Vernon slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on to her hair. ‘Pleased it was a false alarm, Cilly.’
Cecily shrugged his arm away. ‘And don’t call me Cilly.’
Trust Vernon; he never missed an opportunity to tease and he knew only too well how she detested that stupid childhood nickname. They had reached the terrace, then they were inside the brightly lit drawing room and Cecily donned her accustomed mantle of perfect society lady and mingled and chatted, but there was a tiny part of her that remained separate and secluded from the hubbub, and in her mind’s eye she saw Zach’s hands, cupped in that unconscious gesture of protection and that tiny part of her felt...safe.
* * *
Zach hunkered down as he fed sticks into the fire two mornings later. Shades of pink and orange brushed the horizon as dawn approached. Another restless night had seen him up even earlier than usual, intent on moving on. No good could come of lingering, of seeing her again. Cecily. Lady Perfect. The name he had dubbed her with sounded harsh, but it served a useful purpose. Its use whenever he thought of her—as he had frequently since their encounter in the moonlight two nights ago—kept the impossibility of anything other than a brief friendship to the forefront of his mind. It would help to stop him indulging in the fantasy of anything more.
He set a tripod frame over the flames and placed a skillet on top, adding a sliver of butter. When it melted, he swirled it around and cracked one egg and then another into the pan. He did it without thought. This had been his life for ten years. The life he had chosen.
As he ate the eggs, mopping up the yolk with a hunk of bread—Mrs Green, the cook at Stourwell Court, was nothing if not generous—he set his mind to the journey he must take to rejoin his family. He had left them camped on the outskirts of Worcester, but they had plans to move on, and he knew their path lay to the south and east, picking up harvesting work and odd jobs along the way.
I must leave today...
The same thought that had plagued him yesterday morning and throughout the day. He had glimpsed Lady Perfect from afar, with her family, but he’d deliberately stayed away from the house. Yes. He would be wise to leave; he ought to leave. He stilled. Ought to... He had chosen not to live his life by the conventions. To follow his heart, not the demands of his brain. How could he tell Lady Perfect to choose what she wished to do, rather than to slavishly follow the edicts of society or her family, and then ignore his own advice?
Do I want to leave today?
The answer was clear and strong. No. He did not want to leave. Not yet. He knew he ought to go, but he chose to stay. It was his way of letting the fates decide his future...and he preferred it to tossing a coin or throwing a dice.
Decision made, he unfolded his body, stood upright and stretched his arms high, arching back as his lungs filled. This would be a good day. He could feel it in his bones.
An eager whine caught his attention. Myrtle sat at his feet, gazing up with adoring eyes, tongue lolling. He reached down to fondle her ear and her eyes half-closed in ecstasy. Dogs were simple beings. Easy to please. Loving and faithful, although they did not always have cause to be. Zach walked to the cart and rummaged through the basket sent out to him by Mrs Green last night after he had declined to join the family and their guests for dinner. Sure enough, there was cold beef and Zach tossed a slice to Myrtle, who jumped awkwardly to catch it. His heart twisted as he watched her lurch away from the cart on three legs and he perched on the cart steps as the memories took hold.
He had found Myrtle a year ago, trapped by her hind leg in a snare in the woods, close to death. It was soon after his mother’s death and caring for Myrtle had helped ease the pain of Mama’s passing and given him a purpose. He hadn’t been able to save her leg, but he had saved her. And, in a way, she had saved him, too, in the same way that caring for Athena had helped him cope with the catastrophic change in his life as he—at sixteen years of age—had struggled to adjust to life among his mother’s people.
Sixteen years old. A boy. He and his mother cast out after his father’s death, with nowhere to go and no one who cared. From that day forward, he’d locked the door on his past, changing his name from Zachary Graystoke to Absalom Gray. Even his mother had called him Absalom, the name of his Romany grandfather. And that memory led inexorably back to Lady Perfect and the question of why he had felt impelled to tell her his real name. Why it had been so very important to him to hear his name on her lips. And the only answer was that he wanted her to know something about him that was the truth. Not the half-truth known by everybody else in the non-Romany world. The gadje world.
Eventually, the swish of footsteps through long grass and the low murmur of voices interrupted his thoughts. His camp was close to a small copse, at the point where a brook entered the River Stour, and on the edge of a field which—Daniel had told him—would be cut for hay later in the season. Zach pushed himself upright and rounded his cart, to see Daniel, the Duke and his son walking to the river, fishing rods in hand. Daniel saw him watching and raised his hand in greeting.
‘Morning, Absalom. Care to join us? We thought we’d take advantage of the peace while the ladies recuperate after another late night.’
The ladies... Lady Perfect... Without volition, he looked in the direction of the house, even though he knew it was out of sight. Was she awake? Did she think of him—wonder what he was doing—as he did her? He thrust down that thought. Of course she did not. She was a lady. He was a Romany. Why would she think of him? But maybe his listening, and his advice, such as it was, had helped to ease her mind. At least she had not succumbed to a fit of the vapours when he had so far forgotten himself as to kiss her.
With that he must be satisfied.
‘Thank you, but no,’ he replied to Daniel. ‘I promised your sister I would look at her lame mare this morning.’
‘Oh, good man,’ Daniel said. ‘Thea dotes on Star. She’d be broken-hearted to lose her and Pritchard seems at a loss to know what’s wrong.’ Pritchard was the Markhams’ head groom. ‘Absalom here is something of a natural healer, your Grace.’
‘Leo. I told you to call me Leo. After all, we’re family now.’
Zach could see by the pink that tinged Daniel’s cheeks how pleased he was by the Duke’s remark. He bit back a smile as he imagined the man’s reaction if he were to have the gall to call him Leo.
‘Well, enjoy your fishing,’ he said. The sun was fully up now, revealing a cloudless, periwinkle sky. ‘You have perfect weather for it.’
‘Indeed we have.’ It was the Duke’s son who responded, with a grin. He slapped Daniel on the back as he continued, ‘Markham’s promised some great sport. He’s boasting of barbel the size of seals.’
Daniel laughed. ‘That’s something of an exaggeration, but we do catch the occasional whopper.’
The three men continued to the river bank and turned to walk downstream, jumping across the brook. Zach watched them go with a touch of envy prompted by their sureness of their own places in the world: Daniel as comfortable with his own life as a manufacturer as the Duke and his son—his eldest son and therefore his heir—were with their privileged position. He swatted away that errant feeling. He might not belong quite as solidly to the life he had chosen, but it was his choice after all. Those other men...they had simply followed in their fathers’ footsteps. He tidied his campsite and threw dirt on the fire to extinguish the flame, then, with Myrtle at his heels, he headed for the stables.
He followed the brook upstream to the point where, at some time in the past, it had been dammed to create the lake where he and Lady Perfect had talked the night before last. He skirted around the shore and then continued to follow the brook upstream, knowing it would lead him close to the stable yard.