Taken by the Wicked Rake. Christine Merrill

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СКАЧАТЬ loud. ‘If you could see the look on your face. It is most amusing. I will remove the gag now, so that you may argue with me as you wish to. You will tell me that your father is innocent. That you think I am a villain. And that I shall pay dearly for this dishonour to you. I have had business with your family before, and I have come through it all with a whole skin. Though you rant and rail, it shall be the same again, I am sure.’

      He reached over and yanked down her gag, pulling the handkerchief out of her mouth, and tossing it into her lap. She glanced down to see, in some relief, that the thing had been clean before he’d forced it upon her. And there, in the corner, the initials S and H.

      He nudged her. ‘Go ahead. What have you to say for yourself?’

      ‘Stephen Hebden?’ Despite her family’s attempts to keep her in the dark, she had heard his name.

      She knew she had guessed correctly, for he started a little as she called him by his real name. And then, he collected himself and returned to taunting her. ‘Some call me that. You may think of me as Stephano Beshaley, bastard son of Kit Hebden and Jaelle the Gypsy.’

      So this was the man that her brothers had been warning her about. And she had fallen easily into his clutches, just as they had feared. It annoyed her that she had proved herself to be the naïve girl everyone thought her to be. If she had any wit at all, she would need to use it to escape from this situation, for the man at her side was smarter than she had given him credit. She stared at him, trying to divine his true character and wondering how she might separate reality from facade. ‘Your half sister Imogen told me of you. You are the Gypsy child that Amanda Hebden raised as her own.’

      He rocked back in his seat as though a simple statement of fact bothered him more than the abuse he was expecting. ‘I am no longer a child. And I do not consider a few years of room and board to indicate any maternal devotion on the part of Hebden’s gadji wife.’ Hebden’s eyes blazed with a cold merciless light. ‘After my father was no longer alive to protect me, my stepmother and her family could not get rid of me fast enough.’

      Was that pride in his voice, that his father’s family could not hold him? Or had their rejection hurt him? Because she could not believe that the feud between the families was all the result of a little boy’s injured feelings. She hazarded a guess. ‘If you did not like them, and they did not like you, then it was probably for the best that they sent you back to your mother and her people.’

      ‘Sent me to my mother’s people?’ He snorted. ‘They sent me to a foundling home and forgot all about me. When the Gypsies offered me a place, I returned to them with pride. And the Rom are not—’ his sneer deepened ‘—my mother’s people. They are my people, now. And they accepted me, even though I was a half-breed gaujo, whose mother was not alive to plead for my admittance to the tribe.’

      ‘Your mother had died, as well?’ she asked.

      ‘Of grief. Because the Hebden family did not want me, but neither would they return me to her.’

      Sympathy blotted the anger she felt with him. ‘I am sorry.’

      For a moment, he seemed genuinely puzzled by her response. ‘Sorry? Why should you be sorry?’

      ‘Why should I not be? It is a sad story. You and your mother were both badly served. Because I am only a girl, I have no say in the actions of my family. There is little I can do for you, other than to offer my sympathy for your loss.’

      She prayed that he understood the fact, and agreed with her. For by the way he had been staring at her, the fact that she was an innocent girl had everything to do with the reason he had taken her. And she feared that he would demand far more than an apology, before the evening was through. ‘I am without value to you. Truly. But my father is rich, and powerful,’ she blurted.

      ‘I know who your father is.’ He smiled as though he had been waiting for the chance to reveal the extent of his knowledge. ‘George Carlow. Earl of Narborough. Betrayer of William Wardale. And true murderer of my father, Christopher Hebden.’

      ‘My father a murderer? You are insane!’ Any plan to reason her way to freedom was destroyed. But she could not let such an outrageous lie stand unchallenged.

      ‘Ha!’ he shouted back, as though he was satisfied with the revelation of her true nature, and twitched the reins to speed the horse. ‘My mother died with a curse on her lips for both the Carlows and the Wardales. Twenty years later, the Wardale children are thriving, and George Carlow sickens and dies.’

      ‘He sickens because he is old. Your continual harassment of my family is what weakens him. And he is not dying,’ she said, feeling the rising panic that had come so often in these past months. Because he could not be dying. Not now, when she was far from home and unable to be with him. ‘But you are trying to drive him into the grave, even though he has done nothing wrong.’

      ‘At best, your father was a meddling fool with no love for me or my family. At worst, he was a murderer. Soon, I will know the truth. Then the man who really killed my father will pay for his crime.’ He wrapped the rope around his hand and tugged it tight. ‘I will not bother with silk, or take the time to be gentle.’ And in that moment, he looked capable of murder.

      ‘But I had nothing to do with this. I was a baby when it happened. Let me go, and I will tell him what you said.’ Her voice sounded weak, pitiful. She struggled to control it so that he would not hear her fear and use it against her.

      ‘The children will pay for the sins of their fathers,’ he intoned, as though reciting scripture. ‘By my mother’s curse, you bear the guilt of your family. If your father wishes to stay my hand against you, he will admit what he did.’

      She wished that she could raise her arms, so that she could put her hands to her ears and block out the man’s madness. If a twenty-year-old grievance and a dead woman’s curse had driven him to take her, then what hope did she have that he would be satisfied and release her, even if her father told him the lie he wished to hear?

      She looked ahead of the wagon, trying to guess where they might be going. The road had narrowed before them. And now, there were overarching trees to block out the stars. She wished she knew enough about such things to guess which direction they had gone. Although she suspected that the glow on her left might be the first light of dawn. They had been travelling for hours, and she had not seen so much as a cottage.

      Then, in front of her, another faint glow. She sniffed the wind. Wood fires. A horse gave a welcoming whinny as they drew near. They passed another bend in the road. And there before them, in a clearing surrounded by beeches, was a Gypsy camp.

      She had never seen such a place before, but it must be that. There was a circle of tents, some of them big enough for a whole family, and also several curved roofed wagons that looked like small houses on wheels. But it was too early for the people to be awake. No lanterns were lit, and the cooking fires were banked. If she cried out, would anyone wake to help her? Or would they lie still in the dark, pretending that they did not hear?

      The man who called himself Stephano Beshaley had driven close to the largest of the wagons, this one painted in green and gold. He slid out of the seat beside her, still holding the rope that bound her waist and hands. He tugged until she followed him to the ground, catching her as she almost fell. And then, he was pulling her towards the brightly painted wagon.

      She set her feet in the ground and wrapped her hands on the rope, pulling back to free herself. ‘No.’

      He laughed, and tugged back until СКАЧАТЬ