Samantha James (20 page)

He shook his head. “You don’t need it, princess.”

“But you said it had great healing powers—and it does! Now I know for certain!”

“No. No, princess. The crystal has no special powers. I told you that because I thought it might help if you had something to believe in…Oh, don’t you see, it’s you. This is happening because of you! You wanted to see and—and now you are.” He coiled his fingers around her wrists. “Open your eyes, love.”

Her fingers separated. She peered through them, only to screw her eyes closed again. “It hurts! Andre, it—it’s too bright.”

He rushed to close the curtains, then returned to her. “The curtains are closed. Please, Emily, try again.”

She gave a stricken cry, a sound that tore into him like a blade. “I’m afraid. I’m afraid it’s just another dream and—and when I wake, the world will be dark again.”

His heart went out to her. “It’s no dream, I promise you. You’ll never know unless you try, princess. Open your eyes and—and look at me!”

She was trembling from head to toe.

“Oh, please, princess. This is what you wanted, remember?”

He was right, Emily realized achingly. This was what she’d longed for, almost from the very day they’d met. She was suddenly compelled by the need to see her beloved Andre, a yearning more powerful than anything she’d ever experienced before.

She lowered her hands and lifted her lids slowly. A pale gray haze danced before her.

“That’s the way, princess. Now, look at me. What do you see?”

She was afraid even to breathe. “It’s like looking through a dark curtain,” she whispered. Her lids half-closed.

Andre groaned and settled his palms on each side of her face. Her lashes fluttered closed as he kissed her, a sweetly tender caress. She gave a breathy little sigh. Her lips parted beneath the warmth of his. “Once more,” he murmured huskily, just before he raised his head. “Open your eyes just once more, love.”

Love
. Emily’s heart contracted. He’d told her how much he loved her over and over again last night.
Holding her breath, she did as he asked.

There were shadows and light. They seemed to shift and blur…but wait! The outline of a face swam fuzzily before her. She blinked several times until at last she could focus.

Her pulse began to race. She saw eyes, so dark they were almost black. Hair tumbled over his forehead, as black as the wings of a raven. His skin was burned dark from the sun…She bit back a cry of sheer joy. Finally—finally!—she could see her beloved Andre…

The image sharpened. Her mind registered a shirt of bright red, and a kerchief tied loosely around his neck.

Her heart began to pound with thick, dull strokes. Her blood seemed to freeze. Shock made the world reel and tilt.

She cringed inside. It was impossible—impossible! Yet the proof was here before her. Her beloved Andre was a…

A Gypsy.

She hurtled from the bed, still staring. “No,” she heard herself say, and then it was a cry of denial, a cry of agony: “
No!
”

He extended a hand. “Princess—”

She slapped it away. “Don’t call me that! Don’t ever call me that again!”

Her gaze scraped over him, contemptuous and accusing. He endured it as best he could. But before he could say a word she lashed out fiercely. “Damn you! Why didn’t you tell me you’re a—a Gypsy!” She nearly spat the word.

Andre steeled himself against the hurt, both inside and out. “I will not lie, Emily. I did not tell you because I was afraid you would refuse to see
me again, and I could not bear the thought.”

She paid no heed. “You talked about your family, how you didn’t know how long they might stay…Oh, Lord…you meant the Gypsies!”

Andre raised his chin. “I did,” he said levelly. “They are my family, as much my family as my parents who died long ago.”

She made a sound that told how she felt only too well.

He took a deep, racking breath. She was right. He should have told her. But he would have lost her—he knew it now for certain. Yet perhaps it would have been better after all. It wouldn’t have
hurt
the way it did now.

A hot tide of color seeped beneath the bronze of his skin. “Do you think this is easy for me? Do you think I haven’t felt guilty each and every time I’ve been with you? Especially after you told me your father was killed by a Gypsy! I—I didn’t know what to do!” With his eyes he begged for her understanding. “If I had told you, I would have risked losing you, and I couldn’t do that!”

“Oh!” she cried. “So you were only thinking about yourself! Well, what about me? Did you ever think about how I might feel if I knew?”

“I admit it. I was selfish.” His eyes bored into hers. “What about last night? Did it mean nothing to you?” He took a step forward. “Emily, I love you. Nothing has changed—”

Her eyes welled with tears. “Everything has changed!” she cried wildly. “I didn’t know what you are…who you are!”

“I am the same as before,” he said very quietly. “Emily, if you think about it, you’ll realize it.”
Sending a fervent pray heavenward, he reached for her.

She shrank away. “You are what you are. A dirty, thieving Gypsy and I—I hate you!”

She might as well have struck him. His hand fell to his side. His heart plummeted to the floor. There would be no reasoning with her, he decided wearily. There would be no changing her mind.

His gaze roved her face, as if to memorize each and every feature—as indeed he was.

“Good-bye, princess,” he said very softly. With that he turned and was gone.

She stood there, trembling from head to toe. She could scarcely move for the torment that rent her insides. It was then she saw it…

The rose he’d given her. It had fallen from the bedside table.

A half-sob tore from her throat. She picked it up and stared at it. Only when the blood welled bright and crimson from her fingertip did she realize she’d been pricked by a thorn…

The hurt was nothing compared to the pain in her heart.

Dominic woke to the sound of a lone bird trilling
outside the window. His gaze sped immediately to the spot next to him.

She was gone.

He couldn’t stop the disappointment that flooded him as he saw empty space beside him. He ran a hand along the indentation left by her body. The sheets were still warm. He smiled slightly. She’d burrowed against him the night through, her arm draped across his belly, her nose buried in the cloud of hair on his chest. He remembered warm, moist breath pooling across his skin, the press of round, full breasts against his side.

He sighed. Both times when he’d lain with her he woke alone. He longed to nuzzle her awake, kiss her sleep-warm body to wakefulness while his own stirred to life! They’d spend a lazy morning in bed, just the two of them. They would share breakfast in bed…and each other. Perhaps even a long, leisurely bath, he decided wickedly…

It was a wild, erotic fantasy—one he hoped would come true. Still, he couldn’t help but feel cheated somehow.

Not that he blamed Olivia. He knew why—knew
the gossip that would result if any one of the servants or villagers discovered their relationship. His mouth turned down. His day was full, since he’d scheduled visits with several of his tenants on the outskirts of his property. If not for that, he would…

What would he do? A voice inside chided him. He could hardly spirit her away as he had last night, not in the full light of day. It was so damned hard to pretend they were strangers—that there was nothing between them, when all he wanted was to drag her into his arms and keep her there…for a lifetime.

Belatedly he questioned his judgment, now when it was too late. By spiriting her away to his chamber, he had jeopardized her virtue, her good name. Perhaps she was right, and he
was
accustomed to getting his way. Yet never had he felt a passion so keenly, so deeply he could think of little else.

It was then he spied the jade ball gown. They’d left it in a heap on the floor; she must have picked it up and laid it upon the chair. Lord, but she’d looked enchantingly lovely! He wished she’d been able to take it. The next time…

The next time, he promised himself, would be far different.

The next time would be as his wife.

The curtains were drawn tightly closed when Olivia opened the door to the cottage late that afternoon. It struck her as odd as she stepped inside. She frowned. Was Emily ill?

She removed her bonnet and hung it on the hook near the door. “Emily,” she called.

There was no reply.

Worried now, Olivia hurried into the parlor. Emily lay upon the settee, one arm thrown across her eyes.

“Emily! Heavens, you frightened the devil out of me! Why didn’t you answer?”

“I—I didn’t hear you.” Emily pushed herself to a sitting position.

It was an excuse. Olivia knew it instantly. She sat beside her, laying a hand on her arm. “Love,” she said gently, “what is it? Are you feeling poorly?”

Her answer was slow in coming. “I’m fine, Olivia.”

Olivia’s gaze sharpened. She sounded so odd! With the waning sunlight but a trickle through the window on the other side of the cottage, the light was dim. Not until now did she notice that Emily’s lovely blue eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.

“Emily! You’ve been crying!” Olivia was immediately penitent. “Oh, love, I’m sorry to have left you alone for so long—”

“’Tis not that.” Emily clasped her hands together in her lap and stared at them.

“What then?” Olivia’s stomach knotted. She tried not to be alarmed, but she couldn’t help it. Emily had been so happy and gay these last weeks. But now…She was reminded of those days after Emily had gone blind—she’d had to plead and cajole to persuade Emily even to rise in the morning.

Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

She laid a hand atop Emily’s. “Emily, please tell me what’s wrong.”

Slowly Emily raised her head and looked at her.

In that instant between one breath and the next, it struck her that something was different. Emily’s
gaze was no longer vague. She regarded her as if…

As if she could see her.

Olivia’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt. “Emily—” Her voice sounded nothing like her own. “—you can see me, can’t you?”

Her lips tremulous, Emily nodded.

Olivia was suddenly laughing and crying all at once. She hugged her sister fiercely. “You can see again,” she cried over and over. “You can see again!”

Only when the euphoria began to fade did she realize there was no answering joy in her sister’s manner. Emily returned her embrace, but it was a token response.

She retreated slightly, then reached for Emily’s hand. Her fingers were ice-cold despite the warmth of the day. Worriedly she searched her sister’s pale features.

“Emily, you should be delirious with happiness. Why, this is what you’ve longed for these many months—to see again.”

To her shock Emily’s eyes filled with tears.

“I thought it would be the most wondrous day of my life,” she choked out. “Instead I fear it’s the worst.”

“But…how can that be?”

Emily shook her head. “I’ve done something terrible, Olivia.” She couldn’t withhold a half-sob. “I—I’ve fallen in love.”

“But…that’s not terrible at all. Why, ’tis a wondrous thing!”

“No.” Her tone was as forlorn as her expression. “It is not.”

“Why not? Doesn’t he love you?”

“He—he said he does.”

“Then why this melancholy? If he loves you, and you love him—”

Emily’s eyes were two endless pools of pain. “Olivia,” she whispered, “he is a Gypsy.”

Olivia felt the blood drain from her face. “Dear God,” she said faintly. Her mind swerved straight to Dominic. Of course that wasn’t possible, yet who on earth could it be? A dozen questions spun through her. How had it happened? When? And where on earth had Emily encountered one of the Gypsies?

She clasped Emily’s hand within hers. “Tell me what happened,” she said quietly. “Where did you meet this Gypsy?”

“I met him in the village one day. Esther—oh, I know I should have told you earlier—but sometimes on our walks she would dart into the alehouse. Just for a drop, she would always say. But one day, it was growing dark and still she didn’t return. I’d begun to grow quite frightened, wondering how I should get home, when he saw me sitting there in the village square.”

“The Gypsy?”

Emily nodded. “His name is Andre.”

Andre!
Olivia very nearly gasped. She recalled the handsome young Gypsy she’d met at the camp with Dominic. Was it he? She had a very good idea it was.

“Olivia, he was so charming—so concerned! I know I should never have relied on a stranger, but I—I allowed him to escort me home. I could tell he was not a gentleman, that he was a workingman. A farmer, I thought, but he told me he worked with horses, buying and selling and trading.”

A Gypsy trade
, Olivia thought silently. With her sight impaired, she could see how Emily had never guessed he was a Gypsy.

Just as she could understand why Andre—taken with a lovely young woman who could not see him—would never have carelessly divulged the fact that he was a Gypsy.

Emily bit her lip guiltily. “I saw him many days when you were at Ravenwood,” she confided in a small voice. “I know I should have told you. But I was afraid you might be angry—that you wouldn’t allow me to see him again.”

Olivia listened quietly while the story poured out. How Andre had sold the lace she’d been making. How it was not long before her feelings blossomed into something far beyond friendship. How he’d given her the crystal with healing powers. To think she’d felt so guilty about leaving Emily alone so many times! Olivia was secretly glad Emily hadn’t been alone at all.

She could hardly deliver the chastisement Emily seemed to expect. For if Emily was guilty of loving a Gypsy…

Then so was she.

Olivia squeezed her hand. “Does he know how Papa died?”

“Yes. I told him several weeks ago that Papa was murdered by a Gypsy, yet still he didn’t tell me! He deceived me, Olivia. He deceived me and I—I hate him! I—I told him I never wanted to see him again.”

“So he won’t be back then,” Olivia said gently, “will he?”

Emily’s eyes seemed to blaze, then suddenly her
face crumpled. “No,” she whispered. Two large tears brimmed and overflowed.

Olivia slid an arm around her shoulders, while Emily wept her heart out. She held her, and offered what comfort she could. If Emily was confused, it was no wonder. To have watched their father die at the hands of a Gypsy, only to fall in love with one…

She said she hated Andre.

Olivia wasn’t so certain.

After a while, Emily fell into an exhausted sleep on the settee. Olivia tenderly smoothed her sister’s cheek, then rose. It was still difficult to comprehend that Emily had regained her sight—almost as difficult as it had been when she’d lost it. In some corner of herself, she wondered if that, too, was not because of Andre.

There was a knock on the door. Olivia hurried to open it. To her surprise it was Dominic. Before she could say a word he stepped inside and closed the door.

Without a word he pulled her into his arms. His mouth captured hers. Olivia struggled against an insidious pleasure.
No
, she thought vaguely. This was not right. She could not do this, not with Emily so near. How could she find pleasure in his kiss, when her sister lay brokenhearted in the next room?

It was she who broke off the kiss. She stepped back. “Dominic! I—I didn’t know you were back.” It was Charlotte who’d told her he’d gone to visit his tenants early that afternoon.

“I’ve only just returned.”

There was a protracted silence. He regarded her
with eyes that saw everything, eyes that seemed to reach inside her very soul.

“What’s the matter, Olivia?”

Olivia floundered.
Everything
, she wanted to shout. Her nerves were suddenly screaming. Last night had been…the most wondrous night of her life. But this morning, when she had crept from his bed, reality staked its claim once more. Doubt crept in, like a rising tide. She made love with him, not just once, but twice.
Twice
. What had she been thinking?

But it was Emily who commanded her attention just now. Emily’s day had been traumatic, fraught with upheaval. This was hardly the time to confess to Emily her relationship with Dominic—if only he were not half-Gypsy! And indeed, she thought shakily,
she
was not precisely sure what that relationship was. She was not his mistress, though she had certainly behaved like one. So what was she then? His lover?

She winced inside. His mistress. His lover. Both sounded cheap and—and tawdry.

No, she decided. She darted a hasty glance over her shoulder, toward the parlor where Emily lay sleeping. She could not explain, not here. Not now. Emily’s wound was still too fresh. Her sister needed no further reminders of Andre.

Dominic saw the direction of her gaze. His eyes narrowed. “What is it?” he demanded. “Who is inside? Someone besides Emily?”

Olivia lost her temper. “Of course not!” she snapped. “Now if you don’t mind, I must ask you to leave.”

His gaze was suddenly hard and glittering. “You don’t want her to know I’m here, do you?”

Olivia straightened her spine. She spoke the only thing she dared. “I think you’d better leave.”

The cast of his jaw was rigid. “Regrets already, eh, Miss Sherwood. I find I’m curious, however. Have you decided I’m too good for the poor vicar’s daughter—or are you too good for a man who’s half-Gypsy?”

Olivia’s eyes widened. She didn’t answer; she couldn’t. She was stunned that such a thing would even cross his mind.

At her silence he made a sound of disgust and turned away. Four steps took him back to the door, which slammed in his wake. His posture was wooden, his expression taut. Only then did she realize he’d mistaken her silence for concurrence. She could only guess at the hurt he must have felt.

She couldn’t stand the thought. He’d suffered enough at the hands of his father, and she wouldn’t do the same.

She went after him. He was at Storm’s side before she reached him. “Dominic!” she cried. “Dominic, wait, you don’t understand—”

He’d already swung up onto Storm’s back. His lip curled. “Oh, I understand, Miss Sherwood. I understand only too well.” He whirled Storm around and was gone.

Olivia stared after him, a stark pain wedged in her chest. A tiny little voice inside refused to be silent. Perhaps it was better this way, it whispered.
How?
she wondered achingly.
How?

Her spirit heavy, she retraced her steps back into the cottage. In the parlor Emily stirred, opening her eyes.

“Olivia? Was someone here? I thought I heard voices.”

Olivia turned away so that Emily wouldn’t see the single hot tear that scalded her cheek. “No one,” she said sadly. “Go back to sleep, love.”

Dominic sat in his study, watching the purple haze of twilight creep over the horizon. His mood was black as the devil’s soul.
Damn her
, he thought viciously.
Damn her!

He hadn’t forced her to come to his chamber last night. Why had she bothered? Did she regret it? Did she feel she’d been tainted by his Gypsy blood? Only last night, he’d held her close to his heart, as close as two people could be. Yet this evening she’d been so very cool! She hadn’t wanted to see him—’twas so very obvious! Why did she hold him so distant?

He didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand
her
. He wanted her to share everything with him—her body. Her soul. Her every thought…

A voice within urged patience.
’Tis too soon. This thing between you is still so new, so tenuous…Or perhaps she is as uncertain of you as you are of her
.

His jaw locked hard and tight. No. No! It was disdain he’d glimpsed in those beautiful green eyes. Was she ashamed of what had happened between them—ashamed of laying with him? His mouth twisted. Certainly it would seem so.

There was only one way to know for certain.