“Use your silverware, dear,” Lady Stokeford suggested. “Lest you send Enid into another swoon.”
Vivien started to lick the gravy from her fingers, saw the three ladies watching in scandalized disapproval, then remembered to use the little cloth in her lap that they called a serviette. It seemed a shame to soil the fine white damask, and worse, to waste such a delicious sauce, but the gorgios had many peculiar customs and this was the least of them.
Picking up the heavy fork, she speared a ladylike portion of roast beef. The tender meat melted in her mouth, a masterpiece from Lady Stokeford’s French chef. Never had Vivien dreamed that the rich dined on meat at every meal along with a dizzying abundance of side dishes. She felt disloyal for comparing this fancy cooking to her mother’s plain, wholesome fare.
A pang of melancholy threatened to steal her appetite. How she missed her parents. But for their sake, she must play this game to the hilt.
“Miss?” Holding a silver dish, a white-gloved footman appeared beside her. “Would you care for more pomme de terres soufflées?”
Stoically, Vivien focused on the ladylike manners she had learned over the past fortnight. “Thank you, Mr. Rumbold,” she said, helping herself to the golden puffed potatoes. “How is the carbuncle on your leg today?”
A blush pinkened his freckled face from his stiff white collar to the tips of his big ears. “Much better, miss,” he mumbled before scuttling back to his position by the sideboard.
Across the table, Lady Enid Quinton nearly choked on a swallow of wine, and her brown eyes twinkled in her well-fed features.
“Vivien!” Thinning her lips, the Countess of Faversham frowned from her chair at the end of the linen-draped table. “It isn’t suitable to converse with a servant at the dinner table. Nor to ask questions of such a personal and disgusting nature.”
No slurping. Sit up straight. Don’t saw your meat. Vivien’s head swam with all their silly rules. Though she knew she was breaking yet another one by talking back, she said defiantly, “When I saw Mr. Rumbold limping yesterday, I fixed him a posset of burdock-root tea and I only wanted to know if—”
“Enough.” Lady Faversham bristled like a hedgehog. “We do not address footmen as mister. We also do not need a description of your Gypsy remedies. If anyone in this household requires a physician, we shall summon Dr. Green from the village.”
Vivien refrained from saying tartly that if the countess continued to rant, she would need a dose of herbal oil for constipation. Assuming a look of wide-eyed innocence, she murmured, “But this very morning, you told me it was the duty of a lady to see to the smooth running of her household. That surely would include tending to those in her employ.”
Lady Faversham harrumphed. “You know what I meant, and don’t pretend otherwise.”
“Pretend, my lady? But I only wish to understand your many strict laws of behavior.”
Determined to win this battle of wills, Vivien held her chin high. Having left behind everything she held dear—though only for a short while—she felt compelled to bend a few of the rigid rules in this strange gorgio world. She would not be discouraged by one ill-tempered snoot.
Lady Stokeford smiled, her finely wrinkled face merry in the candlelight. “Oh, do admit Vivien has a point, Olivia. It’s a lady’s right to minister to her staff. She only thought she was behaving as she ought.”
“I’ll allow the girl has made remarkable progress,” the countess said with a regal nod. “Though it will be some time yet before she is presentable.”
“What do you mean, presentable?” Vivien asked.
“Why, you must be prepared if you’re to associate with society,” Lady Stokeford said. “You’ve been working especially hard on your social graces. You’re a very bright girl.”
“She’s a beauty, too.” Lady Enid nodded vigorously, her multiple chins jiggling and a few faded ginger curls sticking out of her turban. “ ’Twill be great fun to watch as the young squires and gentlemen farmers in the neighborhood meet her. They’re bound to be smitten.”
The elderly women nodded, murmuring to one another. Even Lady Faversham ceased glowering, and her cool gray eyes thawed a little. She and Lady Enid had come to visit each day, helping Lady Stokeford to teach Vivien all the complicated details of being a lady.
Her fancy gown of sea-green silk rustling, Vivien shifted uneasily in her chair. Was that their plan, to marry her off to some arrogant gorgio? Little did they know, she wouldn’t be here for long. “I don’t wish to meet anyone else,” she stated. “I’m content to live here at the Dower House with you, Lady Stokeford.”
“My dear girl, that’s very sweet of you,” the marchioness said. “Yet I shan’t be around forever. Heaven knows, I might die next week.”
Vivien dropped her fork, heedlessly splattering her silk bodice. “Are you ill, my lady?”
“I’m fine,” Lady Stokeford said. “Yet when one is old, one never knows. You, however, are young and lively and ought to be wed. Surely you wish to be more than a companion to a rather settled old woman.”
“Oh no, I enjoy your company very much. I especially like to listen to your stories.” It wasn’t a lie. In spite of her mistrust of all things gorgio, Vivien had taken a certain delight in the Rosebuds, as they called themselves. She stretched her arm across the white-draped table to grasp the dowager’s blue-veined hand. “I entreat you, please don’t make plans for me to marry a strange man. I won’t do it.”
Lady Stokeford laughed, a delicate chime that echoed through the cavernous dining chamber. “There’s no need for dramatics. When the time is right, you’ll choose a husband from among the local gentry.”
“ ’Twill be a love match, and you’ll live happily ever after,” Lady Enid declared. “Why, that’s exactly what dear Harriet would have wanted for you.”
At the mention of her natural mother, Vivien swallowed hard. Even after so many days, the truth of her past still throbbed like an unhealed wound. But she hadn’t asked more than a few cursory questions about the woman who had given birth to her—or the unknown man who had sired her. Somehow, wanting to know more seemed a betrayal to her dado and dye.
So did the pleasure she’d taken in this gorgio life.
In accordance with her plan, Vivien had allowed the Rosebuds to fuss over her like hens, arraying her in fine clothing, rubbing lemon juice on her skin to lighten the effects of the sun, and teaching her how to act in what they called “polite society.” To her guilty surprise, she’d found she loved the hot baths, the plentiful food, the softness of silk on her skin. She loved hearing Lady Stokeford speak of times gone by and the pranks her grandsons had played. Most shameful of all, she discovered that she couldn’t hate these gorgio ladies, for they were kind and well-meaning, with a startling similarity to the women of the Rom.
Lady Enid reminded her of old Shuri, who liked to giggle and gossip. Lady Faversham was like peevish Pesha, critical and yet compassionate. Lady Stokeford was most like Reyna Thorne, sweet-tempered and smiling.
That last comparison galled Vivien. How could she favorably compare any gorgio rawnie to the loving woman who had raised her?
Seized by a clamor of conflicting emotions, she thrust back her chair. Just in time, she remembered her manners. “Please, may I be excused?”
“But you haven’t finished your dinner,” said Lady Stokeford, dismay in her sky-blue eyes.
“We’ve plum cake for dessert,” Lady Enid said. “It’s your favorite—and mine, too.”
“I told the footman to make your tea stronger, the way you like it,” added Lady Faversham.
“Thank you...all of you...but I’m really not hungry anymore.”
Turning her back on them, Vivien fled the dining room and hastened down the corridor. Sudden tears pricked her eyes. She didn’t want kindness from the Rosebuds, nor did she want to like living in this lavish house. She felt dizzied by its endless array of rooms and confined by these walls with their many paintings. Odd how the gorgio preferred to hang pictures of landscapes rather than live outside and experience nature in its full glory.
Her quick footsteps echoed in the grand foyer. The facets of the crystal chandelier caught the last rays of sunlight through the tall windows, sending rainbows dancing over the walls. At another time, she might have been enchanted by the sight, but now she could think only of escape.
She hurried to the front door and ran out into the dusk, down the broad steps of the verandah and across the neatly cropped lawn. Men with long, curved scythes had cut the grass that afternoon, and the lingering fresh scent saddened her, for the gorgios didn’t seem to understand that nature was meant to grow wild, not to be trimmed and tamed. Nor did they comprehend that she had a free spirit that chafed at their rigid rules.
How she longed for the woods and the open road, for the smells and sights and sounds of the encampment. She longed for her parents, for their easy laughter and familiar conversation. She missed the lulling motion of the vardo as they journeyed toward an unknown destination.
Drawn by the musical sound of the river, Vivien headed toward a thicket of rowan trees. Across a stone bridge, an even more palatial mansion loomed in the distance, but she stopped at the embankment, breathing in the scents of water and vegetation.
Defiantly kicking off her slippers, she wriggled her stockinged toes in the grass. Then she plucked the tortoiseshell pins from her tight chignon, releasing her hair to tumble freely down her back. Turning around, she lifted her face to the evening sky, her soul seeking solace in the layers of deep cobalt blue, the pinks and purples of sunset.
She wondered if at this very moment her dado and dye were gazing up at the first stars, too, and thinking of their daughter. The daughter who was not of their blood.
In a flood of pent-up emotion, tears scalded her face. Vivien took deep lungfuls of cool air to ease the constriction in her breast. Why was she weeping? Though she’d uncovered a weakness in herself for gorgio luxuries, she intended to return to her family as soon as she had earned enough money.
She had struck a hard bargain with the Rosebuds. For every month she stayed with Lady Stokeford, she received the princely sum of one hundred gold guineas. At her insistence, the old ladies had advanced ten guineas to her father. He had tried to refuse it, but Vivien had reminded him that the alternative was marriage to Janus, and at last he had given in.
’Tis only right that you learn the ways of your blood, he’d told her. Perhaps you’ll wish to stay there.
She had protested vehemently, vowing to return. Two months, she’d told him. Two hundred guineas. Then she would be free to rejoin the Rom.
Though the Rosebuds didn’t know it, that was her plan. They naively believed that once she’d had a taste of wealth and comfort, she would renounce her life with the Rom. They thought she would wed one of their kind and live among them forever.
A fire in the heart.
Remembering her mother’s words, Vivien dashed the last of the tears from her cheeks. The Rosebuds were dreaming. She’d never find happiness with an arrogant gorgio nobleman. She could never fit into a world where people would always view her with suspicion, where evil landowners set traps for unsuspecting Gypsies.
Yet a blessing of fate had brought the Rosebuds to her. She would pretend to cooperate for the allotted time. The money was a mere trifle to them, so she mustn’t regret the need to trick them.
“My dear girl, you move far too swiftly for this elderly lady.”
She spun around to see Lady Stokeford slowly making her way toward the river. In the twilight, her snowy hair shone with an almost ghostly glow. An airy white mantle draped her dainty shoulders.
“My lady,” Vivien said in wary surprise. “You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll catch a chill.”
“I was afraid we’d upset you.” Peering closely at her, the dowager clucked her tongue in her kindly way. “Poor dear, you’ve been weeping, haven’t you? Come now, talk to me. Think of me as your dear old auntie.”
In short order, Vivien found herself seated on a stone bench facing the river, Lady Stokeford patting Vivien’s cheeks dry with a lacy handkerchief. “There, there now, darling. We should not have badgered you so. This life is all so new and complicated to you, isn’t it? Our customs must seem very strange to you at times.”
Despite her earlier desire for solitude, Vivien felt in desperate need of company, for she missed the long talks she’d shared with her mother. “It’s odd to spend so much time within walls,” she found herself admitting. She thought about her narrow escape from Janus, and her resolution firmed. “But I’m determined to learn the ways of the gorgios. I’ll uphold my end of our bargain.” At least for two months.
Lady Stokeford smiled. “I’m sure you will. You’re rather like your mother in that respect. A very proud young lady she was.”
Vivien crumpled the damp handkerchief in her fist. Was she a traitor to Reyna to wonder about her gorgio mother? Yet surely Lady Stokeford would expect questions from her. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Tell me more about my...about Harriet.”
“She was a sober, capable woman whom I hired as governess to my three grandsons. Even with that rambunctious lot, she showed great dignity.” The dowager laughed a little. “Why, I remember one night when Michael, the eldest, draped himself in a sheet and commenced a ghastly howling to frighten her. Unfortunately for him, it was a warm night and my windows were open, and so I ran upstairs to the nursery and caught him just as Harriet sat up and ordered him back to bed, as calm as you please.”
Vivien smiled, trying to picture the stately Harriet in her surroundings. “The nursery. That is where you keep children, is it not? I haven’t seen any such place at the Dower House.”
“No, I moved here after my son died and my grandsons left for good.” Misty-eyed, Lady Stokeford pointed at the palace far across the river, barely visible through the dusk. “Back then, we all lived together there at Stokeford Abbey. What wonderful days those were, even though my son was too often muddled by drink. And his wife—my daughter-in-law—spent most of her time in prayer.” The dowager made a sour face. “She would have been content to let those boys run wild, as if litanies alone could civilize them. But I made certain they learned to mind their p’s and q's.”
So Lady Stokeford had raised her grandsons. Vivien set aside an unwarranted curiosity about them in favor of a more pressing matter. “What happened then?” she asked. ‘To Harriet.”
“One morning, poof! She was gone. She left a note saying that she preferred the fresh sea air and she’d found another post on the Isle of Wight. I thought those mischievous boys had finally managed to terrorize her, so I punished them soundly.”
“Surely you knew she was with child.”
The dowager sadly shook her head. “No, I didn’t, else I would have gone after her and brought her home. You see, she was like a daughter to me. I was so very hurt by her abrupt departure.”
“How did you find out...about me?”
“After her death last year, her solicitor found a letter among her effects, addressed to me. In it, Harriet confessed to having had a lover, then going away to give birth to a daughter. To you, my dear.”
Vivien’s fingers dug into the folds of her silk skirt. “She renounced me easily enough.”
Lady Stokeford reached out to touch her. “No! You mustn’t blame Harriet. While she lay ill with childbed fever, her lover gave you, his own daughter, to the Gypsies. Harriet was desperate to find you, but she was sickly and alone, without anyone to help her.”
Vivien burned with rage at the man who had so callously misused Harriet. The man whose seed had given life to Vivien. “Who was he?” she demanded. “This man who tore me from my mother’s arms?”
Lady Stokeford scowled into the gathering shadows beneath the rowan trees. “I wish I knew. I should like to twist off his...” Then the fierce expression on her face vanished, and she again looked like the tenderhearted matriarch. “But never mind him, dear. All that matters is that you’re here, when for eighteen years, we didn’t know you even existed.”
Vivien swallowed a host of questions about the unknown gorgio who had fathered her. He was an evil man, and he meant nothing to her. Nothing mattered but the two hundred gold guineas. “How did you find me?”
“Why, I hired a Bow Street Runner, of course.”
“A...what?”
“An officer of the law all the way from London. He made a few discreet inquiries for me. Though the trail was old, we were greatly aided by having the names of the people who had taken you in, from Harriet’s letter.” Lady Stokeford smiled reassuringly. “And now we Rosebuds are your family.”
Vivien regarded her curiously. “What is this flower name you call yourselves?”
The older woman laughed. “It has naught to do with flowers, my dear. But it’s a long story, and one for another night. For now, we thought you might enjoy practicing one of your customs for a change.”
“What do you mean?”
In the fading light, an impish smile made the dowager’s eyes sparkle like stars. “Why, come inside and find out!”