For Love of a Gypsy Lass Read Online Free

may well be visible to others.”
    “Yes, forgive me.” He stepped back slightly. “I forgot myself.”
    “I, too.” She sighed. “I…we…we cannot, must not, do this. Please go, please leave us and do not come back.”
    “I will go,” he said. “If you will come with me.”
    She shook her head. “No, sir, that can never be. Please, I beg you, disturb me no more.”
    “I will provide a good life for you. You will always be comfortable.”
    “I do not understand you, sir.”
    “I want you near me always. I want to care for you—give you a house and carriage of your own. Jewels, servants—whatever you wish for shall be yours.” He placed his hand on his chest, where his heart was beating wildly. “You will be my mistress, the queen of my heart—”
    “No.” She put up a hand as though to ward off an evil. “No!” She turned and ran toward one of the wagons and disappeared inside.
    He followed her to the wagon and stood, his shoulders slumped, beside it.
    “Please tell me. What have I done wrong? I wish only the best for you,” he said, but there was no response.
    “I don’t wish to distress you,” he continued. “I’ll leave now, but will return tomorrow. I beg of you that you will do me the favor then of explaining what I should do to convince you of my good intentions toward yourself.”
    He placed the little package of handkerchiefs—which, to the amusement of his friend, John Long, he had spent the day seeking out—on the top step of the wagon. They were of the finest sheer linen and edged with exquisite Belgian lace. Pure and rare like the woman for whom they were intended. Like the woman he loved so unreasoningly.
     
    ***
     
    Talaitha sat on the steps of the vardo studying the package the Gadjo lord had left for her. Her thoughts strayed to him, to the way his lips had felt on her own, the way his hands had felt against her back. She imagined his fingers moving softly across the skin of her shoulders as her own trailed across the smooth fabric of the top handkerchief. She could almost feel his fingers going down the length of her spine. She sighed at the thought. No, she must not think such things.
    She shook the fine linen square open. She had never seen such delicate and beautiful lace work, and she most certainly had never owned anything this fine in her entire life. She rubbed the incredibly soft fabric of the handkerchief against her cheek. Then she tucked it into the bodice of her dress so only a little of the lace would show. Would he touch her here, on her breasts? Could she bear the pleasure of such a touch?
    Oh yes , she thought, I could bear it—would bear it—and I would want more . She sighed at the thought. Surely he would first take the time to kiss her, to press those sensuous lips against hers, hard and sure as he had before. She would allow him to run his hands over her naked body, touching her here, stroking her there. Slowly, slowly his touch would become more intimate as it traveled to her breasts, stroking, smoothing. She clasped her hands across her chest. He would find her nipples and—
    She started when her grandmother, the Puri Dai , the wise woman of the clan, stepped out of the shadows and took Talaitha’s hands in her own.
    “Pack your things,” she said. “We leave tomorrow—early.”
    “Tomorrow? But Baba Florica, we were to stay here another week or more.”
    “We must leave,” the old woman said. Talaitha thought she sounded irritable.
    “But why?” She didn’t want to go. Despite her resentment that he’d thought she could be bought—though he’d offered an almost unimaginably high price—she wanted, no, needed to see the Gadjo lord again. She knew nothing good could come out of the feelings she had for him, that she could never mean anything more to him than a Gypsy lass whom he had seduced with gold—in spite of his promises—but that didn’t stop her from feeling the way she did. Nothing could stop her from that.
    Her grandmother