The Romany Heiress (17 page)

It was a fault she would not have seen if she had not
lived in close proximity with him. The first time she’d encountered him years ago telling fortunes, she had taken
his measure, and correctly so. She had seen him as an upstanding man of honor who wore fine clothes and carried
himself well. She had not seen beyond that or had even
an inkling of what those abilities required of him.

To her, originally, he’d led a life of ease and luxury,
devoid of responsibilities. Now, riding by his side
through the harvesting of the crops or standing beside
him as he talked with the vicar, she understood fully
what it meant to be a Spelthorne. To Giles Moncrief, it
was not a way of life, it was his life. He had given his
all, the sum of his being, to the running of his estates.

Years ago Cate had admired him from afar for his
handsome looks and regal bearing. His golden good
looks would do any fairy-tale prince proud from the
pages of a child’s book. In retrospect, what she’d felt
for him was probably nothing more than a type of envy,
a covetousness of wanting what was out of reach. The
man she knew now was worthy of her true admiration
for something beyond his looks and bearing.

As the days grew closer to the arrival of the vicar,
Cate found herself faced with three realizations that
shook the core of her being and challenged her sensibilities. First, she more than admired Giles Moncrief.
He had far superseded any of her expectations.

True to his word, he had not kissed her since that first
night in his chambers, nor had he given any indication
of treating her as less than a lady. He had not used his
status as lord of the manor to seduce her or take ungentlemanly advantage of her position.

It was something of a shock for her to recognize that
she wished he would. When she’d look at him across
the supper table, ride by his side across the fields, or
share a friendly smile across the card table in the evening, she would recall with all too vivid recollection the
feel of his hands on her body when he’d gathered her in
his arms, the press of his lips, the fire of his passion.
She wanted to live the passion again, when he had met
her as a man and not as the earl.

But he was the earl, first, last, always. That was the
second realization and perhaps most damning. He was
the embodiment of Spelthorne. He was indisputably
the lifeblood of Spelthorne. To deprive this place of
him, would be to take away its heart. Long before the
vicar arrived, Cate knew she couldn’t allow that to
happen.

The third realization frightened her. All that Magda
had predicted since the night of the ball had come to
pass. Magda had warned her against the folly of falling
for the earl, of allowing herself to play at the fairy tale
she’d wholeheartedly concocted for herself.

Magda had warned her about being able to separate
myth from reality when the time came. The time was
swiftly approaching and Cate knew she was ill-prepared
to deal with the situation of her making. She had set her destiny in motion and now, for the sake of a man who
did not guess the depth of her feeling for him or who did
guess and did not reciprocate those feelings, she was
willing to throw her future away. Practicality told her
her choice was ludicrous but intuition told her something else was afoot at Spelthorne, as the month of October headed into its final week.

Cate did not doubt the strength of her intuition; it was
what made her such a success as a fortuneteller, sham
though she was. She’d never had the “sight” the way
some of the other tellers did. But she had her own sight.
She could see people and their penchants from the way
they dressed to the way they behaved and treated others.

It was her sight that bothered her most about the
month she spent at Spelthorne, surrounded by people
who meant her well but, as she was coming to realize
with disappointing clarity, did not believe her claims
would come to fruition.

Isabella and Cecile were teaching her deportment.
Giles was showing her the running of the estate. Neither of them were showing her because they thought
she would be taking over the reins at Spelthorne. Nor
were they imparting their knowledge in an elaborate
scheme to make her recognize her inferiority and decamp as Magda believed. They had something else,
something secret, planned for her.

The “secret plan conspiracy” which she privately labeled her unease, grew in merit as she contemplated the
interactions over the past weeks. Isabella and Cecile
had made several references about “her new life” using the phrase “regardless of what is decided here” Cecile
had talked at length about the inability to “go back” to
her old life.

As October waned, Cate began to get the sense that a
surprise of sorts was being planned. The caravan had
once planned a secret party for Tommasino to celebrate
his birthday. For two weeks, they’d all crept about,
carrying out their mysterious little tasks to acquire a
gift, decorations, and the ingredients to bake a cake. It
had been fun, even exciting then, but she’d been on the
other side of things. She decided being the recipient of
a surprise wasn’t nearly as wonderful as planning the
surprise.

Thus, her last week was not filled with the things she
wanted to remember most about Spelthorne. Instead of
enjoying the scarlet leaves and the honking of geese as
they winged over the lake heading south, she was
plagued with anxiety on two fronts. She was trying to
unravel the mystery of what her new life might be in the
eyes of the others, and she was trying desperately to find
a solution to the situation with Giles.

She loved him. Unrequited or not, her feelings for
him would not allow her to be the instrument of his undoing. She did not want to hear the vicar pronounce her
story as true. It would break Giles, and she could not
face a world without his goodness in it. People needed
a man like him to follow. No, she would not let him falter. But neither could she turn her back on what was
rightfully hers.

“What am I to do, Magda,” she said one night, flopping down on the fluffy blue counterpane in distress.
“If I uphold the truth of my story, he is dethroned and I
cannot live with myself for causing that. If I deny my
story, he will be justified in evicting me and in every
negative thought he ever had about me. I will have lived
up to any stereotype concocted about the Rom and I
will have lived up to any bad impression he may have
formed. I will be admitting that I am a fraud, a liar, a
cheat, willing to whore myself. I will, as Isabella is
fond of saying, “have found my own level” As a man
of honor, Giles will have nothing to do with me at that
point. That option, too, is unpalatable to me”

Cate watched Magda pace several lengths of the bedroom, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her chin.
“Answer me this,” she said when she spoke at last. “Is it
Spelthorne you covet or the man?”

Cate spoke slowly, watching Magda carefully. “Although you warned me against him, it is the man I’ve
come to covet, not the estate”

“Perhaps there is a way to still have both but it will
mean a little pain in the short term. You must uphold
your claim, not because you mean to unseat him. You
must uphold it and use it as the leverage to coax a marriage proposal from him.”

Cate sat upright on the bed. “Marriage! But he doesn’t
love me.”

“Loving you is irrelevant although I’d wager he is
not as indifferent to you as you think. What he does love is without a doubt is Spelthorne. Marriage is the
perfect solution to your dilemma. You can keep the
man, and he can keep his precious estate. Who knows,
perhaps that is what the ladies have been planning all
along,” Magda said mystically.

Magda’s suggestion that Giles was not as indifferent
to her as she might have believed cast his interactions
with her the next day in a new light, which was not necessarily to his advantage. His behavior was as correct
as always as he gave her a leg up onto her mare. As a
neutral gentleman or even as a friend, the action was
quite proper. As a potential suitor who may want to let
a woman know he was interested in her, the action was
quite lacking. It was surely possible that Magda was
just wrong in her assumptions. But Magda seldom
erred where men and women were concerned.

The extreme correctness in his manner and conversation as they rode seemed more pronounced than usual
and Cate was struck with the urge to ruffle his demeanor, to see him flummoxed the way she found herself oft times bestirred in his presence. If Magda had not suggested such feeling might exist beneath the surface, Cate would not have guessed it was there. This afternoon she felt compelled not only to ruffle his calm
exterior but to test the presence of his feelings. If
Magda was right, Cate wanted to know before the vicar
arrived, which would surely be any day.

“It’s a lovely day for this late into autumn,” Cate
said, bringing her horse alongside his big roan hunter.
Isabella had taught her weeks ago that for some inexplicable reason the English were obsessed with conversation over the weather. It seemed a good time to try out
that particular conversational gambit.

Indeed, she had not exaggerated her claim. The sun
shone bright in a clear sky. The fall foliage overhead as
they passed beneath the trees of Spelthorne Wood was
brilliant in hues of scarlet and gold. The sharpness of
the afternoon air served as a reminder that while the
day was a treasure, summer was truly behind them and
winter loomed ahead. Once beneath the trees, the misleading patches of warmth in which they had ridden
from the house vanished, giving way to a coolness that
made Cate thankful for the warmth of her riding cloak.

“It may be one of the last great days we see for
months,” Giles agreed. “Alain and Tristan left this morning to do some grouse hunting. They should have had a
good day for shooting.”

“Is that the River Ash?” Cate gestured to a glimmering ribbon in the distance.

“Yes, it forms the north boundary of Spelthorne”

“It doesn’t look far. Shall we ride toward it? I would
like to see it.”

Giles nodded his assent and took the lead as the bridle path narrowed, deftly wending his way through the
forest and out into the sunlight again. A meadow lay between the woods and the river, allowing them a good
gallop after the placid walk beneath the trees.

At the river, Cate waited to let Giles help her dismount, giving him a chance to take a quiet liberty or
two by leaving his hands at her waist longer than necessary but he did not. Instead, he properly offered her his
arm so that she could steady herself on the uneven
ground leading down to the river. Impishly, Cate refused. For all the manners she’d acquired in the last
month, she loved the out of doors and had grown up
having to fend for herself. With one hand, she grabbed
up the skirt of her habit, lifting high enough above the
tops of her boots so that she would not trip, and made
her way down to the edge of the shore.

The silvery ribbon she’d seen at a distance was
browner close up, an earthy river that ran over agates.
She could see large fish swimming in the shadows of
the shallows. Cate shielded her eyes and looked down
the river into the distance. “When I see a river, I always
wonder where it goes, what it sees”

Beside her, Giles skipped stones into the current.
“This river sees farms and small towns. It passes through
Ashford and Shepperton before it joins with the Thames
in Sunbury.”

“Ah,” Cate sighed whimsically. “A farmer’s river that
goes to town, goes to London”

“A farmer’s river? I suppose it is. I’ve never thought
of it that way before”

Cate turned to look at Giles in profile as he tossed the
stones, one booted leg raised and resting on a large boulder. He flicked his wrist and sent another one sailing into
the stream. It bounced four times. “Hah! Four! That’s the
best I’ve done today.” He crowed triumphantly, a brilliant smile wreathing his face.

The act caused Cate’s breath to catch. The action was
so full of life, so animated that she realized she was seeing Giles with the bridle of his manners-seeing him although it was no more than a glimpse really of a man
who enjoyed sport, the outdoors, competition and quite
simply being. Throughout the entire month at Spelthorne,
she’d constantly seen the earl in him. She had not once
been able to see the earthy cottager’s son. She saw a
piece of him now and found him entrancing, if not more
so than the earl. An idea took shape in her head.

She studied the fish. “Unless I miss my guess, those
are trout”

“Yes,” Giles said in surprise. “You know fish?”

She tossed her head and laughed up at him with a
smile. “Most definitely. In the summer and spring, the
caravan relied on fish for its meat source. We all fished
or we didn’t eat. Those trout there look like two of them
would provide a tasty meal.”

Giles chuckled. “I know from first hand experience
that they do. As soon as I turned eight and could run amok in the summers, I spent many hours and many
lunches down here. There’s a better fishing hole further
upstream.”