His mouth curved into a wicked smile. “I don’t know about that.”
She lobbed a book across the room. He dodged it and chuckled again.
“You are a beautiful girl, Ravenna, with a good heart. You deserve a man who can give you his heart in return.”
“Like you gave yours away long ago?”
He did not respond, but a muscle in his jaw flexed.
Finally he said, “Go on,” and jerked his chin toward the door.
“Go on, what?”
“Go find him.”
“Who?”
“The man you’re running to America to escape. A prince, is he?”
“No.” Better than a prince.
“Do it, mite.” His brow darkened. “Or would you rather I break his arms?”
She twisted her lips. “He would give you a good fight.”
“He wouldn’t win.”
“With swords, you wouldn’t have a chance.”
He pushed away from the window and walked to the door, a tall, lean Gypsy horse trader incongruously in a gentleman’s London house. “Go find him, Ravenna. Quit running for a change.”
“Tali,” she said quickly, “have you ever thought that we might be related? Brother and sister?”
“Ravenna . . .”
“I don’t mean—” She halted her words. They never said Eleanor’s name at these moments. “I mean that we look alike, still, after all these years, as though we could have the same . . . the same father.” For years she had not allowed herself to consider it. Then Vitor told her of his father.
“I don’t know who my father is,” Taliesin said.
“Arabella’s fortune-teller said that if one of us married a prince we would learn who our parents are.”
For a moment he did not speak. Then: “Does she believe this prophecy?”
She. Not Arabella. Eleanor.
“Perhaps.” She looked into his eyes so like hers—black and long-lashed, yet not Gypsy. Despite what the girls at the foundling home had called her, she—and he—looked nothing like the people with whom he had lived his entire life and who had reared him as one of their own. Instead, he and she looked foreign.
She wondered why he did nothing to find his real parents. As the man he’d always been, he traveled to Cornwall each summer, to the Gypsy fairgrounds near the vicarage, hoping that upon some chance he might catch a glimpse of the girl he had once loved. Did he believe that if he found his real parents that would change? Or did he simply care nothing for that distant past, as she hadn’t for so long.
“Taliesin, should I tell Arabella that I cannot wed a prince? That she must pass our destiny on to Eleanor to fulfill?”
Hand upon the door handle, he paused. “If you should need my help . . . any of you . . . you know where to find me.” Opening the door, he left.
WHEN THE LAST of Sebastiao’s guests had departed, descending down the mountain through groves of spruce and fir, Vitor went to his bedchamber and packed his traveling case. He had already dismissed his valet. Where he intended to travel now, he would not need a personal servant.
Perhaps he had simply chosen the wrong monastery before. Or the wrong religious order. Denis was a friar. Perhaps he would take that direction. Friars did all sorts of good in the world, feeding the poor and . . . doing other things. He thought.
He would learn well enough. His English family would think he’d gone mad again. Wesley would tease for the remainder of their lives. But Raynaldo would understand. And the marquess.
Gon?alo sat at his feet, chewing the edge of the rug and watching him. Vitor tucked his starched cravats and stiff collars in the bottom of the case. He would not need these either. Nor his sapphire pin or gold watch or pureblooded horse.
“I will not give up Ashdod,” he said aloud. “I will simply take myself to another monastery and then another until I find one that will allow me to keep him.”
The mongrel lowered his chin to his forepaws and his tail thumped the floor.
“All right. I will keep you too.”
He would avoid preaching orders, of course. He’d no advice to give to people looking for salvation, except of course that they shouldn’t be blind asses. He knew plenty about that.
Nothing else kept him from adopting the cowl now. The thought of being with any woman other than one inspired no interest in him whatsoever. In time he supposed that might change.
No. It would not change.
“Do you depart, mon fils, without bidding an old man good-bye?”
Vitor swiveled to the friar standing in the doorway. “I intended to call upon you, of course. Have you come to bless Sebastiao’s journey?”
“I have come to give you this.” He drew from his wide sleeve an envelope. “Young Grace gave it to me the morning she departed with her family. She said she did not hold with ‘the ignorant superstitions of Papists,’ as I believe she phrased it, but that in leaving this with me she would unburden herself of the guilt of having lied.”
“Lied? About the murder?”
“Read it. She did not, after all, give it to me under the seal of confession.”
“She must have meant for you to keep her confidence, Denis.”
He shrugged. “I am only bound by my vows, mon fils, not the unsteady consciences of young girls.”
My Gracious Lady,
Though it pains me to write this before I have again set eyes upon your lovely face, I must now bid you adieu. The objections your family raises to our union are too powerful to fight. Your mother has made it clear that, should we wed, your family will cut you from its heart and home. I shudder, dear lady, at the inevitable outcome of this alienation. My income is small; our home would be poor. The image of you forced to live in a wretched flat, your beauty waning under cares as I work day and night to maintain you in even the most meager comforts—it is too painful to contemplate.
I wish for you, gracious lady, not ignominy and poverty, but contentment and a place among those with whom you rightfully belong. If only your parents would relent and consent to our marriage, all could be well! But they will not, and my hopes for happiness are dashed. By the love I bear you, I must release you now. Go and wed a man of your equal rank who can stand beside your father with pride. Dear lady, forget about me.
Your most loyal knight, OW
“Eh.” the friar said. “How do you find our deceased Lothario’s withdrawal?”
“Either he ceased wanting her when he became certain her parents would not pay him a penny . . .”
“Or?”
Vitor’s hand closed around the letter, crumpling it. “Or he was a coward.”
“A coward? You are harsh, mon fils.”
“Not harsh.” He should not have allowed Ravenna to go. “I am a fool.” Lady Grace had lied to them all because she had not believed that in the end her lover would desert her. She had believed in his constancy. And, despite the letter that was meant to be a good-bye, when she summoned him, he had gone to her.
I am well accustomed to being alone.
Ravenna had never said she did not want him.
He should not have doubted.
Please don’t let it end.
The hermit folded his hands into his sleeves. “Have you, mon fils, finally discovered an adventure worthy of your pursuit?”
“I have.” It remained to be seen if in his pursuit he would ever catch her.
AS A MEMORIAL for his friend, Sir Beverley threw a grand party with champagne fountains, French culinary delicacies, an Italian puppeteer who did caricatures of all the guests, and Turkish dancing girls. According to the gossip columns, London society was scandalized. But they all came. It was a fantastic success, and in the carriage the next day on the way to Shelton Grange, as Sir Beverley slept sitting upright against the squabs, Ravenna finally wept.