For long minutes he watched her through the sparks and crackling tips of the flames. There was a great sum of gold in his hand, almost enough to buy the soul of a man, but he was unmoved.
Arabella had not made the risk of coming to this place to leave empty handed. She grew desperate. “This is only the first payment. I will give you everything I have, if that is what it takes.”
Ion’s lips ticked up at the corner, dark eyes glittering in the firelight. “I’ll take your coin. Tell me what I need to know.”
“In London you’ll find my husband’s successor, Lord William Dalton...” For hours Arabella spoke of secrets, of places she feared, and men who had hurt her. She told Ion everything, a gypsy seer and gap-toothed trader as witness. She spoke until she found there were no words left, and then she stood to leave, but there was a pair of black eyes watching from the edge of the grounds. Where men threw dice and drank, still as carved earth, Gregory made it clear in one dark gaze he knew who she was. She turned to him so he might watch her cover her hair, so he might know he was correct, that it was her—the pirate—and that he could do nothing with such knowledge that would not bring him disgrace.
Walking past wide-eyed children, past women who no longer sneered, Arabella merged into the night, feeling like bones left out in the sun—like the color had been bleached from her.
She was the White Woman as Gregory had claimed.
A shrill whistle and Mamioro ran to her, the very prize horse that had stomped her husband almost to death. Astride his back, she set off, but not in the furious gallop that had brought her to the caravans. Slowly she rode toward her stone warren—back to a place no Romani would ever abide in—a place that would never move or rock in the wind.
A tomb.
His voice was severe and cutting. “Had any recognized you, you would have been cast out! What game is it you think you are playing?”
She’d heard him ride up, having known he would follow her, but Arabella did not spare Gregory Harrow a glance.
He turned his gelding, cutting off her stallion’s path. “No noble’s title would protect you from the slander of these people if you were exposed in such a way. You would be hounded. Men would feel free to touch you, especially as you are young and unmarried. Farmers would not trade with a gypsy or your servants. Shops would not take your custom. Your safety would be forfeit.” Gnashing his teeth, he growled. “Are you not happy on the moors?”
“My lineage is not a secret in London.” Utterly drained, Arabella refused to argue. With a heavy sigh she shook her head. “It is only a matter of time before the news reaches Harding.”
“You think I did not already know what you were? That I did not suspect the second I saw you on that bluff or heard the Romani curse for which you named your horse? How about how well you cheat at cards? The way you ride... No matter how much silk you drape yourself in, no matter how much you pretend to be one of them, you are not.”
She
agreed. “A Romani baroness and a bastard gentleman. Are we not the sorry pair?”
“Are we not, indeed.”
She raised her eyes to his, and before she might protest, Gregory reached out and hooked her waist. There was no struggle when he pulled her from her monstrous horse to tuck her safely across his thighs.
Strong arm fast about her middle, Gregory set off with his prize.
She didn’t struggle, curse him, or scream. Instead she tucked her face against his neck and closed her eyes.
He took her safely around bogs that would sink a horse and rider, her stallion following his mistress. It was not until they were deep into his lands that he slowed his pace. At the foot of the spire where they’d first met, Gregory dismounted.
He pulled her from the saddle, and lay the stiff woman down on a bed of heather. Braced over her body, he breathed against her lips. “Shall I build you a fire?”
The wind was blocked by the outcrop, the devil sprawled over her body hot as pitch. “No.”
Gregory pulled the tie between her breasts, having given her the one chance to refuse. “You’ll be cold...”
There were no further pointless questions or demands for explanations, just slow touch and a sucking kiss. When his hands delved under the thin fabric that bloused over her breasts, when the pressure of full lips left her mouth and sucked a trail of searing heat down her neck, Arabella found her hands in his hair.
“To see you alone in that place...” Though his touch was gentle, his voice was furious. “Never go there again.”
The feel of his mouth warming her skin, Arabella sighed to the stars. “I am not afraid of the Romani.”
“Fear the men who visit the gypsies to gamble, drink, and leer at dancing. One of them might have followed you from the caravan.”
“One of them did.” She didn’t want to talk of the Romani or of dangerous men. She’d talked enough for one night. All Arabella wanted was to lie in the flowers and forget.
Pulling his head from her breast, Gregory warned, “You wanted to go with me, you knew where I would bring you, and you need what I’m going to do to you.”
“And what are you going to do?” Apathy was replaced with apprehension. Arabella sat up, half trapped under the weight of a tutting man.