“Romani chis are not your gorgie whores, my lord. Especially me.” Her voice was steady, yet her eyes were hot. “I may lie to you, but not with you. Not for coin.” She released her grip and sat back, and Whit felt the echo of her touch. “If I were to take any man to my bedroll, it would not be for money.”
Which seemed to imply that she might share her bed with a man, only without any sort of monetary inducement. That sounded promising.
Before Whit could speculate on this further, Bram staggered over with his arm hooked around the neck of a Gypsy man. The Gypsy looked a little alarmed to be so close to the tall, somewhat inebriated stranger, but could not easily break free.
“Taiso here just told me something very interesting,” Bram said. “He said that a few miles from here is a Roman ruin. Isn’t that right, Taiso?”
The Gypsy man nodded, though from eagerness to rid himself of Bram or ready agreement, Whit couldn’t tell. “Aye,” Taiso answered. “To the west. On a hill. Many old columns, and such.”
“Bram, if your estate is nearby, wouldn’t you already know about a Roman ruin?” Whit asked.
Apparently, this had not occurred to Bram. He frowned. “Must be a new ruin.”
The Gypsy girl, Zora, snorted. Whit found himself smiling.
“We should go investigate,” Leo said, ambling forward with John and Edmund trailing.
“No!” yelped Taiso. “Ye oughtn’t go there. ’Tis a place of darkest magic. The haunt of Wafodu guero—the Devil!”
“So much the better,” said Leo. “We’re Hellraisers, after all.”
Edmund and John chortled their agreement. “This place is getting deuced dull,” Edmund added.
Whit didn’t think so. Though he was uncertain whether the tantalizing Zora might share a bed with him, he wanted to stay with her longer, even if it meant simply talking. He couldn’t remember being so engaged in a conversation for a long, long time.
“It’s settled, then,” declared Bram. “We go to the ruin.”
Cheers of approval rose up from Leo, John, and Edmund. Bram fixed Whit with a stare that held far more strength than one might expect from his inebriated state.
“You’re coming, aren’t you?” Bram asked. The question verged on a command. In some ways, Bram styled himself the de facto leader of the Hellraisers, even though, as a baron, he ranked beneath Whit. Yet Whit had no desire to lead this band of reprobate men—he wanted only the thrill of the gamble—and so left the decisions to his oldest friend.
Yet it was all a ruse. Bram mightn’t say so, but he needed to have Whit with him during their many escapades, and if Whit refused to go, Bram would stay.
Whit looked at Zora, who watched the whole exchange with an incisive, speculative gaze. “What say you, Madame Zora?” he asked. “I could go to the ruin, where the Devil is rumored to reside, or remain here, with you. Shall we wager it on the flip of a coin or turn of a card?”
Her expression turned opaque. “The disease of your boredom has nearly claimed you if you can’t make decisions for yourself.”
He didn’t care for the edge of censure in her tone. Whit spent much of his time avoiding anyone who might reproach him, which was why he hadn’t seen his sister in nearly a year. It was not this Gypsy girl’s business if he liked to gamble. It was no one’s business but his own.
Resolved, Whit smoothly got to his feet. He hadn’t been imbibing at the same rate as his friends, so the world remained steady as he stood. “Let’s see where the Devil lives.”
Bram exhaled, as if holding a breath in anticipation of Whit’s answer. Seeing Whit make his decision, Bram grinned his demon’s grin, the same he made whenever he was on the verge of doing something truly fiendish—like that time he entertained an entire troupe of ballet dancers in his London town house.
Zora arose to standing in a sinuous, graceful line.
“A kiss for luck,” Whit said to her. He stared at her lips, the color of a rose just before sundown. He needed to know her taste, her warmth, when his own world felt so flavorless and cold. God, he wanted that, wanted her mouth against his, and the sudden strength of that want hit him like a cannon.
At that word kiss, her gaze went directly to his mouth. And heat and heaviness shot directly to his groin. Desire gleamed in her eyes.
Which she quickly shut away. Her expression cooled as her gaze moved up to his eyes.
“It would be a shameful thing to kiss you in front of my family. But I will wish you kosko bokht.” There was something almost sorrowful in her words, in her eyes, as she stared up at him.
He felt it then. An icy sense of premonition sliding down his back, like a cold hand tracing the line of his spine. Though he was not a superstitious man, just then some strange other sense of foreboding tightened his muscles and bones. He had the oddest desire to stay in the encampment and avoid the ruin.
“Time to ride, lads,” Bram commanded. He and the other men strode off to where a Gypsy boy had brought their snorting, impatient horses.
Whit laughed at himself, shaking off the sense of dread as he might hand a rain-soaked greatcoat to a servant. Nonsense, all of it. As he’d said earlier, this was the modern age, and the Devil and magic did not truly exist.
He reached out, requesting Zora’s hand, and after she slowly gave it to him, he bowed over it and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Her eyes widened. Beneath his lips, her skin was silk and warmth; he barely resisted the impulse to lick her to learn whether she tasted as spicy as her spirit.
Their eyes met over their clasped hands. “Farewell, Madame Zora.”
“Be careful, my lord.”
“There’s no amusement in careful.”
“There is more to life than amusement.”
“If there is,” he answered, “I have yet to encounter it.”
She slid her hand from his, and her gaze also slid away.
“Whit!” came a chorus of voices from across the encampment.
He gave her one last, searching look, as if trying to etch her image on the metal of his mind. A silent entreaty for her to meet his gaze one final time. Yet she would not, staring fixedly at the ground, and the flickering firelight turned her into a distant gold-and-ebony goddess. He wondered if he might ever see her again. The thought that he might not filled him with an inexplicable anger.
He made one final bow, as sharply elegant as a rapier, then turned and strode off. Whit swung himself up into the saddle. Bram and the others kicked their horses into a gallop. Whit’s horse wheeled and danced in a circle as he took one last glimpse of the Gypsy encampment, of her, before he set his heels into the beast’s flanks. They darted off into the night.
The gorgios were gone, having left some hours ago. Yet Zora could not be easy, could not still the beating of her heart or whirling of her mind. She paced as everyone else in the camp amused themselves with music and stories. It had been a good night. The wealthy gorgios had thrown coin around like handfuls of dust, and the mood amongst the families was high and celebratory. Even the best day of horse trading and dukkering at a fair could not bring in as much money.
Zora alone could not enjoy the remains of the evening. She walked up and down the camp—careful to keep her path behind the men who sat around the fire, as custom and belief demanded. Amongst the Rom, it was considered dangerous for a woman to pass in front of a seated man, though no one explained the reasons why in a way to ever satisfy Zora. That had been her way, since her earliest years—Zora demanding why, and the answer: because.
“Sit, girl,” commanded Faden Boswell. “Ye make my head spin with yer to-ing and fro-ing.”
Zora ignored him. Faden claimed he was the king of their group, but he talked more bluster than he did enforce order. Everyone knew that Faden’s wife, Femi, held the reins of control and made the major decisions.