The Golden Gypsy Read Online Free Page B

time, and her heart contracted, for she was remarkably pretty. She had slight, delicate features, large china blue eyes, and bronzed hair that curled delightfully about her fragile face. She laughed up at him, and gave him a saucy, intimate smile.
    'Would you not like to know what life has in store for you, Ned?' she queried softly. 'I am longing to know, indeed I am!'
    'It might not all be pleasant,' he warned in what Yasmin thought a protective manner.
    The charmer pouted prettily. 'Then I shall merely be warned, and able to avoid the unpleasant parts,' she retorted. 'Maria, you will join me, will you not?'
    Yasmin looked then at the other girl, whom she had not until that moment noticed. It was obvious she bore some relationship to the man, though her hair was darker and her features less strongly drawn.
    'But of course I will,' she answered lightly, and they mounted the two steps towards Yasmin.
    'I pray you will excuse me,' the man said quickly. 'I will await you here.'
    'I shall ask Madame Boswell to tell me your fortune,' the one he had called Charlotte told him laughingly, and swept past into the outer part of the tent where the customers waited. 'Do we go in together?' she asked Yasmin, pausing before the curtain that led to the inner part.
    'It is as you wish,' Yasmin managed, having torn herself away from the man who had affected her so deeply, and followed them in.
    'Well, Maria? I have no secrets from you, so shall we venture together?' she asked laughingly, and the other consenting, they were led through to seat themselves before Mrs Boswell.
    Yasmin escaped and went again onto the platform. The man was still there, and smiled at her as she emerged from the tent. She stared back, unable to return his smile, and wondering what in the world had come over her to cause her to behave in so odd a fashion.
    * * * *
    'Where did they find the golden gypsy?' he asked curiously, nodding towards her hair.
    Yasmin raised her hand towards it unconsciously. 'Mrs Boswell is my grandmother,' she replied in a low voice.
    He raised his eyebrows in sudden surprise, and she thought at first it was at her information. She soon found it was something else.
    'You do not speak like a gypsy,' he commented.
    'No, for I did not always live with them,' Yasmin answered, uncertain how to reply to this remark.
    He continued to look at her, obviously puzzled, but did not speak again since Leon, who had been watching him talk with Yasmin, strolled over and leant back against the rail, his head close to Yasmin's arm.
    'Is grandmother busy, cousin?' Leon asked abruptly, and Yasmin nodded. He smiled at her and then glanced at the stranger. They were of a height, and though Leon was slightly broader, the excellent fit of the stranger's coat and riding breeches showed he was a very muscular young man. He seemed amused, and commented on the vast number of people at the fair.
    'More than last year, by my reckoning,' he said, and soon had Leon talking animatedly with him about the various fairs that took place in the district. Then they moved across to Leon's stall where the stranger inspected the carvings.
    Yasmin stood and watched, unable to take her eyes from him, until a sound from behind her warned her the girls were emerging. She turned, a mechanical smile on her lips, but they ignored her, and laughing together stepped from the platform. Ned came back to meet them.
    'Oh, Ned, it was all of warnings and danger,' Charlotte was saying animatedly. 'Maria was warned not to trust one close to her. I wonder if that could have meant you? There was a dark man who would cause trouble. That cannot be you,' she said consideringly. 'I wonder if it could be your cousin Richard? He is the darkest man I know. Oh, and I must take heed not to be rash. Really, it was all so gloomy, and there was no promise of the delights I had been hoping for!'
    She laughed and turned away, her interest caught by something on the other side of the path, and before he turned to