The Romany Heiress Read online

  The Dowager’s Wager

  The Heroic Baron

  Nikki Poppen

  I want to thank my agent at Greyhaus Literary Agency, Scott Eagen, for all his assistance. He has spent countless hours acting in the role of critic, agent, and publicist on behalf of this manuscript. He was there with me every step of the way from helping me clean up the manuscript to make it publisher-ready, selecting the right publishing house for this story (Avalon was right on the money, the perfect place), skillfully guiding me through the process of seeing a book published to being a diligent publicist, going above and beyond the call of the agent’s duty.

  Finally, thanks to my supportive P.E.O. chapter which has encouraged me every step of the way and always believed I would do this. I love all of you.

  In the alleyway behind the lavishly lit Mayfair mansion, Irina Dupeski tossed her dark curls and slipped out of the cheap, black cloak hiding the bright colors of her multihued skirt. She fluffed the full skirt and pinched her cheeks for effect. “How do I look?” She gave her companion a teasing smile and twirled once.

  The muscular youth gave an adolescent stammer. “Irina, you look lovelier than ever.” Then he puffed up his chest and offered in his best manly tone, “I should go with you. One can never tell what these lordlings might be like. You know as well as I do how the Rom are treated simply because we live outside of society. I do not want any of them to think you deserve less than a lady”

  “I thank you for your worry, Jacopo, but it is not necessary. I have done performances like this for the ton before. I shall be safe. Remember, I will just be on the other side of the garden wall”

  Jacopo cast a glance at the high bricked wall and grimaced. “I suppose I could climb it if it came to that”

  Irina laughed. “I suppose you could but you could also use the gate.” She reached up to test the latch of the gate, and it opened as planned. Giles, the man who had hired her, said he would arrange for it to be so. Jacopo, the darling, was still concerned. She reached a hand out to soothe the worry from his face. “This is nothing. I am telling fortunes for this Giles and a few of his friends. I won’t be longer than a half hour. What could go wrong?”

  Before he could answer, Irina slipped through the iron gate and into the town garden of the Denbigh’s home. As expected, a heavily attended masquerade was well underway, evidenced by the noise and light spilling from the ballroom. She wished some of that light extended to the back of the garden. She could hardly see a foot in front of her. She didn’t want to risk tripping over an errant root or snagging her skirts on an unseen bramble. She made her way forward, cautious and shivering. Without the protection of her cloak, there was no mistaking the bitter weather of winter, but she’d forgone the extra warmth for the sake of theatrics. She knew precisely the appeal she held for men when she was dressed in the full regalia of a gypsy fortune teller.

  She needed every last crown and guinea she could wrest from this night’s performance to add to her hidden stash in the floor of the wagon. The time was coming when she would leave the caravan and set out to claim her destiny. She might have lived all of her life to date as Rom but she would not die Rom. She would claim her rightful heritage and live the rest of her life as a lady, fulfilling the bedtime story that had been told to her since she was old enough to remember.

  At last, after careful steps, Irina gained the verandah where Giles had asked her to meet his party of friends. There was no one present yet, but she’d planned on being deliberately early in order to become familiar with the setting. The area was wide, open, and cold. All the better for her safety, and all the better for getting the job done quickly. No doubt they would be as cold as she and would want to return to the warm crush of the ballroom.

  Voices garnered her attention as the French doors leading from the ballroom flew open. She recognized the leader. Giles led the way, giving instructions over his shoulder. He caught sight of her and motioned her into the shadows with a quick wink.

  Irina blended into the darkness and watched. She had forgotten how handsome Giles was with his deep-gold hair reminiscent of antiqued gold and his horseman’s physique. As someone who’d spent her life traveling from one horse fair to another, she knew the difference instantly between a man who had pretensions of great horsemanship and a man who was born to the saddle. Giles was of the latter. From the width of his broad shoulders to the muscles of his thighs, he evinced superior skill with horses.

  And with people, for that matter. He had never called himself by a title or a last name during their brief dealings, but she knew he was more than a mere mister by the clothes he wore and the manners he used. He didn’t need to flaunt a title for her to know he was far above her in social standing, although he had treated her with gracious courtesy. She could not forget he was a member of high society and she was still Rom, at least for now, until she could make the fairy tale come true.

  Irina smiled to herself in the shadows. She wouldn’t always be Rom. Perhaps when she claimed her true inheritance, Giles might look her way. The fantasy of dancing with Giles warmed her chilled skin. She would wear a fine dress of aquamarine silk done in the latest fashion, with slippers and gloves to match. Around her neck would be a strand of freshwater pearls with mates at her ears. Perhaps she’d even have a strand wound through her upswept hair. Irina sighed, letting her imagination run rampant.

  Then, all at once, it was show time. Giles gestured toward her with a gallant sweep of his extravagant, satin-lined cloak. Irina pushed her daydream to the back of her mind and stepped forward. She needed the coin from this evening if her dream was to become anything more. She curtsied and put on her best fabrication of a Russian accent, favoring Giles with a coy smile.

  “These are your friends, milord?” She dimpled. “Ah, who shall be first?” she asked, dazzling each of the four assembled men with a practiced look and ignoring the one woman. While she tantalized, she studied them; the young blond lounging on the cold stone steps as if it were summer looked game enough and full of adventure. His fortune would be easy to tell; the lanky, blackhaired man with obsidian eyes was easy enough to read as well. He was the quiet, bookish type, who hid his true ambitions; the other man present would not be so simple. He was sinfully handsome, and he wore his fine looks with an aura that suggested he knew just how a woman would be affected by one brooding glance. But he was brooding and not amused by the prospect of having his fortune read. She would save him for last, along with the lovely but tense woman who sat near him.

  Crowd assessed, Irina began with the adventurous blond, caressing his palm and looking into his dancing green eyes. With each of them, she applied her trade ruthlessly. With the blond on the steps, she laughed and played the coy flirt, matching his remarks to her wit. With the quiet man she coaxed and rewarded, treating him as if he were the only man on the verandah. With the difficult one, she cajoled with all her talent until he reluctantly gave up his palm. With the woman she gave her truth, although it was obvious the woman was less than glad for it.

  In the end, Irina knew she had done her job well. The group was laughing and satisfied with her efforts as they traded fortunes with one another. For a moment when they chuckled over their futures and included her in their teasing repartee, she felt like one of them, as if she belonged in just such a circle. But it was a moment too short-lived. It was with dismay that she let Giles lead her back into the shadows, discreetly escorting her down the verandah steps before anyone would notice she was gone.

  What had she expected? That they invite her to join them? That one of the elegant gentlemen ask her dance or to go into supper with him? Of course not. She knew in their minds she was the hired help. No amount of talent or flirting would change that. At the end of the night, she wo
uld still be Rom.

  Irina was keenly aware of Giles’s hand at her back, guiding her effortlessly through the darkness. The stars twinkled overhead in the freezing night sky and for the brief walk Irina indulged herself, pretending this was her beau strolling her about a garden in full bloom at a spring fete. They might be off to find a secret place to steal a kiss. The gate loomed all too soon, and Giles was pressing a soft leather purse in her hand.

  “Here’s the payment we agreed upon. Thank you, Miss Dupeski. My friends enjoyed themselves immensely.”

  Miss Dupeski? Oh, this one had manners aplenty, treating her so politely. Irina cast him a glance through downcast eyes. She had read his fortune with the others on the steps, but she might entice him further. “My work is not yet done. Perhaps you would like a more extensive reading of your palm? Your true fortune remains to be told” She swept the area with a quick glance, spying a low stone bench half hidden by overgrown shrubs. “Allow me.”

  She led him to the bench and sank down on it, letting her skirts float in a rainbow as she settled, not that he could see the vibrant colors in the darkness of the garden. A smile quirked at his lips, and Irina knew he was mildly amused by her boldness, and maybe more.

  She set to work, stroking the lines of his palm and murmuring to herself over what she saw.

  “So, what else do you see?” he asked impatiently when she said nothing directly to him.

  Irina looked up from the hand with carefully schooled features. This was the response she had been waiting for with her mutterings. It was a tried-and-true tactic for piquing the curiosity of even the most reluctant. He had been somewhat amused when she’d begun but she wanted him fully interested. “Somewhat amused” held no advantages for her. “Fully interested”, well that held any number of opportunities.

  “I see a man who has direction, who knows what he is about. You have plans and the determination to see them through,” Irina began, feeling safe with her assumption. What man didn’t have plans? Not all men were determined but they thought they were, and no man liked to admit he wasn’t. “You will face great challenges, but you will overcome them by maintaining your standards.”

  “That’s it? What about love?” He asked when Irina relinquished his hand. “Everyone else’s fortune dealt in romance. It seems wrong that mine would be devoid of it.” He chuckled a little at his joke.

  She smiled a little at that. Highborn or low, they were all the same in the end. She tilted her head in a practiced, pretty move meant to tease. “So it’s love you want to know about?” She took his hand back into her own, this time studying the light calluses where his hand must curve about the reins in spite of wearing gloves. She traced the line running from his fourth finger and noticed he shivered slightly at the delicate contact. What a delightful piece of whimsy it was to think this gorgeous man was as affected by her as she was by him.

  “This is your love line. Yours is long, which indicates a lifelong passion awaits you, although you will discover it when you least expect it.” Safe enough. He could interpret that any way he liked.

  Giles sighed. “I wish I could believe that”

  The quiet of the night closed around them. In the midst of his confession, Irina forgot she was cold, forgot their differences in station. “Why do you say that? Surely a man of your great appeal will find a woman.” She breathed, not daring to break the spell that wove about them.

  “I have no doubt I will find a woman. I do doubt I will find one that sparks a great passion in me. My father certainly didn’t. Passionate liaisons don’t run in our blood” He gave a rueful look that said he was half serious, half mocking in his admission.

  Silence stretched between them as they held one another’s gaze. Irina’s heart pounded with expectation. He was going to kiss her. She could see the idea of the action forming in his striking blue eyes. At the last moment he rose from the bench, brushed at his evening pants, and offered her his arm. “I fear I’ve kept you overlong, Miss Dupeski. I hope someone is waiting at the gate to see you home. If not, I’ll arrange..

  Irina interrupted swiftly, smarting from the disappointment there would be no kiss. “There is no need. My friend, Jacopo, is there. I will be safe”

  “Very well, then,” Giles said with stiff politeness, holding the narrow gate open for her. Irina brushed by him, conscious of her skirts sweeping his legs and the spiced cleanliness of his scent as she passed. A queer flutter ran through her. Her mentor, Magda, would call it a premonition. This would not be the last time she saw Giles, although she had no reason to believe why it would be so. They obviously did not run in the same social circles, and he had given no indication that he would seek her out after this evening.

  Irina looked back only once as Jacopo slipped the welcome warmth of her cloak about her shoulders. She gave a small wave to let Giles know she was safe. His duty was discharged. He could return to his friends and the party. Someday she would be like them. Someday she wouldn’t have to feign a Russian accent or keep up the pretense of telling fortunes.

  She said little to Jacopo on the way back to the caravan, too lost in her thoughts about Giles to do more than offer cursory comments to his questions about the mansion and the rich people inside.

  Back at the caravan on the outskirts of London she tried to describe her feelings to Magda while she sipped hot coffee inside the vardo, glad to be warm again.

  Magda gave a mirthless laugh, which Irina did not find reassuring. “My dear, what you’re feeling is akin to having a ghost walk over your grave. Tonight you’ve meddled with fate”

  “What do you mean?” Irina asked over the rim of her chipped cup. She was not given to superstitions like Magda and the others in the caravan but still, Magda’s words sent a chill through her.

  “I mean exactly what I say” The older woman retorted. “What was the name of your young man?”

  “Giles.”

  “Just Giles? No last name? No title?”

  “No.

  “Very well, it is enough. Your young man is Giles Moncrief. He’s the heir to Spelthorne Abbey”

  Irina spluttered, spewing a mouthful of coffee. “Spelthorne? He’s the earl?”

  “He will be the earl.” Magda corrected. “The man who will stand between you and your rightful inheritance.”

  “But Spelthorne is mine,” Irina protested. “I have the birth certificate and the diary. I thought there was no heir but me.”

  “There is no legitimate heir but you. Did you expect to walk up to Spelthome and find it unoccupied? Did you expect to claim it without a fight?” Magda scolded her naivety. Her middle-aged features hardened. “To claim it, you will have to fight him for it, but not yet.” Magda waved a long finger in warning. “You have met your fate too soon. It is not time. He is not yet earl. To expose yourself while the old earl yet lives is to weaken your claim. We must leave in morning. We dare not risk another encounter.”

  Magda rose and busied herself with her shawls. “I’ll explain it all to Tommasino. He is a good leader, and he’ll understand our need for haste”

  Magda vanished out the door before Irina could question her further. She was aghast at the news. Giles was a Spelthorne? Every fantasy she’d entertained that evening fractured into a thousand pieces. If she won her heart’s desire, he would never look her direction with anything other than hatred for what she had done to him.

  Her conscience chided her for such weakness. A handsome face was not near enough reason to forego the legacy she had waited years to claim. Since she was old enough to understand, Magda had tucked her into bed with the story-the tale that she was an earl’s daughter, traded at birth for a cottager’s son simply because the peer desired a male heir.

  At first, she had thought the story nothing more than a common child’s fairy tale. After all, what child doesn’t entertain notions that he or she is a prince or princess in hiding? As the years progressed, Magda embellished the account with more details as she became old enough to understand them. Details su
ch as the name of the holding, the name of the earl and his wife, descriptions of the house, its floor plan and its grounds until Irina could see the place in her mind with alarming clarity although the caravan had never been there during her own lifetime. According to Magda, the last time the caravan had camped at Spelthorne was the September of her birth. Magda had been there, assisting her mother, when the deal had been made.

  Finally, on her twentieth birthday, Magda had produced the most significant details-a diary written by her mother, Celeste Moncrief, the Countess of Spelthorne, and a birth certificate.

  Irina had stared at the birth certificate, speechless and shattered. `You’ve got the wrong girl,’ she’d whispered horrified. The name on the birth certificate wasn’t hers. The certificate belonged to a Catherine Celeste Moncrief. Long moments passed before she realized the import of it. She wasn’t Caterina, affectionately called Irina by those in the caravan, she was Catherine.

  The enormity of it had been overwhelming. She was Catherine Moncrief, a child switched at birth, switched from a life of comfort into a life of struggle and stigmatism, switched into anonymity where not even her name was her own. She had been angry for days. She’d wanted to march straight to Spelthorne Abbey and throw down the proverbial gauntlet. But Magda had said simply, “not yet” and she had not questioned the wise woman’s advice.

  Now, eight years later, she was still waiting. Now, Magda no longer said “not yet,” she said “soon” Her time was coming. That scared her. She hoped she had the strength to do what was demanded of her. Her success would cause the ruin of an innocent man who was intricately woven into the scheme that had duped her of her heritage.

  Irina sighed. When she had forecasted great challenges in his life that evening she had done so generically. All lives had challenges but she had not expected she would be one of his.

  Giles Moncrief stood on the wide verandah of Spelthorne Abbey, his family estate, and flipped open the simple but expensive gold pocket watch he carried. It was 4:00 according to the hands of his watch face. But he hadn’t needed to open the watch to know that. The appearance of men newly returned and washed from a day of well-planned fishing on the River Ash, milling about with their wives beneath the white canopies dotting the lawn and the arrival of tea indicated the time of day just assuredly as any clock. His house parties always ran on schedule. Always.