Claiming the Forbidden Bride. Gayle Wilson

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СКАЧАТЬ life gave him a renewed burst of courage, and he continued to pull himself and his burden across the deadly swiftness of the current. He refused to look at the shore, afraid that the distance remaining would defeat the thread of determination, all that sustained him now. That and the thought that if he let this little girl die, her blood would be eternally on his hands.

      He was almost too exhausted to realize what had happened when his hand made contact with the bottom. He turned his head and saw that only a few feet separated him from his goal.

      He allowed his feet to drift downward, feeling the silt shift beneath them. Holding the girl now in both arms, he dragged himself from the water. Staggering under the weight of his burden and his own exhaustion, he had taken only a couple of steps onto the verge before his knees gave way.

      He attempted to break his fall, but his left hand slid across the slick rocks, throwing him forward. Unable to use his right arm, which was still wrapped around the child, to cushion his landing, his temple struck one of the stones.

      The girl he had carried from the water rolled out of his arm to lie beside him. Wide blue eyes, opened now and staring into his, were the last thing he saw before the world faded into oblivion.

      Nadya Argentari watched her grandmother sort through the goods in the peddler’s wagon. The quick movements of her gnarled fingers expressed contempt for their quality, but the three of them understood that was part of the timeless ritual in which they were engaged. Items would be selected, bartered for and finally accepted with the same lack of enthusiasm the old woman displayed while assessing them.

      Having watched this process a hundred times, Nadya lifted her eyes to survey the somnolent encampment. She realized only now that, while she’d been helping her grandmother, the sun had slipped very low in the sky.

      Anis should have brought Angel home long before now. Almost before the knot of anxiety had time to form in her chest, Nadya saw the fair hair of herdaughter catch the dappled light under the beech trees as she and the girl who had been instructed to take her for a walk moved toward the centre of the Romany camp.

      Nadya raised her hand to wave. Angel broke away from her caretaker, running toward her mother and great-grandmother. She threw herself against Nadya’s legs, burying her face in her skirts. Laughing, Nadya put her hand on the little girl’s head, running her fingers through the colourless silk of her hair.

      ‘Did you have a good walk?’ she asked, raising her eyes to the twelve-year-old who trailed behind her charge.

      The older girl nodded, her eyes shifting quickly to the old woman, who was still occupied with her examination of the goods in the cart. ‘I need to help my mother now. If that’s all right, drabarni,’ she added deferentially.

      Nadya was accustomed to such deference. After all, the Argentari were one of the kumpania’s most prominent families, and her own reputation as a healer was unsurpassed among their people.

      Nadya had almost nodded permission before she began to wonder why the girl was in such a hurry to be away. Her earlier anxiety resurfaced, causing her to pry her daughter’s fingers from her skirt so that she could get a good look at the little girl’s face.

      The smudges on Angeline’s dress and her disordered hair didn’t concern her. Released from the confines of the camp, her daughter tended to run wild through the fields that lay just beyond the great forest. Perhapsshe’d fallen, and Anis was afraid she would be blamed for the accident.

      ‘Did something happen during your walk?’

      The older girl’s downcast eyes flew upward. Her mouth opened and then closed, but eventually she shook her head.

      ‘Then why are you lying to the drabarni?’

      Until her grandmother’s question, Nadya hadn’t realized Magda was listening to this. She knew the old woman would be angry to have her bargaining interrupted. Still, Magda had grown to love her great-granddaughter with a fervour that almost matched Nadya’s own.

      ‘You think she’s lying?’ Alerted by her grandmother’s observation, Nadya examined the girl’s face.

      Anis’s gaze darted from one to the other, but it was Magda she answered, as befitted the old woman’s esteemed position in the tribe. ‘Nothing happened. I swear it, chivani.’

      ‘Be careful what you swear to, little one. Tell the truth, and I’ll see to it that no blame comes to you.’

      ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep,’ Nadya warned, kneeling to examine her daughter more carefully.

      By now she had recognized that her grandmother was right. For some reason the girl who’d been instructed to look after Angeline was lying.

      As Nadya put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, what she had failed to notice earlier became apparent. The child’s clothing was damp.

      ‘Why is this wet?’ she demanded.

      Anis licked her lips. Her eyes moved again to Magda. Whatever warning or promise of succour she saw there convinced her to tell the truth. ‘Because she fell into the water.’

      For a moment, the words made no sense. The only stream within walking distance ran through the small gorge it had cut into the chalk cliffs.

      ‘Fell? How could she possibly fall into the water?’ Even as she posed the question, Nadya’s hands were busy feeling along her daughter’s small, delicate body, searching for injuries.

      When she raised her gaze again, reassured that the child was apparently undamaged, despite her misadventure, the older girl had begun to cry, tears coursing down her reddened cheeks.

      ‘I asked how she fell.’

      ‘She started running, drabarni. Across the meadow. I couldn’t catch her. I tried, chivani,’ she added, pleading her case now to Magda. ‘I didn’t think about the stream. I didn’t think she could run that far.’

      ‘And she just ran to the cliff edge and fell off?’

      The girl hesitated, but her eyes had returned to Nadya’s face. Finally she nodded.

      Relieved that what could have been a terrible tragedy seemed to have ended with no ill effects, Nadya pulled her daughter close, once more made aware of the state of her garments. She rose, intending to carry the little girl to her caravan to get her into something dry.

      ‘And you pulled her out?’ Magda’s tone was of interest only and not the least accusatory. ‘How very brave of you. Perhaps I should give you a reward for taking such good care of my chaveske chei.’

      The older girl’s head moved slowly from side to side. Her eyes never left Magda’s, mesmerized by the old woman’s tone as the cobra is fascinated by the music of the snake charmer.

      ‘No?’ Magda asked kindly. ‘You don’t deserve a reward?’

      The side-to-side motion was repeated.

      ‘Because someone else pulled her from the water,’ Magda suggested softly. ‘Isn’t that the truth of this?’

      The answer was clear in the girl’s eyes even before she nodded. Although she was celebrated for her fortune-telling abilities, Nadya knew that СКАЧАТЬ