Gypsy Moon (28 page)

A slow smile kindled in Mateo’s eyes; soon, the spark turned to flame. He leaped out of his chair and caught his mother in a bearlike hug.

“Then we’re free to wed! I can go to her and tell her?”

“You had better go soon. She’s probably getting a little tired of waiting!”

As Mateo dashed away, Queen Zolande turned toward the picture hanging over her bed. “Forgive me, dear Sara. I meant to give you my promise. It must have slipped my mind.”

She smiled—and Sara-la-Kali seemed to be smiling back.

“Oh, Granny Fate, I’m so glad you’ve come!”

Charlotte snapped the lid of her trunk shut and ran to her grandmother the moment she entered the brides’ tent.

The old woman’s eyes missed nothing—a packed trunk, Charlotte’s hair tied back instead of hanging loose as it had been earlier, her colorful skirts exchanged for riding britches.

“Are you going somewhere, Charlotte?”

She hung her head, not wanting to meet Granny Fate’s piercing gaze.

“Yes. But I wouldn’t have left before seeing you again.”

“And did you plan to tell your prince good-bye?”

“He told me good-bye some time ago.” Charlotte searched her grandmother’s eyes. “Didn’t Queen Zolande tell you that Mateo plans to marry Phaedra?”

“Not the woman’s name, but she told me. We both agreed that should not happen.
You
are the golden Gypsy, Charlotte! You have an obligation here. Mateo needs you.”

Charlotte went to Granny Fate and led her to a chair. The woman looked old, frail, and suddenly very weary.

“I need him, too,” Charlotte told her gently. “But what can I do, Granny Fate? I tried again tonight to let him know how much I care, but he turned away. I can’t take any more of this. The sooner I leave, the better for everyone concerned. I don’t know why Mateo has rejected me. But I can see the torture in his eyes whenever I’m near him. I don’t want to cause him more pain by staying here.”

Fatima sighed. “Ah, how difficult love can be nowadays. It was so simple back when your grandfather decided he wanted me for his bride. He simply stole into my father’s cave and carried me off. There was no ‘Does he love me… doesn’t he love me?’ I fought him, yes, but only for tradition’s sake. I knew he was my man.”

Charlotte smiled. “Yes, that must have been nice. If only Mateo would come and carry me away!” She sighed heavily. “But there’s no use talking about it. His mind, if not his heart, is set on Phaedra. He’s already paid her brideprice.”

Granny Fate patted her heavy handbag. “Ah, yes! The fabulous brideprice. Two thousand, wasn’t it? A pity he didn’t offer that for you. That much money would mend a lot of fences back at Fairview.”

“Will Fairview be saved?”

Granny Fate shrugged in the same manner Tamara so often did. “Who can tell? It is in the hands of Fate, my child.”

“I wish I could help.”

The old woman patted her granddaughter’s cheek affectionately. “Don’t worry your pretty head over it. You have only to take care of yourself and find your own happiness. It’s out there somewhere, Charlotte. Perhaps you and Prince Mateo were never meant to be. But someday some man will steal into your cave and claim your heart for all time. Believe me!”

Charlotte looked at Granny Fate oddly. “Are you saying you aren’t going to try and stop me?”

The ancient Gypsy woman smiled, and fires burned deep in her eyes. “Would I try to stop the wind from blowing? No! Your will is your own. Go, if you must!”

Charlotte hugged her grandmother and kissed her on both cheeks. “I love you!” she said.

“Not nearly so much as I love you. Go now, quickly!”

Smiling, Fatima Buckland watched from the door of the brides’ tent as Charlotte slipped away into the night.

“There is nothing that will make a man go after a woman faster than her flight away from him,” she murmured.

Closing the door softly, she went back to her chair to wait for Mateo. He would come from his mother’s tent any time now, she was sure. She would have to be ready for him.

With a determined effort, she forced tears to her eyes. She tore her blouse, pulled her hair, and raked anguished streaks down her throat. Surely no time was more an occasion for mourning than the disappearance of one’s beloved granddaughter. Mateo would be convinced.

Phaedra and Petronovich, their passions spent for the moment, huddled close together in the shadows behind Queen Zolande’s tent, waiting for her to join the celebration.

“You’re sure you know where the gold is?” Petronovich whispered.

“Yes! She hides her valuables in a special place. It will be there, I promise you.”

Petronovich pulled Phaedra closer and captured her full, pouting lips. His kiss was hungry, hot, and deep. He would never get enough of this woman! And now that they were about to be rich, he knew what he wanted to do. They would head for San Francisco and live a life of ease there. With two thousand dollars in gold, he would never have to work another day of his life. He would have all the time in the world to partake of the pleasures of Phaedra’s lush body. There were so many things he wanted to do with her… to do
to her,
he thought as his blood pulsed hotly.

“Stop it, Petronovich,” she protested, shoving his hands from her breasts. “She’ll hear us.”

“You mean my heavy breathing?”

Phaedra didn’t answer him. She had her ear against the canvas and could hear the queen moving about inside. A moment later, all was silent.

“She’s gone,” Phaedra whispered. “You keep watch. I’ll slip under the bottom of the tent and get the gold.”

It is said that a Gypsy is more slippery than an eel. Phaedra seemed proof of that as she wriggled into the queen’s tent and fetched out the leather pouch. In moments she was beside Petronovich once more, holding her prize up high for him to see.

“Two thousand dollars!” he said in a voice hushed with awe.

“And all ours, my lover! Quickly now, before anyone spots us.”

The pair of thieves slipped away, hugging the shadows and moving soundlessly. The caravan’s departure would only have drawn attention, so they left it behind with all their other belongings and rode off into the night on Petronovich’s two horses.

“We won’t need that old wagon or anything else from our past lives,” he assured Phaedra. “We’ll buy everything new! We’ll live like royalty!”

Phaedra laughed and whipped her horse to more speed. “I always wanted to be a queen!”

It was many miles and hours later before they stopped to rest the horses, make love, and count their ill-gotten treasure.

Phaedra was still lying naked with Petronovich at her breast when she reached for the leather pouch and poured the contents out between them. A cold hand closed over her heart and sharp teeth bit her nipple.

“Rocks?”
she screamed, unbelieving.

Petronovich could only stare at the pile of stones in sick silence. They were in the middle of nowhere, with nothing. How would they ever survive?

When Mateo rushed into the brides’ tent, he found a strange woman in a sodden, sobbing heap on the floor. She looked as if a close family member had just died.

Lifting her gently, he said, “Please, try to calm yourself, old woman.”

She glared up at him through eyes stained with tears. “Don’t order me about, and don’t call me ‘old woman,’ young man! Who are you to intrude upon my grief?”

He looked and felt bewildered. Since he had been off in the woods searching for Phaedra when Major Krantz had arrived, he had no idea that this woman was Charlotte’s grandmother.

“I am Prince Mateo. I came here looking for Charlotte Buckland.”

Fatima flew at him, her long fingers curved into claws.
“You!”
she screamed, lunging at him as if she meant to tear his eyes from his head. “Because of you, she has gone away…
forever
! I will never see my granddaughter again. She is as good as dead to me now. And I have you, you prince of darkness, to thank for all my misfortunes. Perhaps even as we speak she is out there somewhere being torn to bits by a pack of hungry wolves. You devil! You toad!” She went for him again but pulled back when she saw that he did not mean to defend himself.

Her words sank into him like an arrow sinking into tender flesh. He had heard wolves howling in the woods. The old woman could well be right.

“Which way did she go?” he demanded. There was not a second to lose.

“Off to the west.”

“How long ago?”

“Not long. The amount of time it takes a stallion and a mare to mate.”

He smiled at her. She was most certainly of Gypsy blood. Only a Romany would tell time in such a manner.

“Don’t worry. I will find our precious Golden One.”

Fatima caught his arm and stayed him for an instant. Opening her bag, she showed him the gold. “I have accepted your brideprice from the queen. When you find my Charlotte, there will be a wedding, Prince Mateo?”

“There will be! That I promise you.”

“And little princes?”

He nodded. “And princesses as well!”

With a whistle that split the cold night, he summoned his mount. The Black Devil charged to a snow-scattering halt before the door. Mateo leaped onto his stallion’s bare back and galloped away, leaving Fatima Buckland looking on, smiling and feeling almost like a bride herself.

Charlotte had counted on the full moon to light her way. For the first half hour of her ride, all had been well. But now clouds had moved in to obscure her guiding beacon. The wind whipped at her furiously. The temperature was dropping fast. And large, wet snowflakes were beginning to fall. She tried not to admit it to herself at first, but now there was no denying the fact that she was lost.

She had never been frightened of being alone. But here in this wilderness the leafless trees cast eerie shadows across the snow, creating nightmarish visions before her eyes. She tried to tell herself she was only imagining things—that the monstrous presence off to her right was only a tree trunk that had been shattered by lightning. But the more she stared, the more her skin crawled and her heart pounded.

One frightening factor had nothing to do with her imagination, however.
Wolves!
She had been conscious of their howling far off in the distance for some time. But now the sound was moving ever closer. Velacore could smell them. The great stallion neighed nervously, and she could feel his flanks quivering beneath her.

“Steady, boy. They won’t bother us as long as we keep moving.”

Her voice trembled with the cold and her fear. How could she reassure her mount when she found no comfort in the sound of her own voice?

She pulled her shawl more closely about her and bent forward into the driving snow. She might have Gypsy blood in her veins, but not enough to keep her warm in a blizzard.

Velacore slowed. “Come on, boy, please!” she said through chattering teeth. “We have to keep moving.”

She scanned the landscape but could see only a few feet in any direction. The wind had picked up and was lashing them now with stinging flakes. She thought she saw a shadow move, off to the right. Her head jerked that way, but there was nothing.

“Jumping at phantoms, now, are you? Mateo would have a good laugh over this. Oh, yes! The Golden One, the brave one… lost in a storm, quaking with fear at the slightest sound.”

But the next sound she heard was not so slight. The shadow had not been imagined—the wolves were closing in. She heard their low snarls before they came close enough for her to see them circling.

Velacore jerked and sidestepped. When the leader of the pack lunged at them, the horse reared and Charlotte screamed. Soon the night was filled with sound and fury. The huge stallion fought the pack for all he was worth—sending one after another of the scavenging wolves flying through the air with his powerful kicks.

Charlotte held on for dear life, but not even Mateo’s Black Devil had given her such a ride. Her injured arm ached with cold; her other arm was growing numb from holding on to Velacore’s neck. Suddenly, the whole pack charged at once. She felt the horse buck beneath her, and the next thing she knew she was lying in the snow, a ledge of rocks to her back and Velacore putting up a brave defense before her.

Mateo heard the screams of both woman and horse. He put heels to his stallion and sent him hurtling through the blinding snowstorm.

“Find her, you Black Devil! That’s our Golden One calling for help!”

He could hear the wolves. He knew the pack was attacking. But how far away were they? The wind carried the sounds in strange directions and added its own distorting moans.

Mateo forced his mount to breakneck speed. This was suicide on such a night, but what good was life without her? He was so close now. But a single second one way or the other could mean life or death for her.

Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to pray to Sara-la-Kali once more. But this time he made no foolish promises. He
demanded
she save his woman!

Suddenly, the stallion broke out of the forest into a clearing. Mateo could see them now, silhouetted against the snow—Charlotte clinging to a rocky ledge and Velacore fighting off the snarling, snapping villains as if he were protecting his own mate instead of his master’s.

Mateo dismounted in one great leap. His whip uncoiled and whistled its warning through the air. There was a sharp crack, the howling of a wounded wolf. A few more strikes and the pack admitted defeat. They dragged themselves off through the snowdrifts, whimpering and whining to one another.

“Mateo!” Charlotte cried, running to his arms. “Oh, thank God, you came!”

“Thank Sara-la-Kali, too!” he whispered against her cold cheek. “And my mother and your grandmother, my darling. They are quite a pair, and they love us both very much.”

Charlotte offered her lips to him. “As much as we love each other, Mateo?” she whispered.

“No. Not that much,” he said before he kissed her.

The blizzard continued all night, but Charlotte and Mateo never noticed. Finding a tiny cave in the rock ledge, they took refuge there, leaving the stallions to shelter in the nearby trees. Mateo built a small fire inside and spread out his wolf-skin coat to make a bed. Charlotte lay down, exhausted from her terrifying experience but happier than she had been in a long time.

She watched Mateo as he worked over the fire. His face was so fine and beautiful. The golden rings gleamed in his ears and his dark eyes danced with reflected firelight. Could all this be real, or was her imagination playing tricks on her again?

“Mateo?”

He turned to her, smiling. When the smile narrowed and became an intense look of longing, he touched her… and she had no doubts left about reality.