LITMIR.BIZ

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you dare nothing! You stay here like a nun in a convent. Of course you’re happy here. You live in the greatest house in western England, you live off the greatest fortune in the realm. You want for nothing, you only have to lift a finger and the servants trample each other to provide for you. I know!’ He raised his gold topped cane to ward off her reply. ‘I know! You work hard. Yet you chose to do that, just as you could have chosen to do nothing. But you exercise your choice in safety. You are like a ship that must leave harbour, a beautiful ship, well built, splendidly rigged, and you dare not leave the quay.’ He stopped and smiled at her. ‘Yet one day, my child, there will be no more harbour, no more quay, no more safety.’

      She stared at him, sensing the seriousness in him, then smiled. ‘Lazen will go?’

      ‘Of course not. It’s eternal.’

      She smiled. ‘Toby will be here.’

      ‘Ah.’ He mocked her with faked comprehension. ‘So the nun will grow old in her brother’s household? When you are really old your great-grandnephews and nieces will be brought to look at you; “See the old lady! See how she dribbles!”’

      She laughed. ‘It isn’t true.’

      ‘Then marry.’

      She said nothing for a few paces. ‘Marriage will come, uncle.’

      He tutted irritably. ‘You make it sound like a disease!’

      ‘I don’t want it to be an escape.’

      ‘How clever you are, niece.’ He smiled at her as they climbed the gentle bank towards the driveway. ‘My beautiful, clever niece with a clockwork heart.’

      ‘Nonsense!’

      ‘Then I expect to find you drowning in love’s illusion when I return. I demand it! I expect you to be sighing and writing excessively awful poems about your love’s eyes.’

      She laughed and they turned into the driveway, walking directly towards the great house. The huge stable block was visible now to the right of the Castle, its entrance busy as the outriders’ horses were prepared for her uncle’s departure.

      Hooves sounded on the gravel behind and Campion turned to see who approached.

      At first she thought it was one of the grooms returning from exercising a saddle horse, but then she realized that not one of Lazen’s grooms rode like this man.

      This was a horseman. She had grown up in a house that prized horsemanship, that knew a thing or two about men and horses, but never had she seen a horseman like this. This was a horseman.

      The horse, big, sleek and black, trotted superbly on the gravel, while the rider, long-legged and straight-backed, seemed arrogantly at home in his saddle.

      The rider was dressed entirely in black. Black breeches, black boots and a black shirt. A black coat was rolled and tied to his saddle. He had long, black hair that moved with the horse’s motion, and, as he came closer, Campion saw the glint of a gold earring in his left ear.

      Her uncle, also staring in admiration, suddenly laughed. ‘It’s a gypsy. He must have stolen the horse.’

      The Gypsy’s face was dark, thin, and savage as a hawk’s. Campion stared at the face, struck by it, thinking suddenly that never, ever in her life had she seen so superb a man. He rode as though he trampled a conquered world beneath his mare’s hooves.

      He looked at them as he passed, his oddly light, bright, blue eyes passing incuriously over the man and girl. He did not stop, he did not acknowledge them, he seemed to observe them and then arrogantly dismiss them from his attention. Campion saw that the man’s sinewy forearms were tattooed with the images of eagles. A sword hung from the saddle, incongruous for a man who was not a gentleman.

      Uncle Achilles watched her face, then laughed gently. ‘Perhaps you don’t have a clockwork heart.’

      She was embarrassed instantly. She blushed.

      He took her arm again. ‘It’s easier for a man. Just as my father did, we men can take our fancies of the peasant masses, indulge them, and pass on. It’s so much harder for a woman.’

      ‘What are you talking about, uncle?’

      ‘Oh, nothing!’ He sketched an airy gesture with his ribboned cane. ‘Only he was rather a handsome brute and your face did rather look like that tedious little Joan of Arc when she heard her boring voices.’ He smiled at her. ‘Take him as a secret lover.’

      ‘Uncle!’

      He laughed. ‘I do like to shock you. Perhaps I shall find you a husband who looks like the Gypsy, yes?’ He laughed again.

      To her relief a great drop of rain splashed on the drive and her uncle, forgetting the Gypsy, groaned at the catastrophe. ‘My coat will be ruined!’

      ‘Run!’

      ‘It’s so inelegant to run.’

      ‘Then be inelegant.’ She laughed, tugged his elbow, held up her skirts, and they ran in the gathering rain, past the old church, straight for the garden door of the Old House.

      ‘Mon dieu, mon dieu, mon dieu!’ Achilles d’Auxigny brushed at the sleeves of his grey velvet coat as they stopped within the hallway. The sleeves were hardly spotted with water, yet he sighed as though he had been drenched. ‘It was new last month!’

      ‘It’s not touched, uncle!’

      ‘How little you girls know of clothes.’ He flicked his lace cuffs, then listened as the stable clock struck the hour. He sighed. ‘Eleven o’clock. I must go. Come and bid me farewell.’

      ‘You’re coming back soon?’

      ‘For Christmas.’ He smiled. ‘Or for your wedding, whichever is sooner.’

      She smiled, reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘I shall see you at Christmas.’

      He laughed, they walked towards the entrance where his coach waited, and Campion, amazed what one glance could do to her sensible soul, wondered who the tall man was who rode like a conqueror and looked like a king.

      Uncle Achilles left. The servants were lined beneath the portico and grateful for the boxes he had left for them. Campion had a glimpse of his slim, ringed hand waving from behind the carriage window, then the horses slewed out into the rain and he was gone.

      ‘My Lady?’ William Carline, Lazen’s steward, gave her his imperceptible bow. He was a man of enormous and fragile dignity.

      ‘Carline?’

      ‘A most strange man, a foreigner, wishes to talk with you. He is most insistent. He carries, he claims, a message from Lord Werlatton.’ Carline’s sniff suggested that no foreigner could be trusted.

      The Gypsy. She felt her heart leap, and was instantly ashamed of herself, more so because she was sure that Carline would see her confusion, but on his broad, pale face there was no sign that anything was amiss. She nodded in acknowledgement, forcing herself to keep her voice casual. ‘Ask Mrs Hutchinson to attend me in the gallery and send him there.’

      ‘Very good, my Lady.’ Carline gave another of his tiny bows and waved an imperious dismissal at the servants.

      Campion felt a pang of excitement as she turned to go to the Long Gallery. She felt astonishment too. She had merely glimpsed a man, a gypsy, evidently a servant of her brother’s, and one sight of his face had filled her with this odd thrill of anticipation. She felt, as she waited for Mrs Hutchinson, her companion, a shame that she should be so moved by a man who was her inferior.

      But nonsense or not, as a footman opened the door for the Gypsy to come into her presence, she felt her heart beating in anticipation and excitement.

      The Gypsy had come to Lazen.

      Campion, as he entered the Long Gallery and walked down its panelled splendour, was struck again by the man’s arrogant magnificence.

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