Gypsy Moon (22 page)

“I’ve heard from your mother, Charlotte. She’s very distressed over your disappearance. You gave her quite a turn, leaving that way.”

“And what about you, Winnie? Were you distressed when I left?”

“Charlotte, my darling, you know I was! Why, I expected to be your husband by the very next day!”

Mateo watched Charlotte’s head droop in a dejected manner and heard words that stabbed him deeply. “I’m sorry, Winnie. I’ve hurt you. It was a terrible thing for me to do. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Charlotte, Charlotte,” Krantz crooned, taking her into his arms once more. “There’s nothing to forgive. You’re here now. Everything will be all right. I promise you.”

Mateo’s blood boiled. He felt like climbing through the window and tearing her from the other man’s embrace. He pulled the window open and poised himself to enter—then froze. The major was lifting Charlotte’s lips to his. The next instant, he was kissing her—tenderly, possessively. His white
gajo’s
hands caressed her while their kiss became ever more intimate. Charlotte made no protest.

This, then, was her choice.

Dropping to the ground once more—his emotions running the gamut from heartsick pain to a desire to kill—Mateo stormed away toward the stable. A madness was upon him, but not from the moon. This madness came from the heart, breaking now from the sight of Charlotte in another man’s arms.

He found only one of his stallions in the corral, Velacore, Charlotte’s favorite mount. The others, he knew, were on the parade ground, being admired and ridden by the off-duty soldiers. One whistle brought Velacore sailing over the fence to him. Before the horse could come to a full stop, Mateo leaped onto its back and urged the animal toward the Gypsy camp.

The ride was fast. The wind stung Mateo’s eyes and cut at his bare chest. Twice—blinded by his rage—he guided the horse into low-hanging trees. The branches whipped at him, slashing his flesh, but he never felt them. The pain in his heart obliterated all others.

Charlotte Buckland was gone from him… forever.

Charlotte pushed her way out of Winston’s embrace. She was trying to contain her anger, but it wasn’t easy.

“Winnie, please. No!” she said firmly.

“But Charlotte!”

She looked him squarely in the eyes and shook her head. “There are no buts about it, Winnie. I don’t love you. That’s all.”

He started toward her. “You could learn to, my dear. I’m not a bad sort.”

She put her hands out and pushed gently against his chest, forcing him to keep his distance. “Winston, I am in love with Prince Mateo. I thought you would have guessed that when you surprised us in the stable this afternoon.”

“But you were another woman then. You weren’t Charlotte Buckland. You were the Golden One. I supposed he’d cast some sort of Gypsy spell over you.”

She smiled. “Oh, he’s cast a spell over me all right! But it’s one that is very real and lasts a lifetime. I’m going to marry him, Winnie.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I am! I’m going to Colonel Custer this very night to beg for his release. Then we’re going away together. Not back to his people. They don’t accept me. Funny, isn’t it? We’re both outcasts. So we plan to make our own world.”

“You really mean it, don’t you?” The major’s voice was quiet now, resigned.

“Yes. And I’d hoped you might help me convince your colonel to free him.”

Krantz smiled and took a deep breath. “If you don’t want me for a husband, Charlotte, how would you feel about having me as a father?”

“What?”

“Well, I know it’s sudden, but your mother wrote to me and I answered her letter with a bit more emotion than was quite proper. I’m afraid that any day now I’m going to get a letter back, demanding that I set a date since I compromised her—verbally, at least. Besides, I think I’ve been enamored of her since the first day I came to Fairview.”

“Oh, Winston!” Charlotte cried, running to hug him. “That’s wonderful news!” She stood back for a moment, staring at him. “But if that’s the case, why did you put me through all this tonight?”

He shrugged. “It seemed the gentlemanly thing to do, since we were promised to each other.”

Just then, a cry rang out through the courtyard. “Escape! The prisoner’s gotten away!”

Charlotte whirled, her hand at her throat.

“Oh, God! The man must be mad!” Winston groaned.

“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked anxiously.

“He’s going to get himself shot!”

“They’ll never catch him,” she insisted.

“Would he leave here without you, Charlotte?”

Slowly, she shook her head.

“Then his life is in very real danger, I’m afraid.”

Annabelle Delacorte came flying in the front door just then, her face flushed with excitement. “Oh, thank the Lord, you’re all right, Charlotte! I was afraid that dreadful man might have come here to take you away with him. But he didn’t. I’m so relieved.”

“What do you mean, Mrs. Delacorte?”

“Well, he’s long gone. He took the one Gypsy horse that was still in the corral and rode off. I doubt they’ll catch up with him, but it doesn’t matter as long as you’re here and safe.”

“Mateo’s
gone?”
The word came hollowly from Charlotte’s lips. How could he have ridden away without her? Had his freedom meant more to him than their promises to each other?

She ran to the front door, scanning the parade ground. What she saw chilled her blood. The moon—full and fiery—was hanging in the black night sky.

“Oh, dear God!” she murmured. “How could I have forgotten?”

“Forgotten what, my dear? I don’t understand,” Annabelle said from behind her.

But Charlotte never gave the woman an answer. Kicking off the uncomfortable slippers and hiking up her long skirt, she raced out onto the parade ground. Only one of Mateo’s stallions stood riderless. It never dawned on her that no one but its owner could ride the Black Devil. She scrambled onto his back and dug in her bare heels. The huge horse screamed and reared, trying to pitch her off, but she clung to its mane and screamed, “Open the gates!”

The soldier on duty had little choice with the crazed stallion bearing down on him. It was either open up or see the horse and rider killed and himself possibly injured in the fracas. The wide gate groaned open and the Black Devil, with Charlotte Buckland hanging on for dear life, shot away into the darkness.

George Custer stormed across the compound. “Why in hell did you let her go, Corporal?”

“Sorry, sir, but I didn’t want to see the little lady get hurt.”

The two men stood staring as the raging animal with the white-clad woman clinging desperately to its back disappeared into the night.

Custer shook his head. “Well, I guess we’ve seen the last of the lot of them now. I just hope she doesn’t break her lovely neck on that killer horse. Close that gate, soldier.”

The colonel would have thought his words prophetic if he had been on the scene a few moments later.

Charlotte’s whole body ached from trying to stay with the Black Devil. He would gallop, then slow his pace, pitch and rear, sidestep, then pick up speed again. Finally, the raging animal pointed himself toward one of the very limbs that had earlier slashed Mateo’s chest and face—and raced straight for it.

She saw it coming, but there was no time to react. The spiky branches tore at her, and the blow to her head knocked her momentarily senseless. Then Charlotte felt herself falling. Her head struck the ground with a sickening thud. She lay very still, gasping for breath.

“Mateo,” she whispered. “Mateo, where are you?”

Speaking the words stabbed her chest with pain. Her head throbbed. Her vision clouded. She seemed to be slipping deep into a cold, dark pool. The instant before unconsciousness claimed her, she had one last clear vision. The huge silver moon gleamed down from the blackness, filling the night with evil and Charlotte Buckland with a terrible hopelessness.

The Gypsies heard a horse’s hooves thundering into camp and peered cautiously from their tents. It might have been the Devil himself they saw astride his hellish stallion, horse and rider silhouetted there against the campfire flames. But no…

“Mateo! It’s Prince Mateo!” The message was passed from tent to tent in awed and frightened whispers.

Never before had any of them seen him abroad on the night of the full moon. But his appearance—the wildness of his black eyes, the grim set of his features, and his blood-streaked chest—told them all that Valencia’s curse was upon him. His mount, too, seemed affected as it reared and screamed, lathering at the bit and pawing the air.

Mateo—half-crazed with rage and grief—searched the clearing, begging silently for some end to his pain. He was here now, with his people, but the place seemed empty and cold. Charlotte had been his
familia.
Without her, his existence was meaningless. He was only a shadow of the man he had been. He was tempted to ride back to the fort and tear her from the major’s arms. Why had he left in the first place? What was he doing here?

“Mateo!” He heard his name spoken urgently. A hand grasped his leg.

“Tamara! What do you want?” He looked down into her beautiful face. Her eyes were wide and glittering in the firelight. She was smiling.

“Your mother wants you.”

He whirled the stallion away, breaking Tamara’s hold on him.

“I can’t go to her now. I have to go back for Charlotte.”

“No!” she said. “See your mother before you do anything.”

He had no chance to decide which he would do. The next instant, the old queen was standing beside his horse, her hands raised toward him in a gesture of benediction.

“Come, my son. There are words you must hear.”

Mateo wanted to gallop away, but Zolande’s tone of voice and the fire in her dark eyes proved hypnotic. Slowly, he dismounted and followed her toward the tent. She poured wine and told him to drink. He had no power to refuse her. The heady potion calmed him. His breathing and heartbeat slowed to normal. His head cleared.

“Now, my son, tell me what has happened.”

“They have Charlotte… at the fort. The man she was promised to has claimed her, but I mean to steal her back.
She’s mine!”
Again his voice quivered with near hysteria.

“Then why did you leave her there?”

“They would have killed me.”

His mother shook her head, letting him know that she didn’t believe his words. Her son was not a man who feared death.

“The truth, Mateo,” she said gently, touching his cheek with her palm.

His head drooped. He couldn’t meet her gaze. “She doesn’t want me, Mother. She went to him willingly, with never a thought of my love for her. You were right all along. It was not meant to be.”

“Mateo, listen to me and hear me well.” The queen raised her son’s face, forcing him to look at her. “The truth we see with our eyes is more often than not a lie. Did she tell you that she no longer loved you?”

“No. We never had a chance to speak together.”

“Then you only
assume
she wants the other. Is your love for her so shallow that a small wave is able to empty your heart of it? This is not the passionate man I know as my son.”

Mateo frowned up at her. Something had changed. Did he understand his mother correctly? Was she urging him to go back to Charlotte? She, above all others, had been against the match from the start.

“Mother?” His searching eyes asked the rest of his question.

Zolande smiled and nodded.
“She
is your answer, Mateo! She is the answer for all of our troubles.”

Seeing his confusion, the queen went on, “Mateo, this is the night of the full moon.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, look at you! Are you raving, thrashing, trying to do harm to yourself?”

He looked down at his body. It was not quaking. His hands were steady. His vision was clear. The gashes in his chest still oozed blood, but not because he had raked his own flesh in a frenzy of moon madness.

“No,” he breathed, almost unable to believe it himself. “The curse has not come tonight.”

The queen smiled and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “Nor will it come ever again. Mateo, my darling son, if my suspicions are correct, you have found your golden Gypsy!”

“Charlotte?”

Zolande nodded. “I suspect so. And she still loves you, no matter what you may imagine at the moment. Go to her. Bring her back to be your bride. At last, the curse will end forever!”

“But how can that be? She is not a Gypsy!”

The old queen smiled. “Are you so sure, Mateo? Charlotte Buckland possesses a strength and a fire that I have never observed in a
gajo.
Trust an old woman’s intuition, my son, and do what you must.”

Mateo grasped his frail, little mother in a rib-crushing hug. Then he spun away, out of the tent. He was on Velacore’s back and galloping off into the night in the flicker of an eye.

Had it not been for the white muslin gown loaned to her by Annabelle Delacorte, Mateo might have passed Charlotte by. But the same full moon that had caused him such grief all his life reflected its silver glow on her still, white form, drawing his attention.

He leaped down from Velacore’s back, murmuring her name. But his relief at finding her turned to heart-wrenching dread the moment he touched her. Her flesh was cold, her breathing labored.

“Charlotte! Speak to me. Can you hear me, my Golden One?”

She moaned softly, but her eyes never opened.

Mateo heard a familiar snort and his head jerked up. The Black Devil stood nearby, head down as if in apology.

“Mother of God,” Mateo breathed. “She rode you?” He had seen more than one man killed simply trying to mount the huge devil horse. And Charlotte had known the danger; he had warned her time and time again. If ever he needed proof of her love, this was it. She had risked death to be with him.

The thought of death spurred him to action. He must get her back to the camp immediately. Tamara would know what to do. He was not dealing simply with the woman he loved any longer. Charlotte Buckland was the golden Gypsy!

The horse that had caused the accident carried them safely toward the camp. It seemed to Mateo that the Black Devil realized what a terrible thing he had done and was now trying to make amends. The big stallion stepped lightly, taking pains to avoid rough stretches of ground so that his precious burden would suffer no further damage. Mateo cradled Charlotte’s unconscious form in his arms, talking to her quietly all the way back to the Gypsy camp.

His heart ached with her pain and he prayed silently that Sara-la-Kali would see fit to spare her. As for him, he scarcely deserved any notice from the saint after what he had put this woman through.

All was in readiness when they arrived. Tamara had known before they returned that Charlotte had been hurt. Her twisted nightmares of the night before had come clear to her in a flash. A time of trial was upon them. They would save the golden Gypsy, or they would lose everything.

“I knew you would want her in your tent, Mateo, so I have made a pallet for her,” Tamara said. “Bring her quickly, but do be careful with her.”

“She’s hardly breathing,” Mateo said in a pained voice.

“As long as her heart is beating there is hope. Put her down and then go away for a time.”

“No! I’m staying here with her!”

Tamara knew there was no time to argue with him. “Very well. But stay out of my way!”

Mateo slumped in a far corner of the tent, his whole body aching as he stared at Charlotte’s bruised and battered form. Her face, arms, and throat were torn where branches had hit her. A bright crimson gash in her forehead yawned wide like an ugly grin. And her right arm rested at an awkward angle. He had done this to her. It was all his fault. He felt like tearing his hair, ripping his clothes, rending his flesh. He richly deserved all the suffering the moon madness had ever brought him. If only he could tell her he was sorry and have her hear him and understand.

Tamara bathed Charlotte’s face, put a compress on her head wound, then turned to Mateo. “Give me your
churi.”

Mateo clutched the sharp knife, refusing to hand it over. “I won’t let you bleed her. She’s lost too much blood already.”

“You talk crazy, Mateo! Would I do such a stupid thing? I must cut her out of these tight clothes. She can’t breathe laced up like this. Give it to me!”

He handed her the silver dagger, remembering how it had once drawn Charlotte’s blood. The memory of that night by the stream brought a fresh flood of remorse. Why hadn’t he been able to admit to himself that night that she was the only woman for him? His foolishness had cost them both so much. He had wanted her then just as he wanted her now. He ached with his need and his despair.

Carefully, never allowing the blade to slip, Tamara sliced through the soiled muslin. Soon Charlotte lay with her constricted breasts heaving, trying to gasp more air into her lungs.

“Turn away your eyes!” Tamara ordered Mateo, the knife poised to slit the corset.

He glared at his cousin for a moment but finally did as she commanded. But the sound of the tight satin giving way beneath the knife’s sharp edge soon brought his gaze darting back. Intent on her work, Tamara never noticed.

Mateo’s mouth went dry and his palms grew sweaty when he looked at Charlotte’s bare breasts. They were marked from the whalebone ribbing of the corset. As she lay on her back, they seemed like small, battered children, cringing away from more punishment. Could these pale orbs be the same warm, honey-flavored breasts his hands and mouth knew so well? He ran his tongue over his dry lips and a shudder twisted through him.

“Several ribs are cracked,” Tamara said after running her hands delicately over Charlotte’s sides. “She’s lucky, though. She might have broken more than her arm when she fell from that crazed horse of yours.”

“She knew not to ride him,” Mateo answered defensively.

Tamara gave him a hard look and sniffed indignantly. “That animal should be destroyed!”

“No. No, don’t!” The words were a bare whisper—the first Charlotte had uttered.

“Darling!” Mateo sprang to her side, clutching her left hand to his heart. Her eyes opened for an instant and a faint smile touched her lips. Then she lapsed back into unconsciousness.

“Mateo, please,” Tamara said. “If you are going to stay in here, you must get out of my way. She needs help, not you pawing over her.”

He went back to his corner, thoroughly chastised by his gentle cousin’s words, but feeling a lightness in his heart from having heard Charlotte’s voice. She would get better. She had to!

But as one day dragged into another, Mateo began to wonder. Charlotte was not recovering as she should. At times, her eyes would flicker open and he would see that familiar spark of life and laughter in their warm brown depths. But it would only last an instant. Then her awareness would fade. She would give him a confused look, frown, and lapse back into unconsciousness.

Once she spoke his name in one of these brief, lucid interludes. His heart took flight. He kissed her and gloried in her passionate response. Then she slept—an almost natural sleep. When she awoke the next day, she stared at him with fear in her eyes and asked, “Who are you? What are you doing in my room?”

After two weeks of this, Mateo sought out Tamara and demanded, “When is she going to be herself again? You must do something!”

Tamara was at her wits’ end. She had tried everything. Charlotte’s wounds were healing, her broken arm was on the mend, but there was some deeper damage that refused to respond to herbs, compresses, and Gypsy charms. Only Charlotte herself could bring about this ailment’s cure. Whether or not she had the will to do it, no one could say.

“I’m sorry, Mateo,” Tamara said. “There’s nothing more I can do for her. Her fate is in other hands now. We must simply trust that what is meant to happen will transpire.”

“No!” Mateo stormed. “I will not allow Fate to be the ruling factor here. I love her. I need her. I won’t let her go!”

The two of them had been talking just outside Mateo’s tent. They both turned when they suddenly heard Charlotte’s voice from inside, calling Mateo’s name.

Tamara touched his arm and smiled. “Now is your chance. Go and show her this great and powerful love of yours. Perhaps it is just the medicine she needs.”

Mateo didn’t have to be told a second time. He tore open the tent flap and went in. Charlotte lay on the wolf skins, looking pale and ever so fragile.

Winter was coming on and the first harsh winds were blowing down from the north. A brazier burned warmly in the tent, casting its golden glow on Charlotte’s face. The fire seemed to come from within her as Mateo gazed down at his lover. She reached her hand up to him. He took it in his and knelt beside her to kiss her cool fingertips.

“Charlotte,” he whispered, “I’ve been waiting for you. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am… how much I love you.”

She stared at him oddly for a moment, as if trying to place him. His heart sank. But the smile that soon took possession of her face warmed him through and through.

“You’ve been here with me all the time, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “I couldn’t leave you again, my love.”

“Again?” She looked confused once more.

He drew her gently into his arms. “Never mind, darling. It will all come back to you in time. For now it’s enough that you remember who I am and what we mean to each other.”

The man holding her felt warm and good. Charlotte knew him, yes. She had seen his face hovering over hers every time she’d awakened from her strange sleep. Even in her dreams, he was there. He rode a black horse and shone like the sun. He was a good man, an honorable man. He was not at all like the other dark shadow who haunted her nightmares. But somehow in her mind, they seemed like twins—two faces of the same coin. Who were they, and how had they come into her life? And why did she writhe with pain when, in her dreams, he took her to him by the full moon’s glow?

He was kissing her lips now and she responded. His mouth was hot and soft. He tasted of fruit and wine. She knew the taste of him. She remembered the feeling of his hands on her body… his hardness pressed close against her. All the fear in her fled when she was in his arms. There was a rightness about being close to him.