Her Gypsy Lord (Magic and Mayhem #1) Read online

  A large fire burned at the center of the camp, and many of his relatives moved about preparing food and settling in. They’d only arrived a few days earlier, and he was glad they were once again where they belonged. Or at least near where they belonged.

  “Exactly how will I be needed?” he asked.

  “You shall see.” His grandmother was often cryptic, and many times it irritated him to no end. But Adam still did as she asked.

  He glanced to the sky. It had been overcast all day, but not a drop of rain had fallen. He wasn’t about to argue with his grandmother, however. If she said it was going to rain, then it was going to rain and he’d be needed here. He’d long ago stopped questioning her premonitions because she was never wrong. The gift of second sight, his mother had claimed. One he had not inherited.

  “What are you working on?” His grandmother sifted through beads, feathers, shells and gems. Selecting some, discarding others, and pushing the ones she approved into a small leather pouch.

  “Making a talisman.”

  “Why?”

  “A young lady will need it to protect her at Castle Keyvnor.” His grandmother sighed. “The vision is not yet clear. I’ll know more when we meet.” She dropped a feather into the putsi.

  “Just because Banfield allowed you to live on his land does not mean you can go about handing out talismans to the castle’s guests.” Several of Banfield’s relatives had recently arrived to attend the reading of the late earl’s will. Adam couldn’t remember the last time so many had been at the castle at one time, if ever.

  “She will come to me,” his grandmother insisted, not bothering to look at Adam as she continued sifting through charms. “You know we never venture inside the walls, and I don’t like it when you do either.”

  Though how a putsi could protect anyone from anything was beyond Adam, yet he was never without his, the one Grandmother and his mother had made upon his birth. Too often she was correct about the unexplained, and at a young age, he learned to trust in her counsel when it often had no meaning and was beyond his understanding. There were simply things in the world, and particularly at Castle Keyvnor and in this corner of Cornwall, that could not be explained away with reason. If his grandmother believed that evil dwelled within the walls, Adam believed her. Not that he’d experienced anything evil on his visits, but the place was certainly haunted.

  “Aren’t you concerned that once the will is read you’ll be without a winter home?” The Earl of Banfield was now dead, and Adam knew nothing about the heir.

  “There is no reason to worry about things that cannot be changed.” This was often his grandmother’s approach about anything. But in his twenty-seven years, she’d also not had to worry about where her family would spend the winter.

  “What if he has you removed?”

  She finally glanced up at him, her dark eyes clouded with age. “Dear boy, all things will be as they should be, as it always is.” His grandmother patted his hand.

  If things were as they were supposed to be, his gypsy relatives would be living at Hollybrook Park, but his cantankerous grandfather refused to allow them safe harbor. His mother’s people should be on his father’s land, not just on the other side of the border, living off the generosity of a neighbor.

  “You have not shaved,” she nodded in approval.

  “As is custom.” Adam hadn’t followed all the Gypsy customs upon the death of his older brother, but he’d not taken a razor to his face and would not until after Thomas was placed in the ground. On second thought, he might not shave until next spring, when he returned to London, only to further irritate his grandfather.

  “You will wear white!”

  “I will wear black,” Adam corrected. There would be mourners at the cemetery, and they might believe he’d lost his mind.

  “Red handkerchief and waistcoat,” she proclaimed.

  Mourners were to wear white for purity or red for vitality. As there was nothing even remotely pure when it came to Thomas, or Adam for that matter, he’d wear red.

  “Your stepmother, sisters, and brother? Have they returned?”

  His stepmother had taken her children, four daughters and a son, from Hollybrook Park as soon as Thomas returned home. She feared them becoming infected somehow. That was nearly two years ago and he hadn’t seen them since. “No.”

  If something happened to his grandfather, his five younger half-siblings would become his responsibility. Adam’s stomach churned at the very thought, though they apparently were doing well without him or their grandfather.

  Grandmother pursed her lips in disapproval and shook her head. “You asked for forgiveness?”

  “Yes, Puri daj, as you instructed.” Not that his older brother had been in a state of mind to accept any apologies, and Adam had been hard pressed to find something he was sorry for. It was his brother who should have been seeking compassion, but his mind was already gone.

  She nodded. “It is good. You will make a better viscount.”

  “I never wanted to be a viscount.” His life was simpler before Thomas became ill. Hopefully his grandfather was too stubborn to die, and Adam wouldn’t have to assume the title, or responsibility to the estate, town and smugglers for many, many years.

  “A man like Thomas did not deserve to be viscount.” Her dark eyes looked into Adam’s. “He was one of them.” She practically spit out the word. “You, my dear boy, are one of us. A Rom.”

  If anyone else referred to him as a dear boy, Adam would take issue. But, this was his grandmother.

  And, he was Rom. It was in his bones. He much preferred the life of a gypsy, though that wasn’t his lot in life. He was destined to be the next Viscount Lynwood.

  Chapter 2

  “Come along, Martha, we haven’t much time.” Charlotte practically pulled her maid through the castle gates and across the drawbridge.

  “Oh, Lady Charlotte, we mustn’t.”

  “Yes, we must.” Was there no one in her life who wished for a bit of fun?

  “Your father will have my head and then dismiss me without a reference.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. Martha had been her maid for years. “If he hasn’t sacked you by now, he isn’t going to.” She tugged on the maid’s arm once again. “Now come along.”

  “Oh, Lady Charlotte, I have a very bad feeling about this.”

  “You’ve had a bad feeling since we arrived.” Normally her maid tried to discourage Charlotte when she put her mind to something others would believe ill-advised, but she’d never been this difficult. Charlotte had a mind to go off and visit the gypsies on her own, but that would never do. A lady simply didn’t walk around the countryside alone.

  “Something about that castle isn’t right. Don’t you feel it?”

  “All I feel are drafts.” Seriously, one would think the castle was actually filled to the brim with ghosts after all the talk Charlotte had overheard. What utter nonsense.

  “But there was a shadow shifting about in your chamber while I was unpacking your things.”

  “Shadows tend to do that with the movement of the sun.”

  “Oh, no, Lady Charlotte. Not a slow movement, but flitting about.”

  “Flitting about?” Charlotte nearly laughed. She had a ghost, or a shadow, that flitted about her room? She must certainly pay closer attention when she returned to her chambers this evening, as it would be quite a sight to see.

  At the end of the gravel drive, Charlotte stopped and glanced down the road one way and then the other. The gypsies lived on Banfield land just east of the road and right before arrival at Hollybrook Park. In the opposite direction lay Bocka Morrow.

  “Miss Charlotte,” Martha cried. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

  “We must do today what we can for tomorrow is not a promise.”

  “Have you looked at the sky? It’s going to rain any moment.”

  “The sky has looked like this all day long,” Charlotte argued and hurried down the road. “It hasn’t rain
ed yet, and I doubt that it will.”

  “It wasn’t this dark before,” Martha whined but hurried to follow Charlotte.

  They didn’t need to travel far because only a short bit down the road, past a curve, and right after a copse of trees, their leaves of red, gold, and orange canopying the road, Charlotte found the gypsies. They were camped in a clearing with the forest as their backdrop, the wagons bright despite the dreariness of the day. Her heart pounded with excitement, and her pulse raced.

  She’d done it. She’d finally escaped her protective brothers and oppressive parents and was about to embark on an adventure.

  A dark carriage was parked along the road, and all Charlotte could assume was that she wasn’t the only one out and about seeking to have their fortune told. “Come along, Martha. This is going to be grand. Grand indeed.”

  “If you say so, Lady Charlotte,” Martha answered with all the enthusiasm one could muster for having a tooth pulled. Not that Charlotte didn’t possess all of her teeth, but she suspected that it was quite dreadful to have one yanked from one’s mouth. However, Martha would soon learn, nothing dreadful would happen to them today.

  She will come to me. His grandmother’s voice echoed in Adam’s head. He wasn’t exactly sure who or what to expect, but certainly not the vision hurrying across the open field. Blonde curls tumbled about her shoulders, and he suspected they were once arranged neatly, but the weight of her tresses had been pulled free of the pins. He could not tell the color of her eyes from this distance, but her rounded cheeks were rosy from her walk, and her full, red lips smiled as if she couldn’t be happier with her circumstances.

  The pale green gown hugged her figure as a second skin from the wind pressing against her, and Adam’s mouth went dry. She was not a slight miss—at least, he dearly prayed she was a miss. Full breasts and rounded hips. Perfectly pleasingly plump. A womanly form that Adam wouldn’t mind losing himself in.

  Behind the young woman followed a maid in a drab grey gown, an even drabber dark hat, and a frown that was in complete contrast to the young woman’s bright smile.

  Their blonde-headed guest was the sun they’d been lacking all day, and he was ready to bask in her warmth.

  In that moment, something shifted inside him. Where there’d been darkness, now there was light. A weight lifted that he’d not known he was carrying. Never had he experienced the like.

  After leaning the axe against the wooden stump where he’d left his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, Adam approached as she reached the camp.

  She stopped, her head tilted back, and her warm hazel eyes met his. Her smile shifted to form an “O”.

  “Might I help you?”

  “Yes, well you see…”

  “You’ve come for your fortune,” Adam provided an answer to her apparent loss for words.

  “Yes, I have, if it is possible.”

  “Of course.” He smiled down at her, wishing he possessed the gift of fortunes or that he could turn hers to match his. “My Puri daj awaits.”

  “Puri daj?”

  “Grandmother,” he answered and offered his arm.

  Adam didn’t even know her name, but this captivating creature would be his. There was no rhyme or reason for the intensity of his draw to her, but if he had learned nothing from his grandmother, he knew not to question such feelings and to trust premonitions.

  Chapter 3

  Goodness! She’d practically forgotten her purpose in the presence of such a beautiful man. Perhaps beautiful wasn’t the best description but that is what he was to her from his tousled, thick black hair that brushed his neck, to his icy, intense blue eyes, and the short, dark beard along his jawline. He’d been chopping wood as Charlotte and Martha neared the camp, his brown trousers hugging his hips, and the light linen shirt open nearly to his chest, revealing a patch of dark hair. He was nothing like the gentlemen in London. Or, at least none she’d seen in the two years since she’d begun attending the season. It would be a shame to see him dressed in the attire required of a gentleman. So much would be hidden from her appreciative eye.

  He offered his arm, and though she didn’t expect such a courtesy from a gypsy, Charlotte happily placed her hand in the crook of his arm. Her fingers nearly ignited in heat and tingling from the touch of this man. Her pulse hitched, and she suddenly struggled to draw a deep breath.

  Goodness!

  While Charlotte tried to gather her thoughts and composure, the beautiful Gypsy led her to the back of a red, enclosed wagon that looked no different from any other gypsy wagon she’d seen, except perhaps brighter, happier, and Charlotte wondered if in this one moment her life hadn’t just been altered. Something certainly shifted inside her the moment she looked into his clear, blue eyes.

  “My grandmother is expecting you.”

  She blinked up at him. “How?”

  “Second sight,” he grinned, revealing straight white teeth.

  Charlotte blinked at him and in that moment, reality crashed into her. Second sight indeed! Of course he’d say such a thing. They were gypsies—a mysterious lot. They excelled at roping the public in with their music and dancing and fortune telling, and this was the first time she’d ever been allowed near one.

  Well, she wasn’t exactly allowed as she hadn’t asked and had she, the answer would have been no.

  “Go on in. She’s waiting.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath, loathe to take her hand from his arm, climbed the two wooden steps, and entered through the draped curtain. The space was roomier than she’d anticipated, and an older woman, her face weathered and lined with age, sat at a small round table covered in a red cloth.

  The woman sucked in a breath when her dark eyes met Charlotte’s. Alarm alighted her ancient face.

  Why such an expression, unless it was all part of the entertainment?

  “Please, child, sit.”

  Child? She’d not been a child in many years, but Charlotte slid onto the wooden stool as requested.

  The old gypsy took Charlotte’s hand, encasing it between her gnarled fingers. She’d expected the woman to look at her palm. Instead, those dark eyes were focused on Charlotte’s, as if searching, looking deep into her soul. It was all rather disconcerting, but in hindsight, she should have expected this. Gypsies weren’t shrouded in mystery by accident.

  “You’ve no questions in which you seek answers!” It was more of a statement than a question.

  Charlotte blinked at her. “No.”

  “Why are you here?” The speech crackled, that of a very old woman.

  “To know my future.”

  “I could tell you the truth or a lie, either way, you would not believe me.”

  Charlotte gasped. How could the gypsy know she was skeptical of all this business of fortunes and such?

  “I see many like you. Girls wanting to know their fortune, who they will marry, whether they will be happy.”

  It would be nice to know those things, but nobody knew the future. This was a lark, an adventure, not that Charlotte would confess such thoughts.

  “I tolerate them.” The old woman frowned. “You, I will not.”

  Charlotte straightened and attempted to pull her hand away, but the gypsy held tight, surprising Charlotte at her strength.

  “It is for your own good that I tell you what I do.” The gypsy implored. “My gift is not something I can keep to myself.”

  A chill ran down her spine though the heat from the candlelit wagon pressed in on her.

  “You do not believe in anything you cannot see.”

  Charlotte’s mouth popped open in shock.

  “Open your mind, not just your eyes,” the gypsy ordered. “Danger surrounds you at Castle Keyvnor. There is evil within.”

  Thank goodness Charlotte hadn’t talked Cassy into accompanying her. Her cousin would have been running home by now, and not to the castle but to Widcombe Hall in Somerset.

  “Some of the ghosts are harmless, others are not. You are in particular danger.”<
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  “Why me and not others?” Charlotte couldn’t believe she was even asking such a question. All of this talk of ghosts was quite ridiculous.

  “You are her?”

  “I am who?”

  “Lady Helena.”

  “I do not know a Lady Helena. I am Lady Charlotte.”

  “Of course you don’t know her. She was murdered in her bed nearly two hundred years ago on the eve of her wedding.”

  Charlotte leaned forward. “Murdered?” she whispered.

  “By Lord Tyrell. A baron who was thought to be in love with Lady Helena. To keep her betrothed from claiming her, Lord Tyrell visited her chambers, strangled her to death, and then threw himself from one of the turrets.”

  It was a fanciful tale, one Charlotte would certainly research once she returned to the castle. “And they both haunt the castle?” Was she even asking such a question?

  “Only the baron. Lady Helena was pure of heart, soul, and body. Hiss soul is blackened by his deeds and is still seeking Lady Helena, believing that in death they’ll be together.”

  “I am not Lady Helena, so he’ll want nothing to do with me,” she insisted.

  “You are of her blood. You are her image. Take care, Lady Charlotte.” The old woman leaned forward. “It’s happened before. Others who’ve look liked you have visited Castle Keyvnor and met with death.”

  As much as Charlotte knew this was stuff and nonsense, she could not stop the cloak of unease as it settled around her. “Others?”

  “The portraits are on the walls, their histories to be told.” The Gypsy let go of her hand and drew a small leather pouch to the center of the table. Her hands shook as she tried to loosen the opening, and Charlotte was about to help when the string gave way. The woman proceeded to empty the contents onto the table. “These will never do,” she muttered to herself. “I must make it stronger.”

  “Why?”

  “Your protection, child. Have you not been listening to me?”