Taming Her Gypsy Lover by Christine Merrill Read Free Book Online

frugally, there will be enough money.” She looked at him with sorrow. “If word of what I have done with you becomes known, I shall become infamous for my behavior. But the time I have spent with you? Please remember it with kindness. For it was not as it must appear to you.” And then she fell silent again, and looked away.
    What was she trying to tell him? Probably that it would soon be over, and that the affection she had shown was nothing more than expedience on her part. And that while she wished it to be a sweet memory, it could be no more than that. Whatever her future held, it did not include a Gypsy lover.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    In the weeks since they’d left the Gypsy camp, Chal had spoken less and less. While the silence seemed tense, it was probably just as well. She had no idea what to say to him.
    When they stopped from their travels, they seemed to have no need for words. If it was cool, she would help him pitch the tent. If it was warm or they were tired, they might lie on the mattress in the wagon, or set the bed up under the stars.
    And they would make love for as long as they were able, before falling into a happily exhausted sleep. While they were in each other’s arms, he would tell her of her beauty and her sweetness, and that he could not live without her. But in the morning, when they sat side by side on the wagon seat, he would say nothing at all.
    And certainly not the words Emma was longing to hear. He was not likely to make a conventional offer to some gadji he had just met, after all. If that was the way Gypsies behaved. She was not sure, and was afraid to ask. There must be some form of courtship, some permanent bond between couples. But she doubted the precursor to it was a brief liaison with a stranger.
    Her stomach felt sour when she remembered how she had behaved in the first days, trying to coax him into an admission of love, leaving the contents of her heart open to him, thinking he must feel the same.
    But her hints at what she’d felt for him had fallen on deaf ears. He had used her. And she had let him, for it felt wonderful to lie with him, pleasing him and being pleasured.
    The journey had taken much longer than it might have, had she traveled on the regular coaching routes, with inns and frequent changes of horses. When she’d asked about the lack of speed, Chal had said gruffly that he was but one man, and his horse was but one horse. The roads were difficult, and it would take as long as it would take. And then, in the evening, he had taken her to bed again, and she had wondered if he was delaying in order to have more nights together. But now that their journey was almost over, he did not care what happened to her.
    Finally, they had passed the last village before their destination, and she could see the outline of the foundling hospital on the horizon.
    “Oh, dear God.” She had not known, when Lord Callandar had made the first idle threats about sending the boy away, what it would truly mean to him. This place, now that they had found it, was farther away from the comfort and luxury of London than she could imagine. The moors had been bleak enough, with their bogs and desolation. But the building on the road before them was a cheerless hulk of gray stone that did not strike her as a fit habitation for men, much less children. It reminded her of a prison.
    Then the first whiff of acrid smoke hit her nostrils. And she could see, amid the gloom of the overcast day, something darker and more foreboding. Chal could sense it as well, for he pulled back on the reins, slowing the horse to a walk as though, after all this time, he did not wish to finish their journey.
    They were close enough to see the truth. The building that had seemed malevolent from a distance was little more than a burned out shell, a pile of charred timbers and cold stones darkened by soot. There were only a few dirty puddles of water left to show that someone had tried without success to douse the flames. Chal