to what you proposed…silently,” she added meticulously.

“All right then, we’ll go on, warily. There’s nothing like an added degree of difficulty to add spice to a chase. Be ready to ride in a half hour,” he said, and grinning, left the caravan.

Leaving Meg to pack her meager belongings again, and wonder just exactly which chase he meant.

A
n hour later, Daffyd said good-bye to Keja and Johnny. Meg thanked them for their hospitality. Then Meg and Daffyd got on their horses and rode away from the gypsy caravan. They rode across the long meadow, up a low hill, and then down back to the main road. The path seemed so simple now by daylight that Meg was embarrassed for the hours she’d sat waiting for an escort back to the world again. But she was glad of it. Though they didn’t speak this morning, there was comfort in having Daffyd with her.

There wasn’t much traffic on the road. She could turn her face up to the pale sunlight, listen to the birdsong, and breathe deep of the clean fresh air without worrying. Night would come and she
thought that then she might worry about where she was going and especially about who she was going with, but that was hours away.

“We’ll keep going south, by southwest,” Daffyd finally said.

Meg looked at him.

“Rumor has the runaway going that way. And gypsy rumor is as good as
gaje
fact,” he added.

“So we’re close?” she asked eagerly.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But the closer we come to the coast, the farther away they could be. Once they go to sea, we’ve lost them. I’ll track them to the shore, but I won’t go farther.” He looked at her curiously. “Will you follow them over the water?”

“Oh, no! That would be folly.”

“And this isn’t?” he asked with a crooked smile.

“No. I still have a chance of keeping my journey secret. If I shipped out, that chance would be gone. And what good would it do? It would be weeks before I could get word to her father, and by then the damage would be well and truly done. And what would become of me? I know I acted rashly coming this far. Any farther would be absolute folly.”

His smile faded. He slowed his horse. “Meg,” he said. “Listen. We’re coming to an inn just up the road. We’ll stop for luncheon there. Then, if I hear what I expect, I may go somewhere else. But this time, if you came with me you’d be noticed. So you have two choices. You can come to the inn and wait for me to return. But I can’t promise when that will be. So you can choose not to wait and go on by your
self, wherever you wish. You’re in your world now. It’s your decision.”

“You mean where you’re going, there may be people I know?”

He stopped. “I doubt it. But your name may be recognized.”

“So, can’t you call me something else? I mean, tell them I have a different name?”

“No. This is a place where I tell the truth. Anyway, how else could I introduce you?”

He looked at her. She wore her usual gray gown. It was crumpled from hours of riding. She’d loosed her bonnet; it hung from its strings on her back. Her soft brown hair was escaping its ribbon. Her cheeks were rosy in the sunlight, and he saw tracings of a few faint new freckles on the bridge of her nose. She looked like a recently ravaged puritan. He smiled.

“You’re not dressed like a fancy piece,” he said. “No self-respecting bar wench would wear that gown. You don’t look like a gypsy. So why would you be traveling with me?”

She looked down at herself, and colored up. “I could borrow a flat iron at the inn, and freshen up,” she said quickly.

He shook his head. “And so you’d be a respectable lady’s companion with a false name? Traveling with
me
? Why? Believe me, if you lie, much worse would be thought of you than if you tell the truth. I trust the man we’ll be seeing. But he has servants and may have guests, so I can’t promise you absolute secrecy. So?”

She thought for a long moment. “Is it that you think you might have to ride on immediately after you see him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see.” She looked at him steadily. “Or are you telling me you don’t want me along? You can come right out and say it, you know.” Her lips curved up in a smile. “You’ve done it before. I’m not saying I’d accept that now either. But you could tell me.”

“I am,” he said. “In fact, it’s just the opposite. There’s a slight—only a slight—chance your Rosalind might be staying with him, and if so, I’d want you there to identify her. But you have to know that if you do, you might be ruined. Really ruined. Word might get out. Traveling with any man would sink you. Being with me isn’t something that would impress the baron even if you found her.”

She sighed. “I know. But I’ve made my bed. Let’s eat,” she said. “And then let’s go find her.”

The inn was small and very old, but it was clean and the landlord pleased to have them. Meg was happy to get off the horse, and happier still to find a maid willing to go over her gown with a flat iron. She paid for the use of a room to wash and change in, gave her good gown to the maid, and came down to luncheon in it, feeling better about her appearance than she had in days.

A small anteroom to the side of the common room served as the inn’s dining parlor. It had a low ceiling and a tilted floor, but it was bright. Small, ancient
diamond-paned windows, too warped with age to show anything but the light from outside, made the room glow. And Daffyd was there, and just the sight of him made Meg glow.

He rose from the table when she appeared, and though it was only a small courtesy, it did a lot to make her feel better. He, too, had changed his clothes. He’d brushed his jetty hair, and wore a well-tied neckcloth, fitted jacket, clean linen, buff breeches, and shining half boots.

Meg took her seat, her pleasure suddenly diminished. She realized she looked like a poor relation or a servant that he was accompanying. His attitude had changed with his clothing. He acted the complete gentleman now. He seemed more distant, languid, both more civil and cooler. He wore the subtly amused expression of a man of taste and fortune. Nothing about him reminded her of the man who’d held her in his arms this very morning and kissed the wits from her. Nothing, except for that finely shaped mouth, and those dark blue eyes set in his grave, handsome face. So she looked down at the table instead of at him, lest he see that memory in her own eyes.

Daffyd wondered at her uncharacteristic silence. He hoped she wasn’t getting sick. She looked fine to him. She’d brushed her hair until it gleamed and tied it up at the back of her head. She looked neat and clean and entirely respectable. But she didn’t look like any respectable female he’d ever seen. Because
she hadn’t been able to scrub away the peach tint the sun had kissed onto her cheeks, and nothing could dim the glow in her big brown eyes as she parted those plump pink lips in a shy smile at last when she looked up to see him watching her. She was dressed dry and dull as a prune, with no ornament at all, but she looked delicious.

He frowned. What was he thinking? She was well enough, but no temptress. Yes, she was a charming young woman; but he’d known exquisite ones. She was refreshing, but he’d had exotic and erotic lovers and companions. Obviously, he’d passed too much time alone in her company. The truth was, they had nothing in common but the needs of their bodies, and his need was growing stronger every day. Just as well they were bound for a change. It would clear his head and put the little governess-companion in the proper—and he did mean proper—perspective for him.

She nodded at everything the landlord suggested for their luncheon, from soup to fish, beef, mutton, fowl, and at last, tarts and cheese.

“The riding sharpened my appetite,” she explained when the landlord left them. “I’m famished.” Her eyes widened. She sat upright and corrected herself quickly. “Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy your grandmother’s food. It was very good, and so generous of her to share it.”

“She could do no less,” Daffyd said with a shrug. “She’s Rom.”

“And I’m grateful for it,” Meg said. “It was wonderful to taste new things, too. But I also do like a traditional luncheon.”

Traditional for a field worker, Daffyd thought, remembering her order. But, “I don’t blame you,” he said. “The Rom have so little that they excel at spicing up their lives and menus. Herbs and spices can make anything taste good, and many can be found in the forest. But there’s much to be said for plain English cooking. Myself, I eat everything. I didn’t have any choice for too many years. But I have my preferences, too.”

“What did they serve in prison?” Meg asked curiously. “What did you eat in New South Wales?”

“Whatever I could get,” he said abruptly.

Meg grimaced and hoped she hadn’t offended him. “The aunts say I eat like a biblical locust,” she said quickly, trying to lighten the subject and his expression. “I expect they’re right. I know the rest of what they say is true: I’ll start to get so fat I’ll have to spend the rest of my days sipping tea and daring to eat a bit of toast,” she added with what she hoped was a contagious laugh.

He didn’t laugh with her. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I oughtn’t to have asked. It must be a painful subject for you.”

He looked at her. “What?”

“I mean, those days you spent in the slums and prisons.”

He laughed. “No. Why should it bother me? That’s most of my life. I was only thinking it’s sad
that a woman has to defend her appetites, while a man can brag about them. So. What was it you wanted to know?”

“Just about what you ate. You never talk about those days. But if you don’t want to, I quite understand.”

“Which days?” he asked. “When I lived in the slums? The prisons? When I was in Newgate, or the Hulks? On the ship to Botany Bay? In Port Jackson? I can tell you all of it. In the slums, we ate what we could afford to buy or be lucky enough to steal. Street food, meaning meat pasties and cakes, things that can be boiled in tubs of water or oil that are hot and cheap and filling, can be very good. Sometimes I find myself hungry for all those fried bits and pieces of anything anyone with money would throw away. Speaking of that, street food, meaning things found in gutters or behind shops, can either be nourishing or poisonous. If you eat them you have to be wise, or lucky.

“In the prisons, we ate whatever the guards gave us and guessed even they didn’t know what it was. On the ships, we ate whatever we could hold down. In new South Wales? Worse than that, at first. But the menu improved with our fortunes.”

“I’m sorry I brought it up if it makes you uneasy,” she said sincerely.

“It doesn’t.”

“But you never talk about what you went through,” she persisted.

“I suppose I don’t. What’s the point? I don’t want to go back even in my imagination. I’ll tell you one
thing: you learn to store good memories and feed off them in bad times, not the reverse, if you want to survive.”

“What were the good memories?”

He laughed. “That’s what I’m looking for now. Don’t look so sad, Meg. I’ll find them. Now these,” he added, as a serving girl came in bearing a basket heaped with fragrant hot breads, “will certainly be some of them.”

They dined. Daffyd watched Meg and was as entertained by her as he was by what the landlord brought out. Once again, she ate steadily and neatly. He’d seen starving women eat, and that wasn’t a thing he liked to remember. He’d seen fine ladies deign to dine, and had grown impatient with the way they picked at good food. But Meg ate with manners and gusto, and continued to amuse him with polite chatter. He found himself wondering if she would make love with the same civility, grace, and zest. The thought made him turn his attention to his roast beef, because he knew there were some hungers best left unsatisfied.

Meg reveled in the luncheon, but only partly because the food was so good. She found it even more delicious to share a meal with someone who could hold up a conversation. Daffyd might be short spoken, but what he said was to the point, and he seemed genuinely interested in what she was saying. But she concentrated on her plate and his answers, and not his expressions. Because what she sometimes saw in his dark blue eyes took her breath and her appetite
away, replacing them with a need for things she’d never be served this day.

“That,” Meg finally said, when she’d finished, “was wonderful. But I don’t think I’ll be able to ride for at least an hour.”

“We have no choice,” Daffyd said, rising from his chair. “We have to go. Don’t worry. It’s not far, and not difficult. We’ll be on the main road most of the way, and there long before dinner, so you won’t have to starve, either.”

Meg suppressed a sigh as she got up. She didn’t feel like bucketing onward on a horse now; she felt like sitting in the sunlight and basking like a lizard. But she said nothing as she went out the door with him.

A curricle stood waiting behind a team of horses in the front yard. Daffyd gave a coin to the lad who had brought it around, and held out his hand to Meg. “Ready?” he asked her.

“But where are the horses?”

“We travel by carriage now,” he said. “I rented this one. I prefer to arrive where we’re going in some style. We can get horses later—if we need them.”

Her eyes grew wider. “You mean, we may be
that
close to Rosalind?”

“We may.”

She took his hand and stepped up into the curricle, swept her skirt around her legs and sat up straight. “Then hurry, please!”

“That eager to be rid of me?” he asked as he settled beside her and picked up the whip.

She turned a troubled face to his. “I didn’t mean
that. I just want to find her and be done with this, and get on with my life again.”

And then she fell still, thinking of that life. If all went as she hoped, she’d soon be back at the baron’s house, cleared of all guilt, maybe even rewarded. She’d be able to go on in her position as companion—until Rosalind married. Then she’d go on to a new position.

She’d find a new job, then another, and so on until she grew too old, and then if she were lucky, she’d retire to a cottage. If she was very lucky, she might meet a decent man with small expectations and make a home with him before that. But she suddenly knew that wherever she went and whatever she found, none of it would be as strange, exciting, dangerous, and unexpectedly sweet as these last few days had been. Her chance-met gypsy had helped her. But he’d also poisoned her dreams, forever.

“Change your mind?” he asked, seeing her expression. “Want to wait here?”