Taming Her Gypsy Lover

Widow Emma Hammond had reluctantly accepted her place as a poor relation to be given away in an arranged marriage. She didn’t think she could escape her fate—until she meets gypsy Chal Pannell. Even though he vows revenge against her family for taking a gypsy boy from his tribe, he awakens Emma’s passionate fantasies…and a risqué tryst in the woods proves he desires her just as strongly! When the boy goes missing, Emma and the wild stranger set off to recover him as unlikely allies—and uninhibited lovers….

When it was offered, I jumped at the chance to revisit the
Regency Silk & Scandal
universe. I’ve tried to describe the miniseries to friends, and I generally start with “There were these three friends… and there was a spy… and a torrid affair… and then a murder… and a curse… and a hanging…

Or perhaps, a hanging… and a curse…”

Eventually, after a prolonged explanation, I have to admit that none of these things actually happen in the Silk & Scandal books, which take place about twenty years later. But after thousands of e-mails and over a hundred pages of timelines, family trees, and back story that the six of us created on the way to the finished series, the events surrounding the murder of Christopher Hebden seemed as real and important to us as the stories we wrote about the children of the men involved.

So for this Undone, I traveled back to Georgian England, to a time shortly after all Hell broke loose in our little corner of imaginary England. I hope you enjoy it, and that you come back to visit again when the miniseries begins in June with Louise Allen’s
The Lord and the Wayward Lady
.

Learn more about the Silk & Scandal miniseries at the back of this eBook….

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

London, 1795

“Stop fussing over me. It is too hot in this room. I am stifling.”

Emma Hammond could sympathize with her poor cousin, for she felt the same. The air was oppressive, but she had been forbidden to open a window, lest the patient take a chill. She pushed the other woman gently back onto the bed, and reached for a damp cloth to cool her brow. “Amanda, do not trouble yourself so. If you lie quietly, you will feel cooler. The doctor says you are still too weak to go out.” If the murder of her husband had not been enough to madden her, then the loss of the child she’d carried had taken the last of Amanda Hebden’s sanity. After nearly six months of forced rest, continual bleedings and sedatives, the bright and beautiful woman was almost unrecognizable.

Amanda reached up and tossed the cloth aside, trying to rise again. “I am not sick. I loved him. And now I am alone.”

“We know you did. And it has been hard on all of us, loosing poor Kit. Perhaps a bit more laudanum…” Against her own judgment, Emma offered the glass that the doctor had left.

The woman on the bed looked up at her, with tears still streaming down her face. “You don’t understand. Not at all. It was not Kit that I loved. It was never Kit. But I married him, and now it is too late. William is dead as well, hanged for murder. How am I to go on?”

It was the scandal of the year. Amanda’s lover, William Wardale, had been found guilty of stabbing her husband, and had suffered the consequences. Emma’s heart ached for Amanda, who had to live with the dramatic results of her infidelity. “Do not think of him. It only upsets you. You will go on because you must. Perhaps, if you calm yourself, I can arrange for the children to come see you. Would you like that?”

At the mention of her children, Amanda regained some small amount of control. “Of course. You are right. I need to be strong for them, if no one else.”

Emma rang the bell to summon the nurse, and offered Amanda the cool cloth again, mopping her brow and brushing the damp locks of hair from her face to make her more presentable. “There. That is better. You will be pretty for Thomas. And for little Imogen.” There was a knock at the door, and a hesitant shuffling in the hall. “Nurse is here.”

The door opened, and Emma gestured to the servant to bring the children close to their mother’s bedside. The little girl was healthy enough, thank the Lord. But the young Baron of Framlingham was as pale as his mother, eyes large in his gaunt face, and breath rasping. He looked like a little ghost.

Amanda gave him a gentle hug, as though she feared her love would smother him, then laid her hand on the head of his four year old sister, as though drawing strength from the contact. But then she looked past them, into the hall. “And where is Stephen?”

Emma shot the nurse a helpless glance, and mouthed,
“No one has told her?”

The nurse shook her head and shrugged.

Emma silently damned Lord Callandar for what he had done, when his poor daughter was still weak in childbed and too drugged to know what had happened.

Before she could stop him, little Thomas whispered, “He is gone, Mama. Grandfather said it was for the best, and that I mustn’t cry.”

“Gone? Gone where? And with whom? I must have him here with me. I promised Kit I would take care of him.” She looked again at Emma, and her glazed eyes turned mad again. “My husband meant to hurt me, to shame me with his Gypsy bastard. But I do not care. I love Stephen as my own. Where have they taken him?”

Under her breath, Emma offered another curse, this one to her betrothed for his part in the plans. By helping with them, Geoffrey Burton had proved himself to be nothing more than a toady to Lord Callandar. “It was thought best if Stephen lived elsewhere, Amanda. Your father only means to help you. In your present state, the child would be too much for you.”

“Stephen is no bother. He never was. Bring him here, and I will show you.”

Thank God they had given her extra laudanum that day, so that she had not heard the fuss her good boy had raised, biting and kicking and calling for his mama as Geoffrey had hauled him bodily to the Callandar coach, then driven hell-for-leather to the foundling home in somewhere in the north.

And Emma had stood by, helpless, begging Geoffrey to relent, until he had put his hands on her arms and moved her to one side, telling her in a harsh voice that she should waste no tears on half-breed Gypsy filth that should never have been allowed to soil the reputation of a noble family. Then he’d cuffed the boy hard across the cheek to quiet his cries, and handed his limp body up into the coach with Amanda’s father.

Emma’s last glimpse of Stephen Hebden had been his dark face, paled to the color of clay by shock, fingers twisted into the hangings at the window of Lord Callandar’s coach as it carted him from the only mother he had ever known.

“You must calm yourself. You are upsetting the children.” Emma waved a warning to the nurse, to take Thomas and Imogen away again, and then turned back to her cousin. “When you are truly better, your father will send for him, I am sure.” Emma prayed God would forgive her the lie. But she feared the shock of the truth would kill Amanda, should she learn it.

And yet she seemed to know. Her eyes were as hollow as her true son’s had been, and as full of death. “Thank you for trying to spare me. We know that is not the case, for we both know my father.” She reached out and gripped Emma’s hand. “But he is gone from this house now, is he not? With his lackey Geoffrey Burton?”

Hesitantly, Emma nodded.

“Then you must do something for me. You must go as well.”

“Go where, Amanda?”

“Anywhere. But get away from him and the man he has chosen for you. Do not fool yourself into thinking that you will be as happy as you were with Mr. Hammond. The only reason Burton offered for you is because I am still in mourning and far too mad to marry. He seeks to curry favor with my father, and my father wants you off his hands. He has no feeling for you.”

Emma busied herself with the water in the basin, trying not to look at the woman in the bed. The truth was painful. But Emma had long since reconciled herself to her place in the family, and the fact that she was tolerated rather than loved.

Amanda came halfway out of the bed to grab her by the arm. “Look at me, Emma. I stayed where my heart did not lie. Look what has become of me. You do not love Geoffrey, any more than I loved Kit.”

“I am a poor relation, and have little choice in the matter. Your father has been more than good to me, to arrange the match.” Another lie.

“He is good to no one. He has taken my son.” Amanda smiled. “And now I will pay him back, and do you a good turn as well. Run while you can. Take my jewelry with you and sell it. There is no future for you here, or with the man you are likely to marry.” And then she collapsed against the pillows, drifting into an uneasy, drugged slumber.

Emma backed slowly away from the bed, fearing to wake her. And without meaning to, her eyes shifted to the jewelry box on the dresser.

Then she looked away again, ashamed. It was difficult enough to be at the mercy of Lord Callandar’s charity. He would not hesitate to brand her a thief, should she take what his daughter offered.

When she saw Geoffrey again, she would tell him how his actions had upset Amanda, and her as well. Even if the boy was not Amanda’s child by birth, it could not be good for either of them to part at this time. Perhaps Geoffrey could appeal to Lord Callandar.

But her betrothed had no children of his own. Nor was he a woman. He did not understand. And although Emma would try, she suspected he would not listen to her now, nor was he likely to in the future.

And suddenly, she felt as though the madness in the room was infecting her. The atmosphere was still and thick, and she could not seem to breathe. She tugged at the fichu at her throat, as though the sheer scarf was the cause of the constriction in her lungs, and she ran from the room, down the stairs, out the back door and into the garden, not stopping until she reached the trees at the bottom of it.

If she stood behind them, between the trunk of the big oak and the wall, she was out of sight of the house, and could pretend, just for a moment, that she was back in the country where she belonged. At peace, happy again, and worthy of love. She took deep breaths of the garden air, letting the sharp green smells of summer calm her, closing her eyes to focus on the songs of birds, and the rustle of their wings through the leaves.

And something else. There was a subtle noise of a branch breaking, the sound of fabric shifting against fabric, and human breathing that was not her own.

Her eyes flew open, searching for the source.

A man was standing only a few feet away, in the shade of another tree, his back to the brick wall at the edge of the garden. His hair was unpowdered, thick and black, and tied back with a cord. His throat was bare above the white cotton shirt he wore, his red vest open in the heat, his doeskin breeches stretched tight across muscular thighs.

A Gypsy. He must be. For who else would have the nerve to invade Lord Callandar’s walled backyard? He seemed to emanate confidence, as though the world belonged to him and no wall could hold him in nor keep him from his goals.

She tried to look away. Her staring was most unladylike. But he was too close to ignore.

He stared back with an animal hunger at the bared skin above the neckline of her dress. His gaze made Emma feel even warmer. She stepped back to put distance between them, and tripped on a tree root behind her, stumbling.

He caught her by the wrists to keep her from falling. But then he restrained her, holding her a few inches from his body. He looked thoughtful now, as though he was trying to decide her fate.

When he did not let her go with an apology, her mind clouded with images of ravishment. But as the seconds ticked by, he made no move to hurt her. And her fantasies changed
. Teeth upon her skin, and a man’s tongue in her mouth, thrusting until she felt faint with desire. Sudden, rough possession, dark skin, sliding against her, into her, spilling into her, shattering her, parting from her to leave her naked in the garden, cool, refreshed…

He released her arms suddenly, as though he could see her thoughts, and the graphic truth shocked him. His eyes unlocked from hers, glancing away as though the contact of their spirits was disconcerting him. Then he spoke. “You come from the house?”

She nodded, still not trusting herself to speak.

“Are you Amanda Hebden?”

“Emma Hammond. I am her cousin.”

“My name is Chal Pannell. I have come for the Romany child. Jaelle’s son, Stephano.” His eyes still blazed, but the rest of his face was as cold and hard as Geoffrey’s.

Suppose he was as cruel? Emma feared what this stranger might do to the boy if he found him, or to her if he did not. She gathered her courage and raised her chin to meet his gaze. “You mean Stephen Hebden. He is Kit Hebden’s son as well. What do you want from him?”

“To take him back to his people.”

“His people are here. He is Amanda’s son, too.”

The gypsy shook his head. “Not by blood. He belongs with his mother’s tribe.”

And perhaps he did. Surely it would have been better to send him back to the Gypsies then to a place where he would not be wanted or loved. “It no longer matters who his mother will be. You have come too late to help him. He has been gone for months.”

“You lie.” The stranger dismissed her with a sharp tilt of his head. “Go to the house and bring him to me.”

“I tell the truth. I watched him go. Lord Callandar took the boy away to a foundling home just after his father died.”

The man’s brow creased in confusion. “But the child is no orphan. He has kin who want him.”

“Lord Callandar said, his daughter need no longer bear the disgrace of a…half-breed bastard, now that Kit was dead. And the man I am to marry went along with the scheme as though it were not the least bit wrong, and hurt the boy when he tried to run.” Emma could feel the tears of shame choking her throat, and see, in her mind, the bewildered face of little Stephen looking back at her from the carriage window.

The face of Gypsy darkened even further as he glared at her. “Then you will pay for this betrayal.” He grabbed her wrist again.