Her Master's Touch by Patricia Watters Read Free Book Online

he asked, his hand still over
his heart.
    "I suggest a floral design, or perhaps an
animal," she replied.
    "Fine. I put myself in your hands. I also
leave the design to your discretion—" he gave her a wicked grin
"—or indiscretion." He sat on the ground and leaned against a
tree.
    "Very well. I'll do a tattoo of a—"
    "Let it be a surprise," he said.
    "As you wish."
    With a piece of sharpened graphite she began
tracing a design.
    Damon glanced at the kettle. "Why are you
preparing corks out here when Cook could do them in the
kitchen?"
    "I needed to be out of the house," Eliza
said. "The walls were closing in until I felt I might suffocate."
She paused. "Gypsies are like wild birds, you see. We must have
freedom or we die. Gypsies also believe that living in a house
brings sickness and bad luck, but traveling in a wagon brings good
fortune."
    She could feel his eyes on her as he said,
"You say gypsies die when confined, yet your wagon is far more
confining than my house."
    "Living in a wagon is not like being in a
house," Eliza countered, while continuing her design. "In a wagon I
can hear the rain on the roof and the wind in the trees. At night I
can watch fireflies and see a copper moon rise. And in the morning,
I know precisely when the birds awaken. Do you know when the birds
start to sing? Do you even hear them when you first wake up?" She
looked up to find him watching. "My lord, is something wrong?"
    His lips curved in a languid smile. "No,
everything is quite right. Perfect, in fact."
    Blinking nervously, Eliza lifted the bamboo
needle, and said to him, "This will cause a little pain, but it
cannot be helped."
    Damon smiled a slow, sardonic smile, and
said, "Not as much as when you kneed me at the horse fair, I trust.
Do you always put up such a fight when a man tries to reason with
you?”
    "I have learned to take care of myself if
need be,” Eliza replied, her needle making a series of tiny
pricks.
    “Would you turn on me again, gypsy girl, if I
decided to take liberties with you?”
    “I’m not sure what I would do, my lord, but I
suggest you not try to find out. The only reason I didn’t scratch
your eyes out at the fair when you attacked me was—"
    “ Attacked you! Bloody hell, woman, you
were like a wild cat attacking me when all I was trying to
do was stop you from running off.”
    “You were sitting on top of a defenseless
woman. I was hardly attacking you.”
    “ Defenseless woman! You’re about as
defenseless as a mother lion."
    "Maybe you should keep that in mind.” Eliza
began pricking the outline of a tiny ear. At first she tried to
work without touching him, but her hand with the needle trembled,
and she couldn't control the course of the point. Resting the heel
of her hand against his chest, she continued pricking out the
design, aware of the heavy beating of his heart.
    "Do you live alone when with your people?"he
asked.
    "Of course," she said quickly.
    "Don't you want to be with someone, a
man?"
    Eliza realized this was an overture, though
she had little experience along those lines. Her solicitations at
the fair had been a bold and necessary bit of acting. "If you mean,
do I get lonely living by myself. No. When I'm alone I can indulge
in outlandish fancies."
    "Like what?"
    "Like imagining spirits whirling in the
flames of my campfire," she said, while concentrating on the tiny
figure she was inscribing, "or envisioning whimsical nymphs in the
sparks that flicker against the night sky. And in the billows of
clouds and the swaying of river reeds I imagine sibyls dancing." A
moth paused on her knuckle. She looked at it thoughtfully, then
raised her hand and sent it away. "And amid the medley of crickets
and frogs I fancy clever undines singing. Sometimes I dream up
poetic fancies about them."
    "If you dream up poetic fancies," he said, "I
assume you read and write."
    Eliza glanced up and found him watching her
with burning eyes. Feeling drawn to him like a moth to flames, she
quickly