A Dangerous Love

Ariella planted her hands on her hip, but she smiled sweetly. “It was a social and political travesty to allow the Ten Hours Bill to be trampled under industrial and trade interests. It is immoral! No woman or child should have to work more than ten hours a day!”

Paul Montgomery raised both pale brows, then turned aside dismissively. “As I was saying,” he said to Cliff, “the business interests in this country will go under if unions are encouraged and allowed. No one will be foolish enough to so limit the hours of labor or to support consolidated labor.”

“I disagree. It is only a matter of time before a more humane labor law is enacted,” Cliff said calmly.

“This country will go under,” the younger Montgomery warned, flushing. “We cannot afford higher wages and better work conditions!”

Amanda smiled and said, “On that note, perhaps we should all go in to dine? We can continue the fervent debate over supper.”

A debate over supper, Ariella thought with excitement. She would hardly mind!

But then she caught her sister’s eye. Dianna looked at her with an obvious plea. Why are you doing this? She mouthed, You promised.

“I am too much of a gentleman to debate a lady,” the young Montgomery said stiffly, but he looked terribly put out.

His older brother chuckled, and so did Cliff. “Let’s go in, as my wife has suggested.”

Suddenly a terrific round of shouting could be heard, coming from the front hall of the house, as if a mob had invaded Rose Hill.

“What is that?” Cliff exclaimed, already leaving the salon. “Wait here,” he ordered them all.

Ariella didn’t even think about it—she followed him.

The front door was open. Rose Hill’s butler was flushed, facing a good dozen men who seemed to wish to throng inside. When Cliff was seen, shouts began. “Captain de Warenne! Sir, we must have a word!”

“What is going on, Peterson?” Cliff demanded of the butler. “For God’s sake, it’s the mayor! Let him in.”

Peterson rushed to open the door and the four foremost gentlemen rushed in. “Sir, Mayor Oswald, Mr. Hawks, Mr. Leeds, and your tenant, Squire Jones. We must speak with you. I am afraid there are Gypsies on the road.”

Ariella started. Gypsies? She hadn’t seen a Gypsy caravan since she was a small girl. Maybe her time at Rose Hill would not be so uneventful after all. She knew nothing about the Gypsy people except for folklore. She vaguely recalled hearing their exotic music as a child and being intrigued by it.

“Not on the road, Captain. They are making camp on Rose Hill land—just down the hill from your house,” the rotund mayor cried.

Everyone began to speak at once. Cliff held up both hands. “One at a time. Mayor Oswald, you have my undivided attention.”

Oswald nodded, jowls shaking. “Must be fifty of them! They appeared this morning. We were hoping they wouldn’t stop, but they have done just that, sir. And they are on your land.”

“If one of my cows is stolen, just one, I’ll hang the Gypsy thief myself,” Squire Jones shouted.

The others started talking at once. Ariella flinched, as they began describing children vanishing, horses being stolen and traded back to the owners so disguised as to be recognizable, and dogs running wild. “No trinket in your home— or mine—will be safe,” a man from outside the house cried.

“The young women were begging in the streets this afternoon!” a man said. “It is a disgrace.”

“My sons are sixteen and eighteen,” someone said as fiercely. “I won’t have him being tempted by Gypsy trollops! They already had one girl read their hands!”

Ariella looked at her father, stunned by such bigotry and fear. But before she could tell the throng that their accusations were immensely unfair, Cliff held up both hands.

“I will take care of this,” he said firmly. “But let me first say that no one will be murdered in their sleep, and no family will suffer the theft of children, horses, cows or sheep. I have encountered Gypsies from time to time, over the years. The reports of such crime and theft are grossly exaggerated.”

Ariella almost relaxed. She knew nothing about Gypsies, but surely her father was right.

“Captain, sir. The best thing is to send them on, out of the parish. We don’t need them here. They’re Scot Gypsies, sir, from the Borders, up north.”

Cliff called for silence again. “I will speak to their chief and make certain they mind their business and continue on their way. I doubt that they intend to linger. They never do. There is nothing to worry about.” He turned and looked at Ariella, an invitation in his eyes.

She grinned. “Of course I am coming with you!”

“Do not tell your sister,” he warned as they stepped past the crowd and out of the house.

Ariella fell into step with him, happy to have left the supper party behind. “Dianna has grown up. She is so proper.”

Cliff chuckled. “She did not get that from me—or her mother,” he said. Then he gave her a closer look as they strode down the driveway. “She adores you, Ariella. She has been chatting incessantly about your visit to Rose Hill. Try to be patient with her. I realize no two sisters could be more different.”

Ariella felt terrible then. “I suppose I am a neglectful sister.”

“I understand the lure of your passions,” he said. “At your age, better the lure of passion than no lure at all.”

Her father so understood her nature. Then her smile faded. The shell drive curved away from the house before sloping down to the public road. Below her, she saw an amazing sight. The sun was setting. Perhaps two dozen wagons, painted in bold jewel tones, sparkled in the fading daylight. Their horses were wandering about, children running and playing, and the Gypsies added to the kaleidoscope of color, colorfully dressed in hues of scarlet, gold and purple. The mayor had been right. There were at least two dozen wagons present, and the Gypsies may well have numbered closer to sixty or seventy.

“Did you mean what you said about the Gypsies?” she asked in an awed whisper as they paused. She felt as if she had been swept away into a foreign land. She heard their strange, guttural language and she smelled exotic scents, perhaps from incense. Someone was playing a lively, almost occidental melody on a guitar. But there was nothing foreign or strange about the children’s happy laughter and the women’s chatter.

Cliff’s smile was gone. “I have met many Romany tribes over the years, mostly in Spain and Hungary. Many are honest, Ariella, but unfortunately, they are not open to outsiders. They distrust us with good cause, and it is rather common for them all to take great pride in swindling the gadjo.”

She was intrigued. “The gadjo?”

“We are gadjos—non-Gypsies.”

“But you told the mayor and his cronies not to worry.”

“Is there ever a reason to worry about the worst case? We do not know that they will linger, nor do we know that they will steal. On the other hand, the last time I encountered the Romany people, it was in Ireland. They stole my prized stud—and I never saw the animal again.”

Ariella looked at Cliff carefully. He was reasonable now, but she saw the quiet resolve in his eyes. If any incident occurred, he would not hesitate to take action. “Are you certain a Gypsy stole the stallion?”

“It is the conclusion I drew. But if you are asking if I am one hundred percent positive, the answer is no.” He laid his hand on her shoulder with a brief smile and they started forward.

They had reached the outermost line of wagons, which encircled a large clearing where several pits were being dug for fires. Ariella’s smile faded. The children ran about barefoot with barking dogs, and their pets were thin and scrawny. Women were hauling buckets of water from the creek. The pails were clearly very heavy, but the men were busy pounding stakes and laying out the canvas for tents, hurrying to get the camp made before dark. She looked more closely at the women. Their faces were tanned, lined and weather-beaten. Their colorful skirts were carefully patched and mended. They wore their long, dark hair loose or in braids. The woman closest to them had an infant in a pouch on her back. She removed items from a wagon.

This was a hard life, Ariella thought, and now, she realized that all the laughter and conversation had ceased. Even the guitar player had stopped strumming.

The women paused and straightened to stare. Men turned, also staring. The children ran to the wagons and hid there, peeking out. An absolute silence fell, broken only by a yapping dog.

Ariella shivered, uneasy. These people did not seem pleased to see them.

A huge bear of a man, his hair dark and unkempt, stepped out from the center of the camp in front of the wagons, as if to bar their way. His red shirt was embroidered, and he wore a black-and-gold vest over it. Four younger men, as dark and as tall, came to stand with him. Their eyes were hostile and wary.

Hoofbeats sounded. Ariella turned as a rider on a fine gray stallion galloped up to the outermost wagons, another rider trailing farther behind. He leaped off the mount, striding toward the Gypsy men.

She felt the evening become still. He wore a plain white lawn shirt, fine doeskins breeches, and Hessians that were muddy. He did not wear a coat of any kind and his shirt was unbuttoned, almost to the navel. Clad as he was, he may as well have been naked. No Englishman would travel publicly in such a way. He was tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully built. He wasn’t as dark as the other Gypsies, and his hair was brown, not black, glinting with red and gold in the setting sun. She couldn’t see him more clearly from this distance, but oddly, her heart began to wildly race.